better drop system for Alliance raids

[Just_Grimm]

As for the post title, I feel given the current status of alliance raids the way gear drops work might need a bit of a rework/fix. But before jumping down to suggestions or anything of the sort, let me explain what I think it is the problem.


the first thing of course is that unless the Alliance raid is current content (so Aglaia and the new AR as of 6.3), queue time for a given raid is about 30-40 minutes, sometimes less, sometimes - often - more depending on where you are, at what time you're queing, and what role you're queing as (tanks having it the worst, being only 3 out of 24 people). That is on top of the actual 25-40 minutes it takes you to actually clear the content. That means you're spending overall 1+ hour for a chance to get the gear you desire.

Keyword here is chance, which leads to the 2nd overall problem: It is completely up to lady luck if you get what you want, or if you get anything at all infact. I had cases where it took me 15, 20 or even more runs for that specific gear piece you want. And that was cause of a misture of things. First of all, the gear piece might not drop at all, and there is nothing you can do about that, since like dungeons the loot pool includes all gears from all jobs.

But unlike dungeons, and this is the other factor, it is very likely you up contending that gear with another member of the party or more (Unless you're a tank, in which case you just take the extra time to get in instead). And given that all healer and dps, aside ninja, share their gear with another job or more (see casters and ranged), it is not unlikely to find yourself in group with someone else who wants that same piece (pretty much guaranted if you're an healer).

So tl:dr not only queing for the content takes long, you could virtually spend hours and still end up with nothing you wanted. Which becomes even more of an issue if you think that when those raids are current content, they're meant to be "catch up" gears.

Regardless of that, I feel like the way gear drops should be changed. Or at least something should be added to make the grind not virtually infinite and as hopeless and rng dependant as it is. What exactly? Well, ffxiv has already a few systems in place for normal and hard mode content for that. It could be something like normal raids token system, where instead of rolling for the actual piece you roll for the token to redeem at the shop later regardless of what job you played as, it could be a coffer that drops on top of the gears, as they did for extremes old and new sometime ago, it could be a book/totem you automatically get by clearing the raid once per run, so you still have to grind for it, but at least you have now an objective instead of praying to your divinity of choice. After all, they already drop a coin, so one on top of that or the same shouldn't be a problem.

I would leave the actual logistic of the "how" and quantity of it to the ffxiv devs, as I'm here just to express what feels like a lacking of the game. Granted, maybe for them it is fine, cause by the end of the day "grinding for glams" is the ultimate endgame. This is just my feedback as a player, bye!

[TheMightyMollusk]

Bring back the coin drops in old raids. Add a vendor that sells gear coffers. Ten coins for body and leg pieces, five for the other slots, maybe 8-10 for other drops like minions and music rolls. You still have to run the raid a few times to get the coins, but it's an achievable end goal, rather than praying to RNGsus the whole time.

[Saraide]

There already exists a token system for alliance raids: the coin you get from completing them. Those coins could just be expanded to not only allow you to buy upgrade mats but also buy individual gear pieces.

[Kisshu]

An idea I've had.

Completing the current 24-man raid gives you a token with an expiration date on the next weekly reset. You get 1 per run, and when you have 5 you can trade the token to an NPC for any of that raids gear pieces. You can only trade the tokens if you haven't gotten a weekly gear piece from the raid, and getting the token gear locks you out of getting the weekly in-raid gear piece. So you will only get 1 piece of gear per week.
If the token expires you have to farm 5 new ones, thus making sure that you have to rerun the raid weekly for the tokens instead of just grinding in the beginning.

When a raid if off the weekly system (free gear), you can then trade in the expired tokens for that raids gear. This will also make it easier to farm glamour as you know that in 5 runs you will get the gear piece, or 25 runs for the entire set.

[Gemina]

There already exists a token system for alliance raids: the coin you get from completing them. Those coins could just be expanded to not only allow you to buy upgrade mats but also buy individual gear pieces.

Coins from the older raids no longer drop, just the cluster that can be exchanged for the corresponding materia grade. They did away with that with EW's release, and you can now just buy the augmented gear with poetics. You don't even have to run the raids at all, which removes cause to run them even further.

This issue actually ties heavily into how CT raids are currently set up, and even if a token system was implemented, those wanting to run any raid other than CT or the current are going to have a lot of problems even getting into it. I'm afraid that this will continue to be an issue until the CT raid problem is acknowledged by the devs, and swiftly rectified.