Eureka - from a FFXI point of view

I like it - even if I did get hard by the rewind bug

as many people already pointed out, this content for now it's just the most basic and mindless part of FFXI without anything else.
FFXIV has completely different combat system that add only stress to the grind, a relatively (albeit well done) small area with nothing interesting in it so far and no LFG system - you must shout like in Jeuno 2008.

I am a mega FFXI faboy, I bought FFXIV 1.0 hoping it was a clone of FFXI... so i really fail to understand exactly what they wanted to put into this content that would make someone like me reminiscent of the old days.
All we have are the problems we had back in time in the Valkrum Dunes, without the updates the FFXI team developed to coutner them.

I do not understand.

In FFXI you dealt with the tedium by actually conversing with party members, since the shortest ability cooldown was like 30 seconds, with the average being 1-3 minutes. (Note: This is actually why you remember it fondly. Early MMOs were basically chatrooms with HP.)

In FFXIV you can't do that, since constant input is needed. So, it manages to be both tedious and a huge hassle.

This is why an attempt to recapture FFXI in FFXIV is fundamentally flawed and doomed.

I've done this content in an 8 person party of FC friends, and other friends. The voip made it tolerable.

I've also done this content completely solo for a level.

The content isn't hard. It's easy. Extremely easy. It's boring. It's mind numbing. There's literally nothing in this entire piece of delayed content except for killing mobs. The magia board feels like an after thought -- you set it once, you're done, until you move on. You don't use it to diminish certain attacks, stances, or anything like that.

As a DRK at level 4, I pulled five level 4 mobs and killed them all. It took time, I got my chain going. But it wasn't fun. It wasn't difficult, it was just going through the motions.

It's just mob grinding. For very little reward.

There's no overworld dungeons. There's no sense of exploration to figure out the lore of the area, there are no interesting nooks and crannies to go find.

It's mob training.

I remember mob training from other games, it was never, on its own, fun. It's never been "fun" content. What made it fun was the social aspect, that's it.

As content, on it's own, it's boring, dull, easy, unexciting, mind numbing, and long for very little to gain. Especially when NM's are the only real source of actual rewards from killing everything, and even then, they're just Fate Bosses. I've never encountered a "fun" Fate Boss.

It's a nostalgia piece because of the social memories people have doing it, but that doesn't mean the actual content is good or fun when the only thing that can make it fun is shit talking it in VOIP while doing it.

They could have done a lot with it, there's a metric shitton of crap they could have done with it.

But they did nothing with it.

You can't even change your glamour in it.

You can't even queue for other duties while doing it.

You can't form a PF in the zone itself.

From someone that liked the pros and toughed out the cons, I really wanted to comment on this thread and hope the OP says something to these comments, along with others agreeing with the idea Eureka is like FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Staple

That just goes against the ethos of FFXIV though. The purpose of the game is to be semi casual with the acknowledgement that most people are adults with responsibilities and don\\'t have the time to grind and farm endlessly to unlock x, y and z.

If that was released, there would be endless uproar of how the content wasn\\'t accessible and was too grindy. It\\'s a delicate balance that no company will meet. As they say, you can\\'t please everybody all the time.

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So your saying Eureka goes against FFXIV's Etos? It is too much time for gaining nothing outside glam. At the week of release is the same week causal play get access to an i360 weapon for one class. That is 10 mins of work over the course of 7 weeks. Smashing one button hours on end is not even what FFXI was about. You got to talk, plan, and engage different feeling content. Like others stated, FFXI endgame did not require a lot of time in one sitting outside old Dynamis. Then when people post like 77 crystal drops for the course of 6 hours guess what? that even beats old Dynamis and old Dynamis was 2-4 hours every THREE DAYS to simply get a drop for your gear.

The only thing this grind can compare to in FFXI is the trials of the magians and even then, it depends on what one you are comparing it to. Outside the trials of the magians NOTHING is this big of a grind in ffxi, not even old exp rates to get your first job to 75. If we go there, getting your first job to 75 was explore experience as well, you explored a huge world, fought a verity of different things, even if crabs was a common pick, you still had to know how to deal with undead spawns, move camps at night, magic aggro, know how to run to a good exp camp, make sure people had spells on some things like dispel or erase. Be on your toes with CC like sleep, no one does that in FFXIV, in ffxiv all you are doing is remaking the abyessa experience and I guarantee you, those that ask for ffxiv concepts was not asking for abyseaa leveling.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I did some math on this grind, and here's what I came up with:

If you farmed 50 crystals every day until the end, it'd take just over 3 months to finish an entire relic set, possibly longer entirely dependent on RNG. That's counting both crystal types I believe. The time frame...not really an issue. I don't think it is for most people, considering how many have done past relic grinds. The problem is entirely in how it's being handled. Grinding mobs for 3 straight months (possibly longer) and hitting up an occasional fate which may or may not spawn for awhile isn't my idea of fun, and I don't think it's fun for many other people either. The grind itself is a non issue, it's how it's being handled where people are rightfully frustrated with.

