Primal battles: the loot problem

[Raenryong]

FFXIV as a whole has well designed loot systems, with strong effort:reward ratio endeavours (a stark contrast to its predecessor for the majority of its existence).

However, the primal fights regress to a very primitive form of loot distribution: a random drop which may or may not even be usable by anyone in the current party. There are several issues with this system:

• There is no guarantee that the player will ever receive the item they are investing time into attempting to obtain
• There is almost always competition for the item in question, reducing the chances of successfully obtaining the item of desire to 1/16, 1/24 or 1/32
• There is not much incentive to continue entering the battlefield after having received the weapon, increasing competition for the limited weapon drops available even further

[Raenryong]

This system sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the relatively progressive and rewarding game design present in the rest of FFXIV. Apparently, though I was not one myself, 1.0 players report that a token system was eventually put in place meaning that all fights - even ones where you did not directly receive a weapon drop - contributed towards this final goal. I would recommend either limiting the drop pool to only such jobs which are in the instance (you cannot add members midway through so this cannot be abused), or even better implement a token system which guarantees the drop after x number of kills, probably around the 5-10 mark.

It would be a shame for the game to be marred by such a poor choice of loot system, especially since this is one of the first thing many players are going to see once they hit 50 endgame levels and have to make a decision about whether to keep playing the game or not.

[Burritoboy]

I have killed ifrit 31 times never seen a bow drop

[Brainfreeze]

I'm at like 20 times past two days alone I've gotten the bow and the book for sch, I am a black Mage and have never seen it drop. I them completed Garuda a few times thinking I could skip the entry's level fail groups on ifrit. Garuda drops monk weapon 3 times. So then I tried Titan and we got him damn close for past his heart had 3 healers one would Dps on the heart we got him to about 25% all night the air that you can't avoid got us. So I agree maybe even drop 2 items 1 melee, 1 caster 1 tank. Or up the tokens from 10/4 to 80/50 and make it more desirable over AK.

[Desolas]

I've defeated Ifrit well over 100 times and not once have I seen the lance drop. RNG drops are fine until a certain point, then it just makes me want to quit. Why waste the time on it? I occasionally try it now but I've basically been forced to move on with just the GC weapon. Hopefully I can get my full DL set so I'm not being 100% carried through the rest of the primals.

As for people who like to say "well it was worse in 1.x", well, maybe it was. However, we're not in 1.x anymore. 1.x got rebooted for a reason.

[Adera]

12,5% change to drop a weapon for your class in a fight that's instant and lasts 10 minutes? Doesn't sound too bad to me.

[BrainWoodstock]

The system is good, because you can farm him as oft as you want. If he would drop more weapons everybody would get his stuff in few runs and that's not what sqaure want, the wont you to do it 50 times and more. Why? Because that brings them time to bring out new content.

[Zumi]

Go in with 8 people from a FC for higher chances at getting what you want.

[gigi_frana]

how is the Ifrit wep compared to the one from GC?

[ElHeggunte]

Go in with 8 people from a FC for higher chances at getting what you want.

That would only keep you from having to roll against someone else. It doesn't fix the issue of Ifrit frequently dropping the weapon for classes who aren't even in the group. 90% of my kills has the weapon going to waste because it drops for someone who already has it or no one in the group could use it.

how is the Ifrit wep compared to the one from GC?

Depends on your class and the rest of your gear. If you have a lot of GC items your GC weapon's set bonus might make it worth using, though the Ifrit weapon has a superior ilvl and overall stats.