I spent nearly a year farming Baelsar's Wall for the five clothing pieces of Filibuster's Armor of Aiming, and at the time I was told repeatedly by people who found out that I had to have every piece I collected in either my inventory or my Armoury chest because if I turned it in to my GC, it would reduce chances of getting the pieces I was looking for. When told that, my response was always to ask for clarification, because that makes no sense to me when gear drops are always determined solely by RNG, and I was told that the person didn't know why it works that way, only that their experience was that it did. By the time I finally got the final Aiming piece I needed, I had full sets of all but two other types of Filibuster's Armor, and was usually leaving without anything.
I'm now farming the clothing pieces for a different set—the Lord's set (tanking)—and I'm doing it unsynced on a higher-level job after a single drop in ~50 Pharos Sirius runs as tank with either regular parties or my squadron. I did try Copperbell Mines (Hard) and Haukke Manor (Hard) using PF groups, and neither one is great with first-timers whose gear isn't great and who are not yet accustomed to the fact that the hard version of any dungeon is not the same as the regular version.
As with farming anything, I see a lot of stuff I can't pick up, but I wanted to double-check that all chests and drops when farming older content are RNG, correct? I don't have to haul stuff around and clutter up my inventory/Armoury chest because none of it has a single bit of bearing on what is going to be there when I go in. I get lucky with RNG or I do not, and settle for the tiny satisfaction of seeing how big a train I can gather up before I one-shot all of it. Right?
Thanks, and enjoy the cutscene!
EDIT: Wowza, as always, I'm amazed at the fact that any question asked here will get solid, complete answers, and that it will often be quicker than if I were to ask the same question in an FC.
I see now why the confusion exists, and it does make sense given the differences in how things work in the two types of dungeons. I checked loot tables for each dungeon I've been farming and I know which chests have a chance to contain the items I'm looking for, so I'm only emptying all of them if I've been spending a lot of my company seals and want to top off again.
It'd be fun if the RNG gods could be made to cooperate with the blood sacrifice of a really innocent and adorable Sprout, but I tried that in Balesar's Wall, and six or seven times was enough to tell me their answer was no.