Diadem - The Seeds of Discontent

[NightsZenith]

Everybody is up in arms the last couple of days about the relic, but I think this is honestly just the harvest reaped from the failure of diadem. At the end of the day, we all deep down knew this is what the relic was going to involve. This is what it has always involved. A way of forcing us into doing the old content over and over to make it easier for the new tier of players to get loot and clears. I'm honestly not too hurt about the relic, you'll have it for when new content is difficult enough to justify it. It's frustrating to see they haven't managed to come up with something new and clever for the relic, which I'm sure we were all hoping, but at the heart of it I'm not upset.

Diadem on the other hand is a different story. It was hyped as some kind of new FC centred exploration group activity. Everybody I know had their imagination running wild of what endless possibilities there could be for this new content. Instead we got hunts. Seriously, this is just hunts.

Diadem in a nutshell
- One large ordinary static zone
- Lots of monsters with large amounts of health (and very little else except bronty)
- Gathering nodes randomly around
- Crystals with buffs [almost inconsequential]
- Small quest list with minor importance

Now I like the gear with the random glamours. That is fun (except no dyed high allagan gear QQ)

What I thought Diadem could have been

- Dynamic changing areas (at least fog of war / some random generation)
- Monsters don't respawn, progress felt in the zone as you go
- Gathering nodes that are static, but also ones requiring participation (with DoW/M or gathering quests)
- Interesting interactive areas/objects/missions with dynamic changes
- Quests and missions which you could branch off to participate in as a team with rewards
- Monsters and mini-bosses with reused mechanics in new ways. Or perhaps mini-quests where suddenly you learn that the Kobolds have summoned titan and you have to go put him down and when you arrive Garuda is there as well! Some of the old content could have been brought back in creative ways through the avenue of diadem to make it feel exciting.
- The idea of letting 72 people be in the instance all the time too just hurts this, it limits some of the creativity and balance curve. I honestly think it should just of been a 24 man limit and some kind of scaling that changes if you have 2-8, 9-16, 17-24 people with you when you get there. This could have allowed the team to balance and create some interesting scenarios/missions/quests/add interesting combinations of old bosses from raids/trials to the zones.

Diadem ends up just being an instanced hunt arena. People call the tracks, we all run there, pray we got enough credit for a gold chest, move on and repeat. In my heart I can't accept that is what Yoshi thought we wanted. Unless truly the development team thinks we love hunts? Is that why we keep getting hunts as part of the catch up and why you created diadem? If this is the thought process I totally understand, but in my experience nobody really likes hunts that much, is that just the people I spend my time with? Do the majority really like this? Just for catharsis I want to hear from the developers about their vision for diadem. If this is what they wanted to create then I can at least be at ease, but I just feel this had the potential to be a real adventure area and a dump for all their old content to remain relevant and still fun.

Sorry just wanted to share my thoughts and vent a little. I don't know how to get a response or catch the eye of the developer team, but just wanted to throw some of my rambled thoughts down here to inspire creative design for the game I love and maybe get an answer in the process.

[Dotsusama]

I don't like Hunts. Or, rather, I liked the concept of Hunts before they implemented it, before they tweaked it half a dozen times to try and make it more viable as if they did not or could not predict how the community would treat it, or how (mechanically) it would function.

Honestly, I think if this game had a public test server that anyone subbed for more than a couple of months had access to, they could get a lot more valuable feedback that way, and also have a chance to stress test their new content more. Not to mention make balance tweaks based less on "this is what COULD happen on paper. maybe." and more "people will actually do it like THIS".

[fm_fenrir]

in my experience nobody really likes hunts that much, is that just the people I spend my time with?

I don't think anyone likes hunts mechanically, but you sort of invent your own fun as far as entertainment goes in hunt parties.

Anyway, I was kind of hoping Diadem would turn out to be more in line with the Moblin maze mongers minigame from XI, where you get a semi-randomized dungeon layout with randomly populated mob families.

[Alahra]

Diadem is the greatest disappointment for me personally since the introduction of Hunts. I greatly dislike zerg content, and both Hunts and Diadem could have been so much more than relatively mindless zergs.

I'm hoping future Exploratory Missions are structured very differently.

[ruskie]

@NightsZenith kinda had those same expectations... something where you could explore and there would be progress and stuff would actually die as you go along...

