Please fix/tokenize Darklight drops

[Asiaine]

I just wish SE would implement a way to actually reward a player for doing Dungeons.

In a way it does, as there are pretty items in the chest. Plus, the adventure should be fun! Action is its own reward! ^.^

Almost every LS I see at CC/AV can now do Speed Runs on farm status, and even grinding the dungeons doesn't even come out rewarding because I see some people don't get drops at all while others will get a lot!

This is an opportunity for LS Farm/parties/etc to come up with distribution rules that ensure more fair exchange of items. Presently there is nothing preventing the party (or even LS at large) from comming up with fair distribution rules and enforcing them. (Especially since a lot of the equipment is not untradeable and can be traded much later).

I understand that this is basically filler content to hold us over, but with the release of Garuda not too far in the future and the return to Primal Weapon grinding hell, I do hope they decide to make the drop rates better.

It is of course up to you if you wish to force yourself to grind over and over and over for an item knowing that by the time you get it something else new will come along. You could opt to just do it for fun, and if you get something, yaay, if not, whatever ^.^. But to increase drop rates would mean that you will not allow for there to be rare items in this world. I do not think we should be in a position where we say: No, either I can get it easily, or the item does not exist.

Which I also realize is unlikely because it is the only endgame body equipment currently from dungeons that is actually useful.
OH WELL. Here's for hoping to get a rewarding system rather than a grindy one.

Well, with 3 primals, 3 dungeons, 3 coffer camps, that is a fair bit of content one can cycle through. If we were, for example, to choose to do a different adventure each day, we could be kept busy for 9 days before repeating the first one. This adds variety and removes the ho-drum-grindy feeling you may be self-inflicting.

They are not creating a grindy world for us. They are creating a lovely world full of wonderous things to see and do. It is sad if we decide to focus on only one thing, obvlivious to the rest, and then feel tired out due to focusing.

This world favours those who know how to plan, how to work-together, how to pace themselves.

[Matsume]

In a way it does, as there are pretty items in the chest. Plus, the adventure should be fun! Action is its own reward! ^.^


This is an opportunity for LS Farm/parties/etc to come up with distribution rules that ensure more fair exchange of items. Presently there is nothing preventing the party (or even LS at large) from comming up with fair distribution rules and enforcing them. (Especially since a lot of the equipment is not untradeable and can be traded much later).


It is of course up to you if you wish to force yourself to grind over and over and over for an item knowing that by the time you get it something else new will come along. You could opt to just do it for fun, and if you get something, yaay, if not, whatever ^.^. But to increase drop rates would mean that you will not allow for there to be rare items in this world. I do not think we should be in a position where we say: No, either I can get it easily, or the item does not exist.


Well, with 3 primals, 3 dungeons, 3 coffer camps, that is a fair bit of content one can cycle through. If we were, for example, to choose to do a different adventure each day, we could be kept busy for 9 days before repeating the first one. This adds variety and removes the ho-drum-grindy feeling you may be self-inflicting.

They are not creating a grindy world for us. They are creating a lovely world full of wonderous things to see and do. It is sad if we decide to focus on only one thing, obvlivious to the rest, and then feel tired out due to focusing.

This world favours those who know how to plan, how to work-together, how to pace themselves.

Gold Star +1

[Isaaru]

In a way it does, as there are pretty items in the chest. Plus, the adventure should be fun! Action is its own reward! ^.^


This is an opportunity for LS Farm/parties/etc to come up with distribution rules that ensure more fair exchange of items. Presently there is nothing preventing the party (or even LS at large) from comming up with fair distribution rules and enforcing them. (Especially since a lot of the equipment is not untradeable and can be traded much later).


It is of course up to you if you wish to force yourself to grind over and over and over for an item knowing that by the time you get it something else new will come along. You could opt to just do it for fun, and if you get something, yaay, if not, whatever ^.^. But to increase drop rates would mean that you will not allow for there to be rare items in this world. I do not think we should be in a position where we say: No, either I can get it easily, or the item does not exist.


Well, with 3 primals, 3 dungeons, 3 coffer camps, that is a fair bit of content one can cycle through. If we were, for example, to choose to do a different adventure each day, we could be kept busy for 9 days before repeating the first one. This adds variety and removes the ho-drum-grindy feeling you may be self-inflicting.

They are not creating a grindy world for us. They are creating a lovely world full of wonderous things to see and do. It is sad if we decide to focus on only one thing, obvlivious to the rest, and then feel tired out due to focusing.

This world favours those who know how to plan, how to work-together, how to pace themselves.

1. It's not fun doing it 40+ runs and not seeing a specific drop.

2. I wasn't talking about within the linkshell, I was talking about 1 linkshell will get a ton of items while another linkshell would get nothing.

