Are Relic and Diadum anti-raiding tools?

[lawlHT]

Real raiders raid for the challenge of the fight and the satisfaction of completing it. They do not raid to have the best gear. A real raider views gear as a tool to accomplish their task. It is a means to an end, not the end itself. If you're raiding for the goal of some tangible reward then you are doing it wrong. Any reward, be it functional or cosmetic, is there as a bonus to make your life easier the next time you run that raid. That's it's only purpose in existence. Real raiders strive to meet a challenge. To overcome an obstacle that most people can't or won't. Even if beating it gave absolutely no reward, the real raider basks in the satisfaction that he/she has grown as a player to a level beyond most, and then dives headfirst into the next fray.

I'm sure this sounded cool in your head, but if you were to take away all of the rewards from savage Alex except the satisfaction of clearing it there wouldn't be anyone running it at all

[xvshanevx]

This is called a catch up patch.

I've been playing since 2.1, and I know about these catch up patches. And what I would like to see is for there not to be any catch up patches. I mean, think about how awesome it would've been to have had the Relic weapon with us since release of the expansion? The weapon would've felt more like a part of us instead of being just an after-thought due to a poor raiding cycle.

Diadem

Since it's release I have been spelling it Diadumb, which I was trying to avoid when writing this.

No, they just over-tuned Savage because they didn't like how quickly FCOB was cleared, resulting in some of the lowest end-game raid participation the game's ever seen.

Yoshi-P has said in an interview or two that the next Alexander section likely won't be as difficult.

I can completely agree with this. And it is a bit disappointing to hear too. I am looking forward tot he challenge AS3 and AS4 will bring.

snip

My apologies, I bit my own tongue and didn't fully read you comment before posting T_T

I get the feeling you didn't actually read what I wrote. (And no real fault for you, I am not the best writer when it comes to expressing my ideas.) I am not arguing about the difficulty, or the needed grinding of the relic or Diadem, what I am discussing is how they released it (and other content) and how it hinders the raiding community and the rewards the raiding community receives. For further info, see response to next person! As for bleeding edge content and people not wanting to run it, that is understandable, I know many players would prefer to ignore AS and focus on dungeons, VA, crafting, and gathering.

Also, about Diadem and the raid scene, ya, the fights were poorly tuned for sure.

Snip

Yes. I completely agree with this. The reason I am excited about ThEX and AS3 is primarily for the challenge. Alexander Normal, the new Dungeons, and VA are very easy and very boring (playing on a PS3 or PS4 might make it a bit more entertaining). As for raiding for the best gear, it is not as simple as that. From my limited understand, BiS is designed to make further future runs of content easier (and too show off that you are part of a good team). Also, by having BiS come from the raid itself would allow hardcore raiders to completely skip tome gear and dungeon gear (and sometimes normal gear) and jump right into Savage runs. Something like this simply allows the raiding community going and not having to stop and mindless grind for their BiS. And, as it stands, you have already gritted your teeth, progressed, and beat the toughest content, why then receive no rewards? By giving the raiding community, those that would actually put BiS to use, allows them to further run raids in a much more consistent manner. And with mmos furthering the idea of not having weekly lockouts for raids this opens the avenue for statics to either sell content or for them to help other statics or players beat the current tier.

As a raider, honestly though, would you prefer to see your BiS not come from the raid tier you have so fervently struggled to beat over the many weeks of progression? Or would you prefer your BiS to show up in a form of casual play that anyone can do outside of the current raid tier? Maybe go a bit hypothetical and ask, what if nothing dropped at all? No title, no mounts, no glamour... nothing. And all you get is the feeling of beating the toughest content (hell, even SCoB savage at least gave out titles). Doing the raids for the sake of doing the raids is one thing; simply not rewarding players for beating the toughest content you can offer in the game is another. If it were just the relic weapon that would show up in casual play to be BiS, that is one thing, but every bloody equipment slot for BiS raiding not coming from the actual raid itself is pretty bad.

As someone mentioned though, this is a "catch up" patch, and I guess I am just disappointed that they used the Relic Weapon and Diadem as "catch-up" mechanics instead of some serious, fun, content to grind into.

As it stands, though, I would like to see the raiding gear be best for, you guessed it, raiding.

One last thing. I am really just trying to show that you can have a really strong weapon in the Relic be useful throughout multiple patches. Look at it right now, though, we get the weapon end of a raiding cycle where it will have little use. Players who have already beat AS4 and got their weapons are simply doing Relic because they having nothing else to do, and players currently progressing through AS3 will more than likely stick to ThEX weapons so they can spend more time on AS3. Also, if you get your ilvl 200 or ilvl 210 Relic, why do ThEX then?

Oh, I think I see where I am becoming misunderstood about end game raiding rewards. I am not actually seeing as getting this gear as means to an end when it comes to raiding. Most players that have gotten their BiS gear from Alexander Savage and Eso tomes actually put their gear to use by continuing to do raids (albeit through selling content, getting others their clears, or doing it with 1 less man). They put the gear to use. When you just offer this kind of gear to everyone, most players won't actually put it to use. As most have already argued, what use is ilvl 210 BiS if you don't even raid? What I am proposing is that each subsequent patch, BiS doesn't come from raiding. Instead it alternates between content. One patch its Relic and Dungeons, another its Tomes and Raid, then the next might be Relic and Tomes. It's just that the end of a raiding cycle, BiS armor and accessories would come from the current tier and you can have the option of Relic or Raid weapon.

