SE staying silent on the major issues BA have is ludicrous

[Zzzlol94]

Seriously, SE is being more and more stubborn as the days go by. I bet most of them are thinking "there's nothing wrong with the content, why should we do anything about it? the players are wrong, not us".

These are some of the major issues that MUST. BE. FIXED.

1. The dungeon isn't "open" when it's LIMITED to only 1/3rd of an instance. Compare this to how S-ranks would be if only 80 people in a zone could get rewards for an S-rank. You think that would've made for a well behaving community? You thought ninja pulling was bad now, just think how bad it would be with that.

There is nothing other than a complete rework of the joining system of the dungeon which can fix this. A zone of 144 people forcibly reduced to 56 is a FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE with this content. It is flawed in every single way. There is nothing good about it. The fast track system is such an insane risk for the user, and even then, it's designed terribly, by apparently destroying other portals, making fewer people able to join? Really?

2. The raise restriction is bad from both casuals and veterans. Casuals won't join because they THINK they won't make it. Veterans won't join because they don't want to waste time on casuals dying and wasting their time. I have a tip for you SE. Remove the raise restriction. If you still want the Ozma mount to be "challenging" to get, just make it a requirement to not die. At least let this content be doable to organize within an instance so people can start getting the fragments to upgrade the gear to make it easier.

By doing this, you might have made this content ACCESSIBLE and might make discords not a requirement to do this. I have tried 6-7 times without Discord to try and at least get the first boss. 5 times, other group dies to the first add, other 2 times, we wipe on the boss. This is with at least 20 people every time.

3. Being unable to change jobs inside the starting zone of the dungeon is what I would call an oversight. What would change by restricting that ability? Is this too much to ask for?

4. To even get the full completed gear, you're expected to do this a lot. I have a full time job, limiting my time to only a couple of hours for 3, maybe 4 days. That's assuming I spend all of my free time in this game. I have other stuff to do too... People will argue "oh, 9 full clears isn't that much". Yeah, clears. If you want to only do the easy bit, aka the first two bosses, you have to do it 30 or so times. That will take me probably over 2 months if every attempt was a clear. That won't happen, so let's say a 50% clear rate. It would take me 4 months (what happens in 4 months? oh yeah, no one doing Eureka anymore). And that is assuming people will even BOTHER to do this content in its current state after 1-2 months.

5. The support FATE. Really? You want 48/56 people to rely on people in the zone to be able or even bothered to help people. Guess what, luckily throughout the past years this game has been up, the community respects each other and actually do something, even when the rewards for the majority is absolute garbage in comparison to the 56 that will be inside. Even then, 48 people waste their time if the 96 people outside are unable to defeat this FATE.

This content feels like SE is giving me and everyone else the middle finger. I have played this game since late 2014. I have attended the Frankfurt and Paris Fan Fest. I have had an uninterrupted subscription. I have done every raid, attempted clears of Ultimate fights. But this content, a glorified 24-man, is the least accessible content to me. It is also continuously splitting and destroying the community, adding an increasing amount of toxic behaviour within anyone attempting BA.

The biggest offender to this is the limitation of 56/144 people per instance being able to join. What should've been done is how Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High is done. If you decide to do this dungeon, you are thrown into a separate zone/instance where you can queue with Duty Finder. When you get matched into BA, you're in groups and such and can coordinate from there. The raise restriction should be abolished still. When you wipe, you're returned to a Hydatos instance.

Or, if you don't want to waste more development time than you already have on Eureka, remove the Raise restriction, make it possible to coordinate runs within Eureka without relying on Discord by any means necessary (and I'm in the Discord and it's horrible, just horrible).

And SE, respond to the issue before it's too late, and take action to fix these issues.

[Canadane]

Did you miss the warning where they told you it’s not supposed to be easy?

[Kuroka]

Not changing jobs on random parties and no raise in not making it any more difficult, its just annoying, even more when the later is easily caused by invisible aoe, lag or any stuff that might happen. Oh that guy with the mark has a lag/dc and cant do the mechanic, too bad... lol.

[Mix]

Did you miss the warning where they told you it’s not supposed to be easy?

Most of the OPs complaints have nothing to do with it being difficult, it's mostly to do with how stupid and frustrating the entry system is. People will rush to get in, ruining any chance of getting in with normal parties so if you end up with an abundance of DPS you can't change job inside. If you do get in the support FATE is totally out of your control, if everyone has ditched your instance to try to find another where they can get into BA then you're out of luck, you won't be the clearing the content.

