Forum Settings
       
« Previous 1 2
Reply To Thread

Changes to the Diadem comingFollow

#1 Dec 23 2015 at 12:56 PM Rating: Excellent
Some interesting stuff from Yoshi in the latest live letter, but I'm personally most interested in the Diadem. Here's what he had to say on it:

Quote:
Exploratory missions were implemented as a new type of content based on the idea that items can be randomly obtained through farming and players could create their own rules and approaches. Up until recently, there were many limiting rules and a focus on set content in FFXIV.

However, since this deviated greatly from the content we’ve had up until now, there has been challenges involving the friction between players who want to gather and those who wish to battle, as well as the length of time spent playing this content.

Additionally, due to the fact that this was new content, we felt the need to include reward items which were attractive, which is why we decided to add item level 210 items to Diadem. This had both pros and cons. With the item level of the rewards for Alexander: Gordias (Savage) set to 210, we had to restrict the amount of item level 210 gear in circulation in order to maintain the minimum amount of motivation for players challenging Savage.

Just as mentioned in the feedback we have been receiving, had the item level been 205, I believe we could have kept it as it was for farming and not had to make adjustments. This equipment could then have been used to challenge Savage, and we feel that this was an issue as well.

In accordance with feedback, we will be aiming to make exploratory mission content more rule based, such as the following.

More chances for exploration.
Make a system for matching routes with different objectives such as battle and gathering focused.
Add variation to the exploration objectives, and make it more fun to explore as an individual party.
Create set rewards and make it so that farming is not the only objective.
Reduce the content time, and turn it into content that does not rely greatly on player skill.

We'll be introducing changes via maintenance in order to reduce the content time of exploratory missions and to make adjustments to the balance of item circulation, while making it into a place for collecting items and spirit bonding. We’re also planning a large scale expansion to this content in the next exploratory mission update. We’ll be utilizing everyone’s feedback as much as possible for this.


At face value, I love everything here except for that bolded part. I'm thinking there's some kind of mistranslation going on -- or some kind of misunderstanding -- because the Diadem already doesn't rely at all on player skill. The only way it could rely on skill less would be to have monsters auto-die while you stand next to them and wait. What I'm hoping that means is that rather than insert lots of mechanics, the content will be designed so the gameplay remains more casual and focused more on completing objectives.I don't want Diadem to be so heavy with jump rope mechanics that it requires a static, too.

I also like the slight nerf to Diadem gear... I have absolutely no problem with putting it 5 iLevels below the current raid tier, and other casual/midcore gamers shouldn't either. That still makes for a strong endgame set for taking on harder content once it has been nerfed a bit.

Curious to see what others have to say... but this may be enough to make me a happy Eorzean again.

Edited, Dec 23rd 2015 11:03am by Thayos
____________________________
Thayos Redblade
Jormungandr
Hyperion
#2 Dec 23 2015 at 4:57 PM Rating: Excellent
***
2,550 posts
Thayos wrote:

At face value, I love everything here except for that bolded part. I'm thinking there's some kind of mistranslation going on -- or some kind of misunderstanding -- because the Diadem already doesn't rely at all on player skill. The only way it could rely on skill less would be to have monsters auto-die while you stand next to them and wait. What I'm hoping that means is that rather than insert lots of mechanics, the content will be designed so the gameplay remains more casual and focused more on completing objectives.I don't want Diadem to be so heavy with jump rope mechanics that it requires a static, too.
Edited, Dec 23rd 2015 11:03am by Thayos


I'm thinking that this means that it won't require a certain dps cap to get gold chest credit anymore. If ilvl 205 drops in gold chests, it will probably now be associated with a more lenient credit requirement. It may ease restriction so something like enmity can now build credit towards gold chests. This would allow people to gather to help the team while half the team is over there hunting and still getting credit.



Edited, Dec 24th 2015 9:23am by Valkayree
#3 Dec 24 2015 at 2:03 AM Rating: Decent
Jack of All Trades
******
29,633 posts
Quote:
Diadem already doesn't rely at all on player skill.


It kinda does. If your group isn't outputting good DPS it's not going to get chests.

At least, that's usually been my problem every time I had groups trying to join the big zergfest, which they usually tried to do, which usually resulted in a lot of fighting for zero rewards. It's tiresome enough when you're actually getting chests; imagine what it's like when you're still doing the work but not getting anything to show for it. (I don't run Diadem anymore though, so maybe it's gotten less bad?)

Quote:
I also like the slight nerf to Diadem gear... I have absolutely no problem with putting it 5 iLevels below the current raid tier, and other casual/midcore gamers shouldn't either. That still makes for a strong endgame set for taking on harder content once it has been nerfed a bit.


When you have content that's struggling to stay afloat as it is, clearly the answer is to gimp the rewards. Yeah, that'll work.

