Tomes vs random drops

[Brill_]

I'd be fine with tomestones if it was more interesting. The only efficient way to farm tomes is expert roulette. Running the same 2 dungeons over and over is boring. More fun ways to grind tomes and I'd be ok with it. RNG can be unforgiving. In alexander normal, needed 1 more bolt last week to finish off my set. Rolled a 95 on my first run and lost. Rolled on 9 more bolts and didn't get anything higher than a 14. Then there's the 24 man raid option, but again, due RNG, the same item will drop over and over instead of a variety. Good chance you'll never see the item you want even drop.

[Kaurie]

I'd be fine with tomestones if it was more interesting. The only efficient way to farm tomes is expert roulette. Running the same 2 dungeons over and over is boring. More fun ways to grind tomes and I'd be ok with it. RNG can be unforgiving. In alexander normal, needed 1 more bolt last week to finish off my set. Rolled a 95 on my first run and lost. Rolled on 9 more bolts and didn't get anything higher than a 14. Then there's the 24 man raid option, but again, due RNG, the same item will drop over and over instead of a variety. Good chance you'll never see the item you want even drop.

Indeed, I'd like to see the personal loot system that WoW has added adopted here. For reference:

Under personal loot, players do not directly roll on items; instead, the server chooses a number of players (based on group size) and awards them a random item for their spec. Mounts can also be won via this method from bosses that drop them. A window will appear telling all players what items dropped, and who received them. Gear awarded in this manner is not tradeable. [this gear is tradeable for a short time, actually - not sure why the wiki said that]

The Bonus Roll system, also introduced in Mists of Pandaria, uses this loot type as well. Players in possession of a specific token, such as a [Mogu Rune of Fate], when they kill a boss in the associated raid will be given a chance to spend the token for another try at loot from that boss. This can be done on any difficulty as well as on world bosses. The chance of obtaining loot from a boss drop is currently theorized to be approximately 15% (equivalent to an average of 3.75 items from a 25-player kill), but this has not been confirmed.

[Berethos]

I typically prefer random drops (more accurately, loot tables specific to dungeons/bosses) for stuff I can run as much as I want, and tomes (or a similar eventually you'll get a thing system) for things with longer lockouts - mostly because I spent 9 straight months trying to get an item in a raid in another MMO that dropped off a final boss (with like 8 or 9 required bosses to get there) without seeing it drop at all, much less win against others trying to get it.

I admit I'm a bit biased against random drops in once a week content style situations due to that, even though it's been years since that happened.

[Zojha]

At the end of the day, when I have run a certain piece of content X amount of times to get item Y, I want to have item Y. No ifs, but buts, no maybes, no 99,999% probability - certainty. This is why I value token systems over RNG. And no matter how the loot system is set up, this is what I would like to see in all content, be it dungeons, 24 man raids or whatever. After putting in an appropriate amount of effort, I want my just reward. Plain and simple.

The rest, well...I don't really care that much, truth be told - the important thing is the insurance. I've simply made nothing but bad experiences with RNG, luck, chance, fate or however you wanna call it and loathe it like the plague.

[HyoMinPark]

Would be nice to have other way to get iL 260. For example finish expert dungeons in under 10 min.
This could drop 2 chests at the end with iL 260 accessories only! If you finish it within 15 min then you get 1 chest instead of 2.
Meaning you save your tomestones for your left side rather than accessories.

I don't really think that would be a good system to implement. Only because there was already a very heated debate about speed-runs here not too long ago. Adding i260 loot will only increase the pressure to speed-run Expert roulette, and, while its a common practice, it's not something that everyone should be pressured into doing. I just see this as something to already fuel the current abuse towards those that don't want to do speed runs or do Big Daddy pulls in Gubal HM/Xelphatol.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

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).

You not doing Neverreap or ARF doesn't mean they aren't done. One of the most frequent complaints I here regarding WoW is how dead most content is outside the current expansion. What you're advocating would only transition that same issue to FFXIV. There would be no reason to queue for anything except whatever's current. All the old dungeons still get fairly good queues despite some being several years old. It's also a bit silly to complaint about burn out running the same two Expert dungeons when the most optimal means of capping is to do all your roulettes. Granted, I do agree the two dungeon format they've stuck with for Heavensward needs improvement. Just not at the expense of rendering all old content obsolete.

More enjoyable for you, perhaps. I don't fancy having no control over my upgrades nor do I find RNG in anyway rewarding. Why? Because I'm not progressing. I am simply crossing my fingers and hoping lady luck was kind this time. If I get it on the first few attempts, sure, it's exciting to some extent. On the other hand, if I had to run Xelphatol 10+ times. I'll just get utterly sick of it. In fact, I stopped queuing for Alexander Normal because of that very reason. I no longer need gear from it unless I level up other classes and don't just craft 250 gear. It's needlessly tedious to roll against people and hope this time, I'll get lucky. Now I would necessarily be opposed to smaller upgrades at a more frequent pace, but FFXIV is never going to do away with weekly caps due to farming.

I don't really think that would be a good system to implement. Only because there was already a very heated debate about speed-runs here not too long ago. Adding i260 loot will only increase the pressure to speed-run Expert roulette, and, while its a common practice, it's not something that everyone should be pressured into doing. I just see this as something to already fuel the current abuse towards those that don't want to do speed runs or do Big Daddy pulls in Gubal HM/Xelphatol.

This. Healers refusing to DPS wouldn't just get judgmental groans. They would be straight up kicked from the party. As would any tank who dared to pull less than the entire room. Queue times would also slow considerably since it'd be far more efficient running with friends you know will handle the dungeon fast.

[Jeykama]

WoW's current loot iteration is trash (well, slightly biased). It's completely personal loot with the chance of being higher ilvl (tradeable as usual for the most part, which is its only saving grace). So you're talking 15% chance of seeing an item, then whatever miserable chance it is to forge up comparably to LFR raid gear. This means you have no guaranteed raid-level loot, ever. No badges, no tokens. At least in Mists of Pandaria you had weekly tokens. I suppose they did this in the name of making good gear only gotten from Mythic content and mythical legendaries. But Mythics are subject to the same 15% x miserable upgrade chance as everything else. You could do a dozen Mythic+ dungeons and raids and still walk away with nothing but artifact power... maybe. Which is why I got sick of it and quit.

FFXIV gives a much more consistent experience for gearing up, seeing as manuals get you your choice of gear guaranteed (though I don't think anyone would complain about trading and a reroll system) and you have tomestones. Its main fault is why manuals have to take up bag spaces.

Now mounts and stuff? RNG away.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Now mounts and stuff? RNG away.

Keep it far away from progression, but vanity stuff like the above, as well as dungeon gear? Sure, keep it like it is.

[FinalWolf]

Don't you mean Tombs?