Want that chest piece after your first 4 clears? Better start praying to RNGesus.

[kuma_aus]

A couple things to consider:

1. It's like a weekly Crystal Tower run x4. See, in order to have the gear you want, you need to spend time farming each floor...each week. Even if you're in a static, that means doing each floor up to 8 times a week.

Don't get me wrong...I never really thought the CT design was bad...but CT also granted ACTUAL GEAR. You didn't need to farm CT for 4 weeks just to get your NIN body. Not only that, but Need/Greed/Pass worked better in there as gear actually follows the Need/Greed lotting rules...rare items however (like those Alex drops), do NOT follow the need/greed rules. Your ODDs were better. You never had to NEED role against more than 5 other people tops (and that was RARE)...for gear anyway. In WoD you're odds of winning a gear role based on your job was as follows:

Tank=100% chance on the drop
Healer=50% chance on the drop (this was actually the hardest role in some respects to gear because no matter the party comp you ALWAYS had competition for your gear).
DPS= anywhere from 100% drop chance (only dps of that type in the party)to being super unlucky and having about a 20% chance at a drop IF you were in a party filled with DPS that could need on that gear (so full caster party as an example).

Alex raid:
No matter your party role or item= 12.5% chance of winning the roll. That means you'd have to do roughly 10 runs of each turn each week to get what you want. That. Sucks.

It is and it isn't like 4 x Crystal Tower. The floors are very fast to clear, in 1 hour you can do 1 floor 3-4 times using Duty Finder with wait times, 4-5 times if with Party Finder and there is no wait time. So it's basically like a Crystal Tower where you attempt each boss until you get the drop you want from each of them because now instead of 1 drop from the whole raid, it's 1 drop from each boss.

And yes, you didn't need to farm CT 4 weeks for a body, but with Alexander, you're farming multiple items during that 4 weeks. So like Week 1 = Waist + Quest ACC. Week 2 = 2nd Acc + Head + Hands. Week 3 = Feet. Week 4 = 3rd ACC, 4th ACC, Body. Week 5 = Legs.

If you wanted the body piece in CT and the body piece only, you could have done 5+ runs just to see it drop.

And no, the odds of getting a drop is not really 12.5%. That's a worst case scenario if everyone in the party wants the exact same drop as you.

In Alexander I've had situations where I had to compete with 6 people one time and 2 people on different time for the same piece of loot. Some people want the ACC item, some people want the Hands item. Each floor drops 3 different loot and you can only pick one of these per week for that floor so not everyone rolls on the same thing. At first it might be bad since people are most likely needing and getting what ever they can. But by week 2+, people will need only a certain item only.

2. This. Will. Get. Old. Quick. So far, you're talking about one week. Other posters in this topic have already pointed out, that for one full gear set, you'd need to repeat this for 5 weeks. That's for ONE gear set...many people play more than one role, so now you're talking 2-3 months of farming like this...for transitional gear.

If you're finding that Alexander is getting old for you, that you really don't enjoy running it, then don't. In 2 weeks we get Tomestones of Esoterics. It's not 5 weeks non stop of doing Alexander. If you're lucky you can finish with Alexander in 1 day for that week. If not it can take 3+ depending on how long you can play for. People farmed Crystal Tower for 5 weeks to get full left side. But those that didn't care for the loot in it didn't bother. The same goes here.

3. This gear is only temp. BiS. gear. Really, it's not worth the sheer amount of /rng for gear that will most assuredly be replaced by Alex. HM in a couple weeks, but also will likely be replaced or at least equal in ilvl to Esoteric gears/AF3 gears once we have those sets as options.

So why complain about it if it's going to be at least equal with Esoterics? If you don't like it, don't do it.

For casuals, you can clear the dungeon once for the story. If you want the gear, farm it.

Do I complain that PvP gear is locked behind so many hours of PvP? No because I'm not interested in PvP.

4. Alex HM releases in 2 weeks time. Obviously the gear score needed for entry into that raid tier will not be much higher than ilvl 170 because simply put, we do not have enough time between now and it's release to farm even a full ilvl 190 set. So even for the true 'hardcore', this gear is likely not overly needed, and therefore, the current 'token' raid system we have for this content isn't even thinly veiled to be a 'time waster'.