[Enesuia]

Raiding means logically taking something from a place. Diadem is consider a raid, just not your typically challenging hard to beat or a challenge. Relic is not, that's personal progression, it's your own thing. We had those in Final Fantasy XI Online. Except in FFXI the relics did involve raiding, Dynamis. lol the new relic has that... Normal Alexander.

[Zojha]

As it stands, though, I would like to see the raiding gear be best for, you guessed it, raiding.

You sure you don't want raiding gear to be best for "everything battle related", rather than raiding in particular? Because what you're asking for here is easy to implement, as you can use a Morale-like stat or accuracy to achieve that goal. Both however would mean raid gear would now be suboptimal outside of raids.

They put the gear to use.

Ehm...everyone that participates in battle content puts their gear to use. A raider will use the shiny new equipment to clear raids faster and easier while a casual will use the gear to clear dungeons faster and easier. And a bad player will use it to clear content he previously couldn't. Case in point: Clear rates rise as people gear up and stuff like Echo are introduced (which really is just an artificial iLvL boost).

As such, the worst players ironically are the ones who need good gear the most, as they have the least skill to make up for it. Yet they rarely are the ones to get it.

[StouterTaru]

Most players that have gotten their BiS gear from Alexander Savage and Eso tomes actually put their gear to use by continuing to do raids (albeit through selling content, getting others their clears, or doing it with 1 less man). They put the gear to use.

Your definition of putting gear to use is very narrow; limiting it to doing top level content that you could already do faster/easier. How is doing low/mid level content faster/easier not also putting it to use?

They could make top level content give the hands down BiS drops, but with lockouts that shrinks the number of people doing it. Someone leaves your static and you need to replace them, all of a sudden you need to farm 6+ month old content for a new person to be able to raid with you. Remove the lockouts so statics aren't required to raid and you have waves clearing content then unsubbing for 5 months. SE found a balance, and while it's not perfect, it's better than most alternatives.

[Gaiussenpai]

I'm sure this sounded cool in your head, but if you were to take away all of the rewards from savage Alex except the satisfaction of clearing it there wouldn't be anyone running it at all

Hey that sounds rather familiar.

[Ilitsa]

In my opinion, people need to stop comparing EVERYTHING in this game to "does it stack up to my raiding at all?" Content outside of raiding, isn't anti-raiding, just like raids are not anti-everything else, there is no reason for the two to be mutually exclusive at all, that mentality is what is anti-raid, because it scares off a lot of people that may have otherwise tried the end raids.

[Volsung]

This is called a catch up patch. They've had every other major patch be a catch up patch since forever.

Top-tier raiders get a couple months with BiS, then equivalent (potentially better, potentially worse, depending on gear slot) gear gets released with a heavy grind requirement to allow people who hadn't cleared, or hadn't cared to clear, to catch up before the next raid tier drops. In this way, new players who just reach max level are never left too far behind to catch up and begin raiding if they care to.

There's a salient argument to be had that Diadem breaks this a bit because you have the potential of every gear slot being better than raid gear just doing that, as opposed to the mix and match of earlier catch up patches--but that's a different discussion than the one you're trying to have, so.

^^^
Pretty much what Krylo said. In first order of patches, is the raiding gear that a majority of the community won't see. then there is a catch up
patch that a lot more people will be able to jump into. Its usually more casual or something you'll grind and put time into (once weeklys, tomes,
relic grind). and when the next hardcore patch is added, many will still be gearing up from the previous patch. I believe they're trying to find some
middle ground that can please a lot of people.

I'd just like to see some longevity, but as we're probably expecting a cap raise with expansion two, I think we'll continue this back and forth
dialogue.

[Kallera]

Hey that sounds rather familiar.

Kinda like the same situation if you took away all the meaning behind content other than raids.

[Arashmin]

I think you're misdiagnosing here. Diadem and Relic are designed in a fashion to compliment raiding. It - supposedly - provides content that you can pace yourself through as you choose, despite currently a-reek of 'forced hand'. This may then lead to that person raiding later on, since they have access to tools that can keep them up to par statwise with raiders. The Relic also provides a long term progression element and a sort of attachment to your progress as it is made manifest.

However, the next stuff down is all so easily attained and doesn't provide any sort of challenge except against ones own time, until you cross the threshold into this games raiding culture, and you're hit by it like a ton of bricks. Diadem and Relic shouldn't be posited as any sort of mid-tier challenge, but then again there's really nothing there otherwise, and so again, 'force hand' and all that. The closest thing to midcore that we have is the Ex primals and Thordan, all of which are really incentiveless to most, especially as they provide effectively no horizontal benefit in a game that is gluttoned on vertical progression, and they don't even provide enough in the way of tomes to merit doing over sets of the same two dungeons over and over again. And the next thing from that is Alexander story mode, which... well, I think that's been covered well enough.

I do agree with the sentiment that the raiding culture is suffering, but the content outside of it are just strawmen detracting of that which more deserves scorn.

EDIT: One thing about the relic weapon though, it definitely should have had the first two steps as .0 and .1 content or some such, partially because of iLvls, partially because of how little effort it actually took in terms of design, and partially because having those actually be proper relic steps probably would have lessened the blow of how much the last step sucks.