Quote Originally Posted by Hiruke View Post
For all of you apologists out there, bad drop rate is not a legitimate tactic for making someone play your game. People will only be interested in varied and interesting content.

To be clear, players should be given a clear sense of progression, and content should be both fun and challenging. There is nothing "difficult" about getting a rare drop. It is simply a grind, meant to bait you into repeating the same content ad nauseam. Do you folks think beating Ifrit 200 times in a row is "fun" because you didn't get the drop? If it was so fun that you still wanted to fight Ifrit another 190 times even after you get all your drops in the first 10 fights, that would be a different story. But that's not even remotely the case.

Trying to "force" players to play your content because it takes forever to get "lucky" on the drop is a bad strategy, and one of the things a lot of people really hated in Final Fantasy XI.

If you 100% got a totem every time, spending 10 to get a weapon wouldn't be so bad. That's a clear progression. Fighting it 100, 200, or 300+ times to maybe get the items you want is so ridiculous I don't know how any of you can defend it with a straight face. The drops don't even take into account the items you already have? Even more ridiculous. I'd sure love to be the guy who got 10 canes after 500 fights, trying to get the sword. Anyone seriously think that's "fun"?

I think it's funny that the alternate drop is dark matter. Seriously? Yes, please, dark matter! So happy!

...

Did any of you guys fight Ifrit 300 times in Final Fantasy XI? (You know, back when you only had to defeat the damn thing once to get the exact weapon you wanted?) I sure didn't, and I helped a ton of people with all the summons for their SMN. If I fought any of the summons more than like 50 times (and I don't think it was even nearly that high), I'd be super surprised. Just because content exists doesn't mean it should be played to death. That just makes you hate it, makes you feel like you're working a job instead of playing a game, and that's what makes people quit. If you want more people to play this game, you need to stop having stupid nonsense like this and actually give people a variety of fun things to do, without rubbing their noses in the same old content over and over again like they are bad dog who just pooped on the floor.

Fancy that. Customers? Don't wanted to be whipped like mangy curs. Who knew?

(If anyone doubts that "grind" tactics is a bad idea, feel free to question why it has become radically easier to level up over the last few patches - I went from CRP 20 to 36 over a weekend... that was previously a monumental undertaking that would have had me crying after a week. Guess what? People like it when things don't take FOREVER to accomplish.)

Fun Fact: Fighting the summons in XI was fun precisely because you rarely had to do them, so it was a blast to go in there and blow them up every once in a while.
Quote for Truth!

I play a game to have fun. If a game starts to feel more work than fun, such as when it turns into a grind, I stop playing said game. It's a big reason why I stopped playing XIV for a long time back in 2010.