The Zerg Problem

I've been doing a fair few runs of the Diadem recently, and have noticed a trend towards every party on the Diadem zerging what we've been calling Dino Island, and occasionally the caves. What do we do? A few people go on their flying mounts, run around and lure the III/IV ranks to the zerg party where they're destroyed, this keeps going on until a V or Star spawns, and with great success. We've gotten a lot of loot this way, and fairly easily too.

"Where's the problem?" - Is this really how SE designed this content to be done? Of course it's the most efficient method so everyone wants to do it, and other way is far less efficient so there's no point to it. We unlock aether currents, and go there and there's usually a party or two farming it. This content isn't engaging, it isn't fun (literally 70-80 minutes of clicking until your hands hurt), it isn't challenging, it's a literal loot pinata. When I first saw the Diadem I thought we were going to be exploring a huge, huge area on Airship with our group only, with several islands that we encounter and bosses with legitimate mechanics, challenging fights that can't be zerked but this isn't the case.

Is it only me? Maybe I just don't like this kind of content, but what about everyone else? I want to get your opinion on this too, there's a problem here and I don't believe it was worth giving up a dungeon (or even a raid? Surely this took more development effort than a raid to get done) which I found more fun in this patch. I'm still running it for the gear and it's a great method to make gil for combat classes at the moment, but that's it. :(

Every party I've been in so far we've gone off on our own and killed what we could, only converging with the big zerf fest if: 1) a Star popped or 2) enough people left that we couldn't progress alone anymore (from losing the tank, mainly), but could still get kill credit or 3) so few people were left in the party that we couldn't get credit at all so, I switch to a gatherer and follow the zerg around so I can gather unmolested until time runs out.

I still like the concept and we do need to remember that this is an experimental work in progress, but I do think everyone camping on one island and murdering everything in sight kind of undermines the spirit of the content. I'm sure SE expected us to work together to kill Stars, but I'm fairly confident they didn't intended for the mass genocide that's already happening. Hopefully they address that in the future.

If the same reward can be achieved with lesser effort, people will generally always go for that method. Diadem by design does little to prevent this as there's little work beyond taking down HP sponges and dodging the occasional AOE. It being available through DF, which fuels an individualistic mentality among players as it is, just escalated the issue.

SE had FATEs and Hunts to see how players will react to something that can be mindlessly zerged given enough people, and yet they still implemented the same type of concept here.

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

I do think everyone camping on one island and murdering everything in sight kind of undermines the spirit of the content. I'm sure SE expected us to work together to kill Stars, but I'm fairly confident they didn't intended for the mass genocide that's already happening. Hopefully they address that in the future.

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That there is what I believe is the problem, SE develops content with the perfect scenario in mind but doesn't design it in a way that it's enforced, nor do they think "What other ways could players potentially do this content?" and if it doesn't fit their vision, "How can can we deincentivize these approaches to the content?". That's something they always seem to miss, be it The Hunt, The Diadem, or whatever else and they rarely learn from past experiences. "The loot method from the 24 mans was unliked? Instead of implemented that well loved token system from primals, let's just double the loot but randomize the drops so people don't leave after the 2nd/3rd boss.", but that's another issue entirely. I expected to explore and for that to be the best method, but alas it's not, not even comparable. The problem is that it requires a major overhaul, and that's not something we'll likely see until 3.2/3.3 which is a problem.

Nope, your right. The whole thing is a grind fest, and it happened sooner than I expected. At first I argue'd about the objectives, but they didn't mean anything as the quest continued and there was still more things to do. Sadly, even then the mode was just wasn't taken into account that the community is famous for making things shorter than they appear, or then again, just showing how short minded things can be. I think what the devs don't understand is HP doesn't make content harder, just makes it longer and the more people you have makes it shorter.

Areas should have gimicks for starters, monsters should keep their hp "though I'd love it to be more reasonable for those who get separated from their group", special monsters with higher ranks should have mechanics that resonate with their environment, we have 90 mins in the spawn timer...give us timed special spawns too even with the day and night cycles. Caves should be more rewarding and engaging. I kinda see what they tried to do with dungeons and caves you can enter without queue times, but its not done exactly right. The mobs inside are bland (mostly crabs from what I seen) and there's no incentive to even enter one, except for a different atmosphere from all the zerg rushes.

All and all, this mode just feel like a giant FATE rush with a little sidequest at the start. I love the gear drops, but its not exactly fun is it?

The zerg style's also problematic because it makes it really hard for groups that end up with gatherers or who have people drop to get credit on the mobs unless they can get a lucky claim. It also gets messy because you have to tunnel vision the Vs and NMs to make sure you get credit, which can lead to loose monsters running around and causing havoc.

I can't imagine they intended for the gear to drop so readily, in general, but as usual they seem to have misjudged how we would approach the content (just as they did with Hunts).

Maybe how they went extinct irl

*gasp*

all fits into place

I feel it's less of an issue if you go in with your FC, as I did yesterday, because you stick together better and don't all have to converge at one spot to get stuff done. We combined with a few groups here and there, but it wasn't a constant zerg-fest.

I really enjoy the content, although I do agree that the mission objectives should carry more weight than 40 Esos. Maybe if you got some spoils for doing them, or were still able to complete the other objectives after doing the three for additional rewards, people would be more interested in the varied goals. As it is now, if you're in a DF group and want to gather, you'll probably be frowned upon for not helping fight NMs.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

I've been doing a fair few runs of the Diadem recently, and have noticed a trend towards every party on the Diadem zerging what we've been calling Dino Island

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It makes me super sad people haven't been calling it Jurassic park.

I actually thought this earlier, seeing all the loot in my pool, and fighting 6 mobs. Then remembered from their patch notes when they spoke about 'more then 8 chests....'. So they fully expected us to burn at a rate at which 9+ chests can spawn, which is only really possibly with a huge burning group. It's not worth giving up multiple dungeons for this content - and keep in mind, by the time Diadem 2 comes out, we'd have given up 3 dungeons 3.1, 3.2, 3.3. That's an entire patch worth of dungeons...

I think it's exactly how they intended it to work.

With how random the stats are, you'd be grinding 10x as long before you saw a piece with decent stats, let alone even a piece you can use.

So far day 3 I've not seen anything good for DRF drop

Without the Zerg it would be the exact same thing, only longer

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Originally Posted by KeluBehemoth

I think it's exactly how they intended it to work.

With how random the stats are, you'd be grinding 10x as long before you saw a piece with decent stats, let alone even a piece you can use.

So far day 3 I've not seen anything good for DRF drop

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Yep. I have 4 i210 healer pieces from Diadem but none can be said to have the best secondary stats. It could be months of daily Diadem to even see one perfect item & I actually like that. It's much better than running Fractal or Neverreap every day & having to pass on gear because it's unique & I got it on day one. This way I can get 'upgraded' i210 & turn in 'lesser' i210 for spoils. Fun. =)