Sorry Yoshi, but if you award the best weapon in the game by winning the lottery...

[bswpayton]

The first benefit is for raiders and anima holders that are bored of having nothing to do. The second benefit is for non-raiders. I think a lot of

Im sorry but this is so not true not even a little bit , this doesnt help non raiders at all not even a little bit, nor does it help anima users , or raiders. The only thing that this helps is making content that is sub par relevant, if they really wanted to help people tryin to progress you know what they would of done instead of 265 gear that we really dont even need esp with scrip cap going up they could of put 265 weapons in there with the same drop rate as the gear.

This would of helped none raiders, putting a weapon in the game that not even 5 percent of your players would obtain is total bs , and should have never been done. If the intent was to help players which it wasnt the ilvl would of been lower and the rng would of been alot better, this was just an attempt to make boring content relevant.

[bswpayton]

That would had only worked as a lure for people that want to gear a different job. I cant tell without data how proliferate this is, but I know people that will only bother maxing out one job:

But the thing is the diadum didnt need raiders to support it this game is more casual and even if the raiders didnt use it putting lower item level weapons would of still been ok for your average player so what are you talking about.

[Ogulbuk]

But the thing is the diadum didnt need raiders to support it this game is more casual and even if the raiders didnt use it putting lower item level weapons would of still been ok for your average player so what are you talking about.

They did, there is a lot of i260 gear there. My point was, from a few post earlier, that SE likely *wanted* there to be something there for raiders that have been done with their main progression and wont have anything else to aim for until Stormblood.

[St0rmchild]

They did, there is a lot of i260 gear there. My point was, from a few post earlier, that SE likely *wanted* there to be something there for raiders that have been done with their main progression and wont have anything else to aim for until Stormblood.

So you think all the raiders in their materia-enhanced, i270 gear are champing at the bit to get random statted i265 gear as a step up towards Stormblood ?
Uhm ....

[Welsper59]

If someone were reckless enough to fly a helicopter over a crowd and dump bags full of $100 bills, letting it rain over people, it would be a riot. People would do horrible things to one another to get that money. And you better believe the people that dumped the money would be held at least partially responsible. Same principle here. SE's inclusion of RNG uber-weapons has had a terrible and very easily predictable outcome. You add weapons better then anything else in the game, rendering the raid and anima weapons people busted their asses on second-best, then act shocked when people do horrible things to one another about them?

The fact you can't separate the two actions is disturbing. I had detailed in the earlier response why it's important to do that (and why it'd be illogical to lump the two together). As I said, you're right at a base level, but it's an irrelevant and nonsensical point to be made here. Even in your example about money raining, you would be literally pointing the finger solely at the person that did it, and not at the idiots who would do those horrible things to others.

For the sake of argument, on one hand, you have someone who went out of their way to do what they thought was a good thing. A subjective action and intent by an idiot. This person would be charged under allegations of starting chaos. On the other, you have someone that committed a crime (let's say they murdered people around them to get the money). An objective action that was intentionally committed by another idiot. This person would be charged with multiple counts of murder. You can't claim they're similar when one act is based on a subjective result and another was an objective response. It doesn't work like that because they are two separate issues. The killer would not be able to use "it was the guy who threw the money's fault that I killed those people" as a valid defense.

The only link between them is simply that one caused a response from the other, which is literally a fact of life. Are you going to blame anyone who uses words for a kid being teased at school? The fact language exists is partially responsible for the fact that a kid was teased by the words they said. If you made someone angry on FFXIV because you won a roll on something they wanted, should you be held responsible for them going out and shooting up a mall in their rage? Or should your action there be treated separately from the actions of the individual? Likewise, should SE be held responsible for having created the game/content in the first place? It's pretty obvious that people will be upset by not getting what they want, and it's, as you put it, a "very easily predictable outcome". Your argument is essentially walking that perspective line of "video games cause violence" criticism.

