Trends in content types and faux difficulty

[Gao]

If you do the same thing 20 times a day, day after day. I dont care what it is...you will get burnt out. If you can say "well I've done everything!". Here is my recommendation to you then
.

Yeah that's about anything really, even in real life. What I'm trying to get at is, this is going back to the OP, people shouldn't be largely rewarded based on just luck alone, but based on skill AND Luck. Sure keep the RNG so that content makes you keep going back to it but if its .10% chance of getting the item that's not content, that's just a dumb way to get people going back to it. It's not skills anymore if you know exactly what to do ._. I know I know, the whole luck and skill thing contradicts each other but yeah... if luck is mostly the only thing that brings you back to that said content that's just dumb <_<

[elreed]

i agree with the op. content should reward skill and dedication not luck, several times saw people doing ifrit for the first/second time and they got the weapon i wanted and i did those fights lots of times, i felt like it was a cheap shot from SE, while i was happy for them, sometimes they didnt even had the class/job leveled up, so yeah i would love to see more of the op. ideas implemented, no dumb downs just what is fair, lockouts doesnt seem to be a problem once we have more stuff to do, that will give to the dev team enough time to get quality content all the time.

In durandal you can see several linkshells spaming new content like crazy, in a week you can see several people with full sets or several weapons per character, so in a few words spam content is not the best option, no acomplishment just wait

[Velhart]

If a totem system was in CC/AV, this would be a whole different story.

[Kiara]

With each update I've become increasingly worried about the direction that FFXIV's content is headed in...

So please SE, I'm begging you, move away from the "spamable content + abysmally low drop rate" model for everything. IT IS NOT FUN.

Hi Sol,

Excellent post! I totally agree with your sentiments that we should have more Content that rewards Skill over Luck.

Though one thing that the current system has that *is* nice is the freedom to able to cater to any player's schedule. Having 3 Day Lockouts would make it pretty difficult for those not doing statics, or those not having the same free time as someone else. For example, if your friends / LS did AV on Tuesday with a 3 Day Lockout, but you weren't available on Saturday (next time it's open), but were on Sunday, if your friends / LS did it on Saturday, you'd be left out (and they couldn't even help you try again on Sunday) with the lockout timer.

Regarding Ifrit and Moogle (not to defend Yoshida-san), that whole crappy Loot System / Drop Rate was done blatantly as a Time Sink. Sadly, with the team split with 2.0 duties and keeping us busy / "happy" in the meantime, they only had time to do *1* Primal Fight for an entire Patch (~3 months).

So it's pretty obvious in SE's eyes, they were probably thinking, "How do we keep the players busy for 3 months with just 1 Boss Fight (Ifrit)?"

Answer: "Random Number Generator + Super Low Drop Rate + New Crappy FORCED Untradeable Loot In Your Inventory System"

Same for Moogle.

That being said, maybe we should offer up some ideas on what would reward more player skill (instead of RNG).

Here are some ideas to increase Drop Rate / Extra Chest(?) to reward Players for their efforts instead of mind-numbingly Low Drop Rates:

* Have Alternate (Harder) Paths / Side Bosses in the Dungeon that if you have time to beat / have the skill to beat, will reward the party with an Extra Chest / Better Drop Rate.

* No Deaths (or if that's too punitive, "Less Than ~3 Deaths" or something). Essentially a take on the classic Arcade "No Continues" idea. No one dying (even once) on a Raid would reward a Higher Drop Rate, or Extra Chest.

* Incapacitations. Perhaps parties taking the time to get Incapacitations on Bosses, would be rewarded with a Higher Drop Rate / Extra Chest? This would matter more on Bosses that had Dangerous Directional Attacks (for example, Chimera with its Poison Back Attack), so that the party has to take the added Risk to avoid / survive Rear Attacks, and Incapacitate a Boss (all Limbs?) to get an Extra Chest / Higher Drop Rate.

* Killing All "Boss Adds / Helpers" - Perhaps on some Boss Fights, there are unique Adds (like the Chirada / Suparna idea, but maybe they were Optional). Parties that took the time (and risk) to go out and destroy all the Boss Helpers / Adds (where they were optional) could reward with an Extra Chest / Higher Drop Rate.

I'm sure fellow players can come up with many more ideas.

But the bottom line is that I would rather repeat content FAR LESS, but have it be more challenging with HIGHER DROP RATES, than spam repeat content hundreds of times and just have it be based on Luck.

If you think about it, even the big "Crafting-based System" - Materia - is based on the same crappy Luck / Random Number Generator System we see in Dungeons / Primals. I've seen someone get lucky and get a Double Meld on their first try (and they only have 1 Craft leveled), and I've had friends with All Crafts Leveled to Max blow up ~15 Double Melds in a Row before getting a success.

Just like a friend who got their desired Ifrit's Harpoon on the *1st* Ifrit Fight (with us), vs. myself, who has over 250 Wins on Ifrit and still have no Harpoon.

It's all just rolling the dice. Yoshi P seems to rather favor everyone "playing the Lottery" (random number generator) with an equally abysmal chance to roll to win, vs. rewarding SKILL.

Yoshida-san, I think many people would rather earn their drops and be rewarded for their Skill / Effort, instead of suffering the Random Number Generator / Crappy Drop Rates System we have now.

