LOOT: A Sad Reality

[Aedrict]

Hello everyone!
Well It is almost a year now since FF14:ARR has been released and we all had our shared experience of it. Most of it are really good, actually! But there are somethings that can really down play all those nice things. One of them is the LOOT SYSTEM of this game. Okay, 1st and foremost I think, that the loot system of this game really auto imbalance the whole game, specially for those individuals who do not really play the game in a hard core way. This game's loot system basically rewards a SINGLE RANDOM PLAYER in the party, after the completion of a certain dungeon or trial. The really bad thing about this is that:

1. The game NEGLECTS to understand that the dungeon or Trial was a combined effort of 4 to 24 players, and only rewarding 1 person at the end of the said quest completely undermines the other 7 individuals who helped achieved the said goal.

[Aedrict]

2. If for some reason the LOOT for the said Trial, Raid or Dungeon is not really useful for anyone in the party, it is even worse, since all the efforts for getting such a gear or item is totally lost.


3. Giving out LOOTs for certain job class can imbalance the game, Let's be clear here, there is a huge disparity between the numbers of DPS versus tanks and heals. If you give a loot to those classes that is already few to begin with, all the more it is harder to form a party for the quest. Just imagine if most of the tanks in any one server have the loot they need for that trial, dungeon or raid. Clearly, forming a party for that task is harder now, since those people will rarely think about helping others, since their primary objective to join such quest has been done.

[Aedrict]

I think FF14, should correct the way they give out LOOT, my suggestion would be to give out items that can be used to either;

1. Exchange to a certain NPC, so that you can attain the gears you need.
2. Craft the actual armor or weapon with such items.

[Amelia_Pond_Behemoth]

I think FF14, should correct the way they give out LOOT, my suggestion would be to give out items that can be used to either;

1. Exchange to a certain NPC, so that you can attain the gears you need.

You mean like how we are rewarded with Myth and Sold tomes?

[Aedrict]

Primal weapons and accessories are very frustrating to farm, as months go by, fewer parties are being formed, as a result of the loot system they have. One can not even imagine how many times I did Ultima Weapon before just to get the choker, and all attempts in getting it FAILED because most drops are not for my job class. After almost 7 Months, I am still farming for it, BUT NOW, the situation is far more FRUSTRATING, since there is hardly any capable party now to farm it. IF ONLY FF14, MADE THEIR LOOT SYSTEM LIKE THE ONES OF MONSTER HUNTER, I THINK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE ENJOYABLE AND LESS FRUSTRATING TO FARM YOUR GEARS. If they have instead, gave rewards to each player with items they can use to either craft their weapons or accessories with, things would have been different. sadly I do not think this will ever change anything.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

IF ONLY FF14, MADE THEIR LOOT SYSTEM LIKE THE ONES OF MONSTER HUNTER, I THINK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE ENJOYABLE AND LESS FRUSTRATING TO FARM YOUR GEARS.

The Loot/Armor system is entirely luck based in Monster Hunter, and uses it's own sort of crafting system for all of it's armors (it's more of an exchange system, but the same basic premise of needing multiple drops to make one piece applies). Could you imagine farming a rank S Hunt from the current Hunt system and having a % chance of getting the exact materials needed to make the armor? It would be extremely frustrating since you can't even get mercy from your party members and are purely at the mercy of the random number generator. Not to mention that if you really want to go by Monster Hunter loot rules, if I remember right, whoever skins the beast/picks up the item first gets the drop where as everyone else who helped gets nothing.

Either way, you will always get "something" from a Duty. Whether that be experience, quest progression, gil, tomes, or a valuable piece of loot. Even in an Alliance (24 man) group, only 8 players will share a roll on a piece of loot with the exception of a single treasure chest which opens at the end of the Duty. In terms of Syrcus Tower, there's 4 different pieces of gear that will drop for your section of the Alliance, and a player may only take one piece of gear per week from the Tower.

