Why IS the savage lockout system the way it is?

[Colt47]

It's both a stretch of content aswell as burnout protection. Having to clear it multiple times in the first place to get all your gear forces you to be a bit more consistent than just getting in one lucky clear if the fight design doesnt already enforce that.

Again, this is not about asking them to get rid of lockouts on savage content, this is asking them to talk about why they have the system the way it is in an official capacity so that feedback can be appropriately directed. There are ways that the system could be designed better so that it doesn't cause social issues between players while still meeting the goals of timed gate keeping. At least that is the running opinion of people who have been playing when going back through articles and discussions.

[Packetdancer]

That and no one really is asking them to get rid of weekly lockouts on savage. More so the design of how the lockout works is suspect and it would help a lot of they did officially talk about the lockout system for savage and why it is the way it is.

I can't speak for SQEX, but as a former game dev I can absolutely tell you why I would implement the lockout this way. (Even if, as a player, I find the lockout mechanics annoying.)

Players in general will try to optimize content, and FFXIV players in particular will do this to an extreme degree.

Let's say the lockout was only a personal lockout: when you clear for the week, you can't roll on loot after that point, but it doesn't affect the group. So you could have seven people who've already cleared for the week, and the eighth would still get to roll on two chests. (In fact, since the other seven already cleared for the week, that eighth just gets everything in both chests.)

Now what you have is a scenario where a static could have each have two characters: one 'real' one, one 'throwaway' alt.

The party groups up with seven 'throwaway' alts and one player's real alt. They clear the first fight of the tier... and the seven throwaway alts pass, while the 'real' alt takes all the loot. Now the real alt logs out, that player swaps to their throwaway, and another player switches off their throwaway to their real alt. Party clears the first fight again -- the throwaways all pass (six of them have to anyway, since they cleared once), and the 'real' alt takes all the loot. That person logs out and swaps back to their throwaway, another swaps to their real alt, the group clears the first fight of the tier...

In essence, a determined group could have farmed nearly all their savage gear within a week or two that way. And if you think people wouldn't do that... you would be surprised. :|

Moreover, you could now have folks be like "we'll sell you a clear and all the loot" because it doesn't matter how many times they've cleared that week; the person they're selling the run to can still get both chests. (Not that people don't sell loot via clear now, mind you -- lord knows we see those advertisements in PF periodically as it is -- but at least they can only do it once a week under the current system.)

[ArchlordPie]

I can't speak for SQEX, but as a former game dev I can absolutely tell you why I would implement the lockout this way. (Even if, as a player, I find the lockout mechanics annoying.)

Players in general will try to optimize content, and FFXIV players in particular will do this to an extreme degree.

Let's say the lockout was only a personal lockout: when you clear for the week, you can't roll on loot after that point, but it doesn't affect the group. So you could have seven people who've already cleared for the week, and the eighth would still get to roll on two chests. (In fact, since the other seven already cleared for the week, that eighth just gets everything in both chests.)

Now what you have is a scenario where a static could have each have two characters: one 'real' one, one 'throwaway' alt.

The party groups up with seven 'throwaway' alts and one player's real alt. They clear the first fight of the tier... and the seven throwaway alts pass, while the 'real' alt takes all the loot. Now the real alt logs out, that player swaps to their throwaway, and another player switches off their throwaway to their real alt. Party clears the first fight again -- the throwaways all pass (six of them have to anyway, since they cleared once), and the 'real' alt takes all the loot. That person logs out and swaps back to their throwaway, another swaps to their real alt, the group clears the first fight of the tier...

In essence, a determined group could have farmed nearly all their savage gear within a week or two that way. And if you think people wouldn't do that... you would be surprised. :|

Moreover, you could now have folks be like "we'll sell you a clear and all the loot" because it doesn't matter how many times they've cleared that week; the person they're selling the run to can still get both chests. (Not that people don't sell loot via clear now, mind you -- lord knows we see those advertisements in PF periodically as it is -- but at least they can only do it once a week under the current system.)

This guy gets it.

As much as it sucks, the current system is incredibly effective at deterring split raids and paid carries and that sort of thing. The last thing the high-end community needs is to have to roll a second character, MSQ it, level it, gear it, and start clearing fights 8 times a week in order to be "optimal".

