Diadem and Savage - I can't deal with it anymore

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Rice hits the nail on the head.

Last time I ran the Diadem with some friends, we entered just above the caves. I decided "let's brave the caves!" and we even got our own NM to spawn there, but given the. . . varied range of skill in our party, we couldn't take it down and ultimately had to give up to join the Cretaceous curb-stomp over with everyone else. Our attempt to try to venture out and explore was discouraged; partly by our inabilities, but largely by the want to make it all seem worthwhile.

And making it worthwhile is, or rather becomes subjective. I honestly want to be practicing Thordan Ex or leveling other jobs these days over the 90-minute Diadem detour, but that's because I don't NEED the gear there. I have a Pegasus already, and started gathering in 2.4, so I'm not yet able to enjoy Diadem that way. I was never crazy about hunts, and "sky hunts" (who called it that first? lol) aren't much better IMO. The gear is impressive enough at times, but I personally don't enjoy trading challenge for time and RNG to gear up.

Wishful Thinking: Paralelling the original relic quest beginning, if I had to perhaps EXPLORE the Diadem to find the weapon or perhaps components to construct/restore it (and this wouldn't simply amount to kill mobs til it appears), I'd actually enjoy that. A LOT. But I admit I'm already more than apprehensive about what the first step may entail, Diadem or not.

[RiceisNice]

Rice hits the nail on the head.

Last time I ran the Diadem with some friends, we entered just above the caves. I decided "let's brave the caves!" and we even got our own NM to spawn there, but given the. . . varied range of skill in our party, we couldn't take it down and ultimately had to give up to join the Cretaceous curb-stomp over with everyone else. Our attempt to try to venture out and explore was discouraged; partly by our inabilities, but largely by the want to make it all seem worthwhile.

Our very first NM spawn on the day of patch was the meteorsaur, and it was inside the cave. This was at least 60 minutes into our very first exploration on normal mode, and we thought that the caves were one of the pre-quiresites because that's where we found our first "fresh tracks". Then cue the utter disappoint when the tracks were actually just from accumulating kills from the entire hour we spent running around, while going into the cave itself had nothing to do with it.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

The caves were a let down for me, yet curiosity still kills the cat when it comes to it (pun partially intended).

Diadem could be much more than it is, and it would be unfair to place the blame solely on devs for how it was made, but I remember thinking on my 2nd or 3rd run, "why do I feel like I'm just hunting?" And my interest began to go downhill from there. Moreso when I'm forced to heal for my party or go on something other than my main.

Exploration, however much or little there is to be done, IS something some in the community enjoy. Or I wouldn't have run myself all the way to Mor Dhona back when I was level 20 on my first class. I would hope for massive changes to Diadem to encourage this, along with a balance of combat/gathering, but I'm well aware that's quite the pipe dream.

[Kosmos992k]

No there's not. This kind of mentality holds back horizontal progression from being implemented and cause the chaos we have now with 2 different difficulties of the same raid.

What we need is not a clear separation, we need REAL CHOICE OF GEARING. Make harder dungeons with relevant gear, 24-man raids also with relevant gear, keep Diadem, keep tomestones, make primals drop acessories with different effects. All with the same ilv, and keep BiS for Raid tier. This "clear separation" mentality don't belong in a FF.

I feel that the audience of FFXIV has in fact split into two parts, with one part racing away to keep up with the vertical progression and the playing more horizontally by working on their other jobs and classes, and other aspects of the game (not raiding). Of course there are a lot of players somewhere in-between this, but I think that broadly speaking, it's fair to say that this separation has occurred, and everyone just needs to stop trying to talk about the game and it's players as a single group. There is a wide spectrum of players in FFXIV now, and the extremes at eiter end are not representative of the whole.

The vertical progression is fine for the raiding community, but there are specific concerns that raiders have that do need to be addressed. Catch-up patches (like 3.1) are rarely received well by raiders, because those patches seek to allow the more casual side of the players to catch up on gear, and raiders feel that their gear is being handed out like candy to others.