Thought I do disagree with the removal of res immunity, that's fine as it is. It is frustrating however that one person can wipe and ruin the run for 55 other people on Ozma though.

[Hakane_Mitsu]

As someone who's helped people learn BA & also cleared the whole Armory several times I agree to an extent on certain points but only on How to enter the "public dungeon" & how to organize a pre-made group.

Currently as it stands I think the way you enter an instance with this should be changed, in the past we've been able to select "open world instances" when expansions drop for certain areas and I think that should've been implemented for Eureka: Hydatos so it'd be more easier for pre-mades to organize groups rather than having you enter > leave > enter > wait > leave > etc...

In regards to your point about having to get people outside the BA to assist with the NM and apparently "expect them to do it" is actually not true. pre-mades would assign a "support" group to wait for the NM and kill it as a small group, if people in the instance join in to help get them crystals, then more the merrier but we don't instantly assume others will help us kill an NM.

In regards to your other points I don't see the issue from my stand point. It's meant to be challenging and not a walk in the park. If you remove the No raise debuff it'll literally be an over glorified Alliance raid which isn't what it's trying to be.

Each group have their roles and imo if they mess up that's on them, no one else should be to blame for their mistakes but if it's someone in the groups fault that made a player die then that's on them.

On Aether we help others learn fights and help them through each boss & setup groups for tons of people to join in.

The way I see this, is a benefit for the community, sure the whole process could be fixed from SE's side in regards to how we group up and go into instances but it does bring players together a ton and I like that.

[HyoMinPark]

1. The dungeon isn't "open" when it's LIMITED to only 1/3rd of an instance. Compare this to how S-ranks would be if only 80 people in a zone could get rewards for an S-rank. You think that would've made for a well behaving community? You thought ninja pulling was bad now, just think how bad it would be with that.

There is nothing other than a complete rework of the joining system of the dungeon which can fix this. A zone of 144 people forcibly reduced to 56 is a FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE with this content. It is flawed in every single way. There is nothing good about it. The fast track system is such an insane risk for the user, and even then, it's designed terribly, by apparently destroying other portals, making fewer people able to join? Really?

Considering that there are already possible issues you can experience inside BA with only 56 individuals, I would not want to open it up to a full 144. For example, on AV, groups recommend that SMN/SCH do not use Shadow Flare because there is an issue where they may cause AV’s light/dark puddles to not appear on the ground for some players. This is obviously a programming issue, because they should always have boss mechanics prioritized over ground effects like Shadow Flare, but it may also be related to the next issue: too many DoTs/debuffs on a boss. Because other ground effects like Asylum, Salted Earth, and Earthly Star that don’t place a debuff on the boss’ target bar do not cause this issue.

More on the too many DoTs/debuffs issues: there are also issues with too many DoTs/debuffs on a mob that causes others debuffs to have no effect. For the owl trash on the way to Ozma, if you put too many DoTs/debuffs on them, you will be unable to stun/sleep On the Properties of Darkness, which cleanses all logos on everyone in the raid (including Remembered). Every group I’ve been in for Ozma prog/clear has explicated said, repeatedly, “Do not DoT these mobs so that we can stun/sleep them”. (People still put DoTs on them...)

Both of these issues would be further exacerbated if BA allowed all 144 players into it. And since the developers seem to not want to address the issue of too many DoTs/debuffs, I’d rather not have to deal with it in something like BA. This also doesn’t account for other things, such as players not listening if you tell them “Please refrain from using Shadow Flare on AV” or “Be careful not to DoT these mobs so that we can stun/silence/sleep them effectively”. The more players you have in there, the higher the liability will be.

2. The raise restriction is bad from both casuals and veterans. Casuals won't join because they THINK they won't make it. Veterans won't join because they don't want to waste time on casuals dying and wasting their time. I have a tip for you SE. Remove the raise restriction. If you still want the Ozma mount to be "challenging" to get, just make it a requirement to not die. At least let this content be doable to organize within an instance so people can start getting the fragments to upgrade the gear to make it easier.

By doing this, you might have made this content ACCESSIBLE and might make discords not a requirement to do this. I have tried 6-7 times without Discord to try and at least get the first boss. 5 times, other group dies to the first add, other 2 times, we wipe on the boss. This is with at least 20 people every time.

I disagree. The raise restriction is meant to be punishing, even with the developers still giving you two ways to get around it (Remembered logos and Sacrifice L if the healers choose to run it). It’s only dangerous when you get people that do not want to cooperate with the rest of the players, be it acknowledging mechanic explanations or just listening to other commands (e.g., “Please do not run ahead of the person with Perception so that you don’t trigger a trap and blow people up”).

