FFXIV's Diadem Was Awful | The Diadem Disaster | RoaR

[@TOjJeto]

I remember the og version of Diadem had a lot of shout arguing, cause a lot were mad that there was too many gatherers joining in (it was great for getting mats that were usually timed) and since the monsters scaled to how many were on the map, the players who wanted to fight couldn't since there wouldn't be enough participants. That's why the 2nd version split them to have a gatherers only map. I kinda prefer the first version of NM spawning, I have a nice picture of a giant buffalo spawning on the tiniest island, making it impossible to dodge all the aoes it did.

[@kerosean4106]

Do you have that picture anywhere online?

[@TOjJeto]

​ @kerosean4106 /a/jbOyC82 (I can't link it for real, cause youtube will delete it), just paste this at the end of imgur default link

[@WeskAlber]

Littlefoot and his family can stay well and gone.

[@blindender9979]

as a veteran player (since 1.0). In my opinion, the central problem that the game faces and has always faced is its reward structure; they struggle to create engaging content because there is a lack of incentive. If you look at the most recent and "innovative" content, Variant Dungeon is entertaining and visually stunning, but it lacks any repetitive factor. At the end of the day, the game is still an MMO, and MMOs are essentially driven by reward-based progression.

[@Smarfton]

After watching this and being someone that's only been in ff14 for about 2 years, but playing MMO's for more than two decades now, it's amazing to see that this dev team is STILL doing this stuff to this day.
Take what you said about Variants, the Criterion and Another version, the purpose was to give another challenging event to do after getting through the base version, but if you take a second to look at the rewards earned for doing it, you very quickly realize the effort to put in wasn't worth the effort, doubly so since the rewards could be bought with gil via the MB.
Even the addition of weapon glams that could be earned from turning in a augmented tome weapon, something only Savage raiders could get (including as I type this) and you create a recipe for tune out.
I really do not understand their mindset with content, even to this day.

[@GammaCruxis]

I would add that the rewards structure is bad because the progression system and any associated power/customization is so narrow in this game.
After all, the only power gains a player can reasonably achieve is either materia, a small slice of better gear, or glamour. That’s it. There’s nothing else that can be changed.
They’ve essentially narrowed the scope so tightly in the pursuit of balance and equity such that everything else has to fit in it - and it’s kinda bad.

[@GanonAutumn777]

I wouldnt say all of the reward structure was a failure,but Id say its all over the place regardless if the player is a high end raider or not. Some content the rewards are what to expect like savage and ultimate,with savage having issues that took until pandaemonium to fix some of them,criterion however has the worst reward structure in the game especially for the savage version which is the exact same as the normal version except that bosses have higher health,you have another time limit on top of the instance time limit and u cant resurrect at all,and the only reward was just a title except for the last criterion which rewards a glowy upgrade to the tome weapon

[@hexcrab7344]

And men with animal ears

[@HMNNO]

​@@Smarfton it's because the game isn't designed to be a treadmill. It's suppose to play a few times and enjoy it and take a break when you're done. Yea there's raids you can spam to try to get drops but overall that's how the game is suppose to be

[@SorasShadow1]

I've heard a lot about the old Diadem but this is probably the best breakdown to what it was in its entirety *and* what it was initially hyped up as being, which is vital context in discussing a live game like 14.
This makes me respect their attempts to temper people's expectations when announcing things like Island Sanctuary even more. Not that it *worked* mind you, just that they tried not to massively over promise things like they've done in the past.
And while the current content isn't really what people wanted from it, everything new we've gotten in EW has been worthwhile to at least try out, 3.x Diadem sounds like it'd be a "try it once then never again" for a lot of players.
I hope we get another exploratory zone confirmed at JP fanfest and that it takes what they've learned from all their previous attempts into something that works well at launch (...my standards might be a little low lmao) and if they're gonna do another set of raids to please for the love of god make it softly optional like BA.

[@Asako_Gaming]

Diadem was brilliant. The best content for me. Actually running into other players outside of cities trying to do the same thing as you.

[@davidbernardino8109]

New exploratory zone is confirmed already

[@zephicules]

well I have good news for you my friend!

