Please Eliminate or Reduce A Lot of the Pure RNG Design

[Naliee]

[Zfz]

I'm fine with capped RNG. As games tend to serve the "busy" player more and more, it does make sense to shift away from uncapped RNG.

But that is with regards to compulsory RNG. Like materia overmelds on crafter and gather gear. You simply cannot progress (at one stage, before tradable higher-tier gear was available) without suffering through the RNG.

The Relic though, is itself a completely optional content not necessary for gear progression. I'd love to see its drops capped somehow, but I wouldn't mind if it's kept at its current state since realistically we could all progress through the game without ever touching the Relic quest line.

[kyuven]

Plain and simple this isn't going to happen. Human beings will persist so long as there is a *chance* at getting what they want.
They want you to keep playing and spending money. That is their goal. That will always their goal, that will never not be their goal. Naturally, a FUN game keeps you playing, but players will always earn things faster than the developers can create them.
Thus the conundrum. They need to keep people playing from one month to the next, but if they make quests require too much "stuff," i.e. have mat/quest item lists a mile long, they run the risk of it appearing daunting to players.
Which would you prefer? Having to do 50 fates within a zone to get the atma you need, or a CHANCE you would get it on the first?
Statistically, most human beings would choose the latter. And the latter can and will take longer than the former. And if it's really not clear why they would want you to spend more time playing the game, I really don't know what to tell you.
Cuz there's something important to remember: If you finish everything in game, you will leave. You will cancel your subscription until the next "big thing," which you will complete and then leave again til the next one. They are not making money off you during this time. This is bad for them.
Moreover FAIL chance is also important, but for a completely different reason. If you can't tell by now, Materia is probably the most financially lucrative item type in the entire game. Crafters need it, gatherers need it, people working on zodiac need it, and min maxers need it. If there was no fail chance, it wouldn't be nearly as valuable as it is.
If you want a comparison, there are MAAAAANY games that offer a system similar to materia that has no fail chance and can be removed. They're, proportionally, worth much less than the equivalent materia (barring ones that are raid drops) since you can pop em out and resell em, and they never break.
In short, the RNG is here to stay because the benefits of it outweigh the detriments. After all, you'll get what it's gating eventually. You just need time.

Now, if they start adding "lucky boxes" with prizes greater than allagan coins, THEN I'll be pissed.

[thunderbreak]

I think the Devs are considering it. New raid loot is going to use a token system.

[Riepah]

I think the Devs are considering it. New raid loot is going to use a token system.

I thought they only mentioned "Trials" in regards to the token system?

[thunderbreak]

I thought they only mentioned "Trials" in regards to the token system?

Oh yeah I think you are right, the raid loot system hasn't been announced yet, and the tokens are trial only.

[Elim]

I hope the new 3.x raid loot system is less RNG based, but honestly anything will be better than what we have now.

Fun fact: my static started back in 2.0, cleared and farmed first, second and final coil without ever seeing a healer chest drop. Not sure why this system is a thing.

[Zfz]

In short, the RNG is here to stay

It is, but in a limited form for optional content. In 3.0, for example, the gatherers and crafters are getting token gear right from the start which will allow people who are not in a rush for top gear to avoid the overmelding RNG completely in their progression. We can still rush and do our overmelds to get BiS the moment we ding 60, or we can leisurely do our weekly token cap and buy the gear and progress gradually.

Primals are getting their loot RNG capped as well, at least for their weapon loot (things like mounts obviously will remain totally random).

The relic however I think will be kept that way because the whole thing itself is considered optional content.

So it is already known that Square Enix is trying to cater to the population who dislike RNG, in providing options that doesn't rely so hard on RNG. But yes, RNG is here to stay. We'll just have ways to reduce our exposure in 3.x.

[Elmeron]

I agree with this thread. I have found myself slowly playing less and less as I've discovered end-game mechanics seem to have RNG designs or designs meant to increase sub-time vs. fun-time in everything!

From the relic quest-line, to the gold saucer (I don't mind RNG to a point, but when I spend 3 days trying to get cards from one NPC it goes beyond that "certain point" into realms of ridiculousness), to cross-class skills requiring you to level up more than one class (I thought this was an option originally for those who liked making alts in games to see the other classes, but instead it basically forces you to level up other classes to get skills deemed "essential" for endgame content), to crafting (I am sorry, but crafting should be purely skill-based), loot drops (I would have zero problem with RNG loot drops, but with the way FFXIV has a crap-ton of classes and plans to add more with the expansion, it is a problem; I've seriously only seen loot for my class drop once in WoD and that happened to be the first time I did WoD and without even thinking I had put greed for another item, and since this was before the patch I could only get 1 piece of gear per week so I was out of luck... I was pretty unhappy to say the least lol), and who knows what else I'm missing.

RNG-like designs are stuffed to bursting into FFXIV, and if this were the only problem, it wouldn't be so bad. With RMT and how little legitimate economic options there are to make gil within the game (sorry, but dungeon grinding for gil and soul-bonding for materia are not actual game mechanics like crafting, so in all reality you are very limited in the ways that you can make gil unless you think crafting is fun, which I don't...), it's not really difficult for me to imagine people wanting to buy gil so they can get what they want without spending possibly weeks or months dealing with RNG instead.

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

After you try big fishing, all other forms of RNG seem completely tame in comparison.

Can I complain about fishing for a second? I hate how after discerning the method for catching certain fish, the actual act of catching said fish is just pressing a button and hoping for the best over and over again.
What happened to "If it isn't fun, it has no place in the game"? Fishing isn't fun.