Bozja Critique: Almost there, but not quite

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Started the content this morning and pretty instantly found some glaring issues.

#1 Normal Mobs give zero Mettle, only FATES do. Even S rank mobs don't give Mettle

So, other than spawning FATES which have a graceful low respawn time, they are pointless. This leads to the dreaded AFKing that the devs wanted to avoid. They facilitated it.

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This was done to intentionally pad the amount of time you need to be in there and throttle progression, no one should be telling themselves anything different.

The fact that FATEs pop constantly and there is no brainless grinding on trash mobs is already a vast improvement over Eureka. I hated that part of Eureka so damn much. The best thing about it was the NMs and this is basically all NMs so +1 Square. I'm not going to grind out every relic here, I'm just doing it for the story and extras, but for now, I'm not wanting to bash my head against a wall while playing it soooo yay? EDIT: Oh and leveling my other classes is a nice extra as well.

I'm really disappointed with it.

In what sense was this supposed to be different from Eureka again? It's literally the same thing. Except this time it's drab looking and the music is even more repetitive.

Go in, AFK, kill the FATE that spawns (if you make it in time) and get silly confetti as a reward. That's why people hated Eureka, and they did it again.


I really really REALLY hope, this isn't why we lost deep dungeon and the regular dungeon and the Halloween event.

Because as far as I'm concerned, this is less content than Eureka, and even less engaging. Even the outside FATES have scaling from the number of people in the zone, but here you could be doing one of the larger FATES with 10 people because no one else joined with 0 scaling. That's not going to age well at all.

Also if you get selected by 1v1 but are in a party you can't join it unless you leave the party manually. Why isn't that automatic? Unless that's an incorrect fact, but I haven't been able to get accepted after getting the pop-up while in a party and you basically need a party during the FATE, not a great look to abandon the party you formed to attempt a solo thing.

Not a fan of the lose mettle on death either, nor the lose mettle on /return. I think the lose level thing was done better in Eureka. (never thought I would say that)

Also not a fan of the outfits, but that's personal taste I suppose. I'm just really bored of the resistance styling. Doesn't feel "Final Fantasy" at all to me.

Also some of the fights are literal copies of the lvl 70 24man bosses. Not impressed.

I will do it anyway, because I enjoyed BA and I want to experience that again.

Overall Bozja adds some interesting elements, but it just feels like a more watered down Eureka with MUCH less to do. No challenge log and no really clear gains for ranking up in Bozja, as opposed to Eureka where leveling up had immediate gains.

I also think the elemental wheel in Eureka was really fresh and I would have loved to have seen that expanded upon.

I'm also personally bummed out that there is no equivalent to the bunny fates that were in Eureka which keep Eureka content relatively active to this day.

The biggest issue with Bozja is that they've made it redundant from the start by making it laughably easier to finish your relic outside Bozja than inside Bozja. It's like...the most glaring game development flaw I've seen from SE in a while. Bozja should be the more efficient way to farm for your relic or at least on the same level of efficiency as doing HW fates, but instead it's so much easier to do it outside the new content that doing the new content just feels like a waste of time. Why such a gap in the drop rates? Why cater to people that are afraid to do the new content to this scale?

It just baffles me and I'm really disappointed as someone who was very excited for this content and as someone who loved Eureka but recognized its flaws.

The only improvement over Eureka is the concept of Critical Engagements and the 1v1 fates. That aside, Eureka was superior in every sense. Gameplay-wise, aesthetically, as a means to spend time efficiently, etc.

Another issue I have with Bozja, that I'm sure has been touched upon, is that ranking up doesn't feel satisfying.

Elemental levels felt like they changed my experience in Eureka each time. Different levels meant I had to kill different mobs for my challenge log. Leveling up meant I could safely traverse areas I had to be careful in before. It meant that I could eventually ride a mount. It meant I could participate in more fates.

Leveling in Bozja just doesn't have the same impact at all. It feels like such a nonevent.

Story progress is my big concern for the Resistance storyline due to how time gated the final part of Bozja storyline quest is.

Issues with how they handle the finale is that the Castrum is...

1) Locked behind a spawn timer so players can't enter Castrum on their own time but only when the game say it is ready to enter.
2) Only players in the same instance can join the Castrum Alliance Raid. There is no cross-server queues in DF that normal Dungeons and Alliance Raids have.
3) it is basically a Alliance Raid that is expect to have 24+ players to be beatable.
4) No cross-server queues to allow players in the future to help new players who wants to do Resistance Storyline beat the Castrum as the content gets older and less players play Resistance storyline.
5) if not enough enough players are R10 or higher in the same instance then there will not be enough for Castrum.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

That's not to mention that running BSF is engaging. I couldn't care less about an abysmal drop rate so long as I'm having fun, and grinding HW fates solo is the exact opposite of that. By the time I left BSF, I didn't even realize I acquired half of what I need to advance the relic and I still have 8 ranks to go.

