Trends in content types and faux difficulty

[Cerivaneli]

I must agree with OP. SE has been working really well since patch 1.21 in adding different types of content, different types of fights, but I personnally dislike the amount of random FFXIV has in just about every aspect of the game.

It's fine to have a lot of random when you're creating materias and/ or doing melds, or when you go harvest, but having it for "endgame" content is just really frustrating. It's just luck that is being rewarded, not effort or skill. The drop rates are so low that even after 100+ speed runs, we only saw one single darklight body drop. Really hard not to get the feeling that spamming CC and AV is just a waste of time, as fun as they may have been at the start.

Some may argue that it's to leave a door open to casual players, but as from the experience in our LS, the casual players are the first to say they don't want to waste their time doing events with so low drop rates. They don't have the time to spam an event hundreds of time with no guaranty to ever even get anything at all.

SE needs to find a way to give sense to this spamming of events in some way, to give the players a feeling of reward for their efforts. If you're lucky, you get a drop, if not you at least get some sort of reward like company points or currencies to exchange for items (just pls something else than an achievement giving you 10 points for getting 100 million gil from coffers in dungeons @.@)

[Lux_Rayna]

What is all this talk about effort and skill? What a joke. When you have the majority of the playerbase exploiting primals, exploiting safe zones with all blm parties, class stacking for easy wins due to poor boss mechanics, you have no business talking about rewarding effort and skill. On the contrary, the playerbase avoids effort and skill like the plague. Theyd rather faceroll blm parties than die for hours strategizing. Theyd rather abuse poor mechanics than try to beat a fight as intended. What a joke.

The only thing im reading is "give me loot". Its what it always boils down to. You cannot pretend there is a great amount of skill and effort involved. Therr is if you take up the challenge but a majority dont. Frankly that kind of cheesy and abusive gameplay shouldn't be rewarded with easy loot. Jus sayin.

[Sol_Aureus]

What is all this talk about effort and skill? What a joke. When you have the majority of the playerbase exploiting primals, exploiting safe zones with all blm parties, class stacking for easy wins due to poor boss mechanics, you have no business talking about rewarding effort and skill. On the contrary, the playerbase avoids effort and skill like the plague. Theyd rather faceroll blm parties than die for hours strategizing. Theyd rather abuse poor mechanics than try to beat a fight as intended. What a joke.

The only thing im reading is "give me loot". Its what it always boils down to. You cannot pretend there is a great amount of skill and effort involved. Therr is if you take up the challenge but a majority dont. Frankly that kind of cheesy and abusive gameplay shouldn't be rewarded with easy loot. Jus sayin.

This thread has nothing to do with people class stacking, and it's not a cry for "give me loot." I simply don't want spamable content with abysmally low drop rates, I want lockouts with higher drop rates. I also don't want content types and loot systems that rely mostly on luck as opposed to the effort and skill it took to clear the content. That should be where the difficulty in getting the item is: clearing the content. The difficulty should not be in hoping that the random number generator decides that the 86th time's the charm and drops the item you want.

Stop trying to derail this thread with another subject.

[Lux_Rayna]

This thread has nothing to do with people class stacking, and it's not a cry for "give me loot." I simply don't want spamable content with abysmally low drop rates, I want lockouts with higher drop rates. I also don't want content types and loot systems that rely mostly on luck as opposed to the effort and skill it took to clear the content. That should be where the difficulty in getting the item is: clearing the content. The difficulty should not be in hoping that the random number generator decides that the 86th time's the charm and drops the item you want.

Stop trying to derail this thread with another subject.

Of course its about loot. No one is forcing anyone to spam content, if you want it to remain fresh then limit how much you do it. The only reason anyone spams it is because they want the loot, and the loot does not drop easily. And they will keep spamming it until they get loot, which can take god knows how many runs, and so they necessarily end up tired, bored, and frustrated. As you said yourself in the OP, you want effort and skill to be rewarded, presumably with loot. So yes, loot is at the heart of the discussion. You want loot, for if you didnt want loot this thread would not exist at all. You wouldn't care. Your suggestion for non-spammable content is a necessary compromise for increasing loot drop rates...that way you are not asking something for nothing. The entire thread, as well as the OP, pivots around this whole "crappy drop rate" thing. I daresay it is about "give me loot". To be fair, you tried to present a compromise, but at the end of the day what you're really after is some form of reward, ie loot. In your case, you'd rather run a dungeon every few days and have a high chance of loot, than spam it to death and have a low chance of loot. Course you dont have to spam it to death, making this thread rather irrelevant, but you will precisely because its more about the reward and not the content.

