Greed Party and Loot thievesFollow

Even XI has this in some more recent content. Voidwatch, Skirmish, and Reives all have a personal loot table. (Skirmish also has a party-wide loot table, but it's low-man content that a small group can easily run so you're always with friends.)

The problem with voidwatch was that the drop rates were still miserably low for the good stuff.

I don't know what you mean by the 15 man parties (abyssea - wasn't that 18?) in XI, but I agree that's way too big and 8 is just awkward to balance around. 4 is a *good* size, but looking at it from the perspective of lowering queue times, the ratios are just really off with that small a group. 1 tank per 2 dps when there is more like a 1:15 ratios in reality (and likely more)?

5-6 people, with the heavy end of that being DPS is still a good personal feel to a party size without overwhelming the screen with characters hacking and slashing about.

Edited, Apr 22nd 2014 2:19pm by Torrence

Since was typing with phone didn't format it correctly xD, 15 man was the original XIV party size. This style in ARR doesnt even leave room for a true support class like some other MMOs have with their Dungeon Finder type system.

That still doesn't explain why not 5, or better yet 6?

Doesn't have to be 8, no. But 5-6 would have done. Even 5 would shorten the DPS queues by 30%.

And let's not forget that the problem with old XI content before they did all of those changes, was not the party size itself, it was finding enough people to fill the group in the first place.

With a Duty Finder, Party Finder, and what-not.... that is a complete non-issue.

Edited, Apr 22nd 2014 3:03pm by Lyrailis

You shouldn't be sorry that you're going to real life talk. This was already real life talk. All 8 players in a party are all real people.

Stabbing someone in the back when loot drops isn't writing a stern poignant letter to HR. Telling the group that you fully intend to Need on loot regardless of what the pt leader said? Yeah, that sounds more like a stern poignant letter. And when you follow through with what you openly told everyone, it's no longer stabbing people in the back.

Tanking, Healing, and DPS. You cannot do content without one of them. You need tanks to centralize damage. You need healers to keep everyone alive. You need DPS to take down the enemy. Sure, Tank and Healer could technically DPS too, but good luck getting the job done before the game mechanics kill you. Yes, believe it or not, not everyone is skilled or geared to the teeth to easily go through content with an unstandardized set up. Try getting everyone to set their ilvls to the minimum for a dungeon and you will have yourself a completely different game.

Back to topic: Well, unfortunately, there's nothing that can be done with those situations. In essence, it's just better to go as the class that needs the gear and make everyone else wait. Why further waste your time with that kind of risk?

I loved this system...especially in Throne of Thunder. I felt like I was in ToT again when CT first released until the loot appeared.

The key points are: able to queue as a job that is needed but still receive loot for another job and not having to deal with anyone else messing with your loot.

The other key, though, is the token system by which you get drops or gold and can only pick a couple bosses every week to use your token on.

Edited, Apr 24th 2014 2:32am by HitomeOfBismarck

I will say, and I know not everyone agrees, that I was partial to the personal loot system in pre-ARR. Obviously, it could use tweaking, but the core principle was that your loot was your own, and it didn't affect what anyone else got. But things got weird when someone would realize they got a sword they didn't want while the Paladin in the group who wanted the sword got nothing, and after much complaining about how this didn't seem logical, the compete-for-drops system was reborn.

But I think if they went down the road of offering every individual relevant drops, or at least have more control over the prizes they were looking for, we'd be much better off. Everyone should have a chance at getting something good for participating in the game and not be swindled out by others gaming the system.

This would really ***** people who are asked to go to events as tanks or healers even though they want gear for their other jobs.

Again, WoW has a "Loot Specialization" feature, so why couldn't XIV do something similar?

Maybe you can ask for other kind of loot only if you have that class leveled up to appropriate level.

For example, if you have 50GLA, 38CNJ, and 15ARC, and run Cutter's Cry, you can run it as GLA and tell the game you want loot for CNJ.

You could not, however, ask for ARC loot because your ARC is not high enough to do that dungeon.

Edited, Apr 24th 2014 8:14pm by Lyrailis

Well, the problem with that is, you could easily build up a lockerfull of junk for any certain class, and never have to run a dungeon again. You could just Leve it up all the way and be fully equipped without ever playing the class. You could be decked out in Coil gear on an, say, a Bard... but have no clue how to actually play Bard.