To be honest, this is simply a matter of people who wanted to end the expansion with the best gear being upset by this newly introduced thing. If you're new to MMORPGs, particularly recent ones, then I can understand the surprise and disappointment you'd feel. You wouldn't know any better. You wouldn't know that it's common for these types of things to happen. WoW tended to do that with most of their expansions. Hell, Legion is probably the prime example of it.

Now, I'm not saying Diadem is anywhere near as enjoyable as a closing event for an expansion, but this is the MMORPG life. Setting yourself up for failure, like having a goal of BiS to mean something for a long period of time, is no ones fault but your own. The more you get used to this genre, the more you'll realize that to be true. You can have that goal, but expecting the goal to last (that being the objective of obtaining BiS, not applying to real use), is evidence of a lack of understanding. It'd be adorable if it weren't for the fact that I'm fairly certain most players aren't 5.

The argument on meaningful equips however, i.e. longevity of caring for and using your gear as intended, is something to definitely be discussed... just not with referencing introduced content that is very soon to be replaced by a new expansion. That is just nonsense in that context.

[Lambdafish]

So you think all the raiders in their materia-enhanced, i270 gear are champing at the bit to get random statted i265 gear as a step up towards Stormblood ?
Uhm ....

For their other jobs yes, however the i280 does nothing for them because it is so rare.

The fact you can't separate the two actions is disturbing.

The funny thing is that you also did this. You are right that Xerek pointed the finger at the devs rather than the community, but you did the opposite extreme when in fact both are at fault.

Those that sabotage are in the wrong, they deserve their report/ban/lifetime in prison, but turning a blind eye to the faults of the system is strange to me. The diadem system as a whole encourages chaos, it is uncontrolled and works on the faith that 72 people can work together (24 people can rarely do that), and thats without the inclusion of the weapon that as Xerek stated, only goes to one person rather than being an evenly distributed reward. The whole system baffles me and it makes me kinda angry that the devs can be so short sighted in their design decisions.

[Welsper59]

The funny thing is that you also did this. You are right that Xerek pointed the finger at the devs rather than the community, but you did the opposite extreme when in fact both are at fault.

Those that sabotage are in the wrong, they deserve their report/ban/lifetime in prison, but turning a blind eye to the faults of the system is strange to me. The diadem system as a whole encourages chaos, it is uncontrolled and works on the faith that 72 people can work together (24 people can rarely do that), and thats without the inclusion of the weapon that as Xerek stated, only goes to one person rather than being an evenly distributed reward. The whole system baffles me and it makes me kinda angry that the devs can be so short sighted in their design decisions.

Not sure how you get that I'm saying the extreme opposite. I stated multiple times that the devs do have a part in it, that Xerek is right at the very lowest degree of understanding, but I also give logical and sound reasons why it was irrelevant. That does not mean I'm claiming there's nothing wrong, assuming that's what you think I'm implying. In fact, that response of mines you took the quote from, literally states that there is a problem that can be recognized. It also says why the problem is being overlooked when you folks are using the i280 weapons as your catalyst to spark the discussion.

When you're trying to make an argument to bring recognition to an issue, you automatically set yourself up for failure the moment you don't recognize how easy it is for any opposition to logically argue against you. That is not how you get a proper message across. If your primary push to argue the problem is the weapons, which this entire topic was based on, you have a bad argument. I try to be as unbiased as I can, thus why I am able to argue against the Diadem's current issuing of the i280 weapons is not a big deal to that problem.

For as much as I hate illogical arguments that hurt a cause, I can't stand poorly made ones that ironically do nothing but potentially hurt that same cause. You folks are deriving your conclusions and accusations based on a knee ferk reaction to something you or some others don't like. Again, just refer back to my last reply about how easy it is to criticize the problems people have with the i280 weapons, how their justification/reasons for being angry are irrational, and why your opposition (which clearly includes the devs) are the sensible ones at this time. You're arguing a problem that exists at the wrong time and with the wrong source.