[@PropaneWP]

I believe that the decision to tie any sort of content to housing that's of limited availability is fundamentally a stupid idea. I say this as someone who's in an FC with a large house and also being a house owner myself.
When not everyone who's playing have access to content because it's effectively walled off by housing - that content is a waste of resources in most respects. It means that people who can't access housing content are paying monthly fees for content that's only available to certain other players. I don't know how to put the stupidity of that any clearer.

[@cattysplat]

It's intentional design to be unfair. Yes it's stupid and elitist. But there it is. They could have chosen it to be open but didn't.

[@All4Tanuki]

The idea, as best I can tell, was to try and ensure that the hardmode was only populated by people who were sufficiently "into" the game enough to have joined a clan. You didn't need to have joined an FC to play the normal/easy versions, after all. Yes, that's still a dumb system, but I can see why they initially chose to limit difficult content aimed at large, cohesive groups to large, cohesive, pre-existing groups of players

[@FallenReborn]

I think the one thing that upset me most about the old diadem was that, before it's shuttering for the IshResto iteration: Dancer and Gunbreaker had weapons made for them that came from Diadem, but *not* Alexandrian weapons from the last turn of that raid tier.

[@tciddados]

Yeah but it makes sense, none of the coven weapons had unique models, they were just recolors of older ones, so it's a different situation from Alexander weapons where they'd need to make entirely new models for them. Everyone else's Coven weapons were ilvl 180 pvp models, the gunbreaker and dancer coven weapons share the model of random Stormblood leveling gear (the "Doman Iron" weapons, level 64 vendor items).

[@pokealja]

Ya'll don't understand the pain of doing a full 10hr Dimmadome run, several days in a row, and finally getting a ring with random RNG stats that you can't even use. ☠️

[@karasutsuki1733]

I remember making a crap ton of money building airships by myself for FCs, they didnt know the airship needed to have like lvl25 to go to Diadem as well as that they could have just entered via Ishgard without paying me for the service lol

[@cronft]

small fun fact, the hunting hawk did whent up in price a lot after the diadem started to be played less and less, to the point what rmt started to sell them!!!, on me server, some where selling them for over 120m, and it was at the time one of the rarest minions in the game(myself brought one for 43m)
diadem 2.0 made the minion price drop a lot, tho was still "expensive"(around 1m), until heaven on high the minion didnt got common enough to be sold cheap

[@MRorizs2]

OMG what a nostalgic video lol I remember the amount of KO'd players in the Brontosaurus NM fight, as a lot of people didn't know in the first times that you had to run from meteor. The impact zone was also gigantic. I remember everyone saying "dino island" as soon as we got in diagem cause the only thing people wanted to do was farm NMs and the dino island was where we could poull the biggest mobs in the smallest areas. Then in Diadem 2.0 the Emergency Missions came and at first it felt really fun, until you utterly failed a mission because people would not coordinate or because they would pull the mobs before even half the instance was in the place. Then came the raiders complaining that the weapons being random was bizarre. I mean, I get it... more than a few times a BiS weapon would drop to someone who neither raided nor contributed to the mission.
When Eureka came out, it felt to me like it was goingt to be fixed version of Diadem, and Anemos was real fun at the start, but then Pagos came out and sucked all the fun of the whole place in its absolute zero perpetual winter.

[@enpi-me]

And the biggest problem with the weapon was that only 1 person got it... they should've made it so that everyone gets a token and that you needed X number of tokens to exchange for a weapon like if I remember it was the case for armor...?
Anyway didn't like Diadem much... I loved Eureka though, spent so much time in there, and with so many people it was really friendly fun, chill and really felt like playing a mmo.

[@ASMRshayla]

Stroll down memory lane! I remember 1.0 and 2.0 Diadem. I never went in 1.0 much but I stayed in 2.0 a lot to get my pegasus mount.

[@LihoShammy]

Personally I actually enjoyed the Diadem 2.0, but I never managed to defeat the special boss from the Emergency Missions and eventually the zone was just too barren to even try them anymore. I don't mind that it was eventually refurbished for use for the Ishgardian Restoration, it was an event that was a lot of fun after all, but I think it's a real shame that they never put more work into the Diadem 2.0 to improve it and make it real mainstay content.