You don't seem to fully grasp the sheer scale of this current grind compared to past ones in THIS game. And you should considering you're an XI and XIV player. Time and effort are not equal to the rewards being given.

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FFXIV is handholding. You are handheld to a single spot and told kill things for 24+ hours in mindless aoe ability spam. You misused what handholding means. The time frame is a BIG issue in this game because in 3 months you go though a tier or 2 in ilevels, and the thing is, the final forms at the moment are already outdated in comparasion of current gear, that is easy to get. Penta meld crafted or current tomes put way less work and time invesment, even when you consider doing the treadmill again vs grind of these stages +future upgrades.

With that out of the way...
Eureka gives concepts on long grinds, like pre-Treasures of Aht Urhgan exp rates. We are comparing a game that was built having you to be sociable, and explore different sites for experience points to a game that wants to be built on hand me everything. NOTHING about Eureka is like FFXI except the concepts that went into pre-Treasures of Aht Urhgan exp rates and some trials of the magians. All Eureka gave us is FFXI's abyseaa leveling. Not even the other concepts of abyseaa is like this diadem 3.0 situation.

But the thing is, we are trying to compare side ENDGAME content to old MMORPG exp styles. All the endgame I know does not come CLOSE to being Eureka, at least not in ffxi, there was a ton of different content to do, not spend time waiting for something to be given to you.

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Originally Posted by stardrifter

I like it - even if I did get hard by the rewind bug

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Rewind bug?

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Oh Jesus Christ, if the Magian Trials are the standard by which we're judging content now we should just shut the entire game down. I've never met a single person that enjoyed that

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Hi, here's one.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Hi, here's one.

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http://i.imgur.com/XYRRg2l.gif

More power to you, brother. After doing the Mythic WS unlocks, the early stage Empyrean weaponry trials with the lottery spawns, the stuff required for Yoichinoyumi, and assisting my wife with the staves I have a very visceral reaction whenever those things are even mentioned lol

I liked having a variety of "non-endgame" stuff to do get decent weaponry. Honestly not much different from animus books for 2.x relic, something I also enjoyed.

Problem?

Oh, another thing I liked about the trials: they had me thinking a lot about all the previous locations in the game I'd been to and possibly done experience parties in, to try to figure out where would be the most optimal places to try to get trials done. I happen to appreciate things that make you think back on your past experiences in a game in such a manner, particularly when it's a game you'd already devoted years to playing... maybe that's weird, idk

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

I liked having a variety of "non-endgame" stuff to do get decent weaponry. Honestly not much different from animus books for 2.x relic, something I also enjoyed.

Problem?

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You ... had to go to different areas and do different things at least. The only issues with 2.0 relics was some rng rate and some of the BS fates that fail unless you camp them because they fail in 1-5 seconds after appearing.

The FATEs (some of them, anyway) were arguably the worst part of the books, yeah. Anything that had you standing there camping where the FATE spawns because you had no idea when it would show up next... yeah, that was a low point. I would have found it more acceptable if it was something like "do 5 fates in X zone" or something instead of requiring very specific ones. Nevertheless, I did still finish all of those books, ten times for all ten weapons... so I couldn't have hated it THAT much...

EDIT to respond to things from the future because stupid post limits.

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My point to you was 2.0 relics have no comparison to this diadem reskin, it can take 24 hrs of play time or 3 months, I am not doing a reskin on outdated content unless I have personal friends that want to do it, and atm that does not exist. I do not know why people are trying to force themselves in thinking this area is ok, what is the point in that? You shouldn't have to force your self or convince yourself something is fun. That shows there is problems with it. If something is well designed I would be willing to do it regardless what the reward is.

