1% or less drop rates and how they hurt the game

[Hiruke]

There are several items that appear to have a 1% (or less) drop rate:

Mirror of the Whorl
Nightmare
Enbarr
(other primal mounts)
(probably the weapons from Ramuh, as well)

You could have literally 100s of wins on Leviathan and never see a mirror. You could have similar problems with mounts.

People need real, achievable goals. Planning to defeat Leviathan 1,000 times because it will probably take you that long to see enough mirrors for you to get the winning lot is not a real, achievable goal. This is a punishment you might hand out to yourself.

If the dev team feels level 100 weapons are too good to "just hand out", lock them behind a more difficult fight, not make them a mythical item that never drops. It's really not that hard to get a level 100 weapon from Coil. Which you can then make a level 110 weapon by beating the next turn in Coil. And then you can get a level 115 weapon. Ideally people would be wanting the animus or the tidal weapons to make Coil easier, but honestly it's easier/faster just to get the Coil weapons, which is absolutely ludicrous.

I just want a mirror for my weapon(s) for the vanity skins. I'll want Ramuh weapons for the same reason.

I don't see what it proves, beating primals thousands of times for mounts and low level weapons. I could be the best player ever (I'm not) and I could still never get these weapons or mounts, just because the drop rate is so awful.

I understand the dev team wants to extend the "life" of the game by making stuff take a long time to get, but this is a really poor way to go about it. For "mainstream" and "casual" players, even beating Extreme Primals to begin with is an amazing feat. I regularly watch people wipe Ifrit EX even though it's super easy, much less Titan EX or Levi EX. Are mounts and level 100 weapons only for the "hardcore"? Because really if you legitimately want to get this stuff and not just have it be pure luck if you happen to find a PT that wins and happen to see it drop and happen to win lot, you need you and 7 other people who are SUPER into getting this stuff, and just farm. For days. Weeks. Whatever it takes.

That sounds like a huge waste of time. Just like PvP. No one does PvP for real. Even doing win trades, where you hop in and murder the other PT, then do it again and let them murder you, it takes over 130+ hours to get to rank 40 to even wear the like 3 sets of level 100 PvP gear you bought along the way. Playing legitimately would probably like like 10 times that long, once you factor in waiting for queues, having to actually fight, and like, probably not winning that often. We're talking like half a year of dedicating 8 hours a day to that "super awesome" PvP. Seems good, right?

Almost everything is like that. Animus quest. Novus quest. PvP. Primal mounts/mirrors. Is this content just not meant to be done? It's not like any of that stuff is particularly difficult (except I guess EX primals, if you're not "hardcore"), it just takes forever and isn't fun.

You can try to force people to do really boring stuff and make it take forever, and for a while it might work. Getting people to play your game longer because they have "things to do", but eventually everyone's going to wake up and be like "Ummm. Why am I wasting my life? I'm sick of this. I've beaten Levi EX 567 times, seen mirror like 3 times, and lost lot every time. And a lot of the game is like this. Screw it. I'm out!" Especially after watching someone who dies every time win lot on mirror or something. Or people who just got the achievement, because this is the first time they even beat it. And they did awful. Amazing. I feel so rewarded! Right!?

It's annoying to even get accessories off something like Titan EX using DF or PF, because people are clearly awful and can't dodge mechanics. It took me forever just to get Tremor Earrings. Think I'm going to continue farming just for a stupid yellow horse? I mean, I want that stupid yellow horse, but it's hardly worth the misery. It would take me even longer than getting PvP gear for vanity.

[Vahlnir]

Yeah, I would wholeheartedly disagree with you on this. All I can really say is: Welcome to the world of MMOs, where rare items are usually rare and grinds are aplenty. There is also content meant for the more "casual" crowd and other things for people who are a bit more skilled at playing. That's just the way it is. :P

[Codek]

Why post a wall of text with not a single suggestion for a means of improvement?

Why???

Cause I would love to hear your idea for how to keep players playing a game while excluding the grind (without the call for 'more content').