[@Hiromaniac]

My FC at the time was lucky enough to have dedicated crafters who also managed the airships and got us into Diadem fairly quickly. We did it a decent bit in the first iteration of it. I think from our second time in onwards we immediately flew to "Dino Island" and just spammed it for tracks to spawn larger monsters. The gear was better than basic tome stuff at the time so we did a lot of distributing gear to who needed what for better gear for raids. As suggested it quickly became less useful as we upgraded the tome gear. We didn't do a lot on the second iteration of it. I only remember us going in three or four times and I never saw an emergency mission pop. I think a few of my FC members went in more often and got to go into the emergency mission. I think only one of them managed to get a Coven weapon and luckily it was for their tertiary class. I've spent a good amount of idle time podcast-listening in the current version of Diadem, but haven't done much in a good while because it didn't take too long to level the crafters/gatherers that I didn't get leveled through custom deliveries and Crystalline Mean/Studium deliveries.

[@Techstriker1]

Glad to have another Remnants of the Realm. I started ff14 in full back during the pandemic and watched the whole series back then. Always wondered about old Diadem, saw mentions of it in a guide, but it was the Firmament by the time I came around.

[@cattysplat]

Somehow it feels like Yoshi-P has a past love for old MMO design, the original design of randomness in ARR, Heavensward and Stormblood combat, bringing it back as optional content with Eureka and Bozja, it's funny to see the Diadem was the original pot these were brewed out of. You can definitely tell old MMO design really shocks modern MMO players, the forced grouping, brutal difficulty, hard punishment for failure, compounding list of requirements, huge time commitments, few random drops so repeat it endlessly with loot drama, jank design forcing to learn all the intricacies. Post Shadowbringers is a completely different game, all the edges smoothed off for your convenience, to clear content, get gear and go play something else.

[@All4Tanuki]

Honestly the only similarity between and old MMOs is the persistent online server. They appeal to completely different mindsets. I'm happy that FFXI is still technically running to this day, even though I have no intention of ever playing it

[@JustSpag]

One addition: some FC's were very happy to go into the gathering diadem 2.0. several members of my small FC in that period used it as our primary darksteel farming point. very useful for making gil.

[@eathelyn_enavin]

Yes. So much darksteel XD

[@JustSpag]

@@eathelyn_enavinglorious darksteel @_@

[@Feuerhamster]

"Sir Yoshi, the people... they complain about Diadem, what should we do?"
"Send it... to the gathering pit."
*Horrified silence interrupted only by hellish hooting and screeching from the pit as Diadem is cast into it*

[@riaclerica]

I started playing during 3.5, right around 3.55b, and I remember asking, once I got to 60, "What's the Diadem?" The response, even then, was, "No one does the Diadem."

[@clarifynn4135]

I was there for all three incarnations of the Diadem. Can't wait to see the one for Eureka.

[@RicardoSantos-oz3uj]

There have been at least one gimping of Eureka. If you think grinding is now bad, it was worse.

[@rinnnnnnnnnnrin]

Eureka is fine, main issue now is the stupid frozen protein crystals and players with meta gear trolling everyone else

[@WaterDrinker666]

LEAVE EUREKA ALONE EUREKA NUMERO 1 !!!!!!!!

[@christopherg7483]

god, reading that description of what it could have been.... :( there was so much potential, and it feels like they scrapped it partway through

[@Tinandel]

Somebody who didn't start until Endwalker, here. Funny seeing all of the inspiration that Bozja would draw from this.
As for my own experiences in the Diadem, I've entered it.... twice. Ever. I didn't even notice it until long after I'd completed the MSQ, because it was locked behind Ishgard Restoration and I noticed IR progress was server-side (and thus completed ages ago), so I didn't feel like there was any point engaging with it. By the time I started running out of other content and finally looked more into it, I no longer had much use for it and didn't find the gameplay compelling enough to draw me there on its own.

[@coaster1235]

Thank you for the video! It’s great to hear what exactly the earlier Diadem versions were, and why they failed.
Since xiv as a mmorpg has so much less friction in the gameplay compared to xi, I wonder if that makes their attempts to introduce content with an older mmo feel and friction somewhat doomed by default. When most other content is convenient to run, why would players bother to engage with the more friction-ful content?

[@cattysplat]

Because there will always be a hardcore playerbase that want to constantly be grinding for something. It's the nature of MMOs, even if it doesn't apply much to the casual playerbase, item exclusivity still has big social factor, it's human nature after all to be envious of others who have things you don't.