Doesn't seem like they are actually going to do that though, just that they were considering "what could have been" scenarios.

Edited, Dec 24th 2015 3:16am by Fynlar
#4 Dec 24 2015 at 12:14 PM Rating: Default
Scholar
Avatar
*****
12,820 posts
Fynlar wrote:
Quote:
Diadem already doesn't rely at all on player skill.


It kinda does. If your group isn't outputting good DPS it's not going to get chests


This is more about knowing how to push buttons properly - But when they design the game that holds your hand through 99% of the content, can you really wonder why people struggle that choose not to do the "harder" content? It wasn't a mistranslation, but I guarantee SE will change the wording to sound a lot more friendlier, since a lot of what Yoshi said in the live letter basically revolved around making the game easier and how they don't want to "stop" player progress by making us actually have to work for what we want in terms of difficulty.

He basically said for relics for example that the grind is set the way it is because you're putting in the "work" for an "extremely powerful weapon", ignoring the fact some relics are flatout trash in comparison to the Eso or A4S equivillent.

Quote:
When you have content that's struggling to stay afloat as it is, clearly the answer is to gimp the rewards. Yeah, that'll work.


I won't get too deep into this but I will say this:

It made. Zero. Sense. to pass out equivillent/a lot of times superior gear of the same ilvl for far less work or skill involved. Everyone agrees but who doesn't like loot pinatas? If I can spend 30-70 minutes in Diadem and walk out in full BiS gear with even MORE stats than I would if I were to spend 80 minutes in A3S and A4S..why would I do the harder stuff for less?

It actually does sound like they want to have crafted gear to help progress in raids (which 2.x era did as some BRD and tank crafted gear was BiS and haven't been the same since.
____________________________

#5 Dec 24 2015 at 6:54 PM Rating: Excellent
Quote:
It kinda does. If your group isn't outputting good DPS it's not going to get chests.


Diadem was never supposed to be a DPS-race between multiple parties/alliances all grouped together on one or two islands in the whole zone. To play the Diadem as intended -- where you explore with your group and kill monsters/hunt NMs without joining the giant zerg -- there's no need to compete with others for DPS percentages (or however it's gauged). This is why I say the system now isn't built with skill in mind. The fact DPS is even an issue just shows how poorly executed the whole thing was... kind of like hunts.

Quote:
Everyone agrees but who doesn't like loot pinatas? If I can spend 30-70 minutes in Diadem and walk out in full BiS gear with even MORE stats than I would if I were to spend 80 minutes in A3S and A4S..why would I do the harder stuff for less?


I don't like loot pinatas. In a game like FFXIV, I don't know many people who do. Players at least want to be somewhat engaged in what they're doing, and not just whack away at a monster with a billion hit points.

From my limited Diadem experience, though, you're not going to walk out of Diadem in full BiS gear after one session. It's still going to take a generous group and a lot of luck. But I get your point, and it definitely stands, which is why I totally favor keeping Diadem iLevels slightly below raid gear.


Edited, Dec 24th 2015 5:03pm by Thayos
____________________________
Thayos Redblade
Jormungandr
Hyperion
#6 Dec 24 2015 at 9:21 PM Rating: Decent
****
4,175 posts
Thayos wrote:
From my limited Diadem experience, though, you're not going to walk out of Diadem in full BiS gear after one session. It's still going to take a generous group and a lot of luck. But I get your point, and it definitely stands, which is why I totally favor keeping Diadem iLevels slightly below raid gear.


I think everyone is in agreement(at least now) about the strength of Diadem gear being too high. My question is, and this may not be for you depending on your experience, but...

If gear were distributed with item level given to gear based on the difficulty of the content, would Diadem gear deserve to be only slightly lower than raiding gear?

Assuming 200ish being the cap for item level, you can say that on a scale of 1 to 10, each point of difficulty adds roughly 20 item levels. If Savage is the most difficult(10) then where does Diadem fall in comparison to that(1 to 10) and would that rating allow it to reward players with gear that would promote participation?

I haven't been back to check on the game since Diadem was added, but I couldn't participate even if I wanted to for other reasons. Since almost all of the feedback I see is about the gear being too strong in regards to the effort, I'm just wondering if players would even bother with this content if it were balanced that way.
____________________________
Rinsui wrote:
Only hips + boobs all day and hips + boobs all over my icecream

HaibaneRenmei wrote:
30 bucks is almost free

cocodojo wrote:
Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#7 Dec 24 2015 at 9:28 PM Rating: Good
They really need to add different stat improving or ability improving stats to gear sets... so lame and boring to only look forward to some higher "ilvl" number stat. So standardized its not even funny. Why I lost interest in caring about gearing and even playing. Borrriing.
#8 Dec 24 2015 at 10:38 PM Rating: Good
Jack of All Trades
******
29,633 posts
Quote:
This is more about knowing how to push buttons properly


And guess what, for damage dealers, this is where most of the "skill" lies. And if my duty roulettes are any indication, there is no shortage of people who lack this skill.

