Normal mode raids: please don’t settle on this loot system...

[Cabalabob]

The normal mode raid loot system is the most frustrating way they could have done it. Not only do you have to roll need against the entire group but you’re not even getting an actual piece of gear, you’re getting half or even a quarter of a piece of gear.

And it doesn’t even get better with time, once the restrictions are lifted there’s no reason to not lot on a piece so everyone and their grandmother is going to be lotting on all items whether they even need it or not.

Yes you can run it with a PF or a static or whatever, but this is easy content that you’re far more likely to just run in DF and it is such a painful process.

I assume we’re going to be stuck with this system for the rest of omega but please PLEASE for 5.0 consider a new way to handle the normal mode loot system.

[Ferth]

SE loves their overly complicated, convoluted token systems. Way back when they first added this system at the start of Heavensward I made a post about rather than having specific items (that take up inventory space) for each type of gear we can get they should have instead just made all the gear purchaseable with the same item. One for belts/accessories; two for boots, gloves and hats; 4 for pants and body pieces. The total time to completely gear someone out in normal mode raid gear would remain the same but gearing would no longer be subject to highly competitive pieces for maximum efficiency or needlessly filling our inventory with garbage if we mess up our priority, miss an instance or just straight up lose the RNG war.

The dev team really loves their convoluted systems, and they really don't like changing things after they've already been implemented so I'm not holding my breath about this terrible system being addressed any time soon. Would sure be nice, though.

[Reinha]

Would you rather have the game randomly roll one of the 7 armor classes, randomly roll the gear slot too and then (assuming you can actually use the drop) make you roll against teammates who use the same gear type (who will roll "Need" even if it's not an upgrade)? That's the dungeon / 24-man loot method and it's way more random than what we have now.

[TaleraRistain]

As someone who was running Sigma the other night with 5 friends, coordinating on pieces dropped, and still had to run O7 5 times in order for everyone to get their weekly drop, I agree that some adjustment is in order.

[Vidu]

...you guys are aware that the idea behind such loot-system is excatly that: To make you run it more than once each week?
Thats the reason why we dont have the simpler savage token system (books as guranteed loot that can be exchanged for certain gear depending on the content they dropped in) in normal mode: so you wont do it only once and be done with it. Thats both needed to make sure someone can still queue for it on friday and get in (because not everyone just got their one run done on tuesday) aswell as generating content/playtime (before you say: "They should just create more content then!" remember that we burn through content much, much faster than it could ever be created - so we need RNG-grinds like this to keep us busy)

Also... did you not notice that you're getting tokens that you can exchange for gear of your choice while doing those raids? They're called tomestones...
Crafted gear has the same ilvl than Sigma-gear aswell - substats might be less ideal, depending on slot and class, but you dont depend on sigma-nm-gear at all.
If you decide to keep yourself with busy with sigma - good! If not - there is plenty of other on that level or above it that you can aquire with less RNG involved.
And honestly: Sigma-RNG is tame. If you hate it so much though that you cant bare to run it more than once a week - we're talking a week here! Do one run each evening, not 15! - why run it in the first place?

[Darrcyphfeid]

why run it in the first place?

This is ultimately what everyone needs to ask themselves when they inevitably stop enjoying the treadmill.

If you're doing Savage raiding: Why are you wasting time doing NM stuff? Buy/make/commission the crafted stuff.
If you're doing EX Primals/Byakko: You don't really need it. Your i340 gear is enough.
If you're not doing Savage or EX Primals: Stop. Just... just stop. The content you're doing is so hilariously easy and the 10 ilvl bump, all things considered, is meaningless.

I do agree that the normal mode loot is stupid, though. As are the restrictions on Savage and the alliance raid.

[EorzeaHero69]

Been this way since Alexander, and while I agree it should be adjusted, highly doubt it'll happen

[Alestorm]

You may not like this system, but WoW for a long time had it so you needed to out roll 25 other people if you weren't all in Vent/Skype/Discord for a gear token and RNGeesus would often either make the on you wanted never drop or you couldn't roll anything to save your life. If a mount dropped on a pug raid it was a feeding frenzy. Early on it was super bad because anyone could roll Need on anything so "That looks like a Hunter/Rouge item" was the norm.

[Vidu]

I do agree that the normal mode loot is stupid, though. As are the restrictions on Savage and the alliance raid.

I suppose you do understand the reason for this though - it might be "stupid" that you cant burn through content week one, get your BiS-gear and then be done with it... but we know that those artificial gates are needed to "give us something to do" or else people would complain after two weeks that there is "nothing to do".

I agree with the rest of your statment though - I just get any piece of Sigma gear each week, some because I might like the look and I mainly use it to gear alts. There are so many (better) options if you need gear for serious content... and if you're not doing that and not enjoying playing content to gear up, it doesnt matter

[Darrcyphfeid]

I suppose you do understand the reason for this though - it might be "stupid" that you cant burn through content week one, get your BiS-gear and then be done with it... but we know that those artificial gates are needed to "give us something to do" or else people would complain after two weeks that there is "nothing to do".

Indeed. I find there's little difference between a person not queuing because the system is too restrictive and not queuing because they've already got their stuff (for the week), though.

It won't be a problem as long as there's new blood flowing in, but if that declines or stops I think they'll be forced to take a look at these loot systems.