And with those I-levels, you could actually join PFs, DFs, and have no clue how to play but yet come with awesome gear that makes people believe you *do* know how to play.

At least if you were forced to level a class to those levels first, then you'd at least (somewhat) prove yourself worthy to wear that gear first.

RE:Kojiro:

How's this?

System as I described above, only with a list of checkboxes. You can put a checkmark in the boxes of classes you'd like to receive loot for. Putting more than 2-3 checkboxes in eligible classes means it's harder to get loot for any certain class. OR, you could specify a certain class if you so wished.

The current system is NOT fine, due to all the drama flying around in PUG groups, which is why a change is needed. If you go in with an FC, sure! The current system works. But if you go in with PUGs.... uh, no. Because anybody can click the Need button and ***** everybody over. That's not fair, at all. But merely removing the Need button in PUGs ain't gonna work either, because nothing's stopping it from being Free-For-All (everybody clicks Greed regardless to what was agreed upon), either.

You cannot, cannot, cannot trust a PUG to play nice. And sure you can kick the person, but you can only do so after the damage has already been done.

You can do this no matter what with the current rules, provided your group lets you roll on what you ask for. It's not even a drawback, because as you are running those dungeons other people are benefiting from your presence. Eventually, no one will have to run dungeons ANYWAY, and that's why content progresses into new ilvl. We might just be running into some terminology disconnects, because the content I am talking about is instanced group content and I'm not 100% sure that Leves are the same kind of content that I am talking about. I need more experience at later levels in the game.

But for the content I am leaning towards (instance-based, group, dungeon)

This actually ENCOURAGES people to dungeon MORE, as opposed to less. This is one of those belief systems that is unique to FF players that giving someone a chance at something they might want for the future is a bad thing. Why would you want a system that says "Ok you really need a Paladin tank, and you know one, but she doesn't have SMN leveled so she can't set her PRIVATE loot chance for that gear. Her Paladin is already fully geared, though, so other than maybe wanting to help her friend, what incentive is there for her to run the dungeon again?" Should you really have to wait until she levels SMN to have a reason to run that content again? Or worse, she's not coming unless you PROMISE her a greed group and she can roll on that SMN piece ANYWAY, taking it from someone else who might be there AS a summoner.

Here is how this worked in WoW. Blizzard realized that LFR was SUPER popular. Everyone wanted to play it, but in order to get loot for one of your specs you had to actually play as that spec. This meant that the few tanks and healers HAD to queue as DPS to gear out those specs, and believe me, there are a lot more 'main' tank\heal characters that off DPS than DPS characters that off heal\tank. So this overloaded the queue even more with DPS, and folks told Blizzard they would be happy to queue as the needed roles but they want gear for their off specs.

Thus was born the personal loot system + specialization. There's just no way to look at this as a bad thing, even by SE grind standards. You get to select one specialization, and what drops is a random item from the loot table for the chosen spec, and you don't always get a drop or the drop you might want. It's not like you put a check mark in "I want the axe from Garrosh" and you get it. You get whatever the RNG in the background says after checking the possible drops and the percentage of chance for that spec. It would work here the same way.

I would bring my pally to help my friends, but select the SMN loot table for my loot chance, and feel like there is a *Reason* for me to come run this content again without taking something away from someone else. I may get a drop from that loot table, I might not, but at least I don't have to feel like my *only* reason for being there is to benefit other people. Right now they have to convince me to come and in order to do that, they have to promise me a chance at that SMN drop, and that could be me taking a drop away from an actual main SMN just because I am the role they *need*.

It's just cleaner and easier. No tracking points, no agreements beforehand, no bribing people and then clicking the need button to ***** them out of a drop, none of that. You just go do the dungeon with who you can pick up. Who the hell cares if you get a full set of bard gear but your archer is level 1? Having that gear doesn't mean you automatically shoot up to level 50. Since when is owning a piece of dungeon\raid equipment dependent on your knowledge of a job? If that were the criteria, then we'd have to kick out 75% of the playerbase in EVERY game.



Edited, Apr 25th 2014 11:54am by Torrence

Edited, Apr 25th 2014 11:55am by Torrence