[@sonicroze]

A friend of mine was going to do Diadem with his FC and invited me along. We didn't have a set of groups going in, like one and a half parties really... but we went and did the FATE rushes. It was in the waning days of the 2.0 version of the Diadem, but I was glad I got to experience it. It was quick and confusing, and I got my rear end handed to me by a Pegasus XD but I also figured out some things against the Brachiosaur (meteors man). I eventually joined his FC, and I have to believe that this was something our leader had planned from the start. We run BLU content, MAPS and Mount Farms, so I'm not surprised that little used content was also on the docket at the time.
I have very warm memories of the Ishgardian Restoration and full well glad am I that we "maintain" the Restoration through continued use of the Diadem. I was so so happy the first time the Fêtes started running. I took screen caps at each of the project complete moments as I could (though I would have done so at the same point each time if I'd thought about it!) but it was thrilling to be a part of the game's history. New players will never truly have to rebuild Ishgard, but we know Empyreum wouldn't be there without the Diadem.

[@pessimistic_optimist8322]

ugh, the sheer frustration of going into normal version in hopes of farming mobs, only to load into a party full of gatherers. Meaning you couldn't get enough credit on any fights for chests if you tried to fight, and if you left, you had to wait 2 hours to queue again...

[@Spookybluelights]

Despite being around for 3.X I never actually got to experience the original Diadem! I was sad about that because as a FFXI veteran I was excited for it. I'm glad it's been documented here for posterity.

[@chrislangton4662]

Nice been waiting for this!

[@awworrell]

Wow talk about a walk down memory lane. I was there through all three incarnations of the diadem. This piece of content was where I gained a lot of respect for the FFXIV developmetn team. They are one of the few teams who would literrally remove content from the game multiple times just because players didn't like it. I remember running all three versions of content and the first two were pretty terrible. Granted it was the first time that we had an exploratory like zone which was neat but there wasn't any staying power at all. The fondest memories I have is from gathering Pterodactyls to try to make some of the highest level crafting items.

[@cattysplat]

Bad content literally makes the game look bad, so it's smart if they are going to upgrade it anyway.

[@jamesrusselleriii8284]

I started FFXIV way back in August 2013 and was never able to do the Diadem 1.0 with my FC. I got around to unlocking it yesterday to level MIN and was fascinated with how the zone evolved over the years Thanks for documenting exactly why it was so troubled.

[@MoombaKnight]

I have a lot of fond memories of the original Diadem. My small FC would go to the Easy mode to get some tomestones as an alternative to Expert Roulette. I can remember us just hanging out, chatting, and looking for treasure chests around the map after finishing the objectives for the tomes. It would be a stretch to call it good content, but I enjoyed my time there.
I actually did have fun with the aether currents too. It feels good to explore maps on foot before earning flight.
Edit: I honestly remember gathering in the diadem to be really useful because it gave access to materials that were normally from timed nodes. I remember one of my FC friends farming lots of Darksteel there. We needed tons of that for airship parts.

[@ruadeil_zabelin]

The "FC crafting" system is to this day the main reason of the housing crysis. I personally know a couple of players that own multiple houses on alts for the sole purpose of running the airships/submarines and making gil. If i personally know a few that have a combined total of at least ~20 houses... there are certain to be more people doing this. Ever wondered why there are so many empty plain houses in fc wards? This is why.

[@Chamira]

great video! i didn't even know diadem was a thing until the my fc friends were like 'yea! lets ride the fc airship, picnic time!" this was late stormblood and i had no idea what it was about but it was like looking at some empty forgotton relic.

[@Shizukanexen]

I loved old Diadem. At least the secondary release. The ONLY problem I had with it was how they decided to make it so hard to get in AND that if you joined with randoms, you couldn't reform parties inside of it.. If they'd just let people create parties inside it would have been doable, but I remember people ditching pretty quickly and then when you were the last one left it was impossible to do anything solo. I would love to go back and do the emergency mission again.
XD I thought that gathering was easy and totally worth it, at least when they made it separate from the battle content it was.

