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

[Kallera]

Diadem is essentially hunts (or fates), which i blame in the first place for players in full fledged gear but do not know how to play their class..., lol. *Not the case with all players mind you
It had and i think still has potential however. (Diadem)
Honestly giving the item to upgrade eso gear from Void ark was far too early on in the expansion in my opinion. It truly did make Savage pointless to those that have been running or attempting it and really other then the mount, gear was the only reason for many to run Savage.

Diadem hasn't been out that long unnerfed to be "the reason people don't know how to play their class." There is no difference in the intervals between patches for ugrade gear being available, save for the extended length of time between 3.0 and 3.1, which was experienced across the board.

[Ashkendor]

Diadem hasn't been out that long unnerfed to be "the reason people don't know how to play their class." There is no difference in the intervals between patches for ugrade gear being available, save for the extended length of time between 3.0 and 3.1, which was experienced across the board.

I read it as them blaming hunts/fates for players not knowing how to play their class, not blaming Diadem.

[Zephanoa]

SNIP

Well there are two points here... they haven't been properly incentivizing their Savage content. I for one am not a fan of BIS in general but that is besides the point. The second is that this is (and has always) been the catch up patch. Those who cant to x content can go do this other thing to get what they need. I am nearly certain that the next major patch will have a new ilvl tied to it. Something that people should keep in mind is that Savage was out for 5 months before Diadem/Void was released.

[Velhart]

I think I am late to the game here, but ohh well here we go.

First, in regard to Alexander's story. There is some fault in the structure, but I think most people are being too quick to call it out. I think we are getting into something bigger in the next tier. My guess is the goblins are going to unleash something within Alexander that they shouldn't have and either get brushed aside or destroyed, revealing the actual threat of Alexander, making the stakes feel much higher. What SE should of done with this is show how high the stakes are by showing it's power. This was also a fault in the first Binding Coils tier, the difference was that we had the events from 1.xx to let us know that the stakes are high and if Bahamut got unleashed it could cause a second calamity. People should wait till the next Alexander tier to see how things play out before making a true judgement call to the whole story. Its fair to criticize however on how the first part was presented.

Raid structure. Yoshi-P has said recently that they do not have the man power to create three difficulty tiers for raids (this is complete nonsense by the way). So between Easy > Normal > Savage, one has to be taken out of the equation. All the casual players are going to come after me for saying this and I have said it in the past, but between these three, Easy needs to taken out. Seriously, every content in this game is catered towards casual play. This one raid dungeon, and I empathize on that number, one piece of content in this game that is suppose to be catered to a more hardcore play style, and then people say that Savage needs to be taken out.

Really? So we need to turn this game completely casual? This game is already unbalanced in making everything non-hardcore and grindy, and then you say that Savage mode should not be in the game. It is complete utter nonsense and I can't believe some actually believe it shouldn't be around. Hard raiding content has to exist, the hardcore base needs something to strive for, and no, not Final Coil level difficulty will cut it. There needs to be at least one piece of content in this game that does test the best of the best for this game.

Easy mode in raids are only a short term solution. It has no real lasting appeal. This is content that is apparently suppose to last at least till the next odd number patch and people got sick of it and stopped going in after they geared up one to two jobs. I will get the argument that "I am entitled to get the story of this raid." Sure, eventually. Story in itself is a reward, and should be treated as such, especially in content like this. There is much more satisfaction in taking out a very difficult fight and getting story content as a reward for a first time clear. Easy mode for the most part just handed it to you, devaluing it. It is a shame that people only look upon reward as something that has to be in item form.

How raiding should be structured is that it needs to appeal to midcore and hardcore players. Letting echo buff and mechanics debuff come into play when the content is outdated. Normal mode should be on the difficulty level of Final Coil, where it is difficult and challenging, but a decent midcore group who communicate well can overcome it in time and not too stressful mechanics wise. Savage should definitely be for the best of the best players who want to take on over the top difficult content. Of course Savage needs to contain the very best gear, achievements, and titles. I am basically describing Second Coil's structure here.

This set up allows players to work their way up in content more naturally. Right now there is a huge spike in difficulty going from Easy to Savage. There is no midcore like in between for it. For raiding, this does need to exist. As much as I love the Thordan fight, it is not the answer for midcore players. If people would like to argue with me on this, just note that raiding is more dead than it has ever been because the two difficulty tiers express the extreme in their own right, making it unappealing to a lot.

If Yoshi-P wants to hire more man power and make it a three difficulty raid structure. I would be okay with that. It goes against my story = reward argument, but still better than the mess we have currently.

For Diadem. This content is a complete mess and poorly thought out. There is so many better ways this could of been approached and many in here have pointed out. It is a pure grind fest from start to finish. There is little to no thought process in terms of accomplishing what needs to be done. How it should of worked is first, the gear should not of been ilvl210. This we are talking about, is gear that can potentially surpass gear that is given in the hardest content in the game. This should never be a thing. At best it should be ilvl200. The place should be a means of gearing alternate jobs and on the gathering side, more rare material from gathering for current and future content. Someone can argue with me that item upgrades from doing Void Ark or hunts are there also, they at least put more of a gate on obtaining them.

