Alliance function for Diadem needs attention

[CarmenSandiego]

After doing a few Diadems with an alliance I noticed something: Being in an Alliance does nothing. They are a completely separate entity who just happened to enter with you and try to stay with you to team up against monsters. They're basically the same thing as another group in there you didn't come with except it didn't take ages trying to coordinate everyone.

• You cannot use Alliance chat despite being in an Alliance
• You cannot see the other Alliance party members
• Determining the location of other Alliance parties isn't possible unless they <pos> in shout, LS, or VOIP; they don't display on your map.

When forming multiple parties to go on a Diadem exploration one full sized party can invite others to join their alliance. Yet oddly it doesn't display the Alliance party members as it would in Void Ark/CT, making it harder for keeping track of the other party members. This can be irritating when you're trying to organise everyone together into the workshop initially as its highly time consuming forming parties with people from various Free Companies. Every party has to relay the workshop coordinates, and coordinates for once you're inside Diadem, and figure out how to balance job roles with another group you can't see. You can't even form the Alliance until everyone is in the same area (and if someone leaves the Alliance breaks).

Some changes that would be nice

1. Being able to swap members between Alliance parties without kicking then telling the other leader to invite X person to party and kick Y, it's clunky. It would really speed up the process of job balancing.
2. Enable Alliance chat, we're in a group for a reason and would like to communicate privately.
3. Display Alliance HUD so healers can keep track of all groups, resurrection and determining if the other groups have aggroed something.
4. Display Alliance members on map

[Spellbinder]

While I wholeheartedly agree that players who enter as an alliance should be able to function as an alliance, this should not have been a surprise as it was noted in the patch notes.

* Please note that while players may enter The Diadem as an alliance, upon entering, the group will not be treated as an alliance, but as three separate parties.

I'm honestly surprised no one brought this up sooner to try and get the developers' attention. With that said, you have my like good sir or madam. I'd like to see alliance functionality in the Diadem.

[Itseotle]

I like the game but this is just more proof that se really doesn't know how to make content. Why go through all the trouble of setting up the entire fc alliance airship system, which btw is clunky as hell and over complicated, when it's not really an alliance? It's just like op said, it's way easier to just queue without an alliance, but it could be so much better with just some small tweaks, and these tweaks aren't rocket science.

[CarmenSandiego]

That is a good point, I didn't notice that in the patch notes. Then I suppose realistically this post should be changed to an "Enable Alliance abilities" request! There is no good reason as to why there can't be, why include it at all if it serves no purpose except if you're unable to convince another party on the island to join you to speed things up. Going in with a full premade 24 that you could properly coordinate with without the use of Teamspeak would be great for everyone. As it stands the Alliance system is so hard to use efficiently that nobody uses it at all, despite it having great potential for things like hunts, PvP and Diadem. I would like them to address the system as a whole to promote its use in current and future content.

[Kallera]

The OP has the right of it. An alliance should be able to go in as an alliance, otherwise it defeats the purpose, as it screws with communication and coordination. You know, the thing alliances are made for?

[MilesSaintboroguh]

My only question is if an alliance worked as intended, how would loot rolls work? Would everyone have to roll on a single coffer or does every alliance get their own coffer?

[Kallera]

My only question is if an alliance worked as intended, how would loot rolls work? Would everyone have to roll on a single coffer or does every alliance get their own coffer?

Having everyone roll per single coffer found sounds about right.

[Ashkendor]

Having everyone roll per single coffer found sounds about right.

That would be kinda counterproductive. Why would you even run in an alliance then?

[CarmenSandiego]

That would be kinda counterproductive. Why would you even run in an alliance then?

You run with an Alliance because the monsters have huge amounts of health, you are better off going in with multiple groups who get their own personal chests so there isn't any loot rivalry. Smashing through monsters as quickly as possible for more drops is way more efficient than slugging away with 8 people. I'll probably make an alliance that consists of 2 tanks, 3 healers and 18 DPS in future, mass pulling several and AoEing them down.

The way the loot system in an alliance like in Void Ark/CT works fine at the moment, where every party gets its own individual chest. Every class has a 1/7 chance of seeing their particular gear drop, and then 0+ other people of similar jobs in the same party have to roll off against each other. This system doesn't force you to roll off against all the other people of the same job across the entire Alliance. However if we were able to see all 3 chests and roll on the items then the likelihood of getting gear is pretty much the same anyway. I'm not asking the devs to change anything with the Alliance system except to create the ability to swap members between parties (possibly only outside of the Diadem, I could see how swapping them inside could cause loot issues), everything else is already in the game and just hasn't been implemented in Diadem.

[Ashkendor]

You run with an Alliance because the monsters have huge amounts of health, you are better off going in with multiple groups who get their own personal chests so there isn't any loot rivalry.

Did you even bother to read the post I responded to? That person said it should be 1 chest per alliance per kill.

If that was the case, why make an alliance instead of 3 separate parties? It would be counterproductive.