Anyway, I call it as a see it. Its not a thread derailment at all, especially when you were talking about rewarding effort and skill, rather than a luck-based system. If that is not a veiled cry for loot, then nothing is. And since you were addressing effort and skill as a basis for these proposed changes, I had to call you out on that. The argument is flawed precisely because effort and skill is not the name of the game at all. Now if these dungeons were challenging, and took a long time to do successfully, I could definitely agree with you. If content wasnt exploited at every turn, and ppl didnt abuse broken mechanics as common community practice, I could definitely agree with you. As it stands, you really just want an easier time of collecting loot. At least admit it. If you think I can't prove it I definitely can. If this was about spammable content, then change lockout period without significantly altering the drop rates. There. Now you can't spam it and won't get bored. Owait you dont want it that way? Why not? Ah yes, dat loot.

[Sol_Aureus]

Of course its about loot. No one is forcing anyone to spam content, if you want it to remain fresh then limit how much you do it. The only reason anyone spams it is because they want the loot, and the loot does not drop easily. And they will keep spamming it until they get loot, which can take god knows how many runs, and so they necessarily end up tired, bored, and frustrated. As you said yourself in the OP, you want effort and skill to be rewarded, presumably with loot. So yes, loot is at the heart of the discussion. You want loot, for if you didnt want loot this thread would not exist at all. You wouldn't care. Your suggestion for non-spammable content is a necessary compromise for increasing loot drop rates...that way you are not asking something for nothing. The entire thread, as well as the OP, pivots around this whole "crappy drop rate" thing. I daresay it is about "give me loot". To be fair, you tried to present a compromise, but at the end of the day what you're really after is some form of reward, ie loot. In your case, you'd rather run a dungeon every few days and have a high chance of loot, than spam it to death and have a low chance of loot. Course you dont have to spam it to death, making this thread rather irrelevant, but you will precisely because its more about the reward and not the content.

Anyway, I call it as a see it. Its not a thread derailment at all, especially when you were talking about rewarding effort and skill, rather than a luck-based system. If that is not a veiled cry for loot, then nothing is. And since you were addressing effort and skill as a basis for these proposed changes, I had to call you out on that. The argument is flawed precisely because effort and skill is not the name of the game at all. Now if these dungeons were challenging, and took a long time to do successfully, I could definitely agree with you. If content wasnt exploited at every turn, and ppl didnt abuse broken mechanics as common community practice, I could definitely agree with you. As it stands, you really just want an easier time of collecting loot. At least admit it. If you think I can't prove it I definitely can. If this was about spammable content, then change lockout period without significantly altering the drop rates. There. Now you can't spam it and won't get bored. Owait you dont want it that way? Why not? Ah yes, dat loot.

Yes, loot is a part of the discussion, but not my driving force behind posting this. I'm not butthurt because I don't have full sets of everything forever and that loot isn't handed to me. I don't want loot handed to me. I want to work for it. But there's the key: I want to work for it and be rewarded for effort. It's incredibly frustrating when my linkshell has run AV/CC speed runs well over 200 times and we have seen a grand total of 0 bodies drop, yet some random pickup group gets it on their 3rd try. When I see a piece of gear that's hard to get, I want to think to myself "damn, that guy must have put in a lot of time doing vale for that!" as opposed to "random person got lucky with a PUG." Most of the darklight gear doesn't have much of an impact to me because it's mostly based upon luck.

I don't want an easier time of collecting loot. I really, really don't. The last thing I want is for everything to be handed to the players. I want challenge and difficulty, and to be rewarded for overcoming said challenge. I want the rewards to be mostly based upon overcoming that challenge with a bit of luck-based factors thrown in, not for the rewards to be mostly dependent upon mindlessly running a dungeon that has become super stale because you have to run it hundreds of times beating yourself against the random number generator, which there is very little challenge associated with.

And actually, if it's between having the lockout period and the drop rates kept the same or keeping it spamable and keeping the drop rates the same, I'd much rather have the lockout period. At least that way I can enjoy the dungeon and it doesn't become super stale.