You're not wrong to be baffled or irritated by the short sighted planning the devs have to reaction, practical outcome, and future implications. In fact, it's good that you recognize it now. Some of us have known about this though, or at least began to recognize it, since 2.0. The XIV devs are essentially of the same mind as a well tailored mobile game philosophy goes. They focus on ideas, not so much the execution. Hence, why we tend to have half assed content that is that way because, at best, it's incomplete or over simplified. Squadrons, Diadem, combat stats, etc. Hell, the very fact that the ilvls go up so drastically per raid patch was a dead giveaway ever since the i70 and i90 gear came out. It wouldn't be a problem if this wasn't such a heavily focused vertical progression game.

Due to how long this has been happening, I personally don't see them changing for a long time. Maybe it'll happen sometime during Stormblood.... maybe it never will. In light of my accepting it for what it is, and the fact that people do enjoy it, I don't see it as a problem at this time. It could be very soon, but we won't know until the time comes. There's always other games to play if XIV becomes tiring.

[Lambdafish]

snip

Thank you for clarifying, sorry if there was any miscommunication, I was under the impression that you were blaming the community for sabotaging itself, and that is the primary cause of this backlash, acknowledging the devs flaws is important feedback, and I hope that their response is to have a critical look at the reward system as a whole rather than sitting back and going "we wont do that again" without learning anything.

There is still one thing that doesn't sit right with me though...

To be honest, this is simply a matter of people who wanted to end the expansion with the best gear being upset by this newly introduced thing. If you're new to MMORPGs, particularly recent ones, then I can understand the surprise and disappointment you'd feel. You wouldn't know any better. You wouldn't know that it's common for these types of things to happen. WoW tended to do that with most of their expansions. Hell, Legion is probably the prime example of it.

This actually isn't true. On a fundamental level, adding a weapon like this at this time, in this content and through this distribution method is bad design for an MMO, as it doesn't appeal to anybody at all, which is why there is such a big backlash.

Those with relic/raid weapons - have had their endgame weapons turned into stepping stone weapons for a piece of content that doesn't require them. I need to clarify that this isn't a discussion about jealousy or even involving other players toys, this is a discussion about reward systems. At the start of each patch cycle there is an endgame goal that is presented, a gear cycle long raid, or an expansion cycle long relic weapon, and from the get go the goal is to obtain these weapons while the content is still relevant and doing so represents having beaten the gear cycle, and people can idle in idyllshire with their endgame weapon, almost like a trophy for beating the patch. I remember back in coil how awesome it was to see a guy with an allagan or dreadwyrm body piece or weapon, and how special it felt see these pieces of gear, and it was encouragement for me to try to get into raiding in order to obtain these prestigeous rewards. This is not elitism btw, it is a reward system.

For catchup - I keep being told that the point of an endgame weapon in diadem is to catch people up to top level, but this is also not true. How can casuals get a top tier weapon when it is a lottery buried beneith 4 layers of RNG (5 if you count the RNG in getting a group who can beat the mission) in order to get it? That isn't catchup, that is luck of the draw and an extremely rare one at that, which is a poor way to catch people up. It would have been better for casuals to have an i270 or i275 weapon that is more obtainable, than an i280 weapon that is this rare.

For design - having another i275 is actually a great idea, people want more options for gear, and having 3 endgame weapons is so much better than 1 endgame weapon (i280) and 2 meaningless (i.e. not required for diadem) stepping stone weapons (i275). People want more endgame, and having raid, relic, and lottery all be options for endgame should have been what happened.

We all know that gear will be invalidated in stormblood, that is the goal that has been set out since the beginning of the gear cycle, however nobody expected this, and it is a bit shocking to have the "end of the gear cycle" appear 3 months early, especially when it is essentially ended to be replaced with exclusively diadem.

Also - I'd like to state this for anyone who might have this opinion: Not caring about endgame design (saying "it doesn't matter if it i280 or i275, its just a weapon") is not an argument to endgame design being badly designed, I am fine with you not caring, you can sit happily until stormblood in the mindset of the current gamestate being meaningless, however this content still exists, and its implementation leaves questions as to the design choices that went into it, and I for one am very interested in the answers to those questions.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

.