[Packetdancer]

As much as it sucks, the current system is incredibly effective at deterring split raids and paid carries and that sort of thing. The last thing the high-end community needs is to have to roll a second character, MSQ it, level it, gear it, and start clearing fights 8 times a week in order to be "optimal".

*vibrates as she tries to keep from screaming internally*

That said, if I could change any one thing about this lockout system, I would make it so that the chest limitation does not kick in until two people in the party have cleared that week. It would still avoid the gear-cheesing, but it would get rid of the massive headache when you need to find a sub for a static member on a given raid night; I feel like that would do away with like... 70% of my personal annoyance with the lockout system as currently implemented.

(The remaining 30% of my annoyance with the system, I recognize there's no way to eliminate my annoyance without also introducing the very "cheese the gear grind" scenario I mentioned before.)

[Alaray]

I can't speak for SQEX, but as a former game dev I can absolutely tell you why I would implement the lockout this way. (Even if, as a player, I find the lockout mechanics annoying.)

Players in general will try to optimize content, and FFXIV players in particular will do this to an extreme degree.

Let's say the lockout was only a personal lockout: when you clear for the week, you can't roll on loot after that point, but it doesn't affect the group. So you could have seven people who've already cleared for the week, and the eighth would still get to roll on two chests. (In fact, since the other seven already cleared for the week, that eighth just gets everything in both chests.)

Now what you have is a scenario where a static could have each have two characters: one 'real' one, one 'throwaway' alt.

The party groups up with seven 'throwaway' alts and one player's real alt. They clear the first fight of the tier... and the seven throwaway alts pass, while the 'real' alt takes all the loot. Now the real alt logs out, that player swaps to their throwaway, and another player switches off their throwaway to their real alt. Party clears the first fight again -- the throwaways all pass (six of them have to anyway, since they cleared once), and the 'real' alt takes all the loot. That person logs out and swaps back to their throwaway, another swaps to their real alt, the group clears the first fight of the tier...

In essence, a determined group could have farmed nearly all their savage gear within a week or two that way. And if you think people wouldn't do that... you would be surprised. :|

Moreover, you could now have folks be like "we'll sell you a clear and all the loot" because it doesn't matter how many times they've cleared that week; the person they're selling the run to can still get both chests. (Not that people don't sell loot via clear now, mind you -- lord knows we see those advertisements in PF periodically as it is -- but at least they can only do it once a week under the current system.)

1: Who cares if someone is being funneled loot? Someone getting gear in such a manner doesn't actually affect me, and the amount of people willing to do the raid that many times with the amount of geared, leveled and progressed alts is more than likely an extreme minority. No midcore/casual static would care to do this, and any that did would just burn themselves out. Even in WoW, where this behavior does occur, it's generally only the high-end groups that will do it for a gain in power to pursue what they want (which is usually related to competitive edge in Mythic WFst).

People already do runs in FFXIV with alts to funnel gear to another character in the group that is a main, and then repeat the process. The amount of people who actually care to do this are, more or less, a minority as most people aren't interested in leveling + MSQ completing and spending the gil to gear + get raid consumables for an alt, and almost no casual or fun-minded groups would really push to do this. More players likely drop off the moment they cleared the tier, feeling that it's beaten and then wait for the next tier.

2: Selling will always exist, if it were to pick up suddenly then it's on SE to actually crack down on it. I don't believe players ought to be inconvenienced for an inadequacy in moderation on SE's part. Ultimates are sold, Savage clears are sold, Savage clears for loot are sold, Parses are sold, pretty much every facet of raiding is sold at this point, not to mention bots for leveling and gil selling etc...

3: If you're the average player who enjoys raid content, it feels better to be able to gear multiple jobs so that you can play multiple roles (or jobs within the same role) to add a feel of replay-ability to the fights going forward, to keep them somewhat fresh for the time they're around. You can use the gear you wouldn't have under the current system to learn new jobs without feeling like you're a 100% detriment to the run (as a shoddy BLM in 580 crafted is going to just perform far worse than a shoddy BLM in raid/tome gear, and in the latter case the bad output might not be so low as to render the run un-clearable).

It also feels good when you can, at no penalty to your friends, do raid content with them on a different day if they just so happen to want to. Which is something an MMO should be about.

The current iteration of the system encourages: Run 1-4 on Tuesday reset, when most people are doing it and groups are more plentiful, and then if you don't... hope the PF doesn't die too badly off in the later days in the week as the pool of players interested in doing the content dwindles after they get their lockout consumed. Which does have a side-effect of lowering participation heavily over time as is, as there's 0 incentive to run the fights more than 1 time a week and, even if you want to, any group you join at this point you penalize.