[@FarelForever]

I first entered Diadem in September 2018. I really wanted to do the content and get some achievements from it. I made some friends this way. However we'd always be desperate to even get 8 people on board, and there was a ton of content that was undoable with only that many people.
Then, in October 2019, on the final days of the content, the place was on fire, and we cleared "The Missing Gem". That was a good time :)

[@SubduedRadical]

Huh, I somehow always thought it needed an FC (which I didn't have at the time), and completely forgot it existed in SB. Go figure. Honestly, I think some of the ideas behind it were good, but as with so many things, the execution was more lacking. The biggest problem, though, was that it was just...dropped. As you say, 2 layers of random aside, it had compelling reasons for people to go in it. For a patch. Then it was never updated or touched again. This seems to happen a lot with FFXIV introducing something that COULD be cool if they kept up with it...but then they don't.

[@luc1ferous]

The current Diadem is perfect content for listening to Podcasts, I haven't done it for a while but I do think there's a few items left to get, might pop in later on.

[@Yokai_Yuri]

Nobody remember this but in the OG Diadem, there was a chance you would get like a 5 stats armor. It was awesome when I got the crit, det, DH, vit and skill speed all in one! I think the execution of the Diadem was bad, but I miss these kinds of "lucky rewards"

[@lhwweiss]

Happy to see Remnants of a Realm back! It's some of my favourite ffxiv content on youtube and as a someone who started on ShB, it's always cool to learn how the game was before

[@rinnnnnnnnnnrin]

I really wish we has an option to make names look like they did in 1.0-3.0, it's so nice looking

[@Scrambles_Deathdealer]

I ran Diadem once, the day it dropped, and I never went back. I could see the utter chaos then and noped right out.

[@kpenn100]

what people dont realize is that square enix as a company use games and modes as R&D diadem was a test for diving in game , Zadnor was a test for moon like terrain moon zones.. there are many other examples throughout their game library

[@MaelraJade]

I am utterly shocked to learn that A: Eureka was not Squares first attempt at combat/exploration field instances and B: That Diadem 2.0 and Eureka existed side by side and it shut down a patch before the release of Bozja. How far they've come in creating those zones.

[@ararebeast]

It never really occurred to me until watching this video just how much the Diadem served as an Alpha for the concept that would eventually become Eureka. When I look at the first Diadem all the way to Bozja, it really came a long way. Also the gameplay footage makes me nostalgic for Aero III. Unfortunately the most of my experiences with Diadem 1.0 and 2.0 was going with friends once, saying "I don't understand what we're meant to do" and not going back because it was a waste of good ceruleum.

[@featherless2524]

2.0 was so memorable. Just getting your face rekt in the emergency missions was fun. Or the brachiosaurus terrorizing people. It had some mystery to it too! Now it’s just a sad instance for gathering mats…though most content is one and done so i think it’s did it jobs successfully. Unlike what we got in Shb and Ew content used to be more innovative and creative.

[@Boyzby]

As a reformed hater of Eureka, I wonder if I would've liked Diadem since it sounds kinda similar. There's something very chill about just running around the map and spawning NMs. I wasn't into raiding then, so the gear issue would've been something I didn't care about, but it does make you wonder how the idea you could RNG BiS made it through. Reminds me of when alliance raids were "greed only" for a time, and boy was that terrible...

[@Asako_Gaming]

It was so good. It got dunked on from raiders because people heard you could get BIS from it technically and claimed it was OP despite good drops being extremely rare and it got dunked on by casuals because the big monsters destroyed them and they expected easy fast loot.
It was designed to be grindy and it delievered 100%. I loved every second of it.

[@No0neat]

I am utterly FASCINATED with ff14 behind the scenes ever since i started playing the game. I absolutely fell in love with the diadem qhen i first set foot in it. It is a great place to just relax and take a load off. I never knew however that we could do battle in there and how rough things were before it got to the version we have now. Incredible coverage. Thank you so much :)

[@darklordkuro7953]

Im soooo happy this serie is still alive!

[@matthiewg12]

I was a new player when this came out, barely finishing up ARR, i remember hearing everyone talk about the diadem, but never participated in it. Looks like it wouldve been a major pain with the old TP system back then

[@soldierorsomething]

I remember mr happy mentionig in one of his videos that the random stats actually meant random stats, like tank gear might have piety in them

[@dmnetinho]

Thanks for this video. I really love the idea of using the airship from the free company to go playces with its members. I wish they would bring that back. It gives a bit more function to the FC other than just using the Airships and Submersibles as retainers. In the end only very few players of the company uses those contents and are usually the owners and admins of the company. Many players don't care to get rooms in the company neither which makes the FC almost useless once the players have reached their lvl cap and buffs are no longer needed. I really wish they would bring this back but with a better version of it. I was a longer player of FFXI and I loved hunting NMs with my linkshell.

