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Yep, that's why Diadem (Easy and Normal) were failures. The concept itself was a failure due to the game they designed it on.
Diadem failed only because of execution. The concept was solid, especially for a game like FFXIV. It's a type of content that could have easily been updated every so often to keep it relevant, and it could have contained challenges for both small groups and large alliances with no need for set numbers. That's exactly what this game needs.
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People say they want alternate paths and varied content but then shun Horizontal progression. Whether or not someone likes "hardcore raiding" has to realize, there's no "hardcore" in this game, anyone who knows anything about hardcore raiding in MMORPGs would laugh at the notion of XIV ARR/HW having "hardcore" anything.
Translation: This game isn't hardcore enough for you, Hio, which is what I've been telling you over and over. You'll never be happy with XIV.
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As said, some people simply don't realize, or they do realize and hate to admit than once you spoon feed your players and condition them to get what you want then suddenly change that up..well that's when the crying starts or well, people say you shouldn't even bother working on x content especially when they themselves don't utilize that content. I mean, look at how fast Diadem Normal died when they scaled back the loot pinata of it.
Most people didn't do Diadem even during its loot pinata stage. The only folks who hammered at it in my FC were the hardcore players, because -- as they said -- the gear rewards were too helpful for savage mode NOT to spam Diadem. But everyone else seemed to stay out of it. I don't know any non-hardcore players who either 1) spammed it or 2) missed it after it was nerfed.
Again, you're only really capable of seeing this from the vantage point of a hardcore player.
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"Why waste resources on content few people can even access?"
A question like that is kind of loaded because...every MMO to this day had and has no problem creating content a small % of players will access because it lets them retain a certain game design without having to basically maim it in order to make it accessible.
Really, the question is "why use too many resources on content that only a few people can even access?" And it's just as valid of a question as you asking why the development team spends resources on content that's so casual that people don't want to do it. I concur with both questions. Developing for either end of the spectrum is fine, but neither of those is what most people want.
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Alliance content in XIV is the perfect example. It is BACKWARDS AS ALL **** to scale DOWN difficulty with MORE PEOPLE..rather than scale it upwards. Why should content that take 24 people be EASIER than content that takes 8? or 4?
Because team jump ropes are not fun. Especially when it seems like every fight is a team jump rope after team jump rope. Fights can be designed to tone down the jump roping, and even to let players decide who will be handling certain mechanics -- this way, groups can let their more experienced players take on the most challenging roles, allowing newcomers to experience and learn fights without necessarily dooming runs to failure.
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The only difference is the amount of handouts developers started to do with their MMOs. If they reel that back a bit, they can create lasting content, but then you run the risk of upsetting people who's become conditioned to get rewards JUST through participation alone. I'm all for reward people for doing something, but the itemization and content structure of this game simply..is off. If they left gear that had meaning, everything would be dandy. You want a STR+80 wepon with the usual crit, det, parry or skill speed, go for it! Do your Midas Normal! You want that STR+110 weapon that enhances your abilities and even adds a new skill? Best get your *** into the Savage version or tackling Sephirot Reborn version of the fight.
Unfortunately, that view is simply unrealistic. There simply aren't enough players with the free time and scheduling flexibility to learn these savage-mode fights. Also, they're just not that fun. Extreme team jump roping is repetitive and highly dependent on memorization; it's not really all that mentally stimulating. If anything, the problem with XIV's raid design is that jump rope fights are inherently more fun when they're not so massively frustrating -- which means NM raids in small doses are going to bring more fun than Extreme-mode raids that you've got to beat your face against for three nights/week.
And there's no way around that. Why would busy people who already don't have the time WANT to use their free time being frustrated?
You've got try to think outside the hardcore box and see the game from an Everyman's perspective.
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That way, there's actually a reason beyond bragging rights to do the high end content of this game, because as of now..people who want more content and more challenging content are STUCK with that type of content because people want more and more accessibility to content they had no time to do (still dubious about this) or had no skill to do it.
In a perfect world, the development team would be building different types of content for casual/midcore and hardcore players, and people could simply do what tickled their fancies. And with the Diadem, SE was oh-so-close to doing this.
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Since after all, the complaints are only here because people didn't have the skill to get through Binding Coil and demanded "story mode",
And this kind of statement really discredits everything you're trying to say. You and I actually agree on the essence of this statement: The endgame raids in this game aren't honestly difficult. They don't really require
skill. All they've ever required from anyone is a lag-free connection and enough repetition to build memorization and muscle memory -- and almost ANYONE can do that. If every player could be in the game with seven other people with identical schedules and no RL conflicts, the completion rate for endgame raids would be amazingly high, because the only real challenge is access.
Hardcore players tend to give themselves a little too much credit when they claim nobody does endgame because "they simply aren't skilled!"