Honest concern about the place of RNG in new coil progression

[Casper]

First of all, let me state that i am literally thrilled by most of what have been anounced for 2.2. I love the game and want it to succeed as much as possible.


That being said, and given the information we have, i am extremely concerned regarding the progression of the second coil of bahamuth. I am glad to see that coil gear will now be a tier above tome gear, as i find it silly that people that would never have stepped inside coil could get full i90 just spamming easymode WP week after week. However, most of us have been witnessed that with 2 chests per turn, the RNG to actually obtain gear in coil is quite insane. In the course of 3 months, it is quite possible for tanks to share a total of 3 pieces, and for healers to share 11 (or any other way around, just an example).

With the lockout on soldiery tomes, we will take about 14 weeks of 450/450 tomes to farm enough to get a full soldiery set (assuming 900 tomes are needed for zodiac weapons as it was in the past). Assuming, again, that T9 is balanced as was twintania, gear wise, it means you will need an ilvl of 103 to 104 before you can manage to take it down (blue garter killed TT with an average of 83 to 84).

If no system is in place to counterbalance RNG in coil (which was the point of mythology being i90, despite the other flaws of the system), it means that luck will play a fundamental role in the progression of each group. If you get equilibrate drops that are always relevant (no second brd pants when you only have one brd) and that do not overlap with the soldiery you bought (because if you buy soldiery body a week and the allagan body drop next week you basically wasted 900 tomes compared to someone that had bought the pant instead), you will be able to progress much faster than a group struck by a string of bad luck. It would be totally possible for one group to be ilvl 103 average after 6 or 7 weeks for one team, and to have to wait 12 or 13 for another.

I would be really sad if there was no countermeasure in place to balance out the RNG of coil. It has already been stated that we have lockout so we don't have to deal with low % chance of getting gear. I have no problem with either system, truth be told. But having both lockout in place preventing you to farm gear, and RNG dictating arbitrary how much time you must repeat content before getting an upgrade, is going to make for a very, very frustrating system.

[Gardes]

Since the tome gear is going to be inferior with allagan from the get go, the moment the allagan piece drops for the slot you already tomed, that tome piece would likely become useless immediately. 1-2 weeks's allowance down the drain and it would really hurt really bad if you happen to get both on the same week or even the week after.

If someone's really stingy with this kind of thing, would they pour their soldiery tomes into their secondary class instead of primary yet again? Yet another thing that becomes 'gearing up for alts'? Though I imagine tanks might get pressured into pouring their tomes into their tank gear. This likely won't affect me for a while yet but can't we at least have a 1 tome gear full refund a week feature for at least?

[madolyn]

theres a guy in my FC that just got his first DRG coil piece yesterday after 6 months.....

so yeah. thats the RNG i assume you're talking about lol.

[Pibz]

Yeah, i'm a bit scared of this myself :X

[Kaaylryn]

Have seen mostly MNK and DRG for our static, at least our DRG was happy/lucky. We don't have a MNK. Have never seen the casting pants, and it has been a long hard slog for our healers and tanks.

[saber_alter]

i'm as worried.

guess i'm going to wait a little for people to get a loot table organized before i decide on what i buy with tomes.

[Crater]

It's come up a few times already since the live letter/patch notes, so you're not alone on this one. Unfortunately, this is probably the sort of decision that was made behind closed doors weeks or months ago, with no player feedback, so whatever they're going with - even if it turns out to be an absolute disaster - is probably just going to happen, and doesn't stand much chance of being changed or fixed for another 1-3 months.

Assuming there aren't any mitigating systems in place that we haven't been told about, and 2.2 will work exactly the way the game would now if Myth gear were i80 instead of i90, then it's going to be a really bad system by almost any measure; it's almost not worth going into exactly why it's bad, because the reasons are so myriad that you'd have to go on for pages to really articulate it. The idea of it alone is pretty demotivational, and at this point I think I'd genuinely be happier if they said that they were delaying the patch to put 2.2 back in the oven for a month. It's really either deal with it or leave, though; there's no direct or speedy line of communication between us and the development team, so there's not really much to be done.

[Siobahn]

Have seen mostly MNK and DRG for our static, at least our DRG was happy/lucky. We don't have a MNK. Have never seen the casting pants, and it has been a long hard slog for our healers and tanks.

This^^ My group has been clearing coil 1-4 since mid-November, and the casting pants have not dropped once. Neither has the caster body. Meanwhile, everyone else in the static has a second job at full i90 (including my 2nd job), but my main is still wearing CT pants and inferior i90 because SE can't balance loot tables.

[Traek]

Good post OP. I have discussed this with some FC people myself. I really hope SE has thought ahead on this one.. some form of token system only from Coil 6-9 that would lower the RNG factor would be the best route IMO. Either everyone slowly getting them from each boss that drops, or some form of guaranteed token drop (chest/legs/feet/hands/head) that is redeemable for the 110 equivalent, one per boss, along with another accessory drop or something.

RNG only is just a bad way of doing loot when we are talking lockouts. I got an Allagan Axe before I got the tank belt from T2 (still using myth).

[Casper]

Another idea: You have access to a vendor that lets you trade 1 for 2 gear. Most likely you would get another currency, "allagan trade currency (ATC)". You could exchange any piece of allagan for half the price of a piece of gear in ACT. So for example, if bodies are 875 ACT, you could exchange a body for 438 ACT. Now when a piece of gear drop, if nobody can equip it on its main, everybody greed (or you use a DKP system or something), and the one getting it has the equivalent of half a piece of gear. It also makes sense in the lore: those rare artefacts can't be made outside of coil... But a savy vendor could make a system like this in place to allow adventurers to make trades, and the vendor acting as a middle man.