[@ChocobosinSpace]

Fascinating, thanks for the upload, The Diadem has a rich history and it's good to have an overview.

[@BlakeAustin2011]

Diadem 1.0 was an attempt to bring Escha, Abyssey, and Dynamis into 14, but the worst parts of each was selected.

[@turntapeover5749]

Wow... Seeing Orange Caramel and Vero Sombrero in the party list is some hella throwback 😂

[@turntapeover5749]

I made so much money in the gatherer version of the diadem though. Lvl 50 unspoiled as regular node, sphalerite that was only available from scrips etc etc. The combat version though? Just Eureka, minus the relic. Sunburst gear was......a choice. 15 ilvl more than Alex savage but literally just lvl 10 glams. It was so bizarre....

[@IIXairII]

Honestly I miss the old diadem for the gathering aspect. What wasn't covered in the video was that the timed nodes for ARR and HW were up back to back in there, allowing you to get some of the most annoying materials at the time in bulk like ARR hour timed nodes. This made doing airship projects and also materials for special crafting recipes a breeze. Now we're back to waiting an hour again lol

[@loofy530]

Makes me sad the chances of Diadem getting a new combat update are basically nil. The zone is gorgeous, and I hate there's practically no reason to go to most of it. If it was retooled to work exactly like Eureka right now, I'd love playing it.

[@LillacTyanu]

I still have several damaged lockbox and even one of my healer tips from diadem 1.0, it was a special time and I remember the level of disappointment we felt fast as we realised just what we had and what the potential was

[@All4Tanuki]

How did you guys feel when Eureka came out? What was the general community response like, that you remember? (Shadowbringers baby here)

[@LillacTyanu]

​@All4Tanuki initially positive, people played together and enjoyed their time but once the gaps in levels appeared it quickly became divisive, the long grinds, no challenge log, hell you couldn't even mount until the end of the zones story made it a very old school slog that was liked by some but hated by others

[@qqu2182]

Wow!! I had no idea the diadem used to be like that

[@DiamondDust132]

Having started with Shadowbringers, I always heard horror stories about the first two Diadems. Serious culture shock for me lol

[@SuperKirumaru]

I legitimately forgot this content existed.

[@AnjuDieQualle]

omg omg a new RoaR video?? It's been so long. I am so happy! This is my favorite series from your channel

[@forestgirlasha]

This takes me back. Thank you for the nostalgia. I had a lot of fun and frustrating time in og diadem.

[@rainfall7588]

it was great especially the hunting hawk in a gold chest. seen it sell for 150mil back then

[@xLohengrinx1]

All I heard from the old Diadem was that it wasn't good, did a fair bit for the restoration there to level up my crafting classes with the materials

[@yuantheblue]

by the time I had even had a chance to even attempt the content, it was in serious decline and no one in my fc ran it. So this is an excellent overview!

[@screamallyouwant]

Why put energy into something that failed?

[@ICountFrom0]

I remember starting in stormblood, trying really hard to get good enough to get there before it was gone.... and not quite making it. Rug pulled out from under me still hurts a little, even if it was a bad place.

[@AngelSeph]

I really liked The Diadem the few times I actually got to play it, just a shame so many mistakes were made that ruined it. Crazy seeing FFXIV players complaining about random rolls ruining progression while Destiny 2 Year 1 players had the same complaints about fixed rolls.

[@Salt_Mage]

Diadem 1.0 was pretty exciting to start. But it also compounded the issues with the first tier of Alexander.
Diadem was braindead content that could drop gear that was BiS for every job in the game, better than even the savage Gordias gear.
I remember the first drop that I ever got was a healing robe with high rolls on every substat and I wasn’t even raiding at the time!

[@wakkaseta8351]

So old Diadem was basically proto-Eureka

[@NeroLucifarious]

I remember doing this about 1 time i believe. Because it was such an uncoordinated slaughter fest

[@All4Tanuki]

I wish you'd mentioned Eureka's release & how the community reacted to it. I guess you'll be mentioning that in the next video?

