Tomes vs random drops

[Kaurie]

I'm not talking about people quitting because of what system exists, I'm talking about people quitting because they get frustrated by not getting any drops. My point is that changing a system that treats users equally to one that randomly benefits some users and harms others is a net negative. Maybe some people do quit or never play in the first place because of the tomestone system, but I am sure many would quit if they removed it (starting with myself).

My point is that we have no idea how many people who did not sub in the first place, or quit because of the tomestone system, and we equally have no idea how many people would quit if the system was changed. Both systems directly affect if you get your drop, so the difference between getting your drop or changing the system is kind of moot.

[Talraen]

My point is that we have no idea how many people who did not sub in the first place, or quit because of the tomestone system, and we equally have no idea how many people would quit if the system was changed. Both systems directly affect if you get your drop, so the difference between getting your drop or changing the system is kind of moot.

I will grant that we don't know for a fact which of these two systems would be better. Are you proposing people no longer discuss things that don't have a factually known answer, then? Not really sure where you're going with this.

My opinion is that this game will greatly suffer if, at this point, they go from the current system to one consisting only of random drops.

[Kaurie]

I will grant that we don't know for a fact which of these two systems would be better. Are you proposing people no longer discuss things that don't have a factually known answer, then? Not really sure where you're going with this.

My opinion is that this game will greatly suffer if, at this point, they go from the current system to one consisting only of random drops.

I am discussing it, and am all for discussing it. I am not for statements which completely disregard the opposing opinion, when the statements are based on made up facts.

Instead of making doom and gloom statements, or saying that people with opposing views suffer from some form of logical errors of bias in their arguments, just state what your opinion is and why.

When it comes to loot I hate tomestones as a primary source.

To me personally I would say the loot system the extreme primals use is almost perfect. (better if tokens didn't eat inventory space)

If you kill Sophia Extreme for example a weapon is guaranteed to drop for the party. It may or may not be a weapon you want. If it is then that's cool hope you win the roll.

If it isn't then don't worry because you also got a token. so even if you do the fight loads of times and the weapon you want never drops. after x number of wins (10 in the case of extreme primals) you'll have enough tokens to get your weapon no matter what. so progress is still guaranteed

Personally I think it's one of the best loot systems in place.

The issue with tomestones (currently Scripture) is that player's don't do the content for the loot, just the daily bonus.
no one cares about the 225 loot that drops from expert roulettes for example. all they care about is the 90 scripture they'll get at the end... just makes the content even more invalid and obselete than it already is...

I pretty much agree with this. The same system can be found in raids, with Alexandrian pages dropping in addition to random drops. This gives you the excitement of loot that it may have just what you are looking for, but also provides a safety net against poor RNG.

While, I tend to prefer the system in WoW overall for loot, both the Extreme primal and Savage raid loot system works quite well and I am pretty content with it. My only request would be to add more secondary stat options. This could be with randomized stats in the drops and/or providing multiple options for purchasing with your tokens. Guild Wars 2 has a system like this, where you can buy the armor-piece with the secondary stats that you want for the build you're going for.

[Dzian]

I pretty much agree with this. The same system can be found in raids, with Alexandrian pages dropping in addition to random drops. This gives you the excitement of loot that it may have just what you are looking for, but also provides a safety net against poor RNG.

Yeah it's a great system and it works really well. Progress is guaranteed but sometimes you also get that bit extra out of it.

Sticking with Sophia ex as my earlier example. I was quite lucky in that my first clear netted me the BLM weapon which was exactly the one I wanted to get.

Then I wanted the NIN weapon as my ninja was still running around with a 230 relic. so I went back a few times but had no luck on drops. Got to the point where I had 9 totems so I was feeling quite pumped as the next win I'd have my NIN weapons guaranteed.

Join a pf group and next win the NIN weapons drop and I win them on a greed roll. So now I have my weapon AND 10 totems which I could now use to get something else. BONUS!

I'm levelling warrior maybe I'll get the axe when I get 60. 4 wins later in the same group the axe drops and I ask if anyone's rolling cos I'm 56 so won't roll if someone has it at 60. group says I can have it. great...

