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

[Kiara]

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).

Hi Gardes,

Definitely agree. Back in 1.0, many of us actually suggested systems like what you said, and as noted, Garuda 1.0 dropped Vortex Items that after you collected X# of them you trade it in for a Weapon of your choosing.

I think there's room for *both* systems, for sanity and catering to both extremes:

* Keep the Rarity / Super Low Drop Rate for that "Winning the Lottery!" feel and grinders.

* And, add a Token System for each Win, with a balanced/fair # of Tokens needed to trade in for that same Rare Item.

This way, you can grind and hopefully see it drop (traditional), or you know that eventually, maybe after 50 Wins (50 Tokens), you will get that item as well.

This satisfies players who enjoy making incremental progress towards a larger goal, instead of relying on pure blind Luck / RNG only.

There's no harm in this, and it's baffling Yoshi P and the Dev Team don't consider it. This should help make FF XIV a more enjoyable game overall.

[Welsper59]

Hi Gardes,

Definitely agree. Back in 1.0, many of us actually suggested systems like what you said, and as noted, Garuda 1.0 dropped Vortex Items that after you collected X# of them you trade it in for a Weapon of your choosing.

I think there's room for *both* systems, for sanity and catering to both extremes:

* Keep the Rarity / Super Low Drop Rate for that "Winning the Lottery!" feel and grinders.

* And, add a Token System for each Win, with a balanced/fair # of Tokens needed to trade in for that same Rare Item.

This way, you can grind and hopefully see it drop (traditional), or you know that eventually, maybe after 50 Wins (50 Tokens), you will get that item as well.

This satisfies players who enjoy making incremental progress towards a larger goal, instead of relying on pure blind Luck / RNG only.

There's no harm in this, and it's baffling Yoshi P and the Dev Team don't consider it. This should help make FF XIV a more enjoyable game overall.

I just want to point out that, let's say you do need 50 wins to obtain a mirror, and all 8 players are a static. It doesn't seem... odd to you that all 8 players can expect an upgrade after an exact number of wins? I mean, it's essentially an optional upgrade in general (meaning it's along the lines of wanting aesthetic goods in that it is not mandatory to progress). It wouldn't feel weird to anyone if they were to implement this system in general? Or are you folks just being selective about this perspective and considering that goods such as primal mounts should not be part of this expectation system? Or perhaps gear in general, as a string of bad luck is possible for coil weapons, I'd say they would probably wish that you could expect such a thing after X kills. I'd say that kind of cheapens your efforts and the reward itself once you can plan it out. It really seems like the worst thing to happen to the MMORPG genre is expectations on a mathematical timeline.

[Kiara]

I just want to point out that, let's say you do need 50 wins to obtain a mirror, and all 8 players are a static. It doesn't seem... odd to you that all 8 players can expect an upgrade after an exact number of wins? I mean, it's essentially an optional upgrade in general (meaning it's along the lines of wanting aesthetic goods in that it is not mandatory to progress). It wouldn't feel weird to anyone if they were to implement this system in general? Or are you folks just being selective about this perspective and considering that goods such as primal mounts should not be part of this expectation system? Or perhaps gear in general, as a string of bad luck is possible for coil weapons, I'd say they would probably wish that you could expect such a thing after X kills. I'd say that kind of cheapens your efforts and the reward itself once you can plan it out. It really seems like the worst thing to happen to the MMORPG genre is expectations on a mathematical timeline.

Hi Welsper,

Good question. In regards to getting Tokens for Wins and making incremental progress, we already have that in the form of Tomestones, and knowing each Win of a [Primal / Dungeon, etc.] will move you one step closer to getting that upgraded Armor, Weapon, etc. They've had that in a variety of MMOs before XIV. If you want to make it more "random" without total guarantees, you could have, say, 2 - 4 Tokens drop 100% per Battle, so those still have to be lotted on (so not everyone gets 1, but it's guaranteed that *some* people will in general).

It existed in 1.0 already (and was generally well-liked by everyone I talked to (various LSs, on the forums)) (Garuda 1.0).

The opposite - traditional Low % Drop Rate, Random Number Generator method - is far more awful than a "mathematical timeline" you're opposed to, people who grew up with it are just used to it.

There's nothing worse feeling than killing a Boss 100+ times in a row (or clearing a Dungeon hundreds of times) to never see your desired item drop, but then through RNG, surprise! someone got the drop on their very First Win. How fair is that? Some people enjoy the "Lottery!" feel. Others do not.

In 1.0, when Ifrit first debuted (before Tokens, before guaranteed drops) one of my JP friends went on a 78 Win streak against Ifrit (when it was hard to beat), and NEVER got a weapon. I helped a LS member beat Ifrit and they got an Ifrit Weapon (and their desired one) on the very first win (no joke). I know someone in my FC that has farmed Atma for WEEKS (over 250 FATEs) (they checked their Achievement progress), and never got even one Atma. And I know I've gotten an Atma on my very first FATE in Western La Noscea. I feel awful for my FC mate.

That's RNG.

I think it has its place in MMOs (it's a "staple"), but it doesn't mean it's ideal. Incremental progress is encouraging and a good thing for many players and something I'd want to see.

[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.

[Seiryuukishi]

I feel bad for you son. You got 99 items, and a mirror ain't one.

That made my day right there LMAO.

[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.

[Welsper59]

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.

That's traditional RPGs in general for yah. The MMORPG genre just kicks it up a notch because you're dealing with other people while you do it.

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.

The problem with raising % chances of drops happening is that it becomes systematic. Once people can actually EXPECT something to happen, it becomes a part of the "required" process and no longer serves the intended feel of having it. Levi Ex isn't required content (so to speak) that makes farming mirrors mandatory, as they'd essentially be seen as the better alternative to Weathered coil weapons if drop rate was higher. That being said, what then happens to those weapons? They become pointless, which makes even less sense given that this is gear that comes from progressing through your absolute end goal as a raid (Coil).

[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.

[Gardes]

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.

It's not balanced at all. Time taken could potentially be the same but the amount of effort to get a tome weapon versus an animus is astronomical. Winning T7 once a week over 3-4 weeks to distribute tomes around 4 dps and then getting 1300 soldiery, versus grinding almost a thousand fates, 13500 myth, 900 enemies, 27 dungeons, waiting for 27 fates that go into double digit hours, 27 leves. No contest, the former feels like a walk in the park compared what I have to go through for animus (I'm doing both).