[@RicardoSantos-oz3uj]

Seems like a mixture of Bozja with gathering, except for that bullshit of getting the currents every time you go. And the locking of content behind a FC.
Overall I would have spend more time on a combat focused diadem. As I find the gathering focused one incredibly boring.
To be honest. The game is lacking on areas where the MM of the MMO is used. Most of the content is either single player, or small group play. And the little MMO content (Eureka, Bozja), gets obsolete, for lack of meaningful rewards for the time spent. To add insult to injury there is no roulette for the raids of those zones.
If instead of giving you gear, they give you tokens to change for meaningful gear based on your level, the zones would not be empty. Since they already have their own levelling system. I do not see why it couldn't be done that way.
Alternative B. Give gear that levels up with you, with the requirement of going back to fight to level up the gear. Since its aetheric gear, it would be easy to come up with some bullshit explanation on why it feeds on the combat.

[@thomascranor2668]

I had ceruleum vouchers from that first rework sitting around in my inventory for a long time. I think I finally got rid of them when I heard they weren't usable in the (then upcoming) ishgardian restoration content.

[@Dragonsamuari]

When the emergency missions came about and people found out how the weapon drops could potentially be better than savage and relic weapons, people flipped their shit. Yeah, you were subjected to big amounts of RNG, but if you were lucky enough to get a really great weapon, it made running savage raids and relic content completely pointless.

[@Sugar-bz5np]

Super excited for you're new vids

[@olololo4807]

some fc members never believed me that diadem was originally in HW.

[@flamingmetroid]

I started playing during HW and I didn't even know Diadem 1.0 was a thing until I heard it was getting shut down for a rework.

[@ArchonZach]

I entered the diadem once was totally confused joined a party of strangers got a mistbreak helm of maining left and never came back good times! I still have the helmet too lol

[@MiriamCamilla]

I found the first one confusing. Did get kidnapped to it by some FC buddies.
Second version was pretty ok. Did like some aspects of it and again being there with FC buddies and we did better.
Third version I find pretty relaxing sometimes. I sometimes am in a good gathering mood. Love listening to podcasts (in fact the third version made me finally listen to your podcast, I already knew these little videos, but podcasts are long and it seemed daunting to just stare at 4 guys talking even if the subject is interesting… even now on twitch podcasts evenings I don’t look at you all the whole time, I glance over sure and I have fun in chat but I am also very good at getting distracted) or audiobooks. Sometimes music too, but I tend to reserve music for hunt trains as I need to concentrate a slight bit more but not so much that music is distracting me.
So idk thank the diadem III that I am around now? Yes? 😅😊💖

[@AltaMillia]

I stopped playing just before Diadem, and returned shortly after it was revamped. Was always confused why it was hated because new Diadem is pretty chill and enjoyable. Great video.
I wish XIV’s engine allowed for cool things like airship PvP, or a better realized island sanctuary. The system is so rigid and the rewards lacking that it limits the games potential so hard. Still an amazing game for what it does, but it is still a shame.

[@RiogaRivera]

After a long break on Arr i came back for 3.5 it was great, this game was very niche so never hear of changes on this game until i log in, not much friends of that time like it but you were able to do it with random players so i love that, even back in the day when the content was very little was hard for me find fc members that like this kind of content. We need a diadem CLASIC 😅

[@Puffytosser]

NGL... I kind of forgot about the Diadem in its current form.

[@honkedoffjohn]

With the Diadem, I got Botanist and Miner from level 20 to level 80 in a week. I love the Diadem, funny to see how trash it was back when I wasn't playing.

[@monikaguerra]

but for real i rember the diadem 2.0 was played for coven weapons until the last day before stormblood...

[@Kuribohcoast]

I sort of miss the chaos of OG Diadem. It was awful.

[@jhynn8123]

Just a little correction... "Notorious Monster Hunter" is a 1.0 title, the one from Diadem was "Notorious Monster Slayer"...

[@damianporter942]

I never knew the diadem had such a troubled past, ive only ever known her as a beautiful nature reserve that fully levels all your Gathering jobs.

