The Diadem: Can it be fixed?

Let's be honest, the Diadem flopped. It is a half-baked piece of content that isn't really serving a purpose at the moment. But, can it be saved? is there still time to fix the Diadem and have it be the piece of dynamic contact that we deserve? I think so.

So first, let's talk about the 3.2 changes that are coming that will give the Diadem new life, mainly the ability to supply Grade V Materia. It's no doubt that more people will be drawn to the Diadem due to the ease of obtaining rarer materias, but that doesn't -fix- the Diadem. The problem with the Diadem is the gameplay, not so much the rewards. By increasing the rewards, but not solving the gameplay issue, all the Devs are going to accomplish is upsetting the player base because they'll be forced into this mind numbing grind fest.

So while the Diadem will become far more populated once 3.2 hits, will we be having fun while we're in it? This is the question that the Devs should really be concerned about. Because right now, the Diadem isn't fun, and it's not something that people actively want to do. This has to be solved, and I think the answer is staring the Devs right in the face.

What is keeping the islands afloat? A giant crystal of aether. Who always seems to be in need of aether? The tempered Beast Tribe Clans. Why do they need this aether? To summon their Primal (Eikon, Aether manifestation, whatever you want to call it). So wouldn't it make sense that the various Beast Tribes would try to seize the Diadem for themselves, so that they could supply their god with an immense amount of energy? Not to mention, weren't the devs throwing around the idea of 'Wondering Primals' back during 2.0?

I think the Diadem is the perfect place to implement the Devs original idea of Roaming Primals. Imagine, each of the various Beast Tribes are located on a different island, and each of them are varying for the giant crystal in the center, to harness its power for themselves.

It could work like this: Each time you queue into the Diadem, you are set on a timer (45 minutes is the next maximum that is being introduced in 3.2 I believe). Maybe each time you zone into the Diadem, your group has to decide what it would like to accomplish. You could choose from killing mobs as normal, gathering, or hunting down a primal.

It could work like this: maybe the beastmen need some sort of an item or crystal before they are able to summon their primal. These crystals are held by different beast tribes or NMs, they're basically pop-items. Once you have the pop item, you can give it to the beast tribes, or whatever, and that unleashes the primal. With the primal unleashed, the players could then challenge it in the open area. I imagine it working like a FATE, and the group to do the most damage to it, would be rewarded with a special chest with a summoning stone in it. Using this stone would then summon the primal in the Diadem only, to aid the player's group. This would then satisfy the original plan for roaming primals that was discussed since even before 2.0 came out.

What it comes down to is this, the Diadem is boring. It needs something to make it "Fun", whatever that may be. This was simply a random thought I had that I wanted to share.

What I want;

Put Sky Pirate Spoils as a common drop from enemies, getting gear to turn in is then just an extra bonus, there is no more frustration from losing lots and getting no Spoils. You kill a mob, there is a good chance you just out right get a Spoil for it, then you lot the gear either to use or to get extra Spoils.

Incorporate Gathering into the event. Increase the rate on uncovering chests, and rather than trash materials in the chest, put temporary items (powerful potions/etc. that exist only in the instance, you can't take them out with you) in them. This way Gathering acts as almost a support Job, in that they're getting these chests frequently and providing the party with buffs through temporary items. Given that point, you can arguably make the party requirement Tank/2Healer/4DPS/Gatherer, since the Gatherer can act as support.

Proper force pops (and proper enemy claiming). There should be some kind of order to things similar to Sky/Sea in XI. You kill these enemies to spawn this NM, you kill this NM to get a pop for this NM, and so on until you spawn Kirin/Absolute Virtue and the event is over. This would make exploration far more important, rather than the current "Where are we farming?" shout we get. You'd go in, have an idea what NMs you want to go after, and go after them. That would require farming key items from enemies (perhaps also gathering) in certain areas, and the spawn point where you pop the NM would be in a specific place. To a degree this can use the same Fresh Tracks system that is in place.

Combine the above two. Caves now become important, because specific NMs are spawned there. Now you throw Gathering into the mix, rather than the caves just being open, you instead have blockages preventing you from exploring the caves. You can DPS these down slowly, or you can have a Miner/Botanist deal with them, successfully gathering from the node on a Rock/Root that is blocking the path would deal significant damage to it. Rather than Gathering now just being its own thing, you have a situation where you want Gatherers to speed up exploration, further more you want the rest of the party to actively defend them from enemies that might aggro.