In terms of low level dungeons, players will always gain experience which should be your primary reason for entering that particular dungeon pre-50 anyway. Normal mode Trials are almost strictly for story progression and lv50s doing their roulettes. They don't drop gear, but each player will have to complete all of them at least once.

Once you do hit 50 you can use the roulette system to get tomes, which will allow you to get ilevel 90 and 100 gear for whichever class you want it for. the tomes are a guarantee as long as you get into a duty that will grant them.

[Gorshum]

The Loot/Armor system is entirely luck based in Monster Hunter,

I mainly wanted to chime in on this. Monster Hunter does work on a bit on luck but it's not entirely luck based. You always will get something. Also if you cut off a monster's tail, it has a few different items it can drop specific to the tail (if you carve/loot it). Same principal with claws, mane, head, wings, etc etc. Rather than being pure RNG it's more like saying, "If I complete x challenge while fighting y boss, it can drop z loot on top of the other stuff I already get!" It's not a 100% chance that it will be the specific thing you want every time of course but there are also other factors like if you capture it vs killing it, and a bunch of other things that would take me all day to go into.

Not to mention that if you really want to go by Monster Hunter loot rules, if I remember right, whoever skins the beast/picks up the item first gets the drop where as everyone else who helped gets nothing.

This isn't accurate either. Everybody gets loot in Monster Hunter. Everyone is freely allowed to carve/loot the monster to get items from it. There is no restriction. Then at the end screen where you're looking at your quest rewards everyone gets loot from that too.

Please note I'm not trying to call you out here, I just really love Monster Hunter and I don't want it getting a bad reputation due to inaccurate information. It's actually a very enjoyable experience and I always recommend it to people. It's like one to four man raid bosses. Lots of fun.

That being said I should probably comment on the loot system in this game so as not to make this whole post unrelated. I am not a big fan of only one person getting loot from the boss in raids but I do get tokens to spend on stuff so it's not a total wash like in some other mmos. No matter what as long as we kill the boss I get something out of it. The amount may have to be lowered/raised over time as they look at how many attempts people have to make before they get an upgrade but they have way more data on that than I do. The RNG may be a bit crappy to one person (often times me) but with the tomes I have guaranteed loot sooner or later. Plus with the hunts I can easily gear up pretty quickly as much as I need to in order to reach current content.

[Aedrict]

No matter what as long as we kill the boss I get something out of it. The amount may have to be lowered/raised over time as they look at how many attempts people have to make before they get an upgrade but they have way more data on that than I do. The RNG may be a bit crappy to one person (often times me) but with the tomes I have guaranteed loot sooner or later. Plus with the hunts I can easily gear up pretty quickly as much as I need to in order to reach current content.

Sorry for being a noob, I just came back after 6 long months of haitus, but everyone is always telling me about this HUNTS, you mean the Grand Company one, the one that gives you Allied Seals? But those armors are just level 70? Plus they have a lock in period for the elite marks for a week, and the daily ones gives you only a max of 36 Seals.

[Aedrict]

Everybody gets loot in Monster Hunter. Everyone is freely allowed to carve/loot the monster to get items from it. There is no restriction. Then at the end screen where you're looking at your quest rewards everyone gets loot from that too.

A loot system like that, I think can greatly help. I have seen players in the Wii version of it, farm monsters and never did I find any difficulty finding a good party. If ever you have completed the Armor Set and Weapon for the class you have, you will also always farm that same monster again, because some higher level armors need parts of that monster, therefore making every hunt almost always available for everyone regardless of what level you are.

[Nicobo]

...MADE THEIR LOOT SYSTEM LIKE THE ONES OF MONSTER HUNTER, I THINK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE ENJOYABLE AND LESS FRUSTRATING TO FARM YOUR GEARS...

Just want to ask, someone contributed the most on a Hunt fight but why he didn't got a Log drop while some others did? ^^;