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Because of the way the Diadem was designed, unfortunately, it actually discourages exploration. Instead, it's find a farm point/where everyone is farming, then zerg zerg zerg until tracks appear. Repair if/when necessary. Maybe go gather a little before time's up.

There's no reason to explore the caves.
There's no reason to explore other islands.
There's no reason to EXPLORE if you want to make the most out of being there.

That more than anything is the issue. Diadem simply doesn't live up to its "Exploratory Voyage" name. By design.

[Quintalian]

Anyway, I was kind of hoping Diadem would turn out to be more in line with the Moblin maze mongers minigame from XI, where you get a semi-randomized dungeon layout with randomly populated mob families.

Moblin Maze Mongers was a fairly claustrophobic bit of content, reusing the same map for every "custom dungeon", and limiting mob population to a few types from just two monster families per run. Although it wore out pretty quickly in FFXI, a similar style of customized instance content would fit within the wide open spaces of the Diadem, or the next Exploratory Mission area, for that matter. Allowing a player to 'decipher a sky chart' (pick elements used to populate an instance) a la MMM, and then explore it with a party or Free Company members might be compelling. It might even be possible to replicate content from 1.0 in this way, such as the Skirmish NM and boss rush battles. Just my 2 gil.

This has bugged me, too. Diadem's current objectives are pretty simple to clear quickly, leaving little direction on what to do after getting those Esoterics. Rather than simply getting the full tome payout by clearing a handful of objectives out of the full list, it might be more interesting to earn those Eso tomes in stages, along with some guaranteed gear or spoils drops, by clearing escalating tiers of objectives. For example, kill X rank III mobs, there's a few Eso. Then work your way up to kill rank IVs, then rank Vs, etc. Reaching the top tier of each type of objective grants a bonus chest with multiple gear drops and/or spoils.

There should be exploration-based tasks (find both kinds/multiples of crystals, examine points on multiple islands, find a 'hidden point' via hot/cold mini-game maybe?) and gathering tasks (get NQs, HQs, gather X different types of mats) as well, of course. This way, in order to earn the full amount of Eso tomes, there's more of a goalpost, as well as some bonus incentives for objectives.

[Safety]

[had to split this up, sorry!]

I wanted to add in my suggestions for improving the Diadem, as well as future exploratory missions.

Change the rewards from Diadem to quest rewards based on completion of objectives rather than drops from chests inside the instance (similar to the upgrade materials awarded from the weekly CT raid quest). Maybe some sort of token system, where you received a quantity of tokens corresponding to your completion rank (as the summary screen at the end of each exploratory mission is currently meaningless), which allow you to purchase a “Bag of Mist Gear of ____,” (or a pirate map to a chest or something) which contains a number of aetheric 150, 180 and 210 pieces. This reduces the amount of RNG in trying to get class-specific gear while at the same time retaining the RNG element with regard to gear pieces and stats. This also removes the headache of free-lotting on all pieces of gear that currently exists in DF Diadem.

[Safety]

[continued]

Tokens for crafting materials could also be awarded for completion of particular gathering objectives, which would provide incentive for completion of gathering-class objectives, and also allow non-gatherers to receive these items in ways other than the marketboard. The number of tokens rewarded and objectives required for certain ranks could also be adjusted by mission difficulty level, keeping FC airship missions relevant while permitting players without access to HM explorations to receive the same rewards, albeit at a slower pace.

The more drastic proposal that I want to suggest is this: Make the Diadem an open-world PVP zone. Slaughter, Secure and Seize objectives fit very easily into the exploratory model, are underused systems that are already present in the game, and add an element of danger, teamwork and excitement to exploratory missions that is currently lacking.

[Safety]

[continued]

As the class-change mechanic already exists in Seal Rock, it is not a stretch to assume that one could change to a gathering class in such a zone as well. For example, maybe an objective is to hold a watchtower for a set amount of time for objective points toward your final ranking, or secure a grove of trees long enough for your botanists to gather a certain amount of logs while marauding players are fended off. Killing monsters could also become PVP battles similar to the fights over Allagan Defense Nodes in Borderlands arenas.Coordinating these sorts of assaults, defenses, and finding which objectives could be completed by which party members would promote communication and teamwork within the full party in order to facilitate the highest possible ranking for the mission.