Exploration Content: Salvation or Stopgap?

I think the thing you miss here ren (while I do agree with your point that a lot of the rewards for massive group content were tied to the duels which was strange design) is that the content wasn’t very unpopular, it just had a lot of agressive posting online about it

Bozja has always had fantastic stats as long as we have had stats for Bozja, the bottlenecks were messy I agree, it’s why I’m glad they fixed them, I don’t think relics being better outside Bozja was good or bad, it definitely helped cater to people who didn’t like relic zones

Oh, I agree.

It's what I say about (a lot but not ALL) of the complaints and complainers now. There are always people who will complain.

What I'm more pointing out is that there's not a situation where some groups aren't saying doom. But you know I like Eureka/Bozja already. I was just thinking "Was that the only thing I enjoyed in ShB and SB?" and my personal answer was no. While it was something I enjoyed, especially in SB (since I had more time to play once I got out of the military; when Eureka was current I didn't get to spent much time there for that reason), it wasn't the reason I stayed subbed. Especially in ShB, where we didn't even get Bozja until the expansion was half-over.

I 100% think not having one is bad and EW has proven it. And I 100% want more in the future. And I also want them tied to the relic (I don't mind there being a tomestone "second 'relic' glowy weapon" for the hypercasuals, but I want a relic grind, too). I do think we've seen reason they should decouple the tome weapon from clearing 7 weeks of normal fights. But I think there should be Exploration Zones and relic weapons (AND ARMOR!!!) tied to them.

I just think people need to be sober minded about all this and go in with eyes open, not occluded by various shaded goggles.

Fair enough?

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Most of the Eureka criticism came during Pagos, which was an unmitigated disaster at launch.

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I think I played it after only one NM nerf and a change to how you get Light (and it had many more nerfs after that because people still thought the spawn rate was too low).

Pagos wasn't really an issue even then. I saw NMs spawn often enough and it was fun navigating the dragons to get to them. People had a big issue with the terrain and how the dragons would kill them, but in my opinion, that's a skill issue. The whole point was learning to walk past them and the danger of doing so.

People complained about Light being hard to farm, but I simply joined a dragon farm party and got light real fast. I also got Light at a decent rate just from NMs. All these issues must have only been an issue for people that only had a few hours a week to play. In fact I only even went in there once a week for 3 hours and did it casually and had no problem.

The biggest issue with Pagos in my opinion was farming for the very rare drops and things like Copycat Bulb. I went in there for years after it released for 3 hour sessions and never even passed the first layer of RNG to have a chance of getting it. It was so hopeless that I just bought it, because after years of trying to earn it myself, it just wasn't worth it. I prefer the cluster system from Bozja where you had a fixed grind to get a lot of the rewards and you knew exactly how long it would take to get the clusters.

I'll say that I believe that people had their own reasons for enjoying, or not enjoying, content like Eureka and Bozja. I've done both, personally, and enjoyed Eureka for what it was though I didn't enjoy Bozja outside of some character stuff before and after their Fates (and I'm not going to pretend they're anything other than Fates).

I loved what Eureka was and even more enjoyed the "overworld mobs are actually threatening until you sufficiently level". The. . .elemental wheel was a very weird addition but otherwise I enjoyed it. Absolutely no one else in my circle of friends enjoyed it but I had fun enough that I went through it alone. My gripe about Eureka came from the relic. While I loved the relic armor the fact that the relic system was tied purely to Eureka was horrible and alienated people who don't enjoy that kind of content. Prior relics, ARR and HW, weren't gated behind 1 specific kind of content, it tried to touch as much as it could from the expansion of its release. While I was able to get the relic because I enjoyed Eureka it certainly wasn't fair to those who didn't. It's not content that everyone would, or should, enjoy.

Come Bozja I was actually pretty excited for it at the start. I loved Final Fantasy Tactics (not Advanced or Advanced II or even the Lions War remaster) so it having the completion of the FFT Raids being a requirement I was very Looking Forward To It. Until I reached the camp and. . .had to go through the whole ordeal with Cid. It was a lot of red flags about the kind of story I was about to see unfold. And, of course, they once again tied the relic to it. This time it at least wasn't AS BAD as Eureka. You can fulfill the grindy bits of relic system outside of Bozja but you were still forced to engage thoroughly with Bozja to progress it. You can't get your relic without Bozja. You can't progress stages of your relic without progressing Bozja and if you wanted to finish your relic, you have to finish Bozja. So, once again, for the people who didn't enjoy this type of content, but wanted to get their relic, they're back in the same boat as they were in Eureka.

I'm just gonna go ahead and state that Bozja and Eureka, while are the same TYPE of content, how they function are very different. 90% of the map in Bozja was not threatening outside of very specific areas with one-shot type mobs. From the get-go, it was very different from Eureka and the "customizable skillsets" that were added in the later half of Eureka was available at the start in Bozja and, while in a better form that what we had in Eureka, it was also a thing I didn't particularly like in Eureka.

After experiencing Bozja, I left and wouldn't come back until the mount achievement for all the notes was released. I wanted the mount, so I came back and collected all the notes in what I'd arguably say was the worst grind I've experienced in XIV in my years playing it - and I couldn't even collect more than 2 ATMA for several months when that terrible system released. I only came back for the mount and never touched it again after I got it.

That type of content certainly won't save or break an expansion. Heavensward is a testament to that due to it not ever being referenced when people are giving EW crap for its lack of it because you can give people PTSD just uttering HW Diadem for those that were there for it.