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It sure is a good thing I didn't say Eureka was "ok" and that I have been very upfront in stating it has problems (to the point where I've actually just hit the daily post limit for the first time, and I don't have a small amount of posts), or else people might have misinterpreted how I really felt and misattributed things to me that I never actually said. Oh wait.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Honestly not much different from animus books for 2.x relic, something I also enjoyed.

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Oh my god you're a masochist!

But no, I jest. Your reasoning is solid and is more or less in line with how I feel about the XI vs Eureka as a whole. The base concept is there, but all the extra stuff that came with it isn't. That is to say, what you posted vs "It's basically the same as the Magian Trials because it wants to you kill oodles of one specific mob!"
Or an NM. Or stuff. ...Basically Magian Trials minus any variety, I guess.

Fynlar, there's a familiar name I haven't seen in a while.

I'm someone who once stayed in a Highhold Keep group back in EQ for 34 hours because it was going well. I've had to put up lfg in a shout and find a spot at one of the agreed-upon camping areas. Or wait until a party was available. Or find my replacement when I had to leave. So I'm well versed in EQ style exp grinding.

Most of the groups I've run into don't even want to do the camp thing and just chase the NMs. So you're an incredibly low level that is pulling mobs with a party when they all go running off and leaving you to find your way among mobs 7 or 8 levels higher than you. And we don't have tools that helped with this back in EQ like Invisibility, Levitate, Mesmerize, Snare, SoW, or Charm. For groups that do exp, they plant themselves right in the middle of mobs and just aoe things to death. It's mind-numbingly boring and tedious. I left EQ because I don't want that style of MMO any longer. If the relic wasn't in Eureka, I wouldn't bother with it any further.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

The FATEs (some of them, anyway) were arguably the worst part of the books, yeah. Anything that had you standing there camping where the FATE spawns because you had no idea when it would show up next... yeah, that was a low point. I would have found it more acceptable if it was something like "do 5 fates in X zone" or something instead of requiring very specific ones. Nevertheless, I did still finish all of those books, ten times for all ten weapons... so I couldn't have hated it THAT much...

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1,5,20, it does not matter how many you did or i did or what the general public did. We need to be here telling them, Hey this part is really messed up please change it.

My point to you was 2.0 relics have no comparison to this diadem reskin, it can take 24 hrs of play time or 3 months, I am not doing a reskin on outdated content unless I have personal friends that want to do it, and atm that does not exist. I do not know why people are trying to force themselves in thinking this area is ok, what is the point in that? You shouldn't have to force your self or convince yourself something is fun. That shows there is problems with it. If something is well designed I would be willing to do it regardless what the reward is.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

future because stupid post limits.



It sure is a good thing I didn't say Eureka was "ok" and that I have been very upfront in stating it has problems (to the point where I've actually just hit the daily post limit for the first time, and I don't have a small amount of posts), or else people might have misinterpreted how I really felt and misattributed things to me that I never actually said. Oh wait.

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You where suggesting it was ok because 2.0 relics where ok and you did a lot of them, you are contradicting yourself.

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Originally Posted by Vstarstruck

From someone that liked the pros and toughed out the cons, I really wanted to comment on this thread and hope the OP says something to these comments, along with others agreeing with the idea Eureka is like FFXI.


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Hi all,
After playing Eureka more, I have to adjust my initial post a bit. As far as being like FFXI, I stick by the idea that it is like FFXI but in only a few ways // that is, making a party, finding a camping spot, and pulling IT mobs to chain xp. In essence, it is like FFXI as far as leveling up goes - not endgame. Reflecting on what I liked most about FFXI, it was two things -- during leveling, it was the camaraderie and fun of chatting in party while grinding, and making new friends while doing so. During endgame, it was having so much to do that was varied and different, and having reachable goals that were directed and organized. I absolutely loved getting my Empyrean Armor +2 on both my WHM and NIN in Abyssea, because getting that armor was so detailed and had so many different steps and so many different NMs I needed to organize alliances for in order to get (stone, card, coin, jewel farming - almost all requiring different NMs with many different ways to spawn them, etc.).

I agree with the people who claim, as I did, that Eureka is like FFXI, but only insofar as it is like the grind of leveling pre-cap. It also lacks the 'friend building' that FFXI had during leveling due to the nature of FF14 combat, as others have said. We can't chat in party like we did while hanging out in the Dunes or Crawlers Nest, etc. The skill spam is just too much.