Similar to force pops, Gathering needs to be less all over the place. I like Fishing in Diadem, you know what? Because I go somewhere, I sit there, and I fish. Miner and Botany have me running around the entire map in an annoying fashion. With friends, it is feasibly that I could go "Hey, I'll fish here while you keep the nearby enemies off my back", but with Miner and Botany? Impossible. You have to keep moving around the entire map and it just kills any potential for that.

Gear drops also need to be changed. Diadem strikes me as fairly similar to Dynamis at this point, just with materia (as of 3.2, anyway) replacing the Relics of Dynamis. AF2 from Dynamis was hit and miss, some was awesome, some were worthless. People went after whole sets because of the aesthetics of the gear though. Diadem however, has no unique gear, there is nothing really to chase after in that regard. At this point I'm incline to think we can instead put tomestone gear in Diadem, with tomestones instead buying you a RNG based aetherial set (maybe that even justifies dropping the weekly limit, I'm unsure). Diadem gear then becomes less about the stats, and more about the aesthetic, just like Dynamis. Alternatively, with Lore/Eikonic gear being introduced in 3.2, the maximum item level Diadem drops could be raised.

Finally, slap Unidentified Seeds/Ore/Shell/Bone in Diadem.

What I expect we'll see;

Unidentified Seeds/Ore/Shell/Bone in Diadem. Job done. No more adjustments to it ever.


That third point I made is, I think, the most important one. Diadem needs to feel like an event, not an aimless slaughter. There needs to be some sense that you're going after something, and having a NM spawn chain similar to what XI used a lot is the perfect way to implement that. You'd go to one island to find a key item to spawn a NM there, that NM would drop a key item itself. You'd go to a different island, find another key item, combine them to spawn the next NM, and so on. The way SE handled Diadem, which is effectively just Hunts, was IMO incredibly lazy and uninspired. What I'm suggesting isn't even that astounding, it's literally just a system copied right out of XI, where it worked for over a decade. It is a solid way to design content, that the developers didn't even look at their own history with MMO for inspiration really makes me worry about the future of this game... IMO Diadem is not content, it is a zone and some enemies, absolutely no effort was put in by the development team to work Diadem into an event, it's just a zone to go grind Hunts in. It is a step back from dungeons, at least with dungeons you're running from A to B. Given Diadem has cost us a dungeon (if not more), it really should have been more than that. In a similar vein, updating the gear drops makes it consistently relevant (though arguably materia will do that now), unlike dungeons and raids, which become irrelevant every other patch, something like Diadem should remain relevant for the expansions lifespan (and hopefully beyond). Higher tier Mist- gear in 3.3 would achieve that fairly easily.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

What I want;
Finally, slap Unidentified Seeds/Ore/Shell/Bone in Diadem.

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You alread need diadem gathered materials for the 4 first stages of the crafted relic items. So there is no real need to put the unidentified items in there as wel.
It also wouldnt hurt to give us the option of buying the unidentified items with spoils as well.

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Diadem needs to feel like an event, not an aimless slaughter.

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Everything, right here.

I hadn't looked forward to anything in this game like I did with the Diadem... and it turned out to be the biggest disappointment. This should have been designed as the casual/midcore endgame to balance out hardcore raiding. Instead, we got a mindless loot pinata.

There's SO MUCH POTENTIAL with the Diadem. It was just painful to see it come out in such a simple, boring state. Time for the development team to get serious about actual game development.

it has 2 important purposes already; spiritbonding grade 5 combat materia and unique gathering items.

My biggest gripe with the diadem is its just mindless grind, I thought it would be more like ffxi's dynamis, like give us a reason to move around and visit other islands like to defeat a monster that extends our time or gives us a permanent status buff for the rest of our time. Have a boss that you have to unlock by completing certain tasks that would drop better loot.

There's just no incentive to move around the islands and explore and do stuff, you just find a camp sit there and drag a constant stream of mobs to the camp. It's just boring and makes the rest of the area outside of dino island seem like unnecessary fluff.