5. Once Alex HM is released, all those 'statics' and people willing to spend hours farming these Turns...yeah, they will no longer have tons of time to dedicate to RNG, nor will they wish to do so when the 'better' raid is out. So now, you'll have more people Pugging it...and/or have even less people willing or able to put in the time to pray the RNG gods favor them as the 'statics' will have moved on to the next thing, and the rest left behind will likely get frustrated at the 1/8 chance per drop per attempt each week and just stop doing it all together. (again, this isn't gear you'll ever really need).

Why complain about something that you don't even need? You just said it. So what's the problem?

6. Even if you spend 2 hours a floor a week farming, that's still 8 Hours a week just doing this content. Some people only have 2 hours (or less) to play a night. That means those players can't level alts, farm hunt seals, do EX roulettes/primals/sidequests/craft/gather etc or many of the other things they might wish...even prefer to do.

The same can be said about any content. "Even if you spend 8 hours a week leveling crafters, that means people can't level alts, farm hunt seals, do EX roulettes/primals/sidequests/gather/Alexander". If Alexander isn't what you want to spend your in game time on, then don't spend it on it. No one is forcing you to reach your weekly lockouts except yourself.

7. There is PLENTY of content/stuff for people to do in game atm, that to be frank, SE had no reason to make this raid so reliant on sheer RNG. RNG at the end of the day, is just a poor attempt at extending content...but 'storymode' content isn't really content that needs such an extention...as a matter of fact, making the drops more reliable in 'storymode' content tends to make it more played. (IE 2.0 at launch and the 'farming' of Castrum/Prea for tomes for gear upgrades kept that content super populated, even though technically you only ever needed to do it once). Basically, it makes no sense to encourage players to 'over-farm' this raid when they could be doing so many other things in game right now. Alex HM is likely the same dungeon just w/ harder bosses and more mechanics...so why have us burn out on the raid before we even have the 'real' raid to burn out on?

Yes the story mode doesn't need extensions. That's because it takes what? 4 hours to finish all floors as a first timer learning the fights and you're done with the Story Mode of Alexander. You've experienced the story, there was no extension. The only thing extended is item level 190 armor and accessories. And I highly doubt 2 weeks of farming 4 items from 4 bosses is enough to burn people out for the Savage mode. Most of the people getting ready for Savage are already done with the first week. One more repeat of what this week was is not going to burn people out.

[Kinseykinz]

replies

You're still missing the point:

This content is too reliant on RNG for the value/need of the actual reward. Any time SE gives us such content, what happens is it's underplayed/underpopulated. So yes, TODAY, you can find a group/have a decent queue pop time for Alex. Normal Mode. But anyone trying to do this content a month from now...or 3 months+...good luck. And since it IS storymode content (albeit side-story content), it should be something that is populated enough via the duty finder on a regular basis to make finding a group/queuing for it easier. This gear should logically be about 1-2 shades more time consuming to gain than the Doman stuff (which you can easily farm AND upgrade).

The reason we have the DF roulette bonuses for example, was to encourage people do keep challenging 'old' content they otherwise would no longer need. But the Alex Floors, since they are classified as 'Raid' material, aren't subject to any sort of DF roulette.

But I strongly suspect they WILL be a stepping stone to other content down the road (like the Hilde questline was....or Ultima HM etc).

Personally, I have better things to do than farm this for gear...so the gear drops in and of themselves are a non-issue for me...personally. But I know that those same items are carrots on sticks for other players...and what SE thinks will keep people playing. SE (and you to some extent), think that this RNG/token system will KEEP people grinding and playing this content longer...I (and others) are saying it will do exactly the opposite. In general, what keeps more casual content active and fills queues, is predictable steady progression.


Now if the rewards weren't as lackluster? It might be worth it as is. But why the heck would anyone really even want to farm these battles weekly, let alone multiple times a week for the rewards? They aren't super-special looking gears that people might wish to use as glamours, they aren't high enough ilvl to warrant a NEED for them, and they will be outclassed in a matter of weeks...like in less weeks than it would take you to even farm one full set.

And it's totally okay that the gear isn't overly special in and of itself as well, the SAVAGE gear should be the special stuff, not this. But gear that is plain-jane everyday stuff shouldn't take over a month to farm...if you're lucky and have the team/time. The drops in this Raid, and more importantly, the chance of obtaining them however, does need to be high enough to entice repeat customers once Alex SAVAGE launches, and people have even less time to dedicate to their weekly farming/raiding. And right now, this isn't cutting it.