So, in essence after 3 days of release, I feel that Eureka has indeed taken the grind of FFXI leveling, but applied it to a game that lacks the sociability FFXI had and lacks the combat mechanics (slower and more methodical in FFXI, so we could chat during combat) FFXI had. It is nothing like Abyssea capped AF (Empyrean) farming, or even atma farming. I loved atma farming, too, as it took organization and also had so many different atma to attain and/or help others get [atma of Razed Ruins, etc. - or even atma of the apocalypse].

Eureka is fine for those who need a little taste of the FFXI leveling grind -- but I have to agree with others that it took the 'worst' aspect of FFXI and applied it erroneously to FF14.

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Originally Posted by KaplanHomahru

But answer me this: If you're going to take some content from FFXI and put it into FFXIV, why WHY would you take the most boring thing (exp / merit parties)? Why not something engaging? Any of the end game type fights? Instead of just literally pull a mob, kill and repeat until you see a FATE?

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Because contrary to nostalgic belief, there really wasn't anything engaging beyond that in FFXI. It all had a base system with a fresh coat of paint.

Dynamis - Pull some mobs and kill them for random drops and currency, until you get to a "NM"
Besieged - Pull a mob off to the side and kill it.
Campaign - Pull a mob off to the side and kill it.
Sky - Pull mobs and farm them until a NM spawns. Kill NM for KI and spawn another NM.
Land Kings - Wait around and hope you don't get beaten by a claim bot. Farm mobs if you get bored.
Overworld NMs - Wait, or sometimes sit around and farm the local mobs until it spawns.
Sea - Farm mobs until you get items. Spawn other mobs to get items.
Limbus - Farm mobs until you get items.
Skirmish - Kill mobs until you reach objectives.
Delve - Kill mobs until you reach the NM.
Salvage - Farm mobs until something happens.
Nyzul - Farm mobs and sometimes light lamps until you reach NM.
Exp. Parties - Pull mobs and kill them for experience.
Abyssea - Farm mobs.
WoE - Farm mobs until you get the NM.
FoV/RoE - Farm mobs (usually).
Promyvions - Sneak around, or kill mobs, until you reach a gate where you kill mobs to go up to another floor where you kill mobs. Repeat until you reach the NM.
Overworld Areas - Sneak around, or kill mobs until you get where you're going.

Yes, it looks simplistic when you reduce it all down to that. Not saying it was bad. Some things had a different nuance to make them fresh at the time. It just wasn't the super awesome dynamic content people are remembering. It was just different from FFXIV. It was built differently, and meant to be played differently. I personally had more time back then, so I didn't mind the slow nature of FFXI as much. I had more patience to sit and wait for a monster to turn around before running past it.

And that's the issue here. FFXI was/is a slow game. That is the fatal flaw with Eureka. FFXIV is not built to be played slow. Grinding out mobs on FFXI was mostly letting your job auto-attack and build up TP; sometimes throwing out a debuff/buff. Grinding on FFXIV, however, will eventually give you carpal tunnel syndrome. Just reaching chain 30 a couple of times made my fingers hurt. You can hardly even chat in a smaller group, or you risk losing your chain. Even on FFXI you could talk between pulls.

The NMs in Eureka are seizure-inducing zerg fests. With absolutely no filters on the massive amount of flashing lights. For whatever reason, none of the filters for other people seem to work in there. You can't even see the NM you are fighting, because it is always covered in white light.

Large party groups are migraine-inducing zerg fests, that sometimes camp right next to you, and jack your kills. In FFXI, nobody could even touch your claimed mob, unless you called for help.

The aggro system is completely random. Sometimes you can run around a mob in circles and it completely ignores you. Yet if you stand still and do nothing they immediately aggro you. Sometimes Ninja's Hide works, and sometimes it doesn't (with the same mob.) It's very hard to determine what typical mob behavior is going to be. Even FFXI had some ground rules for that.

So when people say Eureka is like FFXI, they are both right and wrong at the same time. The base systems are like FFXI; you sneak around dangerous mobs, get to a camp and grind, and the quests give you vague hints. However, the entirety of Eureka feels like FFXIV trying hard to be like FFXI, and failing. It simply doesn't work. After two days, I'm already tired of trying to figure it out, let alone grind it all out.

I also have concerns about what happens when everyone is level 20 and ends up camping in the same spots. That's going to be a whole lot of fun.