It also should of made you perform specific tasks to obtain higher tier reward. Nothing too difficult, but something to have you think instead of semi-afk'ing pressing 1 > 2 > 3 the whole time. Something like having to find a hidden chest containing a pop item to pop an NM that drops an item to spawn an even bigger NM. It should of had that nice blend of Dynamis/Sky/Sea from FFXI, but it failed to bring what was good about those three pieces of content.

Diadem is straight out boring and giving potential BiS gear to people who are just slamming their head on their keyboard for 90 minutes.

Overall, FFXIV does not know how to properly balance casual and hardcore play, and it definitely shows since 3.0. People have quit and broken up static groups over time because of this. SE really needs to step up on this.

Now to wait for the inevitable I am just an elitist counter-argument.

[RiceisNice]

First, in regard to Alexander's story. There is some fault in the structure, but I think most people are being too quick to call it out. I think we are getting into something bigger in the next tier. My guess is the goblins are going to unleash something within Alexander that they shouldn't have and either get brushed aside or destroyed, revealing the actual threat of Alexander, making the stakes feel much higher. What SE should of done with this is show how high the stakes are by showing it's power. This was also a fault in the first Binding Coils tier, the difference was that we had the events from 1.xx to let us know that the stakes are high and if Bahamut got unleashed it could cause a second calamity. People should wait till the next Alexander tier to see how things play out before making a true judgement call to the whole story. Its fair to criticize however on how the first part was presented.

Again in BCoB's defense, it ended with a hook with the implications of Louisoix is still alive, despite us seeing first hand the man died for us and 2.0. It's not just a weak start, but it's essentially a weak closing to what feels like the storyline rather than setting up a follow up because we actually have a plot token in our hands that pretty much says "Alexander won't ever be fully active". There's little implications of there being more other than the fact that the villian said so, and that Alexander hasn't disappeared. We're waiting for them to make the next move and it just feels like an episodic thing in a 30-minute show rather than the next chapter in a novel (or even a to-be-continued in said 30-minute show)

How raiding should be structured is that it needs to appeal to midcore and hardcore players. Letting echo buff and mechanics debuff come into play when the content is outdated. Normal mode should be on the difficulty level of Final Coil, where it is difficult and challenging, but a decent midcore group who communicate well can overcome it in time and not too stressful mechanics wise. Savage should definitely be for the best of the best players who want to take on over the top difficult content. Of course Savage needs to contain the very best gear, achievements, and titles. I am basically describing Second Coil's structure here.

I was on this side until I saw what they did with FCob (which was hitting the middleground). That being said though, the story itself can become more accessible down the road with echo and mechanical nerfs (which is only really applicable to fights like unnerfed T7, FCoB got through just fine with almost zero mechanics nerf, only echo buff). Applying this to something like savage completely defeats the point of it.

[Velhart]

I was on this side until I saw what they did with FCob (which was hitting the middleground). That being said though, the story itself can become more accessible down the road with echo and mechanical nerfs (which is only really applicable to fights like unnerfed T7, FCoB got through just fine with almost zero mechanics nerf, only echo buff). Applying this to something like savage completely defeats the point of it.

Sorry if I did not specify. The Normal mode should be the one with echo buff, not the Savage version. Savage needs to stay the way it is, I would even say keep an ilvl cap on it to retain it's difficulty. Gear may be outdated but the challenge for the most part is still intact even when the next tier raid comes in.

[Aikaal]

A friend of mine posted this picture few days ago. 210 pants have 160 off-stats. Thats 218 off-stats (Not counting gear gets less Piety and Det) People can argue they prefer an extra 40 crit or so on Scholar over 30 Det and 30 Spell Speed. People may also argue off-stats are pretty weak and they don't really matter. It doesn't change this piece has 58 extra off-stat. It is already superior to 210 crafted gear and even if they are to implement in 3.2 iLevel 220 gear in a normal mode, this is unlikely rushing pants is optimal anyways.

Brb puking~

[Yurihyuga]

diadem gear won't be meldable in 3.2 and will be purely for gearing alts in future it is having a temporary little shine that will subside soon and won't be BIS anymore just let it have its moment. Diadem will always be relevant though due to materia.

[Airget]

A friend of mine posted this picture few days ago. 210 pants have 160 off-stats. Thats 218 off-stats (Not counting gear gets less Piety and Det) People can argue they prefer an extra 40 crit or so on Scholar over 30 Det and 30 Spell Speed. People may also argue off-stats are pretty weak and they don't really matter. It doesn't change this piece has 58 extra off-stat. It is already superior to 210 crafted gear and even if they are to implement in 3.2 iLevel 220 gear in a normal mode, this is unlikely rushing pants is optimal anyways.

Brb puking~

You're comparing i185 crafted gear to i210 Diadem gear. . . Of course weight wise the i210 is going to be greater than what's currently offered to crafted gear.

[Kuroyasha]

You're comparing i185 crafted gear to i210 Diadem gear. . . Of course weight wise the i210 is going to be greater than what's currently offered to crafted gear.

Now I may be wrong, but I don't see where Aikaal says i185 in the post that you quoted.