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Couldn't agree more. FATEs are actually fun this time. For me that's a first in XIV, not gonna lie. Looking forward to the rest and the next areas. :D

I am so incredibly relieved that I do not have to do Bozja to upgrade my relic. I am going to be ecstatic if I never have to enter it to get the final Shadowbringers version.
Absolutely zero interest in doing anything Eureka-like or Baldesion Arsenal-like; so with luck I'll never have to. I already regret being confused about the relic requirement and technically having 300 mettle from the intro quest with the nimrods.
If getting rank 15 in the Southern Front becomes a requirement to continue the relic (either directly, or because you have to have rank 15 to unlock the ... Western front or whatever) - well then, I guess I just don't have an upgraded relic.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

It is. Jump in a fate grinding party, you need 20 of each memory, there's 3 (so 60 fates total in 3 HW areas). You get one 100% of the time for a Gold Rank. Takes no more then an hour or two if you're getting full parties burning everything. Then the step after is doing 6 level 60 dungeons synced.

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Which is insanely fast as 4 BLU's destroying Anti Tower or St. Moch's normal. There's even a boss in there that is susceptible to lvl 5 death.

8 Min runs were pretty consistent.

I'm pretty sure that since the questlines inside of Bozja are called, "Weapons questline." That the next relic stage will require you to have finished the Bozjan Southern Front to start. So the idea of grinding out all of the relish weapons to 500 is easy peasy, but to progress the relic quests themselves, you're going to have to do BSF on up to Rank 10 with castrum CE complete as a minimum, but will likely want Rank 15 so that when rank goes up on the next front released, you won't be getting punk'd in the next zone.

The Skirmishes(just Fates) are literally just Fates, but the CEs of both types (24, 48, and 1v1 Duels) are really engaging. Like dungeon or trial bosses with more punishing damage. Some of which can be circumvented through the use of the Lost Items/Skills that you get off of non-magitek monsters inside of Bozja(and also at quest intervals).

It's really fun compared to Eureka. And I like Eureka just fine, but the gritty, active warzone atmosphere on top of the excellent music makes Bozja one of my favorite contents this expansion.

yeah i like the Aesthetic of Bozja,
i find it weird how its easier to get relic outside of Bozja so relics became more a passive thing for me in Bozja which i find ironic since thats the opposite of what people wanted with relics.
got 16/14/10 of memories and im Rank 12 and just grind out last of them in HW

alot of cool things in there to do imo achievment wise and alot of collectables
wish clusters were easier to get tho.

Well, now that I've hit rank 15, the "endgame" for Bozja is basically just praying your instance has enough competent people to run the Castrum if they're around when it pops (Seriously, one minute is NOT enough registry time for an event that demands far more then any of the other CEs in the zone) and praying you can actually get into one of the solo fights instead of someone who doesn't even have the requisite lost actions to avoid being one-shot at some point.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

Eureka also had a story but that alone did not make it worth it.

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Well, it's up to you if Bozja is worth it. People wanted relic separate and those who only want the relic can get that done quicker, at least initially. That makes sense to me. Bozja has other things besides the relic.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

The main selling point of Bozja is supposed to be the relic.

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Nope, not when they already said relic can be obtained without it.

I will say Bozja has been much more... boring than Eureka. Eureka design created a sense of community. People constantly lfg, chatting with party members and other players during the grind. Bozja has been fairly silent. Most people play solo unless there's a critical engagement and then leave the party right after. Its hard to get anyone to kill the star mobs and if you're not in a group, good luck getting any fragments. It's got some definite perks over Eureka, but it also feels like it gave something up in the process.

Maybe it'll get better once I get above rank 10. Right now I'm 8 and it's felt like a slog.

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Originally Posted by linayar

Well, it's up to you if Bozja is worth it. People wanted relic separate and those who only want the relic can get that done quicker, at least initially. That makes sense to me. Bozja has other things besides the relic.

Nope, not when they already said relic can be obtained without it.

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You can say the main selling point of Bozja isn't the relic but that's not the case. The 5.25 patch was literally called Save the Queen: Blades of Gunnhildr. The ENTIRE storyline revolves around these relics.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

You can say the main selling point of Bozja isn't the relic but that's not the case. The 5.25 patch was literally called Save the Queen: Blades of Gunnhildr. The ENTIRE storyline revolves around these relics.

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Yes, the 5.25. Not the 5.35.

Also relics are recreations of the Blades, while the Garleans are
looking for actual Blades still intact which seems to be the actual point the story revolves around.

(Sorry for any possible spoilers but they weren't working for me for some reason and I'm on mobile)

For what it's worth, I'm enjoying it more then Eureka although that might be because I started playing the game about halfway through the Stormblood patches. My friends who were doing Eureka were all far ahead of me, so if we partied up I wouldn't get any EXP and I couldn't go where they could since I'd be one shot. In that regard I like that the mettle system makes it easier to party up if you're at different levels. Being able to queue into instances and using your mount right off also made the lower level experience much better since it means that people just starting aren't going to have the Bozjan equivalents of NM burned down before they can get there by folks who can already mount up or are higher level.

I'm rank 5 now so I'm looking forward to being able to do Castrum soon and I'll be curious to see how this progresses. I do wish that they had a challenge log for it like they do with Eureka, although the instances pop up quickly enough that Bozja still feels more fast paced.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Reading comprehension is hard for you apparently. I'm pointing out that the game systems don't give near the same reward for the time invested. At all.

The main selling point of Bozja is supposed to be the relic. It's orders of magnitude easier to obtain it outside of Bozja.

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Tsk tsk, wasn't the other point of Bozja to be a throwback to all of the great design of 2004 MMOs? If you don't "get" to farm field mobs until you miss several meals then you miss out on all the "fun"!