But the reason for my wanting there to be an increase in the drop rates is that right now they're so abysmally low that if there WERE a lockout, it's still mostly based upon luck. By increasing the drop rates and adding a lockout timer, it makes it so the dungeons don't get stale quickly and that your group can see viable progress every win. Maybe one piece of darklight every time you win on average. That's not a ridiculously fast rate of getting Darklight, but it's high enough of a drop rate that players don't get discouraged that running the dungeons is pointless because it's all random.

[Lux_Rayna]

Yes, loot is a part of the discussion, but not my driving force behind posting this. I'm not butthurt because I don't have full sets of everything forever and that loot isn't handed to me. I don't want loot handed to me. I want to work for it. But there's the key: I want to work for it and be rewarded for effort. It's incredibly frustrating when my linkshell has run AV/CC speed runs well over 200 times and we have seen a grand total of 0 bodies drop, yet some random pickup group gets it on their 3rd try. When I see a piece of gear that's hard to get, I want to think to myself "damn, that guy must have put in a lot of time doing vale for that!" as opposed to "random person got lucky with a PUG." Most of the darklight gear doesn't have much of an impact to me because it's mostly based upon luck.

I don't want an easier time of collecting loot. I really, really don't. The last thing I want is for everything to be handed to the players. I want challenge and difficulty, and to be rewarded for overcoming said challenge. I want the rewards to be mostly based upon overcoming that challenge with a bit of luck-based factors thrown in, not for the rewards to be mostly dependent upon mindlessly running a dungeon that has become super stale because you have to run it hundreds of times beating yourself against the random number generator, which there is very little challenge associated with.

And actually, if it's between having the lockout period and the drop rates kept the same or keeping it spamable and keeping the drop rates the same, I'd much rather have the lockout period. At least that way I can enjoy the dungeon and it doesn't become super stale.

But the reason for my wanting there to be an increase in the drop rates is that right now they're so abysmally low that if there WERE a lockout, it's still mostly based upon luck. By increasing the drop rates and adding a lockout timer, it makes it so the dungeons don't get stale quickly and that your group can see viable progress every win. Maybe one piece of darklight every time you win on average. That's not a ridiculously fast rate of getting Darklight, but it's high enough of a drop rate that players don't get discouraged that running the dungeons is pointless because it's all random.

So what you want is dungeons that reward skill over luck. IN that case, you're asking for longer and more difficult dungeons in exchange for higher drop rates?

[TerahValeth]

What is all this talk about effort and skill? What a joke. When you have the majority of the playerbase exploiting primals, exploiting safe zones with all blm parties, class stacking for easy wins due to poor boss mechanics, you have no business talking about rewarding effort and skill. On the contrary, the playerbase avoids effort and skill like the plague. Theyd rather faceroll blm parties than die for hours strategizing. Theyd rather abuse poor mechanics than try to beat a fight as intended. What a joke.

The only thing im reading is "give me loot". Its what it always boils down to. You cannot pretend there is a great amount of skill and effort involved. Therr is if you take up the challenge but a majority dont. Frankly that kind of cheesy and abusive gameplay shouldn't be rewarded with easy loot. Jus sayin.

And so we should punish players that don't abuse exploits and/or class stacking since it will likely take them longer to complete the content the first time, cause once they finally do, the boss at the end of the dungeon isn't Miser's Mistress, it's the RNG, and there is NO strategy for beating him. My ls (the one Sol is in) was first on our server to clear Aurum Vale, we never stacked MNKs, our first 5 chest speedrun was with PLD WAR MNK DRG BRD WHM WHM BLM (every job is represented at least once). But when we complete content as it was intended 400+ times (w/ 300+ speedruns), the content goes stale really fast, I enjoyed the dungeon the first 200 times, but after that I felt betrayed. I personally don't have a SINGLE piece of DL (and I showed up for 99% of our runs - it was not out of lack of attendance), our ls hasn't seen a SINGLE body drop, not once. So yes, we want content that rewards skill rather than luck, that doesn't need to be beaten to death to see results. With that system in place, who can blame people for wanting to take the easy way out.