Quote:
I won't get too deep into this but I will say this:

It made. Zero. Sense. to pass out equivillent/a lot of times superior gear of the same ilvl for far less work or skill involved. Everyone agrees but who doesn't like loot pinatas? If I can spend 30-70 minutes in Diadem and walk out in full BiS gear with even MORE stats than I would if I were to spend 80 minutes in A3S and A4S..why would I do the harder stuff for less?


You're right, it doesn't. If anything that's why Savage loot should be higher ilvl (especially given its apparent difficulty). If the most difficult raid should drop the highest currently available gear, why are there multiple other sources of i210 gear, anyway? (both Diadem and now, upgraded Eso gear that doesn't have to be acquired through Savage)

Nerfing Diadem (again) is not the solution here.

Also

Quote:
If I can spend 30-70 minutes in Diadem and walk out in full BiS gear


This is about as astronomically unlikely as hopping into a random PUG and 1-shotting all of Alex Savage. Just saying.

Quote:
I think everyone is in agreement(at least now) about the strength of Diadem gear being too high.


I'm not, considering the rarity/RNGness of the i210 gear. What I do think is that Savage stuff is set too low.

Edited, Dec 24th 2015 11:44pm by Fynlar
#9 Dec 25 2015 at 12:25 AM Rating: Decent
****
4,175 posts
Fynlar wrote:
Quote:
I think everyone is in agreement(at least now) about the strength of Diadem gear being too high.


I'm not, considering the rarity/RNGness of the i210 gear. What I do think is that Savage stuff is set too low.

One player might get everything they wanted in 3 weeks and the other player might spend 3 months getting it. For that reason, I removed RNG from the equation. You could apply that initial statement to either content so it's not really worth mentioning. That's why I framed the context of my post as content difficulty vs possible reward.

It gets far too complicated when you pull in RNG and difference in drop rate because you'd also have to account for things like lockouts, the frequency you can run each type of content, reduced drop rates in raiding, ect.

____________________________
Rinsui wrote:
Only hips + boobs all day and hips + boobs all over my icecream

HaibaneRenmei wrote:
30 bucks is almost free

cocodojo wrote:
Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#10 Dec 25 2015 at 3:28 AM Rating: Excellent
Quote:
If gear were distributed with item level given to gear based on the difficulty of the content, would Diadem gear deserve to be only slightly lower than raiding gear?


I think the 5 iLevel difference is just right. It should be in between tome/24-man raid gear and savage gear. The content isn't difficult, but the RNG is the great equalizer.

It's not just casual players who target this gear; in fact, I'd say hardcore players target it just as often to help them progress through savage raids. If the separation between Diadem and Savage gear was too great, then I think the devs would run into trouble tuning the fights in a way that people could beat them without needing complete iLevel increases.

I also think the token difference is just as important as any actual stat difference. Many hardcore players simply get a great deal of satisfaction from having gear that is better than everyone else's. This accomplishes that.
____________________________
Thayos Redblade
Jormungandr
Hyperion
#11 Dec 25 2015 at 5:53 AM Rating: Decent
****
4,175 posts
Thayos wrote:
Quote:
If gear were distributed with item level given to gear based on the difficulty of the content, would Diadem gear deserve to be only slightly lower than raiding gear?


I think the 5 iLevel difference is just right. It should be in between tome/24-man raid gear and savage gear. The content isn't difficult, but the RNG is the great equalizer.

Thayos, when you add the same thing to both sides of a scale nothing happens. How often can you receive Diadem gear when you run the event? How often can you participate? How frequently can you get your tokens or collect gear from a boss in a raid? How much more time are you spending in a raid for a shot at gear versus a Diadem group? What item level requirements are in place to access Diadem? Raids?

The entry barrier, the time requirements, the difficulty, RNG, lockouts... there are more things at play here. Diadem having RNG doesn't tip the scale to balanced because the raids on the other side of the scale also have RNG as well as several other restrictions specific to raiding. That's why I only compared difficulty to reward opportunity. There is a case to be made for content that acts as a gateway into more difficult content, but if the reward threshold isn't proportional to the difficulty then it undermines the idea of difficult content in the first place.

