Stop relying on RNG for loot drops.

[Mistoltin]

It's a terrible game development decision, it bundles all of our combined efforts into a pitiful game of luck as to whether we actually benefit from what we've put in.

Like weekly lockouts, it serves only to artificially increase the amount of time it takes to gear up so that people will play longer, I will wager indefinitely that that was one of the major reasons why it was first implemented in an MMO and why it has become a staple.

Why make more dungeons and different things to do when you can make people play the same thing over and over again, not for the enjoyment of the game but because we'll dangle a superficial and painfully slow grind in front of them?

Urth's Fount, Odin, the bane of my existence. Since my first days at launch after seeing you could have Odin's gear I dreamed of obtaining it, now that I can have it as a glamour I'm over the moon but not long after many attempts at the trial I am left disappointed.

This is a level 95 trial, nothing lower, yet the gear that drops is level 50. Why? Easy, glamours. The only point of this is cosmetic, there's no grind, there's no reason to gate the content behind RNG, but yet, they still do.

There's no Echo, even though I'm full il110 I still have groups that struggle through the fight, some groups even wiping several times and resorting to vote abandons. Majority of the time we've defeated him it's always been close, the win is always satisfying in the small concept of the fight, it's tight, concise, simple and to the point, but you had to go and ruin it, didn't you.

It's an 8 man fight, there's 8 different pieces of loot that can drop. If I'm looking for a certain piece of gear, there's a presumed 12.5% chance the item will drop, you'd think, that's okay, just under 15% chance for a piece of gear. No, that's just the chance the one I'm after is shown. If I actually want a chance at the piece, and everyone else does as well, then I only get a 1.5625% chance.

1.6%
That's the chance at a piece of gear you get after a single run of Urth's Fount, for gear that is outside the weekly grind, gear that's completely cosmetic.
After contributing a solid 8th effort to the fight, you're told that it's meaningless as you now have to compete with that very same group for the spoils.

Your only potential saving grace is if the piece that drops is only a Disciple of War piece if you're after the actual Odin gear, because the most players in your party that you'd have to deal with definitely would be 6. (8, full party minus the 2 healers, lower if there's DPS casters.)

If there were only 6 vying for the piece of gear?
2.083-%
Just a very tiny bit over 2%, we only gained half a percent.

It's bad enough that queues as a tank for this dungeon sometimes runs into half an hour to an hour, for an attempt which isn't guaranteed a chance at winning the trial, to get 2% chance for a piece of gear. Imagine those who have to wait even longer.

I would say the same for raids like Syrcus Tower, where unlike Urth's Fount where gear for the most part the gear is usable by DoW, DoM or both, gear in raids drop exclusively for singular Jobs or the few that have paired Job available to use.

Spread that extremely tedious gear pool over several bosses and you have the absolutely piss-poor state of affairs when it comes to gearing, cosmetic or not.

Of course, you can attempt to say that the random chance for gear is subsidized by the tomes, which I agree, aside from the stupid weekly lockout that's a decent way to handle it, you can be lucky with drops or do a couple extra runs and get a 100% chance at a piece of gear.

However, for this reason for this post, Urth's Fount? You get 15 Soldiery, 7 Poetics.
The weekly cap for Poetics is 450, if you wanted to cap out Poetics on Odin, then you'd have to complete it 65 times. For a fight that has a definite 6 minute enrage timer, that's a guaranteed 390 minutes of fighting Odin, not counting queue times, wipes or Zantetsuken timers.

Or how about actually purchasing something with those tomes? Let's say, Soldiery, the cheapest is a belt or a piece of jewellery, coming in at a cost of 375 tomes. That's 25 solid runs of Odin, just for jewellery. Poetics? 54 runs.

If you wanted to honestly say that the tomes subsidized the time spent in Odin for gear, then I'd put forward the fact that Ifrit Hard Mode, a fight that only requires an item level of 49, can be completed quicker, easier and without hassle, better queues and a better chance of getting loot drops for your class, gives you 12 Soldiery and 5 Poetics. Over time the difference will build up considerably, but at least in this instance, that difference is easily made up in the ease of difficulty, the quicker queues and the less stress caused on the player.