I'd trade a handful of sweaty statics gearing all their characters in the first week, if it meant I didn't have to sit in a P4S party for more than three hours waiting for it to fill (which is what contributed to me just not really raiding anymore, the time waiting around is abysmal). Especially if loot systems encouraged people playing more roles, so there could be more off-job geared tanks in the pool, off-job geared healers in the pool and so on.

I'd rather raiding feel more rewarding, worth doing for people who have spent their lockouts for the week, and I feel that adding a better replay-ability factor would be a good thing to keep the tier feeling fresher for longer. Even if that comes with some groups being able to gear fast, because again, those groups don't actually affect what I'm doing in any meaningful way and I don't really care if someone got a fourth turn weapon day 1 or not; I mostly care about having a populated PF that has a healthy pool of players to do the content with throughout the week.

Situations that'd require moderation due to illicit activity is, frankly, not my problem to solve. That's squarely on SE to put some actual effort in to fix: making their game worse for the "what ifs" just feels like a cop out to having to expend any more resources than is absolutely required to keep the game running, vs. improving the experience over time.

[Elesh]

So this is something that has been kind of annoying to figure out, but is there a reason as to why the savage loot lockout system is the way it is? Like an actual live letter or any kind of conversation involving the FFXIV team at some point?

When I search online for the reasons why the lockout is the way it is, I just end up finding articles that talk about why the lockout system should change.

https://www.mmorpg.com/columns/the-s...ken-2000106634

Like this article from 2017 talks about it and I remember reading it, but then when I try to google search this whole thing nothing official shows up anywhere.

To sum it up, it feels like the entire decision was just made and then despite articles like that one being made, there's been no active conversation from anyone on the FFXIV team as to why the system is the way it is.

The approach being used seems very atypical for the kind of game that FFXIV is, especially since it is touted as being a casual friendly MMO. It would probably be a welcomed thing to at least having it as a subject in a live letter or some conversation.

which specific component of savage loot rules do you want to know the reasoning for? There are a number of components and each has rational behind it...

[Colt47]

which specific component of savage loot rules do you want to know the reasoning for? There are a number of components and each has rational behind it...

Specifically behind the choice with the way they handled one person clearing impacting everyone else in the group. It sounds great on paper and if someone is following ye-old MMORPG rationale it seems like it makes sense, but it does cause a lot of problems in terms of social structure. In NA the only way to really prog effectively in savage is to run with a group of people and when folks group together, they build relationships with those that they run with. However, people also have goals that they want to achieve and sometimes those goals do not align with the group they are with. This problem is easily handled if someone isn't a raid lead, but if the person in question is a raid lead and has responsibility on their shoulders that is where it becomes ideal to keep supporting that group while seeking another to meet those goals.

The current system makes taking on more responsibility in management a dangerous gamble and given that a single character can run every job, it discourages the kind of thing that most other MMOs have to deal with. E.g. World of Warcraft has to literally lock people out of going into an instance after clearing to prevent alt gear farming. In this game someone could technically do that under a personal lockout system, but it'd be strange.

Edit: Actually WoW moved to a loot based lockout on most content even with their focus on hardcore.

[Jeeqbit]

The solution to that would be for the people who have already cleared to automatically roll Need (they would be unable to change this) and if their roll wins, the loot gets destroyed.

[LisSquid]

I've lived with weekly lockouts since I was a wee bean, but I hate the fact you can't help people after you've cleared (or just wanting to do the fight again) without taking their loot away. That is the worst feature of Savage, imho.

[technole]

I've lived with weekly lockouts since I was a wee bean, but I hate the fact you can't help people after you've cleared (or just wanting to do the fight again) without taking their loot away. That is the worst feature of Savage, imho.

I think one of the things I have encouraged people whom live in the party finder, might be closer to a clear, late in the week, or just late in-general to a savage tier is to accept the 0-1 chest situation for the first one. That way they can get into reliable 2-chest weekly clear parties next lock out. It's a major difference and at-least you get the page. It's better to clear first, the rest becomes easier rather than being stuck in some P3S wall waiting for subpar players.

Current setup is so much better because we did not used to have duty complete required, so someone would lie about their clear and/or chests situation.