Regarding Adjustments to Exploratory Missions

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Originally Posted by Zhexos

The re-entry time will be reduced from 120 minutes to 45 minutes.

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That's a decent change, but it doesn't really address any of the other core issues, and sadly, the changes to spawn conditions have resulted in a sharp decline in participation for the content, too, at least on my Data Center, resulting in queue times of 30 minutes or greater when they used to be perhaps 5 to 10 minutes on average.

You hear that fellas!? We can zerg faster now! :D

http://i1008.photobucket.com/albums/...all_smiles.jpg


all honesty this helps out abit actually. Lots of frustrated players would leave in a middle of a run and ruin the whole mission for everyone, mostly angry dps who can't obtain loot for lack of it and instantly blames gatherers. So yeah this helps a bit. Thnx Zhexos :)

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Originally Posted by Zhexos

We'll be sure to share any further updates we receive, so please continue to post all your impressions and feedback!

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Hi Zhexos / FF Dev Team,

I would have to say that while I appreciate the shorter timer, the *core* issue is the nerf to the i210 Gold Chest Drops:

With the change from last week, it's far too painful to gear up anything within a reasonable time frame. Consider this:

* (RNG) You hope that a Gold Chest even appears (off of V mobs, sometimes Bronze, or Silver).
* (RNG) You hope that the drop is for the Job that you're aiming for currently.
* (RNG) You have to lot against 7 (SEVEN) other players for the Gold Chest i210 Drop from Diadem.
* (RNG) You then hope that it has "enough secondary stat points" to be worthwhile replacing the standard i210 Esoterics or Alexander version of the gear.
* (RNG) There are 4 Slots that can be filled (or NOT filled / empty).
* (RNG) Then even if you get those secondary stat slots appearing, you have to pray they have enough Stat Points to be viable (massive RNG / Random).

And this is just for *1* Piece of Gear.

Just on *1* Job, you have 10 Slots to complete (Head, Body, Hands, etc.). Now imagine ALL the other Jobs you have to complete this for.

Even BEFORE your nerf / reduced Gold Chest / NM Spawn, this kind of Random System would've taken MONTHS and MONTHS for any hardcore player, let alone average player. By then 3.2 and beyond would be out and all this gear would be WORTHLESS again.

Please restore the Drop Rates for the NM / Gold Chest, and restore the secret nerf you did to the Stats (so that more of the Secondary Stats appear).

Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Kiara

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Half of that wasnt even RNG though/
Hoping that you did enough damage is not RNG, thats just skill. Find a good party, whether that be through PF or FC, and problem fixed.
You dont have to lot against 7 other players if you're running on PF, because then i210 can be needed on.
And don't you think its unfair if Diadem i210 gear was better or at the same level of Savage/Eso gear?
Savage requires alot of effort, Eso requires alot of time. And then we have Diadem that hands them out with no weekly lock out for free. If the Diadem gear was as good or better than the other i210, that would be ridiculous.

I feel like Diadem i210 should be comparable to i200, and something that will eventually be replaced by Eso/Alex i210 due to their better substats. If RNG gives you a piece of i210 with insane stats, but at a super low rate, im pretty okay with that, because i210 is supposed to be THE BEST, so its only logical that it would take alot of time and effort to get.

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Originally Posted by Zenji

Just my 2 cents, LORDS OF VERMINION WAS A HUGE WASTE OF TIME, PLEASE DON'T IMPLEMENT THINGS LIKE THIS ANYMORE. DOESN'T EVEN HAVE REWARDS FOR PLAYING IT.

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Off topic but I agree. If it was me I'll remove the whole gold sauce thing all together. I don't see the point of wasting their money and their time when it can be used for something more rewarding like more dungeons more original bosses , mobs or maybe more primals.

On topic they should INCREASE the spawn rate of steel spoils. For 90 minutes of gathering we should at least get around 30 rather than 7 or 9......

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Originally Posted by Kiara

I would have to say that while I appreciate the shorter timer, the *core* issue is the nerf to the i210 Gold Chest Drops

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They did nothing to the actual drop rates! All they did was nerfed low tier spawn rates in high traffic areas and made it harder to spawn tracks from killing a bunch of low rank mobs. The only problem is that the community at large doesn't know it's changed or doesn't bother to read the fine print, so they keep using the old meta, which will definitely make it feel like drop rates were reduced.

The meta has changed from "sit in X area and farm the most plentiful low tier mob to force-spawn tracks" to "farm as a single party until someone calls out tracks" to which my FC has personally had a lot more gold chests from anyway.

This change also makes Hard mode and FC runs worth a lot more, which was something I did not feel previously. Easy and Normal mode should never have had the same high end loot potential to begin with.

Have to agree the excessive nerfs to the content kind of defeats the purpose and removed a huge amount of the enjoyment, especially considering how frustrating it is that your servers can't really handle it all that well to begin with.

I'll be blunt:
The hotfix ruined this event.

I say this because the main impact of the nerf is punishing parties for working together. That has a lot of very bad ramifications.