But I'm not here to complain about that, in particular. It's a problem, but that's not what I'm wanting to focus on here, so let's come back to Urth's Fount. I'm from Australia and because of this, I have to be on a Japanese server to get the best possible experience in regards to ping, dodging all of the telegraphs in Odin is a pain at the best of times. On a Japanese server, if I want to actually have a chance of getting into Urth's Fount, I have to queue from about 7pm until about midnight, and then maybe next morning from about 6/7 until 10 otherwise the queue just won't pop and will sit on maybe 1 to 3 out of the 8 needed all up to form the party.

I've ran Odin about 40 times over the past two weeks and have only obtained two out of the five pieces I'd like to obtain. There is no reason for this RNG in place, nothing is more infuriating than spending an hour of my time, playing to the best of my capability in a fight that is absolutely stressful if you struggle making all of those tight mechanics in time, to then roll a 2, or a 7 on a piece of gear that serves no purpose other than to change my looks.

[dejavutwo]

The problem extends into coil, especially with the weapon drops. After my groups first kill (dragoon spear) it took a month before we got another weapon anyone could use on their main class (3 more spears, and a summoner book). A month is a depressingly long time to go without getting any useable weapons. That's also not to mention the stuff from T10 that my group has still not seen drop.

Raiding takes a lot of work for organizing, prepping, learning, and executing the fights and to continuously be snubbed by RNG just sucks.

[Ultear_Milkovich]

Another whining thread about RNG....

Ive been here since beta. Killed all content but T12-13. Ive ran some instances like 80+ times to get the loot i wanted. And i would like to say: RNG is fine the way it is.

There s a difference between the gear that you NEED to stay up to date with the current ilvl and the loot you WANT for glamor and or BiS reasons.

The game through its token system enables you to raise your ilvl after every patch without any RNG involved on it.

Then the game offers you some better (or at least better looking) gear through trials coils and craft and at this point yes there s a lot of RNG involved but this is not gear that you need for 99% of the content.

Imho the split between tomes and RNG is fine and having a new mix is not necessary. Obviously im not talking about the RNG involved on the relic quest but considering what SE did to nerf the atma drops they will prolly adjust the zodiac at some point so its fine.

[Kiara1]

tbh I'd rather do a dungeon hoping to get the loot I want, than just doing it for poetics.

[Gilthas]

As someone who's done Garuda 100 times and still doesn't have a mount: at the very least they should add a token system in addition to the current RNG. You could get what you want through RNG in a fight or two, but if you're unlucky you could at least be guaranteed to get what you want after X runs.

[Mistoltin]

Another whining thread about RNG....

Ive been here since beta. Killed all content but T12-13. Ive ran some instances like 80+ times to get the loot i wanted. And i would like to say: RNG is fine the way it is.

There s a difference between the gear that you NEED to stay up to date with the current ilvl and the loot you WANT for glamor and or BiS reasons.

The game through its token system enables you to raise your ilvl after every patch without any RNG involved on it.

Then the game offers you some better (or at least better looking) gear through trials coils and craft and at this point yes there s a lot of RNG involved but this is not gear that you need for 99% of the content.

Imho the split between tomes and RNG is fine and having a new mix is not necessary. Obviously im not talking about the RNG involved on the relic quest but considering what SE did to nerf the atma drops they will prolly adjust the zodiac at some point so its fine.

For the most part I'm actually upset in regards to Urth's Fount rather than the entire system in general, but look at it this way.


When you complete a dungeon or a raid, you're proving that you're capable enough as a player to complete this content. If you're staying up to date and you're not over-gearing, than you're going to be challenged even though you're gear may be the recommended gear for the dungeon, and that's because there's meant to be a challenge, you're proving yourself that you can do this and that you can go on the next step, so then why do I have to keep doing the same step just so I can move onto the next one?

It's not like I'm gaining anything, not like I'm learning anything new or that I'm going to take anything from this into the next dungeon, this is why the grind is bad, because it puts something fun, something that's a challenge and is within itself a test of your ability, when you're forced to run that same content over and over again, it becomes tedious, menial, a chore. Forcing people to continuously go through a grind, a constructed set of mechanics just so they can get to the end and get a chance of getting a piece of a gear-set so they can finally say, "hey, as a player, despite the fact I proved myself over and over again that I'm capable, that I'm ready, the next piece of content is gated from me because I have to get this one piece of gear".

There is no player benefit to gating gear behind an RNG wall just so players can't access the next level of content, which is the only reason to get the gear. "You can't do this because you haven't done that enough and you're unlucky in your drops, go suck some more."