There's a pretty simple fix that would keep me more engaged, at least: Have NMs still drop gold coffers, but place a larger emphasis on the tasks you're given to accomplish. After you finish your first set of objectives, you get your tomes and are given a new set to do. Every set past the first gives the group some kind of reward (a guaranteed silver coffer, with maybe a 10-20% chance at a gold? Or perhaps just have it so that doing the objectives get you closer to a tracks spawn) I think the randomized objectives are great and encourages exploration and working as a group, so having them be an afterthought in between dino beatings seems like a waste.

1. A second (at least) map so that your group gets a random choice.
2. The gathering Stealth trait working BUT nodes being more random & rarer with a wider possible range of materials.
3. Better balancing of mob spawning concentrations combined with randomised location per beast type (no more Dino Island at a set location).
4. Mobs drop brass/steel spoils but only if you take part in the fight. Amount dropped randomised so not related to level, cap kept low (eg max 3 spoils).

Those would help, that said, I haven't set foot in Diadem since the second week after launch as it got mundane - straight to Dino Island & deeps for 90min. Boring.

Diadem = Mindless grind that won't get better or more entertaining, it will only have better rewards so people keep doing it even when it is boring.
So.. it can be fixed, but it won't be, it will be popular, but not entertaining.

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Originally Posted by Culfinrandir

2. The gathering Stealth trait working BUT nodes being more random & rarer with a wider possible range of materials.

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I disagree with this. The fact that Miner and Botanist have to go off and do their own thing, running around the entire map is part of the problem with gathering not incorporating well in Diadem. Fishers can sit at a specific spot, fish away, get a few coffers and Fresh Tracks to spawn, and you could have the rest of your party fighting in that area to take advantage of that and keep the Fisher safe.

To me, that feels like how gathering should be in Diadem; The gatherer doing their thing, while the party protects them. It's far from perfect, but they could do things to enhance that aspect somewhat (temporary items from gathering, more frequent Fresh Tracks from gathering, etc.). Since Miner and Botanist have to keep moving around though, they can't do that. They're constantly moving from island to island and "wasting" time the combat side of the party could spend on killing enemies.

Of course, they could just cut gathering out completely, and just give us combat and gathering Diadem as two options, though I'd much rather see them attempt to incorporate the two successfully, since it's an interesting concept.

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Originally Posted by Thayos

Time for the development team to get serious about actual game development.

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Tell me about it, they've been coasting on the same basic structure for years now...

Dungeons? Same corridor every time, the aesthetic and variety of enemies changes, but we've been doing the same thing in dungeons since launch.
Trials? Surprise surprise, a flat circle (or square) to fight in. Maybe we can fall off. Maybe the boss will be bigger than the arena. Gilgamesh provided the biggest break from the norm, that's... kinda sad...
Raids? Void Ark and Labyrinth of the Ancients have the exact same layout; 3 groups of random trash, first boss. Section where the alliance splits off into three areas to fight their trash, second boss. Group of trash, third boss. Final boss.

Then obviously we have Hunts as a lazy FATE clone (personally, I'd have opted to put Hunts in Levequests, since Levequests can actually feel like you're tracking something and we avoid the whole server clusterf*ck that way), and Diadem as a pathetic Hunt instance. I think 24 player raids particularly annoy me, because it cannot be hard to take that "split the alliance into 3" sections and just apply it to more of the run, sort of a Fork Tower kind of thing... Nope, lets just have that as a single trash section for each one (except Scyrus Tower, not that I'm giving it credit for just giving us more trash instead). Diadem just ended up as a massive disappointment though, not really expecting anything from the developers anymore, not the PvE ones at least, the PvP side of things have actually been improving slowly, and when I look at Feasts arena I can't help but go "Why aren't the PvE guys taking notes?!".

I'd actually probably be kinda OK with Diadem as it is, if the enemies weren't just massive bullet sponges (which is something games developers resort to when they don't want to try). If I could go in with one or two friends and actually enjoy myself? That would be great, instead the enemies take long enough with a full party that groups obviously started banding together to speed things up. Still keep them strong and dangerous if you're not careful, but I don't need to be wailing on the same enemy for so long when they're not doing anything... Really though, Yoshida just needs to tell his team to go play Final Fantasy XI and check out Sky, because that's exactly how Diadem should function; Go kill some enemies, Despot spawns for you, kill Despot. Get drop, go spawn next thing, and so on. I could solo the trash in Sky that let me spawn NMs there (and some of the NMs for that matter, but XI had terrible balance), you brought more people for safety and to be more efficient (pulling all the Groundskeepers to get Despot, for example). That is how Diadem should be, you can go in with a Light Party, and perhaps you'll spawn a few NMs and get some nice gear, or you could go in with a Full Party and get all the way to Kirin in the time limit.