Personally I'd add the token to Diadem and just have it be an every other week quest. They could also add some value to crafting if there was a set of gear that players could make, but limit the number of pieces equipped to 2 or 3 total. I don't really see a reason to make a full set of top tier gear easily obtainable, but I'd use it as a vehicle to get players involved in varying types of content. Spread it out at least...
____________________________
Rinsui wrote:
Only hips + boobs all day and hips + boobs all over my icecream

HaibaneRenmei wrote:
30 bucks is almost free

cocodojo wrote:
Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#12 Dec 25 2015 at 8:35 AM Rating: Good
Honest question, can they make varied content within the current battle system? This always seems to be the issue when they release new stuff. It's either, DPS check is too hard OR we can't dodge on time. Then sometimes they go ahead and combine the two to enrage people.

The only similar MMOs I've played with the hotbar twitch mechanics were LotRO and SWTOR, and I admittedly never got beyond the story in either of them. Was end game or ANY other loot related events varied to the point where you felt this was a different event?

I find this has been the major issue as of late, EVERYTHING feels the same no matter how they go about it. FFXI, all battles were similar for sure, but something felt different between Sky, Sea, Dynamis, Assault, etc (most likely because there was more to them then just the battle itself). In the grand scheme of things, you typically straight tanked or kited the mob, but beyond that, it felt like most jobs had a specific duty at some point in the battle.

As for the gear, until they stray away from item level and actually add stats that matter, it's just going to constantly be this **** storm. Logic would dictate though, hardest event gives best gear, end of story.

So ya, can they vary this to make it feel different, or are we pretty much well stuck with these types of battles?
____________________________

#13 Dec 25 2015 at 10:26 AM Rating: Decent
Jack of All Trades
******
29,633 posts
Quote:
One player might get everything they wanted in 3 weeks and the other player might spend 3 months getting it. For that reason, I removed RNG from the equation. You could apply that initial statement to either content so it's not really worth mentioning. That's why I framed the context of my post as content difficulty vs possible reward.

It gets far too complicated when you pull in RNG and difference in drop rate because you'd also have to account for things like lockouts, the frequency you can run each type of content, reduced drop rates in raiding, ect.


Bottom line, the way to deal with unpopular content is NOT by gimping its rewards even further. Would it make sense to drop Savage's rewards from i210 to i205? Probably not, right? It wouldn't make sense for Diadem, either. Therefore, to me the better solution here would be to make Savage's rewards more... rewarding.

Does that make my stance clearer?
#14 Dec 25 2015 at 12:21 PM Rating: Decent
**
972 posts
Montsegurnephcreep wrote:
Honest question, can they make varied content within the current battle system? This always seems to be the issue when they release new stuff. It's either, DPS check is too hard OR we can't dodge on time. Then sometimes they go ahead and combine the two to enrage people.

The only similar MMOs I've played with the hotbar twitch mechanics were LotRO and SWTOR, and I admittedly never got beyond the story in either of them. Was end game or ANY other loot related events varied to the point where you felt this was a different event?

I find this has been the major issue as of late, EVERYTHING feels the same no matter how they go about it. FFXI, all battles were similar for sure, but something felt different between Sky, Sea, Dynamis, Assault, etc (most likely because there was more to them then just the battle itself). In the grand scheme of things, you typically straight tanked or kited the mob, but beyond that, it felt like most jobs had a specific duty at some point in the battle.

As for the gear, until they stray away from item level and actually add stats that matter, it's just going to constantly be this **** storm. Logic would dictate though, hardest event gives best gear, end of story.

So ya, can they vary this to make it feel different, or are we pretty much well stuck with these types of battles?

I think they could make varied content with the current battle system, but I think it is harder to do. The system is designed with balance being the main point, jobs cannot be too different from one another, sub classes are tied to certain jobs, it has an auto attack system which usually means more time to communicate but in this case skills are fired too often from players and enemies, control skills are commonly resisted on things that matter,etc.

When everything you design is supposed to keep things simple and keep everyone needed in a party. Doesn't that make it harder to design stuff where one job may be better in certain content? There were meta gameplay in FFXI with the control mechanics, some even went outside a jobs on paper skills all thanks to a flexible sub class system.

I don't see it changing when this is the priority and everything is funneled through the duty finder in perfect controlled instances.

I am starting to accept the game for what it is, a strict but casual Final Fantasy that is fantastic when played for what it is in short spurts. When I need my open concept games I have my games like FFXI, Elder Scrolls, Dark Souls, and others.
#15 Dec 25 2015 at 1:14 PM Rating: Good
Scholar
Avatar
*****
12,820 posts
Prior to the initial Diadem nerf, you could actually walk out with quite a few amazing 210 pieces doing HM because Gold Chests "rained" in comparison to doing the normal branch. The point is more, you could literally spend less time in Diadem and get better rewards than you could spend in A3S/A4S (remember the loot lock) as you also have to wait to amass the manifesto pages you need as your "oh you didn't get what you want? wait 4-10+ weeks.)