I switch to scholar to fill a healer slot in the party and couple of runs later the SCH book drops. W00T!!!!.

As a loot system it works really well. because sure I've been quite lucky on drops and I've been doing the fight for the drops, but there's always been the guarantee that even if RNG hated me and didn't drop it I can get that weapon I want. thus progress has been guaranteed.

In my case I didn't need to use the totems so I'm now sitting on about 50 which is halfway towards the bird if I don't win the whistle before then. If I do win the whistle then great....

it's a system where you can't lose. but it still feels good to win.

it's the best loost system XIV uses by a long shot. miles better than lore/scripture/inserttomestonehere. because the problem withthem is you don't do the content for the rewards only the daily tomes... and ya restricted by weekly caps and all that faff aswell

I like the Tome gear system since SE seems to have odd weights on gear drops atm to the point were healer and tank gear drops more then caster gear

Do you think so. I always see dragoon get like 70% of the drops. even in Sophia. I swear ive seen more lances than anything

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I am discussing it, and am all for discussing it. I am not for statements which completely disregard the opposing opinion, when the statements are based on made up facts.

Instead of making doom and gloom statements, or saying that people with opposing views suffer from some form of logical errors of bias in their arguments, just state what your opinion is and why.



I pretty much agree with this. The same system can be found in raids, with Alexandrian pages dropping in addition to random drops. This gives you the excitement of loot that it may have just what you are looking for, but also provides a safety net against poor RNG.

While, I tend to prefer the system in WoW overall for loot, both the Extreme primal and Savage raid loot system works quite well and I am pretty content with it. My only request would be to add more secondary stat options. This could be with randomized stats in the drops and/or providing multiple options for purchasing with your tokens. Guild Wars 2 has a system like this, where you can buy the armor-piece with the secondary stats that you want for the build you're going for.

Actually, that annoys me because those Alexandrian drops may turn out to be worthless. An example being the Dragoon feet. They are worse than the ilvl 260 Shire, thus they'll sit in my inventory/retainer until 4.0 where I'll exchange them for company seals. Yes, I still get a page, thus making the effort not a complete loss, but I would much prefer additional tokens to guarantee Alexandrian pieces similar to how you obtain tarnished items from normal. Same two chests per week restrictions apply though. This way, the static is guaranteed gear drops won't just hit the floor.

Randomized stats in Savage would be awful. Since you cannot farm loot, there's a very good probability you'll get the gear you fancy, only to discover it has worthless stats. No amount of secondary stat variation will change people's preference to min/max. All this does is making gearing up entirely devoted to luck, not skill.

[Neophyte]

My point is that we have no idea how many people whodid not sub in the first place, or quit because of the tomestone system, and we equally have no idea how many people would quit if the system was changed. Both systems directly affect if you get your drop, so the difference between getting your drop or changing the system is kind of moot.

You can get somewhat of an idea. Just look at gearing outside of tomestones. For example Mhach when released. There are complains about the tomestone system... but there is hate towards the rng drops.

What happens with those dungeons if the gear isn't relevant anymore, because without currency roulettes aren't needed anymore? Who would want to go ARF/Neverreap if they only drop ilvl 170 gear?
Who does lvl 50, if they only drop ARR gear?
So the 3.4 dungeons give 260 gear now.. what do the 3.45 give?

People already complain about burnout. A rng system only reinforces that.
Even if we assume someone's really only doing experts to cap their tomes... that's about 12*5 = 60 times the same 2 dungeons to cap tomes from 11/01/16 (3.45) to 01/24/17 (likely 3.5).
With rng that will only become more, with fun waiting for and fighting over loot every single run.
Unless in a premade group, which is better because of loot distribution then anyway. Same with tokens added as a safety net, because that is how farms usually are done, premade. Unless they make them not farm-able, like cap them on a daily/wekly basis, which would make them literally tomestones , lol.
Speedruns will be more of a thing than ever, because no drop->again->no drop->again..
It's easy to forgive one slow run, if it's the only one for today.. but 5 slow ones in a row? Nah, "kick"...