I know people fear deleveling, but a little time on Sprite Island will get you back up to 60 in no time. The raise penalty holds players responsible for mistakes, and I have to admit that I like that aspect. Wiping sucks; dying to someone else making a mistake also sucks. And I won’t try to claim that it doesn’t. But the game warns you that BA is punishing, and what better way to punish than to not allow it to be a war of attrition like most other content in this game.

3. Being unable to change jobs inside the starting zone of the dungeon is what I would call an oversight. What would change by restricting that ability? Is this too much to ask for?

This should be changed. If the developers want players to do this with zero sort of prior organization, they need to allow job changes on the entry platform with the Logos Manipulator and Magia Board. Because the few times I poked into BA before I joined Aether’s Arsenal Discord, there were issues with not enough tanks/healers. And I know they have the logograms to try and mitigate that, but for AV and Ozma, you want DPS to be taking offensive actions, not tank stance actions or healing actions. Because they do have enrages.

4. To even get the full completed gear, you're expected to do this a lot. I have a full time job, limiting my time to only a couple of hours for 3, maybe 4 days. That's assuming I spend all of my free time in this game. I have other stuff to do too... People will argue "oh, 9 full clears isn't that much". Yeah, clears. If you want to only do the easy bit, aka the first two bosses, you have to do it 30 or so times. That will take me probably over 2 months if every attempt was a clear. That won't happen, so let's say a 50% clear rate. It would take me 4 months (what happens in 4 months? oh yeah, no one doing Eureka anymore). And that is assuming people will even BOTHER to do this content in its current state after 1-2 months.

Eh, I don’t mind how many runs you have to do to get the fragments, and I’m a full-time student that can only do BA on the weekends.

They’re the equivalent of a tomestone currency, and we all know those exist to promote longevity of the content, regardless of how artificial it may be. If you’re a caster/healer, you don’t even have to buy the head piece/body piece, as the Vermilion Cloak is much better because you can pentameld it with VIs (and it being i300 prevents the iLvl sync from negating said materia).

The only issue there is getting the cloths, which I think are rarer than the Cryptic Seals. Only thing I can suggest here is waiting for them to come down on the MB, but fragment runs don’t seem to mind if you come in with only a few pieces of gear or none. And you can get cloths from frag runs.

5. The support FATE. Really? You want 48/56 people to rely on people in the zone to be able or even bothered to help people. Guess what, luckily throughout the past years this game has been up, the community respects each other and actually do something, even when the rewards for the majority is absolute garbage in comparison to the 56 that will be inside. Even then, 48 people waste their time if the 96 people outside are unable to defeat this FATE.

In my opinion, the Support FATE is good in theory — I like the idea of outside players killing a FATE to help lower AV’s defenses and then some coming in to assist in killing him — but it’s completely reliant on those outside choosing to participate. Normally, this isn’t really an issue, but it can be for smaller instances (the NM does scale based on the number of players NOT in BA, but it can still truck).

It’s also completely reliant on players bringing Feint L and Dispel L. I don’t mind the requirement there (I like seeing these logos actions being useful), but I have seen instances where a premade BA Support team has deaths, and no one else is prepared with the actions. And then sad things happen.

The rewards are a bit lackluster, and I think making it drop 15~20 crystals + a couple Eureka Fragments would go a long way to encouraging participation. EXP gain is probably fine, because I think the EXP gain is the same as the other level 60 NMs? I’ve only ever killed it as an eLvl 60 so I’m not 100% positive on this, but I think it is.

[Zolvolt]

On primal our premades refuse to kill the support fate because they're worried their support group will run out of time before the current BA group is out. I'd say it needs to be changed.

[Crux]

I have seen the support fate three times in Hydatos, every time the FATE was cleared whether the "support" team was there or not. It is a FATE, people in the zone kill it. I bet if zero people in the support team went, it would get cleared.

[Rufalus]

I wish certain things were more convenient too but it's best to just not worry about it and do something else. They are very busy making new expansion content so we can't reasonably expect a big redesign of the entry requirements or max number of participants any time soon. If they even agree that something major needs to be changed about the whole system then it would need to be scheduled in for a 5.x patch some time.

[Cidel]

explanations in japanese about BA...

This was posted on the JP side. So... Stay tuned? Supposedly stuff about staggering the Portal spawn times and lowering the requirements for the key item to enter blue portals... And giving more crystals from the support FATE NM.