Skynamis (Airship Exploration: the Diadem)

[Fiye]

Maybe not with The Diadem, but maybe with 3.3's update to Exploratory Voyages. Making the players have to move around because of lacks of spawns would reduce the reward to time ratio and it'd piss a lot of people off. But if they do it in 3.3 with the new i240 or whatever the fuck atherial gear then people won't be as butthurt.

[Eldelphia]

Yeah I would think they'll make some adjustments. I'm sure that they don't want players always farming in one spot. But then people need to work together so perhaps they need to adjust HP a bit.

[Lokus]

Maybe if they had certain islands only drop specific gear slots it'd make people spread out and focus on what to farm. Problem will be that the loot pinatas people got used to will make them rage. Let's not even get into how this won't work in DF which might be one reason they decided to just have a free for all.

[Almalexia]

I also think Gatherers should be able to enter solo, even if that's all they do.

Can't you lowman with an FC airship? If not solo, grab someone to harvest with or at the very least help get you into the zone and immediately exit.

[Luthia]

Can't you lowman with an FC airship? If not solo, grab someone to harvest with or at the very least help get you into the zone and immediately exit.

Yeah You can, can at least que with 2.

[Eldelphia]

Yeah I'll have to do that. Very mixed feelings in my group about this event though

[Shaano]

Get them to be a sack puller too so you can grab the currents quickly if they decide to jet.

[LinktheDeme]

I really don't get the butthurt of people with alexander gear, I have nearly all of it and I could give two shits about diadem catching people up to the content. Sure the crap can be better but in order for that to happen the RNG is not that great to the point where I'd rather just using 3.0 BIS rather than 3.1. If something drops great, if not who cares. Maybe I just have shit luck. This ilvl is necessary to catch up the casuals since the fights are ilvl scaled and they need to be overgeared and then the further stragglers echoed. At this point anyone going through Alexander long enough is just gearing up alts. Hell I took a 2 month break and got a brand new character that's what I'm doing currently. This means in the time from Alexander savage came out until now I've had enough time to near fully gear up on class TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT characters in 3.0 BIS. (Yes this includes crap from A4S) The fact that people are still bitching about diadem killing alexander is obsurd, and I feel like the majority of people that are nagging are the stragglers who just barely started getting crap because they feel the need to prove something and now they're upset.


If the sand in people's vaginas is that glued just do an ilvl increase to alexander savage gear by 5 when the catchup patches happen or have a secondary stat limitation on the pink gear that's SLIGHTLY lower so both sides are happy. (I also don't get why people are trying to make the adjustment way more complicated or convoluted than it has to be as well if there is on that the masses crave that badly) Once the next content patch comes out it's going to be COMPLETELY irrelevant anyway. Not even "kind of" because of this new system of normal > savage everyone's going to be introduced to a brand new gear tier right before savage and have enough time to get completely caught up.


Maybe I'm just bitter though because as monotonous as this crap is, it gives me a reason to play with the casuals, fcs, and not have to worry about being 100% on point for my big dick parse. Prior to this I had no real reason to interact with anyone, especially someone I thought was going to wipe us. Hell even primals now are getting harder to pug (anyone remember how much of a joke leviathan and shiva were compared to newer primals? The premise of MMOS is to be playing together and until this point there have been barriers that the we as an NA community and the game had in place, this content lifts a lot of those barriers.

[Stef]

Loooong post ahead with my thoughts on Exploratory Missions now and in the future.

I’ve been looking forward to Exploratory Missions for well over a year since Yoshi-P first hinted at them. They've turned out to be more or less what I expected based on all the details we were given before release, and I'm generally satisfied with this first iteration. I think they are some of my favorite content that has been added to the game thus far and I really do enjoy running them with my FC. They are far, far from perfect, but I like the fact that the devs are experimenting with different formats for events and I’m excited to see where they go with it in the future in 3.3 and 3.5. That said, I wish they would borrow a lot more from FFXI, especially Abyssea.

What FFXI got right

TL;DR: There were 4 main things that made FFXI fun in my mind and many of and events were built around them: preparation – setting things up properly to ensure maximum rewards for time spent; coordination – communicating and working together with party members; tension – risk and cost of failure; and flow – potential to get lost in the gameplay for extended periods of time.

Spoiler: show

There were 4 main things that made FFXI fun in my mind and many of the game’s systems and events were built around them: preparation, coordination, tension, and flow. Events like HNMs, Dynamis, Limbus, and Salvage certainly had these things, but Abyssea was the height of FFXI in terms of game systems in my mind: it brought together and refined the best aspects of all previous events. People disliked Abyssea because of how the gear (coupled with the level cap raise) outshone rewards from older events, but the gameplay itself was great. Voidwatch, Legion, Delve, Escha and other events afterwards were interesting as well, but never quite reached Abyssea levels in my mind.

