Droprate unbalanced

[hynaku]

This is reminds me why I never raid. Last time ran the Nier raid took me over 10 runs to finally win a item from it for the week.

[testname]

Loot in savage is mild for static, so items never go to waste

In same time, if You are alone and going alone with strangers - everyone will press need even if they have item already -

( this is same issue as for Nier Outfit - Coffer )

[DrWho2010]

and how exactly is the game supposed to know you're in "BiS"? all it knows is whether you have a piece of gear in your inventory or not. the game doesn't decide what best in slot is, you do.

get a static if you want to distribute gear evenly. otherwise you're at the mercy of pugs and rng. if you don't like that too bad so sad.

[DrWho2010]

the game is here forever. eventually it gets unlocked. farm to your hearts content then. no one "needs" the gear right away.

[KageTokage]

Valid point I suppose, considering that the only new content that will be available to even use the 500 gear on is going to be easier then Savage anyways (Since we're not getting a new Ultimate in 5.3 and the 5.4 crafted gear/ EX trial weapon are going to replace it immediately).

I still feel like there's something they could do to make the whole system more satisfying for everyone, though.

[Krojack]

Just heard from some friends they are thinking about quitting FFXIV cuss they do so much end game its very stressing if they never get any of the drops. I can understand them because I'm what you call an unlucky person. I only get 1 good drop out of every 20 drops. Can't SE introduce a system that increases the chance of getting something good if you haven't gotten a certain item yet? So less chance for someone that already got it/something recently, compared to someone that hasn't gotten it/anything.

End game (Savage fights) have this... it's the books you get from a kill. Your weapon never drop? Buy it then using 8 books.

[Halivel]

Just heard from some friends they are thinking about quitting FFXIV cuss they do so much end game its very stressing if they never get any of the drops. I can understand them because I'm what you call an unlucky person. I only get 1 good drop out of every 20 drops. Can't SE introduce a system that increases the chance of getting something good if you haven't gotten a certain item yet? So less chance for someone that already got it/something recently, compared to someone that hasn't gotten it/anything.

Bad luck is adressed. Not everywhere, but in a vast majority of contect.

• All leveling dungeons give you an armor piece after last boss is dead. Not that long ago they added even weapons there, so you can collect the full set in 12 runs at max even if you were unlucky to the point of not getting a single piece from coffers.
  
  
• Savage raids give you books from each clear (1 per week if Savage is fresh, like E5S - E8S now). In case if you do your runs with random players or your static doesn't use lootmaster, you still will get a piece you need after enough books are collected. It will take quite a long time, yes, but it's there.
  
  
• Instead of giving a concrete armor items, Savages now drop coffers. Some can argue that it's a bad change, but it is, in fact, better. There are 17 battle jobs by now (without BLU), so recieving the weapon alone without a coffer from E4S/E8S or any other savage weapon floor is a gamble. Armor pieces are somewhat shared, but you still were need to actually drop them, and after that there was a contest as to who will outroll it if there are few players going for the same piece. On top of that, during weekly restriction period you could get only one item per run, so even if you were lucky enough to drop two needed pieces, you could get only one. With coffers you can get all of them unless you already have one locked in your inventory. Let's be honest: the chance of recieving hands coffer is higher that a chance of recieving hands for specific job, when there's a chance to not get any hands in loot at all.
  
  
• All Extreme Trials (with few exceptions) give tokens for clearing them, so even if you didn't drop your weapon - you can buy it after 10 Runs (5 for one certain EX Trial). Same goes for mounts starting from HW, though you would need to collect 99 tokens for them.
  
  
• There is an armor for tokens. While it hasn't anything to do with luck, it's still an easily obtainable and decent equipment, and only thing you need to do for it is clearing Daily Roulettes and Dungeons that give appropriate tokens upon completion.

Content that is based only on luck with coffers and Roll:

• Expansion max level dungeons (50/60/70/80)
  
  
• Alliance Raids
  
  
• Some ARR EX Trials

Content that is based only on luck with Roll (as parts in coffers are mainly the same from run to run):

• Normal (non-Savage) Raids

That said, while there are still some instances where you can only rely on luck and pray, SE did an actually decent work on how to ease the harshness of random. Maybe it could be expanded to Alliance Raids and Max level dungeons with some sort of tokens (let's say 15 runs for one piece, since this content is generally easier than EX Trials, so more runs required would make sense), but outside of this there are plenty of ways to get what you want even with being unlucky at Rolls.

[Penthea]

This game has multiple avenues for gear. There are loot drops, weekly token drops, weekly savage book tokens, tome gear and crafted gear. If we had only rng to rely on for gear OP may have a point, but this isn't the case.

If OP's buddies want to quit over loot rng then they should stay away from mmorpgs in general. Those games are riddled with rng and FFXIV has less of it than most without having any pay to win perks.

[Burmecia]

Ok. I like gear/stuff too, don't we all?

Begun enjoying raiding 100% more when I just quit caring if I get loot or not, if that makes sense. In static environment, I 1000% agree dps should just have priority on nice stuff. Next week goes that much more smoother. It's team effort. Hence, on current tier, on 6th week, I get my first coffer which is not even part of bis im aiming for. But I take my ilvl increases as I come across them.

I don't care about mounts and bells and whistles, so I cannot sympathise with "lost 100 mount rolls and now im frustrated >" angst. I help my friends and FC to farm this stuff though, because 1 less person to roll against is something they find helpful.

Toxicity incoming: About only thing I find annoying is when idiot or baddie gets the mount or whatever. Like, you're welcome for carry.

[PondHollow]

The average acquisition rate for pretty much anything in the game can be replicated or closely approximated with token-based systems. As is, for example, an E5S clear can drop 20 tokens worth of rewards - 8 tokens divided among the players, and 3 coffers loosely worth 4 tokens each (in practice slightly less due to lack of choice). So you can expect 20/[8 people x 4 current tokens per item]=5/8 of an item per run. As an alternative, discounting that to account for increased certainty, E5S clears could reward solely 1 token and no coffers with all the E5S loot costing 2 of that token. This would also resolve the awkward party and chest system without speeding up gear progression. E6S-E8S and Alliance raid and dungeon drops are similarly solvable too, although they may need to be significantly more complicated.

It's likely SE has looked at those probabilities but prefers to keep the implementation in 'interesting' ways - but as with any firm, we tend to overestimate the rationality of behavior or how much information is being looked at.

I suspect that MMORPGs retain randomness in part as an artifact of tabletop heritage, but it does seem to be diminishing over time.