Soo... apparently Diadem has i280 weapons with higher WD than alexandrian/anima lux

[Kallera]

I'd rather that other content did not suffer for the sake of raiding's place in ilvl. I was told in no uncertain terms to deal with it crafting and relic weapons would not be able to reach a similar level of competition with raiding gear.

Raiders need to get over Diadem, I tried the thing last night, and the mess of folks I was wish were more for the various other loot than anything, simply going for the weapon alone is insanity, unless you are an incredibly orangized fc, even then, those are some long hours of attempts.

[Lambdafish]

In other words, let's all bow down to the haters and let the game stagnate.

Pretty much yeah, because "haters" (I'm going to call them dissatisfied consumers) in this case don't seem to be a minority. The only defence people are giving in defence of i280 are "SB is coming, why do you care?" or "its rare, why do you care?", both of which are weak arguments to a fundamental game design change, and a radical shift to the reward structure. There are very few positives to this, it just depends how much you care (the NA community seems to have a people being angrily vocal about being indifferent lol).

I'd rather that other content did not suffer for the sake of raiding's place in ilvl. I was told in no uncertain terms to deal with it crafting and relic weapons would not be able to reach a similar level of competition with raiding gear.

Raiders need to get over Diadem, I tried the thing last night, and the mess of folks I was wish were more for the various other loot than anything, simply going for the weapon alone is insanity, unless you are an incredibly orangized fc, even then, those are some long hours of attempts.

Raiding has to be the highest ilvl, it is fundamentally how the piece of content works. You can match ilvl, in fact relic does, and it creates a second endgame, but you cannot make raiding second best in terms of ilvl because then it makes it stepping stone content behind something that doesn't require a savage weapon. Diadem weapons should be i275 maximum.

[Kallera]

Pretty much yeah, because "haters" (I'm going to call them dissatisfied consumers) in this case don't seem to be a minority. The only defence people are giving in defence of i280 are "SB is coming, why do you care?" or "its rare, why do you care?", both of which are weak arguments to a fundamental game design change, and a radical shift to the reward structure. There are very few positives to this, it just depends how much you care (the NA community seems to have a people being angrily vocal about being indifferent lol).

Diadem is neither a radical shift, not a fundamental game design change. You do not need the weapon to clear the current content, nor will it be anywhere close to the top in SB. We are not gods for having one of these. And the raiders did not instantly being ice mages overnight.

No one is going to go through this many layers of rng and grinding for a i275 weapon that doesn't match their class.

[Lambdafish]

Diadem is neither a radical shift, not a fundamental game design change. You do not need the weapon to clear the current content, nor will it be anywhere close to the top in SB. We are not gods for having one of these. And the raiders did not instantly being ice mages overnight.

I described the shift in another post:

In the 4 year history of the game, there has NEVER been a weapon that is better than a raid weapon. Hell, in the first patch cycle people complained because the relic could be gotten easily and was i90, and so was the raid weapon (which they then changed to i95). The fact that they wanted to distinguish the raid weapon as the best weapon says a lot about what the content is supposed to represent.

Later relic was expanded upon and became an equivilent to the raid weapon after a long process of various steps, and thus we had two endgame models, both of which are equally time consuming, and this design works.

Diadem weapons are an anomaly, a reckless, head scratching, cancer of an anomaly. First off, they introduce a brand new kind of endgame, that being RNG (previously put under the umbrella of the relic process). The idea now being that you can get a BiS ilvl weapon through skill, grind, or RNG. This is a huge thing, but SE took it a step further and made the weapon i280. What this does is it breaks down the entire meaning of endgame BiS, as there are no longer 3 equally balanced pillars, but rather one pillar with two supports underneith it. Had the weapon been i275 it would have been seen as fine no matter what the stats were, because the community perception is that it would be equivilent, whereas making it i280 effectively makes it the only endgame, with relic and savage being a stepping stone towards it, much like tomestone weapons are.

This isn't about using the weapon to clear content, but rather having the best weapon in the game (as a symbol that you have finished the patch). It isn't bitterness about what others have, it is game design logic and gameplay psycology. I get it, Diadem is a carrot on a stick, but if you don't handle your carrots in the right way, your rabbit gets fat, lazy and doesn't want to run anymore.

[Kallera]

I described the shift in another post:

You. Cannot. Reliably. Farm. This. Weapon. The amount of time it would take for you to get this weapon for your preferred class could be anything. Even the long amount of time learning and stumbling through the raids has a much better change of raising the person's ilvl and eventually clearing that and other methods will get them the endgame weapon.