I'd change the reward focus from gets Pink Gear to getting Spoils. This focus change may occur in 3.2 with the changes in gear melding.

1. Star rank (i.e. Notorious) and other track spawned (and only when spawned by tracks) Monsters reward the players that participate in killing them a good number of spoils. Brachiosaur gives even more Spoils out on a kill than the other Star ranks.
2. Each objective completed rewards Spoils and every 3 objects completed rewards a few tomestones. Gathering groups and Battle groups have different objective sets.
3. Increased number and types of variant weather spawns (only Umbral Wind and Hyperelectricy have weather spawns currently) and all weather variant monsters drop a token that can be traded in for a good number of Spoils or vanity gear.

I wish Diadem was like spawning NMs in Final Fantasy XI. We kill mobs, we get their items/key items, we trade items to a ??? spot, then NM spawn. Kill it, get 210, move along.

Dunno if anyone else here has played Blade and Soul yet but their open 24-man raids function a lot like I expected the Diadem to. An open map filled with trash and bosses; killing a boss has a chance to spawn a rarer, harder boss in its place with better loot. After killing 9 bosses the 24-man zone boss spawns that everyone converges on to kill. It has a lot more structure to it compared to the Diadem but is ultimately very similar. I would be happy if we had something more along those lines.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

Dunno if anyone else here has played Blade and Soul yet but their open 24-man raids function a lot like I expected the Diadem to. An open map filled with trash and bosses; killing a boss has a chance to spawn a rarer, harder boss in its place with better loot. After killing 9 bosses the 24-man zone boss spawns that everyone converges on to kill. It has a lot more structure to it compared to the Diadem but is ultimately very similar. I would be happy if we had something more along those lines.

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Yeah, that zone is fun.
You can even go solo if you want to do just some trash mob daily Q. I really liked it.

To Nalien - I see what you mean but I maybe have a different attitude because I'm from the UK but play on a NA server. It's hard to find a full Diadem team even at peak US times, so it's just not possible out of them. Those that can be found have a tendency to "ban" gathering or be gathering *only* (after flight achieved) which, as you know, means fishing because it's incredibly difficult to gather with an i150 beast on your back.

As a result, I'd like to be able to go in with a small party (solo would be ideal but not allowed) purely to gather. In this scenario Stealth is essential as there's just no other way to even get the air currents effectively. That's what I was thinking of, rather than your proposal, which I agree with too. Maybe a "gathering only" toggle for pre-made parties less than Light Party in size that enables my suggestion? This is all a hypothetical discussion so why not have both! =D

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Originally Posted by Culfinrandir

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Well the good news is, I'm pretty sure one of the Diadem changes is to queue via objective, so everyone will end up in the same instance but people who queued to gather will only be partied with others who queued to gather, and so on.

I want a Pegasus mount for my other char too!! D:

But its impossible at current situation!

Diadem died out very fast after that big change/nerf =.=

Cant get a single pirate coin! I cant even enter as a regular player in Duty Finder >,>;

How can they fix Diadem, for me:

Remove flight
Remove ridiculous distance between floating islands
Less mobs
Mobs don't just respawn on the same spot
Killing low mobs doesn't increase the spawn rate of a high mob
Make 'bosses' (star ranks) appear at the end of exploratory areas (i.e. a cave)
Make bosses kill-able with 1 party
Add environmental puzzles
Add environmental mazes
Remove chests as drops from mobs
Add more chests in areas (such as at the end of a maze, end of a puzzle, behind a S rank)
Have mobs drop more (or any?) crafting mats
Have NPCs randomly spawned in various locations, NPC's provide specific tasks for extra rewards

Well it really doesn't much matter now, because Easy/Normal will be Materia farming zones, and HM will be dead. No notes are posting that it will be adding ~i230 gear,to Diadem, so now the incentive to gear is completely gone. This gear used to rival/exceed Savage gear, which I agree wasn't the best choice, but now its completely blown out of the water. 0 Incentive now to even get it. If you were doing Normal/Easy and farming i210, you were doing Diadem wrong. HM or go home. Easy/Normal was for the crafter/gatherers and the scrubs that couldn't get into HM because they built a bad rep with FCs on their servers or just don't want to bother with PFs.