3. If the content becomes exceptionally grindy there should be a token system that ensures you to get an item after grinding a certain amount of time, much like totems except each person should get maybe 1 per run then after obtaining 40 or more tokens you can opt to obtain a piece of DL that's not a body. And then you get tokens separate for doing speed runs that can be traded in for a body after a certain number are obtained.

4. There's only 2 primals. And the thing about that is most people actually doing the Speed Run farming for CC/AV now have already grinded out each of those content to no end. Which makes them not fun to do.

5. They are creating a grindy world, I know people who have done 100+ ifrits runs and still don't have all of the weapons. 40+ moogles runs an only have 1 drop. And 50+ speed runs in AV/CC and still no body drops. It's not that people are oblivious to other content, it's that people have already grinded that content until it makes them want to quit the game.

6. I'm not sure if you're implying here that I don't know how to plan, pace myself, or work together but I can ensure you that is definitely not the case for my linkshell and I.


My overall point is that people would not mind grindy content if each individual were ensured something after a certain amount of runs. For example a better primal token system, but incorporated into the dungeons. The drop rates can remain the same, but at least give us a token system that ensures an individual a drop after a certain number of runs.

An idea that I have, while still sticking to the lore is that you obtain a number of tokens per chest obtained in each run. After a massive amount of tokens are obtained then one can trade these tokens to a corpse of a member of the Darklight Crusade that spawns after defeating the final boss. Once you trade these tokens you have the option to choose from a specific set of items. These tokens can only apply to non-body pieces to keep the body pieces as exceptionally rare. Also since this token system rewards a group based on number of chests, those who are more skilled than others and can do 5 chest speed runs will obtain their rewards faster than those less skilled players.

If you think that this current world is what SE wants us to be experiencing for the success of the game you are 100% wrong. All of this content we are obtaining is just to hold us over until 2.0 comes out.

EDIT: Also it doesn't seem like you've even completed speed run yet. Please come back when you really know what the drop rates are like after doing at least 50 speed runs.

[Velhart]

1. It's not fun doing it 40+ runs and not seeing a specific drop.

2. I wasn't talking about within the linkshell, I was talking about 1 linkshell will get a ton of items while another linkshell would get nothing.

3. If the content becomes exceptionally grindy there should be a token system that ensures you to get an item after grinding a certain amount of time, much like totems except each person should get maybe 1 per run then after obtaining 40 or more tokens you can opt to obtain a piece of DL that's not a body. And then you get tokens separate for doing speed runs that can be traded in for a body after a certain number are obtained.

4. There's only 2 primals. And the thing about that is most people actually doing the Speed Run farming for CC/AV now have already grinded out each of those content to no end. Which makes them not fun to do.

5. They are creating a grindy world, I know people who have done 100+ ifrits runs and still don't have all of the weapons. 40+ moogles runs an only have 1 drop. And 50+ speed runs in AV/CC and still no body drops. It's not that people are oblivious to other content, it's that people have already grinded that content until it makes them want to quit the game.

6. I'm not sure if you're implying here that I don't know how to plan, pace myself, or work together but I can ensure you that is definitely not the case for my linkshell and I.


My overall point is that people would not mind grindy content if each individual were ensured something after a certain amount of runs. For example a better primal token system, but incorporated into the dungeons. The drop rates can remain the same, but at least give us a token system that ensures an individual a drop after a certain number of runs.

An idea that I have, while still sticking to the lore is that you obtain a number of tokens per chest obtained in each run. After a massive amount of tokens are obtained then one can trade these tokens to a corpse of a member of the Darklight Crusade that spawns after defeating the final boss. Once you trade these tokens you have the option to choose from a specific set of items. These tokens can only apply to non-body pieces to keep the body pieces as exceptionally rare. Also since this token system rewards a group based on number of chests, those who are more skilled than others and can do 5 chest speed runs will obtain their rewards faster than those less skilled players.

If you think that this current world is what SE wants us to be experiencing for the success of the game you are 100% wrong. All of this content we are obtaining is just to hold us over until 2.0 comes out.

EDIT: Also it doesn't seem like you've even completed speed run yet. Please come back when you really know what the drop rates are like after doing at least 50 speed runs.

This. Just make the dungeon more challenging without lazily adding in speed runs to add difficulty, and make the 5th chest hard enough to get that it should grant you a body piece reward and it would be better balanced out, without feeling like you are grinding so much.

