Tomes vs random drops

[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?

[Kaurie]

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? ^^

The difference is that tomestones work like a chore. You go and do a dungeon with 0 chance or 100% chance to get your item at the end. You're not doing it with hopes of obtaining the item, you're doing it to check off your list. The difference is that you obtain a big upgrade to your gear weekly, and then nothing. Rather than receiving frequent small upgrades to your gear. I said I do care about keeping up with others in FFXIV - and am relatively ahead of the pack (I am ilvl 266 atm, just needing good rolls on twine in my raid team to upgrade my chest/legs, and for a lucky drop or a couple more runs of A10S to obtain the pages for my 270 boots).

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.

The issue is that places like Sophia/Alex have gear drops, in addition to their currency drop. Experts just have the currency drop. If your first expert per week dropped a random 260 gear piece that would be something, I guess. Still not a method I would use, but it's closer anyway.

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).

Frankly, I disagree. It's RNG vs Tomestones vs RNG+Tomestones, and Lockouts vs No-Lockouts vs Lockouts+No-Lockouts.

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?

I agree, longevity is important. I find that the current system supports a very high need to run something with a very sharp drop off half-way through the patch. I'd prefer slower incremental upgrade possibilities. Potentially, I'd prefer a system if gear in experts drop at ilvl 250, Alex NM 260, Alex Savage 270 and tomestones could be used to upgrade the gear 2x. So you could get your 250 drops in expert and upgrade them to 260 without raiding, or you could get 270 with Alex NM or 280 with savage (or something along those lines). This is in addition to tomestones being a currency to purchase the ilvl 250 gear that drops in expert, as well. This idea is not fully fleshed out though.