Preparation
Getting your skills capped, leveling subjobs, putting gear sets together, arranging an appropriate party, finding a camp and getting everyone there, etc. was great fun and required a lot of thought and time to get right. Proper preparation could mean the difference between a crappy leveling experience and an incredible one.
Abyssea: Abyssea added special KIs (essentially a parallel progression system), special camps with monsters that had various strengths and weaknesses (this was always there, but felt more acute in Abyssea), pop items, benefits to bringing a varied party setup, among other things.

Coordination
Once you had a party set up each person had to play their role effectively in sync. The DDs had to manage their enmity with the tanks and skillchain with eachother; the puller had to find the right pace of bringing new mobs to camp to keep the chain going, and so on.
Abyssea: New things like lights meant that killing blows had to be planned (magic, physical, or weaponskill). For NMs people had to plan pop item acquisition and communicate to find weakness triggers.

Tension
In FFXI there was always some risk involved in all activities. If you didn’t prepare and coordinate properly you risked wasting a lot of time building a party that ended up falling apart before anything was even really accomplished. In the worst case scenario you’d end up losing experience points or even levels.
Abyssea: The big looming threat in Abyssea was that of the time limit running out. If the party didn’t quickly find its bearings then people would risk being kicked out and losing their progress for that run.

Flow
When the preparation and coordination came together to overcome the tension just enough then FFXI’s party gameplay became like a well-oiled machine. A bad party could be extremely frustrating, but a good one made time fly by. Getting into a flow state was incredibly rewarding and was quite addictive and in my opinion it was what made FFXI great.
Abyssea: "Oh hey look, at first I was worried we'd be kicked out, but now I've got over 1000 minutes worth of time remaining!"

What FFXIV is missing

TL;DR: FFXIV is by design a very accessible game that eliminates large parts of the preparation, coordination, tension, and flow elements by (among other things) flattening difficulty and reward curves. That's fine, and I enjoy FFXIV for what it is, but I wouldn't mind seeing it evolve in a certain direction up to 4.0 and beyond (there are signs that it is, albeit slowly).

Spoiler: show

At the moment, many of these elements are underdeveloped in FFXIV. The biggest reason is that the devs vision from the start has been to have a narrow band of skill requirement and rewards where gameplay is accessible, failure doesn’t cost too much, and even victory doesn’t put people too far ahead of anyone else. It’s difficult to make the wrong decisions in terms of party makeup, gear, etc. and when you get a party that is subpar there isn’t generally a lot of time wasted as most events can be queued up for again quite easily.

Preparation: FFXIV has fewer options overall. The differences between classes are smaller and there are fewer options for which activities to do and how to do them. FFXIV currently only has 12 gear slots compared to FFXI’s potential of 80 (filling your entire inventory – now up to 160 slots accessible during combat - with equipment for various gear sets), and gear variance has been flattened, so it’s difficult to really plan much in this regard.

Coordination: Enmity is easy to manage, most debuffs are easy to remove or deal with, DPS pretty much do what they do and don’t need to work together all too much. Raids certainly require coordination, but it’s a very different type of coordination to that required in FFXI.

Tension: Most of the tension has been eliminated in FFXIV. Death is cheap, and it’s easy to disband and reform when things aren’t working out.

Flow: Because there is little need to prepare or coordinate, and there is a distinct lack of tension in most content, it’s hard to ever achieve a flow state due to gameplay becoming fairly repetitive rather quickly.

A lot of these things are by design and FFXIV is certainly setup to be very different from FFXI. That’s alright; players enjoy different things and FFXIV is a fun game in its own right and one I very much enjoy. But there are signs that these things may slowly but surely change.

Exploratory Missions in 3.1 are a much pared down version of Abyssea, but they show that the devs are willing to explore new event structures. The materia changes in 3.2 essentially give us 12+ more slots in our gear sets to strive for, especially if some more unique materia is introduced. These things are far from perfect, but at least they are a step in the right direction. I’m looking forward to seeing how they develop up to 4.0.

How I would change Exploratory Missions

To make Exploratory Missions more fun I would essentially add the following:

Note: Most of these things would only be in the Hard (FC-only) version, as these things could be hell in DF and PF parties.

• Proper Alliance features inside the Diadem. Allow us to share credit as an Alliance and give us the UI so that we can more easily coordinate with and target our entire group.
  