Sure people may finish getting their Drops sooner (before a New Patch comes out), but that's OK! Let the players *choose* HOW they want to spend their extra time.

They could actually (gasp), repeat the content (if they had to spam it far less) for their Friends / LS members / Strangers, or decide to build up Crafts / work on Triple, Quad Materia Melding, etc.

But ultimately, let them decide. Right now, many people are burning out on this trend, and the Hamlet Defense / Drop Rate you have now for AF Weapons Quest and Militia Gear is only continuing this horrible trend.

Thanks.

[Jinrya-Geki]

If there's anything just as bad as horrible drop rates. It's the fact that you can waste all that time on crappy items too.

[Phen]

Lockouts aren't the answer there has to be something else. At least not the 24+ ones. Enough to make it unfeasible to spam but short enough to prevent "id like to play this game and do that dungeon I like but I actually cant for 36 more hours." Also that obviously applies to wins only or otherwise people will never take any chances or experiment.

[Duelle]

Lockouts aren't the answer there has to be something else. At least not the 24+ ones. Enough to make it unfeasible to spam but short enough to prevent "id like to play this game and do that dungeon I like but I actually cant for 36 more hours." Also that obviously applies to wins only or otherwise people will never take any chances or experiment.

It's a matter of the method applied.

WoW Dungeons
- Dedicated server for instances
- No time limit
- guaranteed level-appropriate drops
- Regular dungeons can be "reset" a certain number of times for spammage
- Heroic dungeons reset every 24 hours
- Numerous quest objectives tie into things that go on in the dungeons (pre-Cataclysm. I'll be the first to say the changes to dungeon-related quests in Cata was pretty damn terrible)
- (Post-TBC) Secondary loot system that encouraged repeating dungeons (Badges in 2.0 and 3.0, Justice/Valor Points in 4.0)

FFXIV Dungeons
- Time limit
- Non-guaranteed drops
- Some GC objectives are loosely tied to the dungeons in the form of repeatable quests
- "Speed Runs" implemented as an attempt to create difficulty
- Apple

XIV still has room for improvement.

[Phen]

It's a matter of the method applied.

WoW Dungeons
- Dedicated server for instances
- No time limit
- guaranteed level-appropriate drops
- Regular dungeons can be "reset" a certain number of times for spammage
- Heroic dungeons reset every 24 hours
- Numerous quest objectives tie into things that go on in the dungeons (pre-Cataclysm. I'll be the first to say the changes to dungeon-related quests in Cata was pretty damn terrible)
- (Post-TBC) Secondary loot system that encouraged repeating dungeons (Badges in 2.0 and 3.0, Justice/Valor Points in 4.0)

FFXIV Dungeons
- Time limit
- Non-guaranteed drops
- Some GC objectives are loosely tied to the dungeons in the form of repeatable quests
- "Speed Runs" implemented as an attempt to create difficulty
- Apple

XIV still has room for improvement.

Well obviously, and theres certainly ways WoW's raids were flawed too. My brief foray ran me into some which you see already here: do that quest/objective/etc some other time we dont have time (even on something like a non-batraal darkhold). Alot of guarenteed stuff is vendor trash- etc etc etc.

There are things to learn there too though dont get me wrong.

[Duelle]

Well obviously, and theres certainly ways WoW's raids were flawed too.

Definitely. Pre-4.0 you could "steal" another guild's raid ID by running with them, then entering the instance with your own group, clearing it while the guys that started the raid are offline so that by the time they log on to finish the raid, their ID had already killed all bosses so they had to wait until the next reset. There recently was a bit of a contreoversy because someone stole a server first kill for Madness of Deathwing by using the personal raid ID system implemented with 4.0. No system is perfect, really.

My brief foray ran me into some which you see already here: do that quest/objective/etc some other time we dont have time

This kinda depends. If it was really out of the way (like killing the Chief Architect guy in Blackrock Depths when your group was there to kill the Emperor on the opposite side of the dungeon), I can understand.

Alot of guarenteed stuff is vendor trash- etc etc etc.

This is more a result of the lack of a way to shard stuff that drops into sellable items. At least in WoW you could get enchanting materials from drops no one wanted, provided you had an enchanter in your group.

You could implement something similar. Maybe have the group leader receive a "Volatile Materia Assimilator" upon entering a dungeon, which can be used to break down any drops no one wants/needs to materia or dark matter or something. The assimilator would "break" after exiting the dungeon, forcing you to get a new one upon re-entry.

[TerahValeth]

but please extend it some other way (ie: 1-3 day lockouts, or whatever) that doesn't just burn everyone out.

Lockouts aren't the answer there has to be something else. At least not the 24+ ones. Enough to make it unfeasible to spam but short enough to prevent "id like to play this game and do that dungeon I like but I actually cant for 36 more hours." Also that obviously applies to wins only or otherwise people will never take any chances or experiment.

"Some other way, or whatever." I'm being purposely vague. It is not helpful to the game developers for us to tell them HOW to fix things in the game, only THAT it needs fixing. So I'm not telling them what solution to use, they are the game developers, we are the consumers. It is our job to enjoy the game; their's to ensure we have the greatest chance to do so.