[Zarzak]

There are several items that appear to have a 1% (or less) drop rate:

Mirror of the Whorl
Nightmare
Enbarr
(other primal mounts)
(probably the weapons from Ramuh, as well)

You could have literally 100s of wins on Leviathan and never see a mirror. You could have similar problems with mounts.

Weapons and Weapon upgrades you are 100% correct. I never have and will never participate in "mirrior farming" because at the drop rate it is not worth the time IMO. But mounts are not needed or helpful in any way. You get a free mount through a quest line at level... 20? They are surprise treats.

[kit07]

As someone who has played all the FF games (besides XI) I knew what I was getting into going into this.

The grind. The endless grind.

I had buddies who warned or just gave me the heads up, and I was fine with that. If you can't except the grind, I feel bad for you son. You got 99 items, and a mirror ain't one.

[dejavutwo]

Grinding is a fact of life in MMOs. Having said that, I think the drop rates on the mirror and the mounts are too low to serve what I imagine their purpose is - getting hardcore players to farm said content, thus keeping the dungeons more active for newer players to find groups, as well as to improve the odds that the newer players succeed by having experienced players assisting. The problem is that the items are so rare, that most hardcore players don't bother, negating those benefits.

If on the other hand, they just wanted to have something extremely rare for the sake of having something extremely rare, then they succeeded.

[Gardes]

Why post a wall of text with not a single suggestion for a means of improvement?

Why???

Cause I would love to hear your idea for how to keep players playing a game while excluding the grind (without the call for 'more content').

Make players get a broken mirror piece every time they win a levi ex fight. Collect 20-30 of them and bring them to someone (gerolt?) to fix it and turn it back into a whole mirror piece. Take it to rowena's lackeys like usual. Back in 1.x, players can defeat garuda 10 times to get an item every time to exchange it for a garuda weapon of their choosing.

Grant players an atma affinity every time they finish a fate and not get atma. Effect keeps stacking until they zone out or get an atma. After 30 or so fates, players will have 15% chance of getting an atma in that zone. If they are unlucky they can keep going and keep doing fates to increase the drop rate even higher.

But yea, mounts kinda dont need to be tweaked (I dont have them btw).

[Zarzak]

Grant players an atma affinity every time they finish a fate and not get atma. Effect keeps stacking until they zone out or get an atma. After 30 or so fates, players will have 15% chance of getting an atma in that zone. If they are unlucky they can keep going and keep doing fates to increase the drop rate even higher.

But yea, mounts kinda dont need to be tweaked (I dont have them btw).

Speaking of the Atma specifically I'd have much preferred it be a "do every fate in the zone once" type quest or a "hey theres a new lvl 50 fate thats really rare to kill"

1st one because then you have measurable progress (which generally frustrates people less than spending 3 hours farming and having no progress to show for it even if it takes just as long)

2nd one because I find it VERY VERY stupid that I'm doing a level 5 fate to get a top end item

[Pyretta_Blaze]

Make players get a broken mirror piece every time they win a levi ex fight. Collect 20-30 of them and bring them to someone (gerolt?) to fix it and turn it back into a whole mirror piece. Take it to rowena's lackeys like usual. Back in 1.x, players can defeat garuda 10 times to get an item every time to exchange it for a garuda weapon of their choosing.

Grant players an atma affinity every time they finish a fate and not get atma. Effect keeps stacking until they zone out or get an atma. After 30 or so fates, players will have 15% chance of getting an atma in that zone. If they are unlucky they can keep going and keep doing fates to increase the drop rate even higher.

But yea, mounts kinda dont need to be tweaked (I dont have them btw).

I like your suggestions. Keeps people farming for the big payoff with a low drop rate but still see progress if you are unlucky.

Non-equipment drops like rare mounts should stay rare. (I don't have any either)

[Vaer]

Mirrors were "balanced" with the atma/animus quest in mind and the t7 unid stone (+3 weeks of soldiery) which is behind a one week lockout.

It would kinda be awkward for the mirrors to be a higher drop rate since it gives a i100 weapon (although a deadend) considering how long the other options take when they were first released.