I'm holding my breath till 2.0 in the hopes that these are TEMPORARY (though admittedly poor) measures to prolong content, and not the ultimate direction Yoshi has in mind for FFXIV. Cause if this IS the course he has set for us post 2.0, there won't be anything keeping me here, and I really really WANT to like this game, but when almost EVERYTHING needs to be beaten into the ground in order to obtain said loot, and exploiters and PUGs that can clear the content w/ half as much effort by stacking particular classes, it makes it really hard for me to be motivated to "roll the dice" when every side of the die I'm rolling has Darkmatter etched on the side of it.

[Lux_Rayna]

And so we should punish players that don't abuse exploits and/or class stacking since it will likely take them longer to complete the content the first time, cause once they finally do, the boss at the end of the dungeon isn't Miser's Mistress, it's the RNG, and there is NO strategy for beating him. My ls (the one Sol is in) was first on our server to clear Aurum Vale, we never stacked MNKs, our first 5 chest speedrun was with PLD WAR MNK DRG BRD WHM WHM BLM (every job is represented at least once). But when we complete content as it was intended 400+ times (w/ 300+ speedruns), the content goes stale really fast, I enjoyed the dungeon the first 200 times, but after that I felt betrayed. I personally don't have a SINGLE piece of DL (and I showed up for 99% of our runs - it was not out of lack of attendance), our ls hasn't seen a SINGLE body drop, not once. So yes, we want content that rewards skill rather than luck, that doesn't need to be beaten to death to see results. With that system in place, who can blame people for wanting to take the easy way out.

I really dont consider it a punishment because I don't punish myself into running something hundreds of times. You know what I did to get my Ifrit weapons? Did Ifrit about 2-5 times a day, depending on how fun the party was. Within 3 days (so 15 runs max) I had the 2 weapons I wanted, an ifrit weapon i didnt want, and a handful of totems. Luck? Absolutely. Was it fun? Absolutely. Punishing? Absolutely not. The fault lies with players approaching luck-based systems the wrong way. By wrong I, of course, mean the most punishing, masochistic, and ineffective way possible. Trust me when I say, you *never* want to prove low odds true. Ever. And low odds will prove true the more attempts you make over a given amount of time. If you spread em out, you might be able to beat the odds with much less pain. If you run it a few times and get nothin, just stop for the day. It may sound superstitious but trust me when i say its not worth it. In any game of odds, luck can be very streaky. Don't ask me why, but its true. If you're on a hot streak, you can't miss. If you're on a bad streak, you will fail no matter how many times you try. This happens in real life and in rng. Why it happens no one will ever know. Is there a lady luck? Who the hell knows. All I know is you have to set limits on things or you will kill yourself.

I do believe that there needs to be variety though. Like I said before, the whole luck thing isnt for everyone. It requires a lot of patience, discipline, and of course luck. Its mental torture for some folks so there needs to be guaranteed reward based content as well. For whatever reason SE hasn't gotten around to it, probably due to having trouble balancing content difficulty. I'm all for other options though, but the luck thing is only punishing if ppl do it wrong. As it stands, just about everyone does it wrong except for the few who understand how to do it right.

[TerahValeth]

I really dont consider it a punishment because I don't punish myself into running something hundreds of times. You know what I did to get my Ifrit weapons? Did Ifrit about 2-5 times a day, depending on how fun the party was. Within 3 days (so 15 runs max) I had the 2 weapons I wanted, an ifrit weapon i didnt want, and a handful of totems. Luck? Absolutely. Was it fun? Absolutely. Punishing? Absolutely not. The fault lies with players approaching luck-based systems the wrong way. By wrong I, of course, mean the most punishing, masochistic, and ineffective way possible...

For starters, let me make it clear that I have no problem w/ the Primals, the drop rate isn't great, but it's decent enough, couple that w/ the "totem system" and you have a formula that at least takes skill into account. My problem lies w/ content like Aurum, Cutters, and the Hamlets (the trend that the game seems to be evolving towards) where the drop rate is so terribly low that skill takes a back seat to factors like "can I run the dungeon 40+ hours a week". Our ls really only has event nights 2-3 times a week, we only do the dungeon 5-6 times in an event day. The problem is that THAT level of devotion to the task at hand DOESN'T increase the odds, and SKILL doesn't increase the odds. What motivation does anyone have to try to be the best they can be at their class/job if you can half-ass it and get lucky in a pickup party? I just want it so luck isn't the ONLY factor (or even the primary factor) I'm not saying it should be eliminated by any means, but it should take a back seat to skill, not the other way around.