Trust me, the RNG wasn't that terrible on Diadem Hard Mode. Hence why they nerfed it and Yoshi even admitted the gear it produced was far too unbalanced. The only time they nerf stuff "for no reason" is when people complain about not being able to faceroll content, hence Amdapor Keep and Pharos Sirius nerfs.

Quote:
So ya, can they vary this to make it feel different, or are we pretty much well stuck with these types of battles?


They can, but Yoshi usually states: "Players may choose x job over y job for content" and he's extremely petrified of "breaking balance" which is why everything is so homogenized. This is why I say they shouldn't waste development time on content like Lords of Verninion or any minigames until they get the actual game content in order. Whether you like or hate "raid content" or only care for "fluff content" this game really is in need of changes, it's been 2 years and an expansion literally did nothing new for the game. When have you seen that happen in an MMO? Even the tiny add-ons to XI completely changed things because of those Augmented gears then Abyssea COMPLETELY changing the game.
____________________________

#16 Dec 25 2015 at 3:15 PM Rating: Decent
Jack of All Trades
******
29,633 posts
Quote:
Prior to the initial Diadem nerf, you could actually walk out with quite a few amazing 210 pieces doing HM because Gold Chests "rained" in comparison to doing the normal branch. The point is more, you could literally spend less time in Diadem and get better rewards than you could spend in A3S/A4S (remember the loot lock) as you also have to wait to amass the manifesto pages you need as your "oh you didn't get what you want? wait 4-10+ weeks.)

Trust me, the RNG wasn't that terrible on Diadem Hard Mode. Hence why they nerfed it and Yoshi even admitted the gear it produced was far too unbalanced. The only time they nerf stuff "for no reason" is when people complain about not being able to faceroll content, hence Amdapor Keep and Pharos Sirius nerfs.


Too bad some of us (seemingly arbitrarily, IMO) had no access to HM prior to said nerf.

Edited, Dec 25th 2015 4:16pm by Fynlar
#17 Dec 25 2015 at 5:16 PM Rating: Decent
****
4,175 posts
Fynlar wrote:
Quote:
One player might get everything they wanted in 3 weeks and the other player might spend 3 months getting it. For that reason, I removed RNG from the equation. You could apply that initial statement to either content so it's not really worth mentioning. That's why I framed the context of my post as content difficulty vs possible reward.

It gets far too complicated when you pull in RNG and difference in drop rate because you'd also have to account for things like lockouts, the frequency you can run each type of content, reduced drop rates in raiding, ect.


Bottom line, the way to deal with unpopular content is NOT by gimping its rewards even further. Would it make sense to drop Savage's rewards from i210 to i205? Probably not, right? It wouldn't make sense for Diadem, either. Therefore, to me the better solution here would be to make Savage's rewards more... rewarding.

Does that make my stance clearer?


I think the solution would have been to start Diadem gear at wherever the nerf ends up putting it. There were a few of us(here, but more elsewhere) who expressed concern about this before the content even launched. As for those who might be upset about the nerfs, I can't really sympathize because as with many of SE's flubs, if you took some time to consider the effects before hand then you should have seen it coming.

Increasing the item level or even the effectiveness of Savage gear is an indirect nerf to Diadem gear so I don't see much of a difference either way they choose to do it. It would have made more sense to consider all of this before implementing it improperly.




Edited, Dec 25th 2015 6:16pm by FilthMcNasty
____________________________
Rinsui wrote:
Only hips + boobs all day and hips + boobs all over my icecream

HaibaneRenmei wrote:
30 bucks is almost free

cocodojo wrote:
Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#18 Dec 26 2015 at 3:27 AM Rating: Decent
Jack of All Trades
******
29,633 posts
Quote:
Increasing the item level or even the effectiveness of Savage gear is an indirect nerf to Diadem gear


Only to the people who are getting Savage gear, and from my understanding there's not too many of those people.

Nerfing Diadem gear would be nerfing the potential gear I could obtain, because Diadem is something I can actually do. It would limit my i210 options solely to the weekly Void Ark thing. (I don't do Diadem anyway, but the point is that I *could*)
Buffing Savage gear wouldn't affect me one bit, because I'm not clearing Savage anyway.

Maybe I'm not getting what you mean by indirect nerf, but for a player like me there is a very big difference between the two.
#19 Dec 26 2015 at 6:08 AM Rating: Decent
****
4,175 posts
Fynlar wrote:
Buffing Savage gear wouldn't affect me one bit, because I'm not clearing Savage anyway.

Maybe I'm not getting what you mean by indirect nerf, but for a player like me there is a very big difference between the two.

Just because something wouldn't affect you doesn't mean it would affect the game. You have to understand that gear is the key to player power. Item level and difficulty have an inverse relationship. Raise one and the other gets lowered... vice versa. By buffing Savage gear you would effectively be nerfing Savage difficulty because difficult content is balanced around players with high execution at a set item(power) level.