This would of helped none raiders, putting a weapon in the game that not even 5 percent of your players would obtain is total bs , and should have never been done. If the intent was to help players which it wasnt the ilvl would of been lower and the rng would of been alot better, this was just an attempt to make boring content relevant.

This. I really wish people would stop using the "this is a catch up weapon" argument. A catch up weapon is what they're going to be giving us in Dun Scaith possibly next patch. A catch up weapon is what PoTD and most ex trials gave us. This? This is incentive to run poorly designed and implemented content. It's really nothing else, that's all it is.

We can only hope SE doesn't do this with all content that's dead and needs a reason to run.

[Welsper59]

Thank you for clarifying, sorry if there was any miscommunication, I was under the impression that you were blaming the community for sabotaging itself, and that is the primary cause of this backlash, acknowledging the devs flaws is important feedback, and I hope that their response is to have a critical look at the reward system as a whole rather than sitting back and going "we wont do that again" without learning anything.

There is still one thing that doesn't sit right with me though...



This actually isn't true. On a fundamental level, adding a weapon like this at this time, in this content and through this distribution method is bad design for an MMO, as it doesn't appeal to anybody at all, which is why there is such a big backlash.

Those with relic/raid weapons - have had their endgame weapons turned into stepping stone weapons for a piece of content that doesn't require them. I need to clarify that this isn't a discussion about jealousy or even involving other players toys, this is a discussion about reward systems. At the start of each patch cycle there is an endgame goal that is presented, a gear cycle long raid, or an expansion cycle long relic weapon, and from the get go the goal is to obtain these weapons while the content is still relevant and doing so represents having beaten the gear cycle, and people can idle in idyllshire with their endgame weapon, almost like a trophy for beating the patch. I remember back in coil how awesome it was to see a guy with an allagan or dreadwyrm body piece or weapon, and how special it felt see these pieces of gear, and it was encouragement for me to try to get into raiding in order to obtain these prestigeous rewards. This is not elitism btw, it is a reward system.

For catchup - I keep being told that the point of an endgame weapon in diadem is to catch people up to top level, but this is also not true. How can casuals get a top tier weapon when it is a lottery buried beneith 4 layers of RNG (5 if you count the RNG in getting a group who can beat the mission) in order to get it? That isn't catchup, that is luck of the draw and an extremely rare one at that, which is a poor way to catch people up. It would have been better for casuals to have an i270 or i275 weapon that is more obtainable, than an i280 weapon that is this rare.

For design - having another i275 is actually a great idea, people want more options for gear, and having 3 endgame weapons is so much better than 1 endgame weapon (i280) and 2 meaningless (i.e. not required for diadem) stepping stone weapons (i275). People want more endgame, and having raid, relic, and lottery all be options for endgame should have been what happened.

We all know that gear will be invalidated in stormblood, that is the goal that has been set out since the beginning of the gear cycle, however nobody expected this, and it is a bit shocking to have the "end of the gear cycle" appear 3 months early, especially when it is essentially ended to be replaced with exclusively diadem.

Also - I'd like to state this for anyone who might have this opinion: Not caring about endgame design (saying "it doesn't matter if it i280 or i275, its just a weapon") is not an argument to endgame design being badly designed, I am fine with you not caring, you can sit happily until stormblood in the mindset of the current gamestate being meaningless, however this content still exists, and its implementation leaves questions as to the design choices that went into it, and I for one am very interested in the answers to those questions.

No worries. Even if there is any miscommunication, it's the internet. **** happens. People don't understand each other, we move on lol.

See, your argument is valid for that core problem I referred to. It is not valid however, for the current situation. It may be a continuation of the problem, but it's a improperly timed criticism. I use the reference of not knowing or understanding the norm when it comes to these occasions (end of an expansion) as a means to show how it generally works. The end of an expansion is a special occasion and one that you can't really validate or meaningfully criticize many decisions the devs will make.

