Raiders of the lost 280 weapon

[RaijinSupreme]

and you really couldnt say that in one of the other 23 threads already discussing this issue?

[Skeltal-Bons]

Nope, they don't really stay on topic long enough, and if they do, it's a sodium-filled festival of overreaction.

[Kosmos992k]

Anyways, keep in mind this is a diagonal progressive MMO and stuff is going to get outdated. The only thing that remains is the satisfaction of completing something before the rest, and the achievement with the completion date in it.
I don't care if somebody that didn't touch Savage now gets a better weapon. Why does he need it anyway if he's going to skip Savage anyways? And if he plans to beat Savage with it, why should I bother?

Diagonal? Not sure. I think there is more vertical than horizontal, plus the progression revolves around one thing - ilvl. To me the progression seems almost lke an upward spiral with some horizontal movement, but unceasing upward progression.

[BorisDaBlade]

What I think is funny is that the player base pissed and moaned that diadem gear was garbage and pretty much worthless when it was first implemented.

Now there is something worth attempting to get (other than mounts and minions) in there and people STILL piss and moan about it. No wonder Yoshi had a bad attitude.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

While I do agree that it's not the end of the world, the problem isn't that the weapon is "really hard to get".

The problem is that a stronger weapon exists out there better than the anima we spent dozens of hours for or the Creator weapon we raided for.

Everyone was under the Impression that this was our ultimate weapons. The strongest in the game, and we worked hard for it. Only to find out that another weapon much stronger (BIS doesn't only relate to substats, WD is a huge factor) was added on a whim and locked behind an absurd amount of RNG to the point where we couldn't get it even if we attempted to.

Basically, raiders and Anima owners who assumed all their effort was going into the best weapon currently in the game were suddenly slapped across the face with a batter weapon they can't have.

All that aside, it's bad practice to suddenly trivialize gear just for incentive to run side content. PoTD didn't need some monstrously strong weapon afterall.

[Zojha]

To me the progression seems almost lke an upward spiral with some horizontal movement, but unceasing upward progression.

All progression, by nature, is a straight one-way street, because if you don't progress, you can only either regress or don't move at all.

Similarly, any item in the game is either an upgrade, a downgrade or equivalent from your current standpoint. That goes for every slot and purpose equally - A new DEX ring might be an upgrade for your MCH, but it would be a clear downgrade for your WAR.

So if "Vertical Progression" is an increasing power level on one axis, "Horizontal Progression" would need to be an increasing level of "something" on a different axis and that axis has to be something that is related to, but doesn't affect power level. Basically a 2-dimensional coordinate system. That implies the potential for even more dimensional progression models that can't be graphically imagined anymore but can be described via vector spaces.

Curious to think about. Strangely enough however, most people who say "Horizontal Progression" really just mean a different mode of vertical (augments, bonus traits, glyphs etc).

[Nihility]

The problem with it isn't really any "it invalidates my weapon"
It's more just the idea of it, and to a lesser extent the 280 weapons are grossly over-itemized for no apparent reason

It's like an MMO is supposed to be like a living thing that players in it grow and evolve their character along with the game. Like you have anima weapons that people have spent a year piecing together bit by bit growing alongside them and it should feel like this great accomplishment when you finally get it finished
and you have raid weapons that you have to really work hard for learning and practicing and putting forth real teamwork towards that end goal
And there are the trial weapons that are trophies of accomplishments

then you have this skill-free blob of a zone trying to make something that was an utter failure into something that can at least be considered passable and it seems the only way they can even imagine it will attract anyone is by making it just vomit out loot at an insane rate while requiring almost nothing from the players. Every time you go in you get like 3+ weeks worth of tomestones in armor, a ton of tokens that can be traded for tens of thousands of gil worth of materia or items, minions and a previously fairly tough to get mount easy as can be, tons of previously rare gathering items just common as dirt all over the place, and then the cherry on top of it all is it randomly drops weapons(way more often than the forums try to make you believe) that for no apparent reason just trump out literally everything else possible, with no challenge existing that would even remotely need them to pass, for no apparent reason having stats that are 5-10 item levels past their already kind of ridiculous stated item level.
Why not make it drop something that's at least logical like tokens that can be traded for gobdip so people can continue with their previous efforts and upgrade shire weapons?

It's like the whole zone is just the dev team bribing players to make it look like it's some great and fun idea

[Llus]

All progression, by nature, is a straight one-way street, because if you don't progress, you can only either regress or don't move at all.

Similarly, any item in the game is either an upgrade, a downgrade or equivalent from your current standpoint. That goes for every slot and purpose equally - A new DEX ring might be an upgrade for your MCH, but it would be a clear downgrade for your WAR.

So if "Vertical Progression" is an increasing power level on one axis, "Horizontal Progression" would need to be an increasing level of "something" on a different axis and that axis has to be something that is related to, but doesn't affect power level. Basically a 2-dimensional coordinate system. That implies the potential for even more dimensional progression models that can't be graphically imagined anymore but can be described via vector spaces.

Curious to think about. Strangely enough however, most people who say "Horizontal Progression" really just mean a different mode of vertical (augments, bonus traits, glyphs etc).

I tend to think of horizontal progression as more about adding more utility or changing how some skill works or it's effects. For horizontal progression in XIV, the closest I can see is to remove your soul stone to get 10 cross-class abilities and really changing up your class completely; for example WAR crossing raging strikes and B4B as MRD in the old level 50 PvP content and becoming a super tanky dps or MNK dropping their soulstone and picking up defensive cross class skills and becoming a kind of baby tank, SMN or BLM dropping their stone and picking up cleric stance and crossing healing/shielding skills to roll a DPS/Healer. This is what I miss from the class system once you pick up your soul stone. Unfortunately, you lose a lot of vertical progression and role optimization when doing something like this; but it does make for some very unique and customizable play styles. Even if something similar were available under the current (or new stormblood) job system a penultimate combination would be found to compliment each job and it would still be another type of vertical progression.

[FeliAiko]

Problem is that it breaks their design philosophy for a short term gain at best (bribing people into Diadem), whilst needlessly alienating players. Once you get past the i280 issue, you end up with a shallow piece of content meaning in essence SE had no faith in Diadem being able to stand on its own. The EM concept could've been expanded on, like having different versions with different objectives and range of rewards. Instead you get a map littered with FATEs that, outside of the boss ones, aren't worth doing.

[Kuroneko_Jutah]

Problem is that it breaks their design philosophy for a short term gain at best (bribing people into Diadem), whilst needlessly alienating players. Once you get past the i280 issue, you end up with a shallow piece of content meaning in essence SE had no faith in Diadem being able to stand on its own. The EM concept could've been expanded on, like having different versions with different objectives and range of rewards. Instead you get a map littered with FATEs that, outside of the boss ones, aren't worth doing.

I have some basic level of faith that Yoshi will take the feedback given on this experiment and work it into Eureka. I'll give an "I Told You So" voucher to anyone who wants one for throwing in my face if Eureka falls into the same pit, though.