I think the solution is actually to slow the vertical progression a bit, make the actual top tier raids a little more complex and time consuming and gaining good gear more consequential. At the same time, add more mainstream dungeons and horizontal gearing. If the raid tier gear is ilvl 210, then why not allow the ilvl 180 and lower gear to spread more horizontally a patch after the top tier gear is released? It's not going to threaten raid gear, but it gives non-raiders more options and more things to strive for. The same is true of adding more 'mainstream' dungeons. Why not throw in a new lower level dungeon every now and again with a bit more story and lore to go with it? Broaden the base of the game for players that truly play this as a game.

But both ends of the spectrum of players must be catered to. Right now, although Raiders may feel that they are not getting the 'love' that they should from SE, it's undeniable that the game is fundamentally designed around vertical progression, and for players not keeping up with that progression, that content model' is kind of irrelevant.

[Gehena]

>I don't know any MMORPG that've allowed BiS to be outside of raiding content.
>FFXI

There are other MMO that supported a non-instance raid environment. MMO that are heavily invested in instanced raids/dungeons are repetitive and bland. I believe Diadem to be a step in the right direction for several reasons. Just because it's "easy" now doesn't deter the possible influence to the meta.

Given the amount of effort to coordinate and farm efficiently to the distance traveled/progression obstacles the content itself is very promising. They obviously didn't want people to grind out BiS from the last patch, but considering the amount of time and effort through pure RNG it really shouldn't act as a deterrent to players that strive for end-game. The gear is essentially useless unless its being put to use.

[Iagainsti]

Can't speak for Rafflesia, but pretty sure most of the bosses in COB were Allagan constructs placed inside as defense systems. Anyone outside of that was set up by Bahamut himself to stop you getting to him.

So the same could be said for Living Liquid; therefore this convo is moot.

[Iromi]

I do (or DID) raiding..and have no problem with "casuals" getting gear. I feel the problem is just that Alexander is kind of boring, and the fights aren't anything special...it's not like coil at all I preferred the BCOB...and T9, FCOB was awesome too. Anyway, think this game could use a bit more horizontal progression, maybe the raid gear could have...oh...I dunno...stuff like Refresh +5, Enmity +10, Increased Duration of blah blah..you know...the stuff we had in 1.x?

Could still be the same ilvl...just more stat options. But yea...casual people deserve gear too, no matter how they decide to use it. When I was fully decked out in coil gear..I kinda stood around at my house in it because this game lacks lot of content....:/ So don't really see the issue here with that...the issue more so lies with a lack of content. Diadem though I enjoy...it is a start...^^

[Aikaal]

>I don't know any MMORPG that've allowed BiS to be outside of raiding content.
>FFXI
MMO that are heavily invested in instanced raids/dungeons are repetitive and bland. I believe Diadem to be a step in the right direction for several reasons.

So spamming Diadem 6 times a day to get 210 that are better than raid content is not repetitive? No? Okay. You don't need that BiS if you don't raid anyways.

I'm sorry but I fail to understand your logic. If Diadem is the right way then there is no reason to raid anymore in this game and everybody that are looking for a game to raid will just look elsewhere.

[Pence]

In my head 3.1 is a car crash. It hit a deer. The deers name was Alexander: Savage. The deer is dead. And now all the vultures are swooping in and getting nice and fat for doing no work at all.

[Gehena]

I'm sorry but I fail to understand your logic. If Diadem is the right way then there is no reason to raid anymore in this game and everybody that are looking for a game to raid will just look elsewhere.

Your argument is purely opinion, I'm giving you facts. it's an educated assumption from past games that have either introduced similar content or converted over to large scale PvE. Arguing that a grind is repetitive is irrelevant, what is an MMO if not a grind? Literally regurgitating the same content for the past two and a half years is stagnant.

I'm not arguing that Diadem isn't currently a casual grind, but it directly resembles prior patches that influenced that overall quality of previous MMO. You can't compromise the quality of a game just to make it more "difficult", because at the end of the day the end-game community is minute in comparison to the concurrent player-base which in fact have a larger voice influencing the direction of the game.