Well, the fights over loot can be alleviated by giving personal drops.. but that won't solve the other issues.

tl;dr: RIP dutyfinder with a (not weekly locked) rng system and no currency, because dungeon runs will be done like any other farm where loot distribution and time efficiency matters: (PF) premade
Also more hate towards other players if not premade, because fights over important loot (proof: Mhach, Alex normal).
Also even more pressure to speed run.

[Kaurie]

You can get somewhat of an idea. Just look at gearing outside of tomestones. For example Mhach when released. There are complains about the tomestone system... but there is hate towards the rng drops.

What happens with those dungeons if the gear isn't relevant anymore, because without currency roulettes aren't needed anymore? Who would want to go ARF/Neverreap if they only drop ilvl 170 gear?
Who does lvl 50, if they only drop ARR gear?
So the 3.4 dungeons give 260 gear now.. what do the 3.45 give?

People already complain about burnout. A rng system only reinforces that.
Even if we assume someone's really only doing experts to cap their tomes... that's about 12*5 = 60 times the same 2 dungeons to cap tomes from 11/01/16 (3.45) to 01/24/17 (likely 3.5).
With rng that will only become more, with fun waiting for and fighting over loot every single run (unless premade group, which is better because of loot distribution then anyway).

RIP dutyfinder with a rng system and no currency.

Someone said it eloquently earlier in the thread, that an RNG system is not necessarily bad, it's how the RNG system is implemented. I don't think that the FFXIV dev team has found an RNG system that works well, but there are systems in other games of the genre which do.

Personally, I haven't run Neverreap in 1.5 years, and I've done ARF 5 times ever. I don't do 50 roulette. So, I guess from a personal perspective, I don't think they are doing a great job of encouraging me to want to run those instance. The only things in this game that I currently feel encouraged to run are expert roulettes (up to this week, now I have all my scripture gear I need, so I won't be capping any more), and Savage raids.

I'd rather systems which don't encourage burn out. I think RNG with small and frequent rewards is the way to go. FFXIV seems to excel in low drop rate, high reward, weekly lock out type RNG. I think a system which does not have a lockout, drops frequently, but only has a chance at small upgrades is more enjoyable. That way, every time I log in, I can obtain an upgrade and feel that my time was justified - even if it's just for a small boost. Instead of gaining major upgrades every week (i.e. every week I seem to gain ~20 INT and a bunch of secondary stats), I could gain a minor upgrade every day (i.e. +2 INT per day).

[Neophyte]

I'd rather systems which don't encourage burn out. I think RNG with small and frequent rewards is the way to go. FFXIV seems to excel in low drop rate, high reward, weekly lock out type RNG. I think a system which does not have a lockout, drops frequently, but only has a chance at small upgrades is more enjoyable. That way, every time I log in, I can obtain an upgrade and feel that my time was justified - even if it's just for a small boost. Instead of gaining major upgrades every week (i.e. every week I seem to gain ~20 INT and a bunch of secondary stats), I could gain a minor upgrade every day (i.e. +2 INT per day).

And where's the big difference to the tome system?

With daily/weekly lockout: You either do the same two dungeons (more than once) on a daily basis to progress (hopefully, because of RNG) or you fall behind other players with much more time on their hands to get their daily drop for sure. 20 days not running the same dungeons over and over again? The people who did are now +10-20 ilvls above you.
Also: If you're done, you're done (like now with scriptures).
Difference: You can catch up with a looooooot of time.

Without daily/weekly lockout: You either do the same two dungeons over and over again or you fall behind other players with much more time on their hands. 20 days not running the same dungeons over and over again? The people who did are now +10-20 ilvls above you.
Also: If you're done, you're done (like now with scriptures).

Actually, your system can be implemented with tomestones, too.
Like this:

• Buy base body armor (ilvl 250) for 525 tomes.
• Pay 30 tomes to upgrade the ilvl by 1 and raise the stats by 1-2 points.
• After having paid 825 tomestones you have an ilvl 260 armor.
• Instead of getting one big upgrade 260->270, you get ten "smaller" items from 24man runs (rng drop, 10 runs minimum for the full upgrade) and/or rng dropped form hunts (something like 10%) to level it one by one again. Drops in stacks of 10 in savage.

