Remove RNG from loot

[Krotoan]

Normal mode raid is a scam. ..

I suppose it's a scam if you don't actually enjoy the fights.
I get they can get repetitious, but you make it sound so joyless and joblike.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I suppose it's a scam if you don't actually enjoy the fights.
I get they can get repetitious, but you make it sound so joyless and joblike.

To be fair, once you've ran it twenty-something times without getting a drop it feels joblike.

[Darrcyphfeid]

I suppose it's a scam if you don't actually enjoy the fights.
I get they can get repetitious, but you make it sound so joyless and joblike.

To be fair when you're doing fights just for the random drop at the end, instead of for the love of the fight itself, everything goes that way. Even if you really love it.

I did the weekly lockout stuff during Midas because I was actively raiding. I actually liked the Midas tier fights... at first. That quickly sours when you're just in there to roll the dice, and your party wipes continuously to dumb things like A7's bombs, or letting the cat reach the boss, or basically anything in A8, etc. And we did Midas the first two or three weeks as a static too, but doing ~8 runs per floor sucks a ton of time away from, y'know, actually doing progression. So we stopped.

It really doesn't help my case that I only liked A11 and A12 from Creator, none of the fights in Deltascape, and novelty in O5 aside, none of the fights in Sigmascape either. Grinding on top of that would be devastating to whatever attachment I have with the game.

[Krotoan]

To be fair, once you've ran it twenty-something times without getting a drop it feels joblike.

.. you ever played Monster Hunter?

To be fair ...

Wasn't 8 runs working towards progression? If that's your bread and butter why do anything else?
If you aren't having fun, why are you playing the game? If endgame progression is your "fun" then when it becomes tedium I'd say you're done for a while. Not that I want you to leave this game or I'm saying "lol uninstall then". I've taken several breaks myself when things died down for me. RNG is a cheap way of keeping people in the game, but the alternative is people running their 8 times and then done. Or we can have some other BS gating scheme put in like weekly caps which people also hate.

[Darrcyphfeid]

Wasn't 8 runs working towards progression? If that's your bread and butter why do anything else?

Not in the least. It's not like we were dying in A5S and A6S because of our gear, we were dying because failing mechanics caused party-wide instant deaths. The more time you spend outside of Savage/in progression, the more time that passes to where both the normal and Savage raid gear lose relevance/appeal due to Tomestone gear and lockouts. The normal mode raid gear would help slightly due to increased VIT versus gear in the previous tier, but it's a matter of efficiency I suppose.

If you aren't having fun, why are you playing the game?

I increased my fun by removing things I found distasteful (normal mode + alliance raid grinding)

I played FFXI for 2 years and was heavily involved with endgame there, so I'm pretty resilient. I'm just always at odds with the carrots at the end of XIV's various sticks for reasons I can't quite place sometimes.

[Krotoan]

I'm just always at odds with the carrots at the end of XIV's various sticks for reasons I can't quite place sometimes.

As soon as something ceases to relax me at the end of the day, I drop it. I might come back to it later but in the end if I'm paying money for it and it's not actually fun 95% of the time? No thanks.

That and friends are a big part of it for me. Hope your raid groups work out their kinks.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I mean to be fair the crafted gear is better than the sigmascape gear.

So RNG behind worse gear is kinda... weird.

Better but significantly more expensive for those unwilling to craft gear themselves. That's the trade off. Do you want time gated gear or are you willing to pay exceptionally high prices for both the gear and subsequent materia to overmeld it?

.. you ever played Monster Hunter?

... that is an enormous leap. Monster Hunter encounters have vastly higher repeat appeal than spamming normal mode. Furthermore, they are entirely different games. Action combat as a whole has far greater longevity due to its inherent unpredictability.

[Krotoan]

... that is an enormous leap. Monster Hunter encounters have vastly higher repeat appeal than spamming normal mode. Furthermore, they are entirely different games. Action combat as a whole has far greater longevity due to its inherent unpredictability.

I find it similar in grit and grind. Once I know a monsters patterns it's mainly routine to kill them, after that it's just a looong game of "shining scale or nada" for 10-50 iterations.