Maybe they're worried that people will reach the highest content, complete it and then run out of things to do? Well, what's wrong with that? There's always going to be an end, if they get there within a week, or a month, there's always an end. "There's nothing to do" the players complain, fine, they can go play other games, cancel their subscriptions and come back when there's more to do, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, in regards to a player. The only one losing out in this instance is the devs, they get less subscription money. It's the only logical reason to put all these RNG gates in the game, to keep people playing longer and paying. Why let people go through your game, running each dungeon until they're capable as players enough that they can finally defeat it, earning their way up the long chain, facing difficulty and hardship, why do that when you can force a player to run the same content over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over...

WoD offers 20 Poetics per run, aside from the gear drops, if you wanted to gear up solely on these tome drops, then to cap out weekly you'll have to run WoD 23 times a week. 23 runs of the exact same dungeon in a single week, just to get 450 tomes. If you wanted to buy all of the gear available with the tomes? 5010, that's how many tomes you'd need to buy all the pieces of gear, that's without any extra you'd need to get the items to upgrade the gear, it's also not including the weapon which I believe would cost about 1.3k tomes extra.
5010 tomes, with the lockout, that's 12 weeks. 3 months of running the exact same dungeon, over and over just so you can earn the right to try the next dungeon or raid. Why would they want you running that dungeon only once when they can milk three months of it instead?

[Ultear_Milkovich]

As someone who's done Garuda 100 times and still doesn't have a mount: at the very least they should add a token system in addition to the current RNG. You could get what you want through RNG in a fight or two, but if you're unlucky you could at least be guaranteed to get what you want after X runs.

Why? You re not entitled to get the mount. Its pureley cosmetic. It doesnt run faster than a regular chocobo. the aim of this mount grind is to ensure that enough experienced players will be running the EX even when the 3.0 will be released . This way, new players will always get a team to do this kind of content. See Ultima. It doesnt drop any mount. GL trying to get a DF for Ultima s Bane as a newcomer nowadays.

The low drop rate of EX mounts is cool and same with TT cards. Old HM / EX trials wont become empty

[Mistoltin]

Why? You re not entitled to get the mount. Its pureley cosmetic. It doesnt run faster than a regular chocobo. the aim of this mount grind is to ensure that enough experienced players will be running the EX even when the 3.0 will be released . This way, new players will always get a team to do this kind of content. See Ultima. It doesnt drop any mount. GL trying to get a DF for Ultima s Bane as a newcomer nowadays.

The low drop rate of EX mounts is cool and same with TT cards. Old HM / EX trials wont become empty

Fair points aside in the latter of your comment, to say that someone is not entitled to something in regards to loot drops from content is absurd.
Loot is offered as a prize, a reward for your completion of the content, there's no reason to have you compete with your teammates to obtain it.

Imagine a sports team, they've won the game, now imagine them having to play against each other to see who'll get the trophy.
It's just an absurd way of handling things but it's for some reason the norm in MMOs. It doesn't matter if it's only cosmetic, if it's only vanity, it doesn't matter at all, if it's offered as a prize for completing content then I sure as hell damn earned it by completing the content. When you get a very miniscule chance of obtaining loot from a run, it's saying that your effort, your contribution was meaningless, you may as well not even bother. It's pathetic.

[Gilthas]

Why? You re not entitled to get the mount.

Oh please. Don't you think it's at least a little bit unfair that some players like me have done Garuda 100 times without a mount to show for it, but others have them after a couple of runs?

After 20-30 runs I stopped doing Garuda through the DF because it was a waste of time explaining the mechanics to people that refused to watch a video and prepare for the fight. Why do 1 Garuda in 30 minutes when I could do it in under 5 minutes through PF?

If you want to help new players that much then spam DF yourself (lol, as if).

If SE wants experienced players to help new players more then they need to give a much better incentive than screwing people over with RNG drops.

[Amnesia]

Like weekly lockouts, it serves only to artificially increase the amount of time it takes to gear up so that people will play longer (...)

Urth's Fount, Odin, the bane of my existence. Since my first days at launch after seeing you could have Odin's gear I dreamed of obtaining it, now that I can have it as a glamour I'm over the moon but not long after many attempts at the trial I am left disappointed.

I don't think the dev's idea is to make people play longer per ce---it's to encourage people to run the duty many times so that others can find a group and play it as well.