[Asiaine]

1. It's not fun doing it 40+ runs and not seeing a specific drop.

Fortunately you do not need to do 40+ runs (in a row?). You can do a few, then go do something else. If you mean you did a total of 40+ runs (not at once) and got nothing, then I am very sorry for you ; ;. Even no totems? At least you got some xp! (200k or so?) and some gil! (200k more or so?). So there are some side-rewards as it is (I got Archer from 42 -> 47 on this, which makes me happy.... and the worst archer/bard in the world ^.^;

2. I wasn't talking about within the linkshell, I was talking about 1 linkshell will get a ton of items while another linkshell would get nothing.

Oh yes, this is sad. I know how it is. I used to belong to LS and look fondly at the 'other' LS that kept getting all the big HNMs and pretty drops. Oh well, life is not fair. C'est la view. Que sera sera. And if this continuously happens on EVERYTHING (i.e. the 'other' LSs get stuff on every single dungeon/primal why you guys do not), then there may be something special they are doing to increase their chance ^.^.

But yes, no one guaranteed fairness, such is the luck of randomization. Hopefully if you are nice, Karma will reward you in time ^.^

3. If the content becomes exceptionally grindy there should be a token system that ensures you to get an item after grinding a certain amount of time, much like totems except each person should get maybe 1 per run then after obtaining 40 or more tokens you can opt to obtain a piece of DL that's not a body. And then you get tokens separate for doing speed runs that can be traded in for a body after a certain number are obtained.

Fortunately the content is not exceptionally grindy. Obviously you can choose to grind it if you wish (you can grind anything!). But that is your option, not required... for example:

If you had to kill 100,000 mobs in order to progress the main story line (independent of levelling your character) that would be a grind.
If you had to kill Ifrit 1000 times in order to get the quest finished, that would be a grind.

The fact that you want to collect every little last item possible in this world, is a choice, not a forced upon grind. By the way, there is no real need to do this (at least for the vast majority of people).

4. There's only 2 primals. And the thing about that is most people actually doing the Speed Run farming for CC/AV now have already grinded out each of those content to no end. Which makes them not fun to do.

I was forward thinking to the nice pretty primal comming up soon. I am sure she will be more than happy to blow you a kiss ^.^;;;;. Nothing is fun to do if you do it too often. I love eating cookiees.. but after a 100 a day I stop enjoying it. You might like riding a chocobo, but if you do it non stop for 20 hours you might get bored (and sore).

5. They are creating a grindy world, I know people who have done 100+ ifrits runs and still don't have all of the weapons. 40+ moogles runs an only have 1 drop. And 50+ speed runs in AV/CC and still no body drops. It's not that people are oblivious to other content, it's that people have already grinded that content until it makes them want to quit the game.

They are creating a lovely world, where you have freedom of choice. You can choose to grind or not to grind. Let's look at your statement:
'all the weapons': There is no requirement to have all the weapons. If they want to go after all of them, that is their choice.
They want the Dark Light equipment. That is nice... but it is not meant to be really obtainable. If they watn to force themselves to repeat a million times to get something that is meant to be super-ultra-rare, that is their choice (freedom of choice). But there is no requirement to grind.

You are correct that there may not be additional things for them to do in this world. However, that does not mean that what little content there is should be made easier.

6. I'm not sure if you're implying here that I don't know how to plan, pace myself, or work together but I can ensure you that is definitely not the case for my linkshell and I.

That last comment was a general statement meant for peopel at large who suffer from some or all of those issues. An emphasis that this world really does benefit those with assets. It was not targetted at you specifically.

My overall point is that people would not mind grindy content if each individual were ensured something after a certain amount of runs. For example a better primal token system, but incorporated into the dungeons. The drop rates can remain the same, but at least give us a token system that ensures an individual a drop after a certain number of runs.

This then starts to feel like a 'pay' system... I will get paid 1 token each time I kill Ifrit, and then I can buy a weapon for 10 tokens.... it just feels so.. un-adventerous and more like work. It will also remove the lovely feeling:
YES! YES! I finally got that wonderful beautiful staff I was so wanting! YAAAAAYY!
and replace it with:
Okey, one more run and I can go buy the staff.

I can appreciate both sides of the argument, and feel that there is room for both options in this world.

An idea that I have, while still sticking to the lore is that you obtain a number of tokens per chest obtained in each run. After a massive amount of tokens are obtained then one can trade these tokens to a corpse of a member of the Darklight Crusade that spawns after defeating the final boss. Once you trade these tokens you have the option to choose from a specific set of items. These tokens can only apply to non-body pieces to keep the body pieces as exceptionally rare. Also since this token system rewards a group based on number of chests, those who are more skilled than others and can do 5 chest speed runs will obtain their rewards faster than those less skilled players.

One of the concerns I have with this approach is that it is not very FF-ish. Since this is a FF-themed world, some people have expectations of FF-ish behaviours. Also a lot of what you touch on is implemented via means of a reward for doing quests (without the option of reward, but still a reward).