[Blanchimont]

One of the things that will stop me from running the dungeon is the fact that it is drop restricted. I'm basically only in queue for the ones I haven't earned a drop for and once I earn the drop for that part of Alexander, I stop. There's no reason to do it more since I can't earn anything from it. There's no loot, no experience, and the Law Tomestones are useless.

[Velia]

Tired of losing a roll to one person the time your gear drops?
Now you can lose rolls to 7 people! Every time! Please look forward to it.

[kuma_aus]

-snip-

Is your point that in a few months that this content will be outdated? And people won't want to do it?

What's the problem with this?

In 3 months+, why would you want to farm Alexander's right arm over and over for gear that's vastly outdated unless it's for glamour?

If you want to clear it for the story, then use Party Finder.

Ultima Hard is the exact same. Although the story wasn't really that great, I managed to easily make a party finder for a first time clear for it easy when it was taking me over 50 minutes to get a Duty Finder pop.

Did you still farm Brayflox's Longstop (Hard), Halatali (Hard) and The Lost City of Amdapor (dungeons released in 2.2) for a full set of Darklight gear (ilvl 70) for hours on end in patch 2.4? When it was vastly outdated?

And just like Turn 5 and Turn 9, you will most likely need to clear Right Arm to unlock the future areas of Alexander. So how easy it was to get a Turn 5 and Turn 9 party going in patch 2.5+, it will be slightly harder for this story mode. Turn 5 and Turn 9 aren't in any roulette, Ultima Hard is not in any roulette, but constantly people are getting their first time clears for them.

Here, this is when I cleared certain content.

http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...nt/detail/747/ = Binding Coil Turn 5 on 14/06/2015 and it was released on the... 27/08/2013.

And just to show how easy it is to get a party finder clear for old content.

http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...nt/detail/682/ = My Binding Coil Turn 3 completion achievement recived on 14/06/2015 .

Why would anyone want to do Turn 3? It gives literally nothing. But I still managed to get a party finder party for it since people don't care about wasting 20 minutes to clear some old content to help someone new.

[Mirae]

If you don't want to spend a few hours to get the best equipment in the game, don't blame the system, the problem is that you don't want to work for it.

I spent 8 hours today doing Floor 3 and got nothing. I worked for it, but where's my reward? Oh, I didn't get one because I didn't win the arbitrary loot roll at the end of each teeth-pulling session. Nevermind the fact that I scrape the other healer off the floor in half the runs. Nevermind that I take the effort to explain fight mechanics to new players, over and over and over again every time someone abandons or a vote abandon passes and I have to requeue. Nevermind that I've done these mechanics over and over so many times I could play the whole fight out in my head but random DPS can't follow simple instructions and bar me from getting any loot. Nevermind the fact that I've probably put in triple the time you have into this god forsaken dungeon. I just don't want to work for it!

[Mirae]

in 1 hour you can do 1 floor 3-4 times using Duty Finder with wait times

I want to know what planet you're living on where you can run a floor 4 times via DF. Do you actually use DF? Have you seen the skill level of players populating DF?

[Adrasteia]

There was nothing wrong with the Ravana/Bismarck token system. They provided an eventual, achievable, measurable goal (a weapon purchased with the tokens), with the possibility of that goal being achieved sooner due to a lucky drop. Poor luck was compensated for by an eventual guarantee. The Alexander token system is nothing more than content padding, and it's the definition of a hot mess, right now.

[Viridiana]

I want to know what planet you're living on where you can run a floor 4 times via DF. Do you actually use DF? Have you seen the skill level of players populating DF?

Party Finder->A3 Farm until everyone gets loot->Progressively less people to roll against.

I understand that the Alex NM loot system isn't ideal, but it only has to last 2 weeks (a week and a half at this point) until Esoterics and Savage Alex (which will have a different loot system) come out.

[JonBigwood]

It is a real lot easier to get the Alexander Normal gear than it was in Coil with the weekly restriction. This gear is not needed and probably the one we will be able to get with esoteric tomes will be of the same ilvl. I wouldn't worry. If you get items, fine; if not, no problem. You can buy the esoterics gear for the parts you didn't get at Alexander.

We don't even know if for example the esoterics gear has no accesories (like happened with ilvl90 gear) and relatively the best items to get at Alexander are the accesories.

Edit: There were ilvl90 accesories. I incorrectly remembered that the Ultima Weapon accesories were the best available.