You're afraid, you're afraid of the armored raiding player with the diadem weapon, no matter how vanishingly rare or as much of a prohibitive timesink that it would be, and you are afraid because of the limited time results of a third party site that SE should not hamstring its development for.

Meanwhile, the armor of raiding and upgraded tome is still bis, and while there are a number of people doing savage, is that really matching up to the number of players SE want playing going into a patch? How many times did we end up in this doldrum where nothing gets done, and people are just waiting with the pf nigh empty until the next patch? That's not fun, especially for non raiders. That is a gap to be filled with content.

[Lambdafish]

You. Cannot. Reliably. Farm. This. Weapon. The amount of time it would take for you to get this weapon for your preferred class could be anything. Even the long amount of time learning and stumbling through the raids has a much better change of raising the person's ilvl and eventually clearing that and other methods will get them the endgame weapon.

You can't farm anima weapons either? Like I said, RNG is a new endgame concept (which is welcome), but should be balanced against the other two endgame concepts. SE has essentially killed their extremely basic "horizontal" progression model with only 5 little ilvls and converted it back into extreme vertical progression with stepping stone choices. I'm not afraid of anything, I can stop caring quite easily, however I'm a game designer, and this IS badly designed, and I will comment that fact.

[Kallera]

You can't farm anima weapons either?...

The anount of advantage this weapon provides isn't going to be better than the others when Stormblood happens, they will all be replaced.

It is the advantage when they are within the current patch cycle that is important, raid and tomes are still this for armor and weapon, because they stay bis and reasonably attainable for the amount of time they are available. Diadem weapons are the hardest to get for your perferred class and have the least amount of relevance.

And yes you can farm anima weapons, especially after the multiple nerfs it receives going into its last step. Imagine an atma quest that has unknowable objectives, a good chance to not pop, and the slight chance of one player screwing up the effort for 72 player who cannot pass on the weapon and a random item rewarded not dependant on class, and you might get near the absurdity of getting the Diadem weapon. Getting multiple weapons this late into the patch cycle is a level of dedication Not typical of the average player, to say nothing of the type that plays until their slots are filled then unsubs for the next 3 months, and they do not have to, because the next patch is going to wipe the slate clean anyway.

"Welcome to vertical progression." I believe those were the words mentioned when the discussion about relic was brought about. And everyone on the forums was more than happy to accept that it will NEVER be bis, that its just a thing for the casuals to enjoy behind the fence. meanwhile, Diadem, which needs players of all kinds to function correctly, needs a hook, and Nerfing it for the sake of coddling raiding will kill its own interest as it did before.

[Lambdafish]

The amount of advantage this weapon provides isn't going to be better than the others when Stormblood happens, they will all be replaced.

A) We aren't in Stormblood yet, B) Stormblood is still 3.5 months (or as I like to call it, a patch cycles worth of time) away. By your logic Anima is worthless, Savage is worthless, Diadem is worthless. So why are we even playing if rewards don't matter? I'll quote myself as already having answered your response before you posted it:

This isn't about using the weapon to clear content, but rather having the best weapon in the game (as a symbol that you have finished the patch) as a reward. It isn't bitterness about what others have, it is game design logic and gameplay psycology. I get it, Diadem is a carrot on a stick, but if you don't handle your carrots in the right way, your rabbit gets fat, lazy and doesn't want to run anymore.

And everyone on the forums was more than happy to accept that it will NEVER be bis, that its just a thing for the casuals to enjoy behind the fence

Actually relic will almost always be BiS eventually (ignoring the fact that diadem ever happened) as you get to customise the stats on it, wheras raid weapons could have less than ideal stats. This is counterbalanced by the fact that the BiS raid weapon is released long before the relic BiS (which was only released last week rather than 6 months ago).

[Aquaslash]

, Diadem, which needs players of all kinds to function correctly, needs a hook, and Nerfing it for the sake of coddling raiding will kill its own interest as it did before.

Why not use the new jobs for that? Or mounts, materia, minions, gil. There are MANY things, BETTER things they can use instead of one that spits in the face of raiders and anima grinders alike

[Reynhart]

The only defence people are giving in defence of i280 are "SB is coming, why do you care?" or "its rare, why do you care?", both of which are weak arguments to a fundamental game design change, and a radical shift to the reward structure.

No, we also pointed that, without such a powerful reward, no one would suffer grouping with up to 71 pick-ups and the content would be dead at release.

Raiding has to be the highest ilvl, it is fundamentally how the piece of content works.

Well, it should not. What should be is that, to have the strongest full set, raiding is necessary. Making raids drops every type of item was a bad move from the start, and only cornered the dev team to either make mostly irelevant content or to piss off raiders.