I'm not interested in hearing people QQ about i200 vs. i210. I'm REALLY not interested in peoples creative ideas for how to fix the event by designing a completely new event.
I just really hope 3.15 implements a more carefully thought-out change.

Zerging rank IIIs wasn't fun though

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

Zerging rank IIIs wasn't fun though

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It was more fun than single-pulling Rank Vs, and it was more fun than fighting enemies as a single party, and it was more fun than having to waste time flying around in between every couple pulls because monsters don't respawn quickly enough to kill them continuously.

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Originally Posted by Crater

It was more fun than single-pulling Rank Vs, and it was more fun than fighting enemies as a single party, and it was more fun than having to waste time flying around in between every couple pulls because monsters don't respawn quickly enough to kill them continuously.

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Not like you have to fly that far, most of the time or relocate that often. You also don't have to hit only rank V's. It seems like just murdering enough things while solo is still enough to force a star rank spawn. From personal experience and the way it's worded, you can still make headway towards track spawns with tier 3's, just not in larger groups. We were able to get away with forcing track spawns on some of the easier islands by just killing any tier 3/4 with the occasional tier 5. Less stress this way too, not being in the constant grindfest with randoms pulling things in on a whim.

"Changes will be made to the spawn requirements when several parties continue to defeat low rank monsters."


As for whether it's more fun this way or the old way, that's subjective. But personally, for me and some of my FC mates, it's at least a little less monotonous than the old method of endlessly farming triceratops. I mean, Diadem is far from anything really new or exciting. But yeah.

This system is not fun, a player joins as a battle class and no fighting but rolls on loots.
Then the resolution is nerf the loots. ^^;

To save my breathe, my feedback is I don't paticipate Exploratory Missions.

90 minutes of mindless zerg is too long and boring.
Double the drops but limit the time to 45 minutes while keeping the 120 minutes cooldown.

Just to say that Diadem is dead right now. There was more people interested in going in before the patch.

Right now I don't see much point on doing it.I really like the idea and the whole concept but at the moment is a bit pointless as to why should I go in for 90 mins. Maybe for gathering...

The best thing to do for it is to add more gathering stuff , increase the spawn rate for steel spoils by 40% , add materia crafting/gathering V now (I know is coming for 3.2) let the star ranks pop faster as it was so there's something to do.

90 mins is a long time to run a "dungeon" and to press buttons for not reward to be worth having of is not there.

I honestly like a lot the whole diadem idea it just needs good rewards for people to join all the time.

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

Thank you for all the feedback regarding the Diadem.

The mixing of battle classes/jobs with gathering classes

Requests for a filter feature for aetherial equipment exchange

Players ignoring monsters after managing to land the first attack

Implementing a vote dismiss feature

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Honestly, Yoshi, I really appreciate all the hard work you guys do, but this post saddens me. First off, the list of feedback you posted seems to be addressing very minor issues. There are plenty of feedback posts and threads which tackle much larger issues, but you seem to have focused on a very minor select few. Further, to each point, it sounded as if you said 'we get that you're unhappy, but we have our reasons and are going to keep it as is." with the notable exception that you are decreasing the drop rates of items.

The core issue and feedback that I've seen on reddit, on general discussion posts, on dungeon forum posts and here, is that Diadem lacks actual incentive for exploration. I've seen various ideas of how to fix it. Some are fairly viable, others not (in my opinion). However, none of that is addressed in your post.

The core issue with Diadem is not that gatherers can come, or that people aren't trying when there, or that we cannot kick someone or that we can't filter equipment. It's that the entire execution is boring. There is no feeling of exploration at all. When I go on an exploratory mission I expect the focus to be exploring. It's not, at all. And this is not because players don't want to explore, it's because the design of the entire Diadem. A combination of the following things make it this way:

*Mobs respawn
*Killing mobs quickly increases respawn rate of better mobs
*Flight


This has resulted in people flying to the easiest thing, because they can just fly over everything else, and then killing that easiest thing over and over until the stuff with the good loot spawns. It's a fundamental design flaw.

Therefore, I feel that removing any one of the above may help solve the problem. If mobs don't respawn, people naturally have to move around to kill. If people can't fly, they have to work their way to the good stuff. If killing mobs more quickly doesn't increase spawn rate of better mobs, people may have more incentive to spread out.

However, other things could be added which encourage exploration. For example, make use of the caves. Have a gold chest that sits at the end of the cave, so if you work your way through it then you get a chest. Provide a gold chest reward if you fully reach a certain point on each island. Or whatever.. encourage people to move. Right now you encourage people to sit at one point and farm, and any movement is detrimental to the party.

I was really looking forward to this, as exploration is a big thing for me, but this isn't exploration. This is a Hunt Farm.

Another big issue that I have seen is that this was hyped up to be rather mid-core. That it should appeal to people who find things like Void Ark to casual and Alex Savage to difficult. However, this is not difficult at all, and definitely not mid-core by any means.