It makes more sense to reduce the rewarded gear level in content that's not difficult than to increase the rewarded gear level in difficult content because beyond the simple increase to stats, SE would also have to scale up the difficulty of the content to compensate. Diadem content is already easy enough that if the reduced item level made it more challenging it still wouldn't be difficult.

____________________________
Rinsui wrote:
Only hips + boobs all day and hips + boobs all over my icecream

HaibaneRenmei wrote:
30 bucks is almost free

cocodojo wrote:
Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#20 Dec 26 2015 at 9:05 AM Rating: Good
Scholar
Avatar
*****
12,820 posts
Yeah honestly, nerfing Diadem made more sense since it was a loot pinata, it wasn't an "option." You had nil reason to run Savage if you can take less work, use less skill and can even ******* fish and get BiS 210 pieces.

Where would people rather go?

A - Down the road where monsters barf out BiS pieces of MAX ilvl gear
B - Down the road where you have to play at the top of your game, maxed out rotation DPS, precision party coordination, borderline exploiting mechanics because of poor design (A4S) and waiting 4-10+ weeks for the alternate way to obtain gear and upgrade materials (Manifesto pages)?

I promise you people will take option A..and they did. There's no option C because that would mean horizontal progression and this game isn't designed for such. 3.2 they have a chance to seeing as they're making crafting and melding relevant again (but don't get your hopes up just yet, unless you're a specialist crafter it doesn't benefit you and will lead to astronomical prices on NA/EU servers.)

So yes, nerfing Diadem can limit someone's options, but the problem is more so offering best for less. "You can still do Savage, though!" the difficulty didn't match the rewards and no one wants to do poorly designed content.

Look at Lords of Verminion. Same concept - People would love to do it regardless of the rewards if..well, it was well designed. People loved Coil, if you didn't do coil that's unfortunate for you, but that was the best raid content XIV has had and ever will have at this point.
____________________________

#21 Dec 26 2015 at 11:06 PM Rating: Decent
Jack of All Trades
******
29,633 posts
Quote:
By buffing Savage gear you would effectively be nerfing Savage difficulty because difficult content is balanced around players with high execution at a set item(power) level.


And Savage could use a nerf apparently, judging by the backlash + lack of people successfully doing/completing it, so what's the problem?

Quote:
It makes more sense to reduce the rewarded gear level in content that's not difficult than to increase the rewarded gear level in difficult content because beyond the simple increase to stats, SE would also have to scale up the difficulty of the content to compensate.


Here, I don't agree. I will never agree with nerfing the rewards of content that's already very flawed to begin with, unless all you're trying to do is kill the content off for even more people.

I also don't understand why Savage would need to be scaled up to "compensate" when it's already apparently very difficult. Giving a few more stat points to everyone is not going to suddenly make Savage a joke.
#22 Dec 27 2015 at 3:14 AM Rating: Decent
****
4,175 posts
Fynlar wrote:
Quote:
By buffing Savage gear you would effectively be nerfing Savage difficulty because difficult content is balanced around players with high execution at a set item(power) level.

And Savage could use a nerf apparently, judging by the backlash + lack of people successfully doing/completing it, so what's the problem?

The concerns about the difficulty of Savage are related to mechanics. The encounters are designed so that if you make a mistake at a critical point in the battle, you die. These raids are tuned for x amount of players so the encounter becomes impossible to defeat with x-1.

Let's be realistic here. No amount of item level is going to keep your group from wiping should you fail one of these mechanics. Even if all or your stats were 9999 and you somehow lived through getting knocked off of the platform, you're in no position to DPS the boss or heal your group. This is the way the encounters were intended to work. Whether we agree or disagree about their design, item level has no bearing on that outcome.


Fynlar wrote:
Quote:
It makes more sense to reduce the rewarded gear level in content that's not difficult than to increase the rewarded gear level in difficult content because beyond the simple increase to stats, SE would also have to scale up the difficulty of the content to compensate.

Here, I don't agree. I will never agree with nerfing the rewards of content that's already very flawed to begin with, unless all you're trying to do is kill the content off for even more people.

It might be hard to understand if you're not participating in the more difficult content in the game, but it's generally expected and accepted in MMOs that rewards increase as the difficulty of the task to receive them does. Diadem isn't nearly as difficult as Savage so it's rewards shouldn't be comparable, much less more rewarding.

It's not a nerf because the previous rewards were not consistent with the challenge overcome to acquire them.