Additionally, the rest (choice of reward) is done by means of Grand Company Quests (go kill NMs, or clear out dungeons, or do leves) and you can get seals which you then turn in for whatever item you want (which are also good).

So yes, these are good ideas. But I think there is room for both systems (one with a clear action->pay->reward scheme, and one with a action->random chance of reward scheme).

If you think that this current world is what SE wants us to be experiencing for the success of the game you are 100% wrong. All of this content we are obtaining is just to hold us over until 2.0 comes out.

I'm not sure I would say 100% wrong. There must be at least one thing in this world that SE thinks is good and wants us to enjoy? If every mechanic, every quest, every system, every feature now is 100% different from what it will be in 2.0, then I guess I would be wrong. But I've seen nothing that explicitly states that for everything.

EDIT: Also it doesn't seem like you've even completed speed run yet. Please come back when you really know what the drop rates are like after doing at least 50 speed runs.

Now I'm sad. I thought we were having a good meaningful discussion without having to resort to this ; ;.
I do feel I should be allowed to have an opinion without having to do 50 speed runs. Especially since doing speed runs is not high on my list, nor is killing my fun high on the list.

I suppose a discussion restricted to only the group of people who share the exact same behaviour would be interesting, but not much would come from it.

Regardless, the end result is:
No one is forced to grind, they are given the choice to do what they please.
No one is forced to get 7/7 and DL gear. They are given the choice to get this, or not.
If one chooses to do something so often it kills their own fun, the problem is not with the world, but their own choice.

[Raikki]

This then starts to feel like a 'pay' system... I will get paid 1 token each time I kill Ifrit, and then I can buy a weapon for 10 tokens.... it just feels so.. un-adventerous and more like work. It will also remove the lovely feeling:
YES! YES! I finally got that wonderful beautiful staff I was so wanting! YAAAAAYY!
and replace it with:
Okey, one more run and I can go buy the staff.

I really don't think you understand the situation in the slightest. A points system would remove the "lovely feeling":
"Well there goes 10 hours of my life for nothing... again."
and replace it with:
"I've almost got enough points for ______, I can't wait!"

Of course, you can spin your made up thoughts about content any way you want, but I think this version more accurately reflects reality.

[carraway]

I really don't think you understand the situation in the slightest. A points system would remove the "lovely feeling":
"Well there goes 10 hours of my life for nothing... again."
and replace it with:
"I've almost got enough points for ______, I can't wait!"

Of course, you can spin your made up thoughts about content any way you want, but I think this version more accurately reflects reality.

Yeah, basically. I would definitely appreciate a gradated reward system that weighs the top-end of accomplishment more heavily.

I did some fuzzy napkin math the other day. Considering how few pieces of DL we have versus how many 5-chest clears we've done, the drop rate is especially abysmal -- in the neighborhood now of 2.5%, counting total DL vs total chests. Working hard towards that end goal of getting X, Y, or Z piece of Darklight feels like digging through the lightning sand in the fire swamp.

[Sigmakan]

Yeah, basically. I would definitely appreciate a gradated reward system that weighs the top-end of accomplishment more heavily.

I did some fuzzy napkin math the other day. Considering how few pieces of DL we have versus how many 5-chest clears we've done, the drop rate is especially abysmal -- in the neighborhood now of 0.025%, counting total DL vs total chests. Working hard towards that end goal of getting X, Y, or Z piece of Darklight feels like digging through the lightning sand in the fire swamp.

0.025%? Shit, you guys have terrible luck, or thats a typo. Really hoping thats a typo. 0.025% means you've gotten 1 drop out of 4000 chests (or 800 5-chest runs).

[carraway]

0.025%? Shit, you guys have terrible luck, or thats a typo. Really hoping thats a typo. 0.025% means you've gotten 1 drop out of 4000 chests (or 800 5-chest runs).

Oh shit, haha. I did say it was fuzzy napkin math and I really meant it. Fixed to 2.5%.

[Meatdawg]

Yeah, basically. I would definitely appreciate a gradated reward system that weighs the top-end of accomplishment more heavily.

I did some fuzzy napkin math the other day. Considering how few pieces of DL we have versus how many 5-chest clears we've done, the drop rate is especially abysmal -- in the neighborhood now of 2.5%, counting total DL vs total chests. Working hard towards that end goal of getting X, Y, or Z piece of Darklight feels like digging through the lightning sand in the fire swamp.

We still haven't had a body piece drop for us yet. (No eyepatch either) Easily over 500 kills with the majority being speed runs. No one has completed a set of DL yet and most are still waiting for their 1st/2nd piece to drop.

Nobody wants to do AV/CC anymore because we just all view it as wasting our time.