[@fourcatsandagarden]

I keep forgetting airships are a thing lol

[@RyldsGirl]

I went into diadem 1.0 once. It was awful lol. 2.0 I did a lot actually. 3.0… I’ve been in too much. That’s what I get for getting my Saint of the Firmament in Botany 😅. Stupid pteradon mount will be the end of me.

[@Ephremjlm1]

just don't get it why did they make so many unnecessary changes when the content only needed tweaking. Notorious monsters are good. Player cooperation is good. Solving puzzles is good. Needing to explore is good. Shoot even randomized stat gear can be good, as long as ALL of it isn't. The original Diadem looked sick and reminds me of something like Dynamis in FFXI but its like they either didn't look at what was already a made and successful thing, or they didn't understand what made it successful.
There is no way in hell I would call the content that it is now better, because we lost something that has in theory already been figured out and should have been a slam dunk. And though it wasn't said in this video I have heard the argument that Diadem had no use once stormblood came out, but thats because the FFXIV team didn't make it a leveling stage. Funny enough Eureka has that same problem its just got more content tied to it like the relic. If Diadem had the relic grind tied to it, and also was a stage in which you could level at least from 50-60 then it would have been great.
And I think I know why that is, is because for the longest time forcing players to do dailies which inherently helps new players was a very specific design choice by the team. That said, personally im hoping that in the way that trusts killed FFXI's social structure, they do the opposite in FF14 and bring the more social type gameplay back. If there are trusts then there is no need to force people to do dailies. Allow either open world XP to be better, or bring back battle Diadem for 50-60, allow for xp to be gained in eureka for 60-70, and then let people grind from 70-90 in Bozja (so many people do that last bit as is as the preferred way to level cap. )

[@FF-tp7qs]

I never managed to get much loot from Diadem, my looy rolls were always terrible and it felt like I was wasting my time, so I stopped going in very soon after trying it
Diadem 2.0 was barely any better, and only once did I even get inside the emergency mission, but with not enough players to even fight the boss

[@Meowvela]

3:05 So, anyone else reminded a bunch of Island Expeditions in WoW? :P (jokes aside, now that they aren't mandatory content, they can be fun, but waaay too random)

[@midorixiv]

People nowadays don't realise how close the game was to dying back in 3.1, there had been a massive content lull between HW launch and the patch, with only really gordias savage to do. Then we finally get a patch and it comes with the flop that was diadem 1.0 and the absurd first step of the anima relic, only thing that really redeemed it was thordan ex. If 3.2 and 3.3 weren't such banger patches the game might have just died there.

[@Khalith]

The lack of rewards kept me out of diadem 1.0 and it wasn’t really interesting enough to stick around in.

[@frogradar]

3.0 the expansion of innovation

[@Asako_Gaming]

Diadem was one of the greatest side content they ever released. I'm sick of hearing how bad it was. Bring it back. It was literally just Diablo in FFXIV. You knew you were gonna grind the same mobs for a chance to get some gear. The stats being random kept you farming for that tiny chance you get something for the job you want. People just want everything handed to them for free.
It was excessively grindy, but that's just how it had to be when there was a chance you could get near BIS gear.
Felt so good when you popped the last Aether Current and you knew it was game on, the world was opened and Dino Island or Cave Diving awaited. I was an avid gatherer back then so I loved this part too. Loads of lads just chilling out destroying mobs, running into other parties who have been before sharing the same instance with them. It's what an MMO should be. Look at the state of the current zones we have, there isn't a sinner in them. You barely run into other players outside of Cities, but here you were surrounded by other nerds just looking to get stuck into some action. Casual content done brilliantly. Eureka and Bozja tried to recapture it but missed the mark. They just have people waiting on the fates and nothing in between. In Diadem any of the Grade V mobs could be the one to drop loot so you kept at it.
People look too much on the downsides and never give it the props it deserved. I want this to return.

[@ChibiMachiChan]

omg the old Diadem... brings back memories, lol!

[@Glacevelyn]

I don't think you put enough emphasis on how fucking crazy it was that the randomly-generated gear was the max Item Level for its respective patch - if you actually cared about getting good gear it was intensely frustrating because the amount of time it took to get that gear was completely variable and made the content often just feel unrewarding

[@emerelle3535]

Never played that one, maybe I should visit it at least once. xD

[@ClydeJHatbird]

Never even heard of this mode, but hearing "brought back memories of Final Fantasy XI" makes me glad of that fact.