Edited, Dec 27th 2015 4:16am by FilthMcNasty
____________________________
Rinsui wrote:
Only hips + boobs all day and hips + boobs all over my icecream

HaibaneRenmei wrote:
30 bucks is almost free

cocodojo wrote:
Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#23 Dec 27 2015 at 3:49 AM Rating: Decent
Jack of All Trades
******
29,633 posts
Quote:
The concerns about the difficulty of Savage are related to mechanics. The encounters are designed so that if you make a mistake at a critical point in the battle, you die. These raids are tuned for x amount of players so the encounter becomes impossible to defeat with x-1.

Let's be realistic here. No amount of item level is going to keep your group from wiping should you fail one of these mechanics. Even if all or your stats were 9999 and you somehow lived through getting knocked off of the platform, you're in no position to DPS the boss or heal your group. This is the way the encounters were intended to work. Whether we agree or disagree about their design, item level has no bearing on that outcome.


So in other words, you're saying: once you're past a certain threshold required to be able to win, gear doesn't matter in Savage, all that matters is being able to handle mechanics

Yet earlier, you said
By buffing Savage gear you would effectively be nerfing Savage difficulty because difficult content is balanced around players with high execution at a set item(power) level.

which in other words, is saying: for people that already have cleared Savage (in order to receive Savage gear) and already can handle the mechanics and have already passed the minimum gear threshold required, gear still does matter in Savage

So which is it, exactly? Your arguments are inconsistent.

Quote:
It might be hard to understand if you're not participating in the more difficult content in the game, but it's generally expected and accepted in MMOs that rewards increase as the difficulty of the task to receive them does. Diadem isn't nearly as difficult as Savage so it's rewards shouldn't be comparable, much less more rewarding.


That is why I think Savage loot should be buffed, not Diadem loot being nerfed. I've been saying this already, in case you've already forgotten my earlier posts. I also don't think they should be dropping equivalent loot.

Please shelve the whole talking-down-at-you act; I'm not as clueless about things as you seem to think I am.

Quote:
It's not a nerf because the previous rewards were not consistent with the challenge overcome to acquire them.


That has absolutely zero to do with whether or not reducing the quality of reward for a piece of content is a nerf (hint: it still is a nerf)

Edited, Dec 27th 2015 4:58am by Fynlar
#24 Dec 27 2015 at 7:15 AM Rating: Good
****
4,175 posts
Fynlar wrote:
So in other words, you're saying: once you're past a certain threshold required to be able to win, gear doesn't matter in Savage, all that matters is being able to handle mechanics


The players you are referring to as complaining about the 'difficulty' of Savage are not actually complaining about difficulty. What they are complaining about is one-snot mechanics being too punishing. These mechanics are not difficult. Move away from this area, move into that area or position yourself so that some obstacle is between you and the boss. If one person in your raid fails to execute, you ALL fail the encounter. That is what people take issue with here, not difficulty.

For that reason, it is not going to help them if you buff Savage gear. No gear is going to make it easier for you to not stand in a fire. No gear is going to make it easier for you to not get knocked off of a platform. No gear is going to make it easier for you to not be standing in the middle of your group and blow up. However, for the people who can avoid the one-shot mechanics it will make the encounter easier. That's not the developers intention and it's not what players want.

Forgive me if it sounds like I'm talking down at you, but I just want to stress the point that the suggestions don't remedy the problems. Hardcore raiders don't want easier content. Casual players shouldn't settle for braindead content simply because it offers powerful rewards.

____________________________
Rinsui wrote:
Only hips + boobs all day and hips + boobs all over my icecream

HaibaneRenmei wrote:
30 bucks is almost free

cocodojo wrote:
Its personal preference and all, but yes we need to educate WoW players that this is OUR game, these are Characters and not Toons. Time to beat that into them one at a time.
#25 Dec 27 2015 at 7:40 AM Rating: Decent
Scholar
Avatar
*****
12,820 posts
This is why I say it's hard to explain stuff to people who don't participate in the harder content.

This is as simple as it can be explained:

Alex Savage 1; If you mess up 1 bomb out of 4, game over unless your healers are on point like they were born to heal.
Alex Savage 2: Mess up 1 bomb during the quad doll phase it's game over because not only are you taking extra damage, but the tanks will be getting cleaved -HARD- so if the bomb goes off on the group while the double dolls are cleaving your tanks.,guess what happens?
Alex Savage 3: If you mess up Protein position, as in the first minute of the fight, it's game over. You won't meet the DPS requirement for the rest of the fight. That's just the tutorial level of Alex Savage 3, that's not even where the actual mechanic hopping comes into play.
Alex Savage 4: Nisi. That's all that needs to be said.

The difficulty is fine, it's the TYPE of difficulty it is because while you have the handful of groups who have it on farm, most people who did raid content can't get past A3S, not because they're bad but because it's such a dramatic shift from Coil that it legit was overtuned and can only be taken on by the top 1%.