Edit: oh yeah, and let's not forget Stronghold bosses, where you get a really low percentage drop rate on the key, which then has (presumably) a 1/8 chance to drop to you, and then you get to bang your head against the RNG for the chest. Let's be generous and say the key drop and chest have a 10% chance each of dropping (assuming anything from chest other than crap), that's 1/10 chance for key, times 1/8 chance you get the key over the other players, and 1/10 that the chest drops the desired item, that gives you a 0.125% chance every time the boss is killed that you'll get the item you're going after (and I'm pretty sure the drop rates are lower than 10%). This is SE being lazy to prolong content, where the content should stand on it's own, it should take a long time to get through the content because it's challenging.

[Lux_Rayna]

For starters, let me make it clear that I have no problem w/ the Primals, the drop rate isn't great, but it's decent enough, couple that w/ the "totem system" and you have a formula that at least takes skill into account. My problem lies w/ content like Aurum, Cutters, and the Hamlets (the trend that the game seems to be evolving towards) where the drop rate is so terribly low that skill takes a back seat to factors like "can I run the dungeon 40+ hours a week". Our ls really only has event nights 2-3 times a week, we only do the dungeon 5-6 times in an event day. The problem is that THAT level of devotion to the task at hand DOESN'T increase the odds, and SKILL doesn't increase the odds. What motivation does anyone have to try to be the best they can be at their class/job if you can half-ass it and get lucky in a pickup party? I just want it so luck isn't the ONLY factor (or even the primary factor) I'm not saying it should be eliminated by any means, but it should take a back seat to skill, not the other way around.

Well there should be varied dungeon content. Let me open by saying that much. It really shouldn't all be luck-based, so hopefully they'll add different dungeons with different drop systems. That being said, I find AV/CC fine. Hamlets im not sure about because of all the effort required, but time will tell with that.

The problem is people feel entitled to the best gear possible. At all times. Because they feel entitled, they figure that with enough effort they should be rewarded with it. They dont want to see "the lucky few," they want equality. This gaming philosophy, or psychology if you prefer, pivots around the whole issue of equal rewards for equal effort. Everyone wants to be the best if they try hard enough. This makes me gag, but different strokes for different folks. I get it. Though life doesnt work that way, I imagine ppl play games so they can escape that cruel reality. Either way, this is the way players think. As a result, whenever the next tier gear comes out, everyone feels they have to have it, and should get it. No matter how low the drop rate is, they will spam it 40 hours a week, and kill themselves pursuing crap they have no control over. Idc how many times you run it, it doesn't increase your odds at all. 3% is 3% no matter how you slice it, and more effort doesn't necessarily get you there any faster. It might, but it might not. At the end of the day its smarter to just let luck go where it goes and put all that wasted energy into other endeavors that could help you meet your goal of being the best. There are plenty of options, from melds to primals to even GC gear these days. Even if it *must* be Darklight due to some weird obsession, you don't need a full set within a week. That gear will be some of the best for months. There's no rush, take it slow.

Dungeons dont need to be run 40 hours a week, that may not even help you get it any faster at all. Even if it *did* help you, there's no one to say it would significantly help you. More likely than not, it'll hurt you, because over the long run 97% of your time will be absolutely wasted. Players are just approaching this the wrooooong way. If you come correct, you'll find its really not bad at all. More isn't always better, especially when it comes to crazy low odds. A smart gambling man sets his limits, and stops once he reaches them. He knows that the more he plays the odds, the more he'll lose. The idea is to play them to a certain limit, and then quit. When you get on a hot streak, ride the hot streak, then quit. If you're on a losing streak, ride it to your predefined limit, then quit. Whether you do it 10 times a day, or 3000 times a day, your odds are still the same. No need to kill yourself for some illusion of getting closer to that lucky drop. Every outcome is independent, is completely unaffected by the last outcome (altho streaks make this seem like crap), so take it slow.

Really think about it. If you have a 97% chance to lose would you really wanna try your hand at that 40 hours a week? Hell no. Do a couple runs at a time and hope luck falls your way. Use all your other time to pursue other goals...like HQ's or even double melds/triple melds...which have much higher odds than darklight btw. Don't put the darklight on a pedestal!