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Originally Posted by MirielleLavandre

Hi all,
After playing Eureka more, I have to adjust my initial post a bit. As far as being like FFXI, I stick by the idea that it is like FFXI but in only a few ways // that is, making a party, finding a camping spot, and pulling IT mobs to chain xp. In essence, it is like FFXI as far as leveling up goes - not endgame. Reflecting on what I liked mostabout FFXI, it was two things -- during leveling, it was the camaraderie and fun of chatting in party while grinding, and making new friends while doing so. During endgame, it was having so much to do that was varied and different, and having reachable goals that were directed and organized. I absolutely loved getting my Empyrean Armor +2 on both my WHM and NIN in Abyssea, because getting that armor was so detailed and had so many different steps and so many different NMs I needed to organize alliances for in order to get (stone, card, coin, jewel farming - almost all requiring different NMs with many different ways to spawn them, etc.).

I agree with the people who claim, as I did, that Eureka is like FFXI, but only insofar as it is like the grind of leveling pre-cap. It also lacks the 'friend building' that FFXI had during leveling due to the nature of FF14 combat, as others have said. We can't chat in party like we did while hanging out in the Dunes or Crawlers Nest, etc. The skill spam is just too much.

So, in essence after 3 days of release, I feel that Eureka has indeed taken the grind of FFXI leveling, but applied it to a game that lacks the sociability FFXI had and lacks the combat mechanics (slower and more methodical in FFXI, so we could chat during combat) FFXI had. It is nothing like Abyssea capped AF (Empyrean) farming, or even atma farming. I loved atma farming, too, as it took organization and also had so many different atma to attain and/or help others get [atma of Razed Ruins, etc. - or even atma of the apocalypse].

Eureka is fine for those who need a little taste of the FFXI leveling grind -- but I have to agree with others that it took the 'worst' aspect of FFXI and applied it erroneously to FF14.

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You do not do that in Eureka, its abyssea exp, rush in, aoe monsters.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

Hi, here's one.

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Yeah, let's find two more people and we could make a light party in Eureka ! :)

To expand on that, I loved Magian Trials because they were different of everything XI did before. For once, rewards were not random, and people actually helped each other when a notorious monster spawned, instead or simply rushing to be the first one to kill.

Frankly, I'm interested in Eureka for the simple fact that it works differently than the usual content, and I wanted some change of pace for a long time. I think FFXIV need something a little less casual friendly, because some people like this type of content. Maybe they're masochist, yeah, but they're still XIV player nonetheless, and would like content for their personality too.

As someone who fairly enjoyed XI but is very disappointed in Eureka, I think I can explain why some (or at least I) used the comparison and why it feels different.

Eureka is evidently based on an XI-style MMO where essentially you grind mobs to pop more mobs that might drop something you want.

In XI, you had more options on what role you want to take in the party (dps, healing, buffs, debuffs, tanking, a mix of any of the above) and a variety of options on what to do during the fighting. Try and hit the enemy’s elemental weaknesses, do skillchains (depending on which expansion you were in), Stun dangerous attacks, focus on crowd control, tank the mobs, use dps focused buffs (haste, Adloquium for tp regen, etc), utility buffs (Bard songs, Regens, resistance barrier spells, Refresh), debuffs to lower enemy damage and defenses, or for crowd control like paralyse or sleep.

When these abilities do exist in FFXIV, they’re on very long cooldowns that can’t be manipulated, and generally have a significantly lessened effect on the battle due to balancing.

In a game based on this style of content, you need to have a deep and engaging battle system that’s multifaceted enough that even grinding base mobs can become interesting and fun.

XIV doesn’t generally feature enemy debuffs that can turn the tide of battle, nor buffs that aren’t in a cooldown, nor crowd control spells that have an effect on the enemies for more than a few seconds. The battle system is largely supplemented by the fact that a majority (if not all) are oriented around dps-checks. Buffs, debuffs, crowd control can be easily done away with when every battle is a check of how much damage you can do in a limited period of time. Obviously it would be tedious if every normal overworld mob could one-shot you if you didn’t do enough damage in time, so it doesn’t apply to them. This means that the main driving force behind ffxiv’s battle system, beating the dps check, is absent. So when you’re grinding mobs in an area like this, without any mechanics to accompany the battle system, it ends up feeling dry.

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Originally Posted by Naberrie

As someone who played FFXI for seven years, Eureka immediately felt familiar and comfortable to me (and for those saying if they wanted to play XI they'd play XI, I would love to play XI again if it was available on a platform I have, so I'll take the next best thing). I call it Valkrum Qufim Jungle.

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I agree. Stepping into Eureka reminded me of the Dunes.