• Add more interesting NMs. This could easily be done by taking mechanics from multiple old dungeon bosses and combining them. For example, have a boss that splits into smaller monsters like Ichorous Ire (Copperbell Mines) each of which apply a stacking debuff like the Curse of the Mummy from Vicegerent to the Warden (Qarn HM). To make NMs harder, combine more boss mechanics. Dungeons have some relatively interesting mechanics that don’t get reused all too often that could be deadly when combined. This could mean that alternate job combinations would be required (such as having multiple off-tanks, or lots of healers, or magic DPS for certain bosses), and more strategy and tactics would be involved. Also, use some of the unique monster models/skins that appear once or twice per dungeon (like Megalotragus from AK HM, for example).
  
• Make rewards from NMs eschew the random gear stat rule. Give them a chance to drop certain pieces of gear with static, guaranteed stats.
  
• Add additional methods for popping specific NMs. Pop items are a good place to start. These could come from killing mobs in the zone, from gathering in the zone (similar to treasure maps), or even from other types of content (EX primals, Crystal Tower, Coil, poetics tomestones purchases, etc.).
  
• Have these NMs reward BiS gear for only one side of the gear set. If they only gave BiS accessories for all jobs then they wouldn’t risk completely overshadowing Alexander Savage.
  
• Let them drop pieces of rare and unique materia. Materia with things like refresh or TP regain, “Flash: enmity+10”, “Blood for Blood +5”, etc. would be cool to see. Restrictions would of course have to be put into place for how these materia could be used, but I'm thinking that once you balance one complete set of materia you wouldn't need to create all too many new ones over time, just change where they come from (like the changes things such as AF armor and old tomestone gear - darklight, etc. - have already gone through).

That would probably add a lot to the game already. But if I were to go even further (these could easily cause problems):

• Make the Diadem viable as a leveling zone and a place to cap Esoterics. Going in on a job under level 60 would have monsters award experience points. On a level 60 job, mobs would award low amounts of Esoterics for each kill (1 per monster, potentially). Add worthwhile chain bonuses for both EXP and tomestones, mobs of varying level ranges, and more interesting mechanics for normal monsters.

[Destinye]

Yes. Everyone who plays had 5 months to get geared up. This isn't a catchup perse because the ilvl didn't jump since 3.0. It also offers better gear overall, especially if you can do HM, but it's basically handing gear out (loot pinata essentially) and makes even running void ark virtually pointless as you can go premade, set your loot rules and get better gear over all even for alts.

So while some do it to an extreme of being pissed...it's more about the the fact this system isn't a 'catch up', it's a handout as it even helps raiders. If it dropped weapons, you wouldn't even need Thordan's which is why they pushed Relic back to 3.15 to give Thordan's Reign a reason to exist.

Also doesn't help this content is..boring as shit. Especially if you DF it cuz people just love buttfucking the "Dino Island" or switching to gather after flight and just chill fishing and loot on anything the few people actually fighting get. By the by, they're axing "Normal/Savage" system in 3.2 and probably making a universal difficulty..so..it's less butthurt about "catch up" and more the direction the game heads with content.

[layoneil]

By the by, they're axing "Normal/Savage" system in 3.2 and probably making a universal difficulty..so..it's less butthurt about "catch up" and more the direction the game heads with content.

they did not say this.

[LinktheDeme]

Is this content introducing any new difficult challenges to overcome that are balanced off a higher ilvl scale than what was currently out there? No, it is a means to get people who were unable to get gear previously, gear that's on a comparable level to do content scaled to the current ilvl after a period of 4-5 months. That is the very definition of catch up content. Whether or not it's catching up people too quickly is subjective, not to mention completely separate from the notion of being catch up content or not. Because if you're arguing that, then your argument is completely shifting in a different direction. If people want some sort of elitism to still have it be gated and be BIS for another 3+ month period on top of the already 4-5 months, that’s just silly.

Now can it provide gear that is slightly better? Yes but the difference is rather irrelevant imo because of the RNG and the time sunk. HM NM its all the same gear at the end. I’ve seen over 100 gold chests and I’ve seen a lot of pieces that are crap and okay. (Personal opinion and observations do not impact the objectiveness of the actual content) Very rarely one that’s good but that might just be my luck, regardless RNG isn’t an excuse for design though. However people make it seem like it shits out BIS gear that is 100x better than current crap when it’s slight side grades and option openers for other pieces. This patch has been more horizontally designed than it has been vertically and that's something this game seriously lacks right now imo. It's also been something that people have been asking forever for since they took out unique stats.