This system is like gambling, the fun is in not knowing what you will get whether it's a ground shattering piece of gear, a Brachisaur to challenge or wipe you completely, or getting absolutely bunk. That was the fun of the system, you put in time, and you had a chance to make it big. Now that is gone with 3.2. And instead of augmenting the rules of the zone to perhaps be like FF11's Abyssea where mobs would drop Items used to spawn NM's that COULD drop Key Items used to spawn other NM's for great loot.... This system is just sticking with the surface level... The event had so much potential and even though it was a shell of a system you could see how they could expand on it and make it amazing..... But they chose not to do that, and instead stick to the old standby of Tome Treadmill Grind, 1 Savage Event Set, and New Dungeons, and essentially choke Diadem to death. Even though it was low in attendence, in HM it was still frequent you would se 1-3 groups in there other then your group, and was still enjoyable. Now that there is 0 gear worth getting and only objective is to farm materia, this system is just sad.

What they should of done in terms of timelimit btw, isn't to make it a set time limit, but make it 30 mins on entry, and as you complete objectives, you get 15 Mins for each objective completed. Once you complete 3 you get the tomes for completing the zone, then have the list constantly updating with objectives. So you can farm for as long as you want, and when your party is done you leave. This way it can be as long as a dungeon run, or it can be a 4 hour Event grind fiesta. All about what you chose to make it, rather then a set amount of time that frankly isn't nearly enough to actually farm zones like HM (again, if you're farming for i210s, E/N is not worth it so naturally I'm talking about HM).

And if you think that "i210 gear is laughable" look at this body piece and tell me how "Laughable" that is compared to any other piece available in Eso +1 or Gordian +1
http://puu.sh/mNHW8/35791f40bb.png

@Kaurie, you basically just described Alexander and Dungeons, so I have to disagree, this system needs tiers of NMs. Make the NM's drop Specific pieces. So one island will only drop feet and have it's own chain of NM spawns, another island will only drop legs and have it's own chain of NM spawns, etc. Make NM's Item poppable based on star Mobs you kill and have the NMs have an RNG chance of dropping Key Items to pop higher NMs that have better or more rewards. Reward people but give them a goal to shoot for.

So the changes in 3.2 are pathetic... Terrible, even... Not entirely sure why we're seeing such a dramatic drop in time in the instance... That basically kills my interest in the event entirely now; Low manning Easy with one or two friends was fairly enjoyable at this point, but with only 30 minutes to play around in? Fuck, that's just not even worth bothering with now... It's zerg or nothing, or pop into Hard for a duration actually worth a damn but enemies with entirely too much HP... This is just stupid... There needs to be something like an increase Spoil rate, reduced enemy HP, or Abyssea style time extension mechanic along side this, but there isn't... Just streamlining the event down it seems, rather than expanding stuff like exploration/buried coffers/etc., the same crap dungeons went through... What a fucking waste...

Someone at SE do me a favor, next time one of you guys goes "Nobody does these side passages, so lets not make them in future", slap that idiot in the face. Harsh? Perhaps, but it's better than having you fools listen to him. The thing is, people never did side passages in dungeons, they never bother with half the map or caves in Diadem because you never gave a solid reason to do them. Not once have you attempted to make that kind of stuff rewarding, instead you just cut it out completely. Rather than making those caves worth exploring, or giving us a solid reason to explore the entire map in Diadem, you're streamlining it down and giving us less time in there, meaning nobody is ever going to bother with them now, so then the next piece of shit content you dump out wont have buried coffers, or optional caves, or anything remotely interesting, because "people ignored them when we did that before", all because you never attempted to make them rewarding and instead pushed people to ignore them.

This really is a stupid adjustment... Good job killing any potential for exploration in Diadem, reducing the time spent in it is just going to focus people on grinding. Flying around for different enemies, looking for buried coffers? None of that is worth the time it takes, and rather than making it worth the time, you're reducing the time we have and making them even less attractive... Bravo SE...