Using my Legion reference, they rained the hell out of exceptionally great gear for the pre-expansion event. It basically made raiding pointless for how easy and abundant, not to mention profitable, it was to just spam the mindless event. Yet... it wasn't much of a problem. People generally understood that this is the norm leading up to the launch of an expansion. Some complained, but again, it's obvious they just didn't understand that. Did that raining of exceptional gear affect anything? Nope. Some people probably don't even remember it now.

XIV doesn't really have such grandiose expansion events that rain gear... but that's because we rain gear normally lol (so does WoW, but that's besides the point). The catchup argument is probably only half true. I'd imagine they sort of aimed for the response that people would get if they won the main Cactpot lottery, which btw, people were angry about not realistically being able to win. The design argument is a little different. It's "new" and inserted at the end of an expansion. We can't properly argue that what they did wasn't just a special occasion thing. Likewise, you can't argue with complete certainty that you're going to see Diadem destroy the raiding/relic weapons in the new expansion. This is purely a "sky is falling" reaction.

I get the prestige argument. I truly do. I've been playing MMORPGs as a norm since vanilla WoW and NA FFXI launch. Again, trust me, I get the struggle and prestige of seeing people in cool/great gear. Prestige of that level is uncommon these days. We're not in the same perspective times as we were back in 2003. Devs have to make gear more accessible (reducing the impact regarding prestige, even if they don't have the same exact things you do). They have to make many things available to varying quality of players to keep their attention (due to how there are tons of quality games released throughout the year). Prestige is rare. One of the only lasting prestige thus far is the 1.0 mounts (including the armored chicken), but even that... no one really cares much. People complain about it, then move on. The same for all the male/female only glamour. It becomes an issue at the time, then it's just gone till the next occasion they introduce male/female only gear.

It's nice to have the prestige, but not a whole lot of other people care about seeing you with it. With how gear in general rains, raiding gear isn't that special. It was in Binding Coil, but that was when the game was still new. Do you think that prestige lasted once Second Coil, and especially Final Coil was released? It dwindled drastically from 2.0. That's the reality of MMORPGs today, though specifically this one. Part of that is because other content is available to everyone, and not just the most dedicated. We had LotA and other simple 24man content. We have tomestones... THAT is probably the biggest killer to the prestige seeker. If you're being constantly rewarded, you won't easily find the need to do what it takes to get the best (e.g. trying to beat the hardest endgame content). That "do what it takes" statement, I'm gonna leave intentionally broad. It involves a multitude of things that don't just end at learning your rotation or watching boss tutorial videos.

One thing I don't understand though, as to why you think that's actually a rational statement, is this:

We all know that gear will be invalidated in stormblood, that is the goal that has been set out since the beginning of the gear cycle, however nobody expected this, and it is a bit shocking to have the "end of the gear cycle" appear 3 months early, especially when it is essentially ended to be replaced with exclusively diadem.

If you openly acknowledge an understanding of gear becoming obsolete (or in the context of the topic, no longer BiS), then how is it so shocking to see gear become obsolete? You literally state you know it'll happen and accept it. It is entirely contradictory to say you can't accept what happened with Diadem, and evidence that you actually don't accept that gear becomes obsolete/invalidated come the expansion. I mean, yeah, it's unfortunate if your goal is to end the expansion in literally BiS (a purely self imposed goal)... but I do note why that's irrational in my previous replies. That irrationality is exactly why the devs don't generally need to concern themselves too much on that end, for those types.

Is the fact that it happened quickly really such a detriment to your capacity to enjoy the game the same? For anyone that might be in that standing, take a step back. Yoshi-P is absolutely right to say that people need to calm down, if that's really what's happening. Your gear are not your children. It's okay to take pride in getting the gear that you want, but it's an entirely different ballpark to have such fragile pride that it shatters all rationality lol. The mere fact that people are enraged by that "calm down" statement is hilarious and evidence of that "fragile pride" that I mentioned. It really is destructive for people like that to behave the way they do because of a couple harmless words. It literally comes off like those "Don't tell me to calm down, YOU CALM DOWN!!!!" type of moments lol. It's a sign of removal of most/all rational thought.