Feeling Defeated

[Lumen]

I have been playing FFXIV for over a year now and there has definitely been a lot of positive changes and I have had a lot of fun.

However, lately I have been feeling completely defeated while playing this game. The total reliance on random drops with ridiculously low drop rates for content such as Ifrit, Moogle, raids, coffers, HQ mats, materia, hamlet, and now apparently artifact weapons will require a combination of many of these, is completely un-motivating. (Yeah this is another one of those threads @_@; but this is a major problem in my opinion)

In all seriousness though, this is a game and should not cause the level of frustration, or perhaps even resentment it does. I'm not saying everything should be handed to us, but for some of us bad luck follows us around (I spent a month and a half doing Darkhold to get the Revolutionary Bliaud, done Ifrit probably 100 times and have only a single totem and a bow i cant use to show for it). This game will need to alienate it's players by defeating them in this manner.

Aside from raising drop rate and such, personally, I would like to see most things changed to system like Garuda drops implemented for applicable content. This would provide a sense of accomplishment as well as a motivation to continue doing the content. I would also like to see a system that would allow for trading in a drop you cant use, either to some one who can or to an npc in exchange for one you can. I realize I am reiterating a lot of things already said on the forums, so sorry about that, but I feel that this needs reiterating.

Thanks for your time reading my rant.

[Thanos]

You can trade in Ifrit weapons now to GC for 2800 seals!

[Hulan]

Someone on the dev team really loves Skinner Boxes. That being said, my suspicion (and I'll admit, it's entirely a hunch and has no grounding in fact), is that they are doing everything they can to keep the 1.0 game going and populated with a skeleton crew while the rest of the team works on 2.0. Skinner Boxes are the fastest and easiest way to artificially keep someone playing a "game" for a long time, so it's no wonder they would be over-utilizing it to keep people around until 2.0.

If that is the case, hopefully we will see a substantial decrease in pRNG based content in the future (read as 2.0+).

[MariyaShidou]

Someone on the dev team really loves Skinner Boxes. That being said, my suspicion (and I'll admit, it's entirely a hunch and has no grounding in fact), is that they are doing everything they can to keep the 1.0 game going and populated with a skeleton crew while the rest of the team works on 2.0. Skinner Boxes are the fastest and easiest way to artificially keep someone playing a "game" for a long time, so it's no wonder they would be over-utilizing it to keep people around until 2.0.

If that is the case, hopefully we will see a substantial decrease in pRNG based content in the future (read as 2.0+).

I would say the purpose for frustrating drop rate and steps required is to prevent people playing in 1.0 having too much of a head start in 2.0. In the E3 interviews Yoshi-P mentioned everything (how I read it) in 2.0 including Hamlet will be moving to token systems.

[Nakiamiie]

Someone on the dev team really loves Skinner Boxes. That being said, my suspicion (and I'll admit, it's entirely a hunch and has no grounding in fact), is that they are doing everything they can to keep the 1.0 game going and populated with a skeleton crew while the rest of the team works on 2.0. Skinner Boxes are the fastest and easiest way to artificially keep someone playing a "game" for a long time, so it's no wonder they would be over-utilizing it to keep people around until 2.0.

If that is the case, hopefully we will see a substantial decrease in pRNG based content in the future (read as 2.0+).

Agree 500% with you, FFXIV has way too much Skinner Boxes.
Which is why I play less instead of playing more.
I'm just hoping for 2.0 to have significantly less Skinner Boxes.

[Elexia]

In short:

1. Raise lockout timers = overall raise in drop rates.

2. Trade in unwanted stuff for GC seals.

3. Garuda's 100% drop rate outside of weapons isn't good for other content because 100% drop rate on Darklight gear wouldn't make much sense without scaling down it's stats (basically making it not worth it.) Every MMO tend to negate almost every gear previously released in a new patch due to it having a high droprate and to give incentive to do the new dungeon. A sense of progress is basically completing these dungeons 100% excluding drop rates, since you get achivement for killing the main boss(es) < That's the progress, the gear is basically what makes the deal sweet.

4. Relic weapons isn't that bad considering the 3 main points:
-You had since May to work on prereqs before knowing it was regarding "relic weapons or af weapons", most just assumed it would be for it even though we had no clear confirmation that it would be regarding af weapons in particular.
-Most everyone had a double+ melded class weapon or other weapon since it was possible to meld things, so the requirement of this shouldn't have been a problem which is more than likely why SE threw this in, because it's what people were already doing. Not everyone but these weapons aren't for everybody.
-You can't complete it now, so you can take your time with it and go with the flow, rather than rush through it and burn yourself out.

So in all actuality, SE needs to change a lot about the content start with lockout/cooldown timers since that above all is the reason the RNG is extreme. Every MMO has RNG tied to it in some fashion, but unlike some, you can spam dungeons and 'hard content (primals nonburn setups)' in this game, a lot of MMOs have at least a few hour lockout.

[Leoheart]

In short:

1. Raise lockout timers = overall raise in drop rates.

This one sounds pretty good at first, but then.. what does one do inbetween timers?

[Rau]

This one sounds pretty good at first, but then.. what does one do inbetween timers?

other content.

[Leoheart]

other content.

Eh, Maybe.
You can't really use this argument because only one of each hamlet is avaliable per day, AV and CC last 20 minutes, only thing you could do is spam Garuda.
Extended timers would make things bleak.

If they were extended to an hour, then I would agree with you, but then an hour in between runs doesn't warrant increased drop rates.

[Orophin]

-Most everyone had a double+ melded class weapon

I think you're reaching here with the "most everyone". It seemed to be the general consensus that making class equipment was generally a waste of time apart from having some crafted for looks. To go even further and assume that "most everyone" who actually had a class weapon made and went as far as to double socketing it is quite a leap.