Whether or not relics came in 3.1, or 3.15 would not change the Thordan’s reign “reason to exist” Primal weapons have always been alt gear with the exception of now this patch (if you’re still 4+ months behind) and leviathan extreme (which offered ilevel of equal value to allagan and a higher level if you were lucky on mirrors to progress through T6+). Just Thordan actually has some relevance this patch because the ilevel wasn’t so far behind this time around.

Setting it pre-made or not doesn’t change up the fact that it trumps void ark as well. The facts remain the same regardless. At the very least though, Void Ark still gives eso relevance since it has a twine upgrade and probably a dip further down the line. Some gear is slightly still relevant as well, a lot of the gear in VA isn’t riddled with the crap stats which make it comparable to it’s 210 counterpart) I do agree though that ideally void ark should have come a month or two ago.

I would like to see a source please on the axing the normal/savage system. Unless something new has been developed the only thing I heard was potentially adding another wing or two to make it slightly easier or an easy, normal, savage system to offer content. However a lot of those were talked about as things that wouldn’t happen because they allegedly do not have the resources to dedicate to that. (Although for some reason they have resources to waste on stupid content we never asked for nor that aren’t increasing the quality of our gameplay. Yay for releasing a shitty RTS on the exact same fucking day that an actual RTS game came out with an expansion.)

Unless there is direct evidence I’d remain skeptic on a system change after the roadmap was planned, but it’s not completely improbable. I know that I would be worried about talking about giving the story of Alex accessible to casuals, giving it to them, and then taking it away because that has the potential to seriously result in backlash. However given how crap the Alex story is anyway it’s probably a nonfactor.

Right now it’s not the content or the direction the game is going. In fact the direction the game is going is probably better than it has been in a while. It’s the timing and presentation being out of whack, if void ark came 1-2 months ago (with only a free weekly coat and then a free twine added in this diadem patch like they did WoD), if the overmelding from 3.2 was already here (which diadem seems to be balanced based from), and then if the diadem at the same time or later then the balance would be much more in sync. If not 5 ilvl or secondary stat adjustments could be made but personally I like the fact that now I have more to do than just raid log and experience crap with other people while feeling slightly productive. Objectively the fact that there are different horizontal choices now possible makes each character slightly different than the other. Balances will come or when the overmelding raid gear 3.2 comes that may just be enough to tip the balance back in favor of raid gear. Sure you could say there was always more crap do to the last 4+ months and you could always have helped people, but unless there is some sort of incentive for personal gain the likelihood of the average person doing it is slim.

This is of course under the assumption of mechanical balancing crap (like PLD etc.) is ignored as that’s a separate issue to tackle entirely.

[Kipling]

Snip

Honestly, I feel exactly as you do. I had 2 BiS jobs and 4 gordian weapons + 2 dip weapons before 3.1, and I'm not bothered by Airship gear at all. In fact, I am glad that it is a breath of fresh air and gives my FC something to do together as a group besides raiding and frontlines.

As long as this kind of content is not added in the same patch as the raid tier, then I will always be okay with it. The raid content is outdated now, so catch up is warranted.

[Neon_Sea]

Ugh why can't a whole zone kill a Brontosaurus? Get it to 50% and some goon flies in with a pack of speckleds to ruin lives.

[Silenka]

Could be worse, your timer could run out in the middle of fighting it XD (this just happened to me)

[Destinye]

I'd just enjoy if a non FC run did something other than Dino island for once.

[Lokus]

Getting people off Dino Island is like pulling teeth. Had one group farming on the island in HM but since it was just one party they only killed T-Rexes. Slowest pulls ever since we had to dodge the Sanuwas and fly around to find the T-Rexes.

[Kaslo]

Honestly, I feel exactly as you do. I had 2 BiS jobs and 4 gordian weapons + 2 dip weapons before 3.1, and I'm not bothered by Airship gear at all. In fact, I am glad that it is a breath of fresh air and gives my FC something to do together as a group besides raiding and frontlines.

As long as this kind of content is not added in the same patch as the raid tier, then I will always be okay with it. The raid content is outdated now, so catch up is warranted.

I'm disappointed my static finds airships so boring... while I find slamming heads against A3S for 3 nights a week boring at this point.

[Eanae]

I'm disappointed my static finds airships so boring... while I find slamming heads against A3S for 3 nights a week boring at this point.

Might be time for a new static if you're still slamming your head at this point.

[Kaslo]

Might be time for a new static if you're still slamming your head at this point.

We don't play more than about 6 hours a week together, so not a lot of practice.