[Kaurie]

And where's the big difference to the tome system?

With daily/weekly lockout: You either do the same two dungeons (more than once) on a daily basis to progress (hopefully, because of RNG) or you fall behind other players with much more time on their hands to get their daily drop for sure. 20 days not running the same dungeons over and over again? The people who did are now +10-20 ilvls above you.
Well, difference: You can catch up with a looooooot of time.

Without daily/weekly lockout: You either do the same two dungeons over and over again or you fall behind other players with much more time on their hands. 20 days not running the same dungeons over and over again? The people who did are now +10-20 ilvls above you.


Actually, your system can be implemented with tomestones, too.
Like this:

• Buy base body armor (ilvl 250) for 525 tomes.
• Pay 30 tomes to upgrade the ilvl by 1 and raise an stats by 1-2 points.
• After having paid 825 tomestones you have an ilvl 260 armor.
• Instead of getting upgrade items from hunts (or 24 man), you get with x>10 runs and rng dropped form hunts ten "smaller" upgrade items to upgrade your body further level by level.

Agreed, I'd be supportive of small incremental upgrades being purchased with tomestones. While I'd prefer it as a drop, it is a decent compromise.

I don't really care if people out ilvl me if I am not playing in a hardcore fashion. For example, in WoW I am ilvl 840 and 849 on my two characters, which is far below what many others are now, but I am just enjoying my time as I gear up. In FFXIV, where I play more hardcore, I am the max ilvl possible, so that I can perform the best for my raid team. In other words, if you are the kind of player who needs to perform the best for your raid team, putting in that extra time to get there faster is not a big deal. If you are the kind of player who does not need that, you'll have fun incrementally getting better every time you log in, without having to worry about not being the top tier.

[Neophyte]

Agreed, I'd be supportive of small incremental upgrades being purchased with tomestones. While I'd prefer it as a drop, it is a decent compromise.

I don't really care if people out ilvl me if I am not playing in a hardcore fashion. For example, in WoW I am ilvl 840 and 849 on my two characters, which is far below what many others are now, but I am just enjoying my time as I gear up. In FFXIV, where Iplay more hardcore, I am the max ilvl possible, so that I can perform the best for my raid team. In other words, if you are the kind of player who needs to perform the best for your raid team, putting in that extra time to get there faster is not a big deal. If you are the kind of player who does not need that, you'll have fun incrementally getting better every time you log in, without having to worry about not being the top tier.

Then again, what's the difference to tomes? If you don't care about keeping up with others, you can log in whenever you want and get your (let's say incremental) upgrade with tomes. Just treat them as a "lucky" drop and upgrade your gear by +1. I guess you won't be unhappy with a 100% drop chance just by coincidence on your "drop items", so what's the difference? ^^

All this only boils down to ones question, and that's why the title of this topic is irritating. It's not RNG drops vs. tomestones, because tomestones can co-exist in a RNG system as the so-called "safety net" items (like the primal tokens) some people mentioned. They are literally the same as the tokens, a 100% guaranteed "drop" after a kill/clear, just across more than 1 content.
They could even work with RNG in terms of "by completing you may achieve a random ammount of tomes".
The one difference is: The lockout.

And that's why the topic should be: RNG drops VS. (weekly) lockouts. You either have RNG or a lockout or both.
Tokens/Tomestones are not the system, they are only parts of an RNG/lockout/RNG+lockout system, for example to soften it or as an instrument. Tomestones are pretty equal to an alexander normal loot drop: you can trade it for gear and you can't get more than X per week. The only difference ist that tomestones are guaranteed, you don't need to roll on them).

Both (or all three) different systems serve on purpose: We don't get everything as soon as it releases. SE won't change that.
So, even if the ex dungeons would drop ilvl260 they would be weekly gated, like e.g. Mhach was at release. So back to running 5+ times the dungeons a week. Up to 40 times? 60?