As Filth said - Gear won't help, especially when mechanics failures deal 28-290,200 damage (yes, 290,000), but having higher rewards makes challenging the content worth it. Challenging content is what breathes life into a stagnant game, but Savage Alex was overtuned purely to keep raiders busy until 3.2 because they knew the content base isn't that great. Midas is supposed to be in between Second and Final Coil, which means depending on mechanics, it's going to be laughable and that will be quite depressing.

People say they're "midcore" but Yoshi himself essentially said even midcore content is too out of reach of casual players, so people honestly should be wanting more challenging content and less handouts and handholding. It doesn't have to be IN YOUR FACE..but at this rate, you may as well say ***** content and dump NPCs around housing areas that goes "Tee Hee Hee you want ilvl 210-240 gear? 40k gil please ^^" because that's the route they're essentially going and the route casual players will perfectly accept because it's an option to them.

Like Ive said before - by definition I'm considered a casual player, but I have more than enough time to push myself through all of the content of this game. It's not hard and 3.0 and later has proven it's just getting easier. The sad fact of the matter is, the community is a big part in why it's "extra hard" to get into certain content, they designed the game to the point you don't have to care about each other or grow as a guild because...hey load up duty finder and you're off.

How many people did you see wait until Bismarck and Ravana were in DF before even touching it? How many do you see say "let's build echo" rather than actually attempt the fight? I know people depise the whole "Must know the fight!" on day one, but that's a testament of how easy the game's content is by large - Yet you have people who don't even TRY to do the content or simply can't grasp simple mechanics. if everyone who plays the games did Thordan Ex, you'd all have ilvl205 weapons..that was a handout with a nice bit of challenge, but still a handout. Yet you get the same tired of excuse: "I'm casual, I don't have time, people only want experienced people."

Get your FC/LS and learn the fight. Clear the fight. Farm some (amazing) weapons. Be merry. Why wait until they nerf down the content to do it? It happened with Ravana Ex, when that and Alex normal were the only content people farmed them to death but you still had people want "other options", then Diadem came out which essentially nullified every other option outside of Thordan Ex and Alex 4 in terms of weapons. Options are good but destroying every route is bad.




Edited, Dec 27th 2015 5:48am by Theonehio
____________________________

#26 Dec 27 2015 at 11:27 AM Rating: Decent
Jack of All Trades
******
29,633 posts
Quote:
The players you are referring to as complaining about the 'difficulty' of Savage are not actually complaining about difficulty. What they are complaining about is one-snot mechanics being too punishing. These mechanics are not difficult. Move away from this area, move into that area or position yourself so that some obstacle is between you and the boss. If one person in your raid fails to execute, you ALL fail the encounter. That is what people take issue with here, not difficulty.


Coat a **** in gold; it's still a ****.

Whatever you want to call it, the problem is execution, and if enough people are failing at that to the point where Savage only has a <1% clear rate or whatever it is, it may as well just be called difficult.

Things can be difficult for more than one reason, you know.

Quote:
For that reason, it is not going to help them if you buff Savage gear. No gear is going to make it easier for you to not stand in a fire. No gear is going to make it easier for you to not get knocked off of a platform. No gear is going to make it easier for you to not be standing in the middle of your group and blow up.


That... was pretty much my point all along. Therefore I don't know why you argued against me saying that Savage gear shouldn't be buffed, using the defense that it would apparently make Savage "too easy" and therefore would have to be made harder.

Quote:
Hardcore raiders don't want easier content.


Last I heard, even some of the "hardcore raiders" were saying that A3S/A4S was tuned too high, so I don't know if you should be speaking for them when, in your admission, you aren't one.

Quote:
Midas is supposed to be in between Second and Final Coil, which means depending on mechanics, it's going to be laughable and that will be quite depressing.


Considering 2nd/3rd coil still kicked my *** over and over at level 60 and I still don't even have a t13 win, I'm sure this will just be another piece of content I'll never be able to touch until it's long since irrelevant.

Quote:
I know people depise the whole "Must know the fight!" on day one, but that's a testament of how easy the game's content is by large


No, it's more of a testament to how elitist you have to be to regularly clear this sort of content without getting utterly fed up by constant failures.

So in other words, it's more of a testament of how impatient and intolerant the playerbase is. Doesn't really speak for the difficulty of the content at all, because no matter how easy/hard it is you will still get PF groups like that on day 1.

Quote:
Why wait until they nerf down the content to do it?


It's nice for you that you're capable and apparently know capable people. Not everyone is as fortunate.

Incidentally, I've still never gotten a clear on Ravana EX either.

Edited, Dec 27th 2015 12:30pm by Fynlar
« Previous 1 2
Reply To Thread

Colors Smileys Quote OriginalQuote Checked Help

 

Recent Visitors: 289 All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (289)