Eureka CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions thread - no negativity

I apologize for whichever suggestions have been made before; I'm posting in haste.

The main issues I've perceived:
- There's too much temporarily "dead space"
- The (community perceived-) optimal play involves too much "dead weight" during the leveling process -- Reasons largely shared with above
- There's too much dependence on / benefit in instance-hopping.
- Too much dependence on /shout and third party tools for core tracking.

Main reasons for this:
- Level-to-power curve, by player level and/or by mob-player difference, is overly sharp
- The way respawn timers work at present

Suggestions to attempt remedy to the above, in simplest, though not likely best form:
- Create an at-base NPC or world map function to record NM kills, including recency thereof.
- Significantly flatten the curve of power squish/growth per level of difference (mob-to-player / player-to-mob). (This can be done in a variety of ways; I may edit these in later.)
- Flatten the exp splitting / penalty proportionately to above. Perhaps then further allow for lenience even thereafter, especially to the benefit of higher level players being able to aid lower level players without crippling their experience gains.
- Allow for respawn timers to be "overclocked" somewhat. Anytime a mob is killed (put onto its cooldown) and no other NMs within 2-3 levels are available (e.g. if a level 5 NM is put on CD, and the level (2), 3, 4, 6, 7 (and 8) NMs are all also on CD), then one will be refreshed based on the number of players at its appropriate level and its refresh time remaining. Very obvious hints will be included to show which is refreshed.

There's far more I'd prefer to adjust as well, in the realm of elite mobs, mob packs, more interesting blessings, better mob distribution, and better ways to address the respawn timer situation (reminiscent of some old favorite suggestions for hunt reworks, but still allowing for scaled world-vs.-mob fights), but I feel like those 4 things would already pack a ton of good.

it would be far better if you didn't have to pass a wall of level 14/15 monsters to get to a level 12 fate (as an example) combine this with the death penalties and it's designed to make you fail. It's pretty obvious they just want you spinning your wheels.

Daily and weekly short quest (think HW singing clusters)
Some sort of player search interface (PF) while inside
level sync (same method as FFXI do not make it over complex)
Making something to do with crafting and gathering, I/E:

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Originally Posted by ToasterMan

I fell like they could've added a lot of fun activities on the island or something and you'd get crystals depending on how well you did.

Like one of them could've have you defending a settlement. In between attacks, crafters and gatherers could build things in order to buff the settlement defenses. The attacks would be easier or harder depending on how well you built it up. The rewards would be dependent on how well you did the attack.

You know, activities that spice the gameplay up. Literally anything other than grinding mobs in a zerg rush.

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Get rid of exp loss, does not fit here
aetherite and mount at level 1
Allow tells in and out of the instance so friends can join up easier
going with^ have instance entry menus so you can join your friends.
Adjust/remove lockboxs. (replace with currency tab currency)Have a way players win these side bonuses with less inventory clutter.
Fully customizable sub stats like HW/ARR relics for both the AF and weapon

Consider making ilevels more relevant, like i355, maybe consider a limited amount of upgrades from 350 to 360 so the second 24 man still has purpose. Maybe using the weekly coin drop to make gear 360 is an option. (keep in mind there are people out there that has no issues getting full crafted gear in insane little amounts of time, consider this when you work out ilevels and the time invested to get said grindly gear/relic/ relic weapon)

Remember people want quick/non-tediousness grinds for these in general because gear gets outdated. Other games that have grinds that last months and years, has those items last for 5 years +, look at ffxi who has gear still usable for gear 10+ years old. Some gear in ffxi is still consider current whose age is older then the complete FFXIV game, even including 1.0, that is mind boggling. In other words, if you want to make a long grind, have a true upgrade system in place (trials of the magians from ffxi) that upgrades across expansions so people have more faith in doing really long grinds since they know it will last.

So much of this discussion is on watering down the content because it's too grindy.
THIS IS THE RELIC OBJECTIVE - IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE GRINDY. And even worse, this is ONLY the first stage of it. What do you think this is, the only stage of the relic we'll see until 5.0? Good grief.
Do none of you remember the Atma farming? The stupid books? The gathering of light? Alexandrite? Some of the MANY different grinds that they put on to get your relic - all of which took significantly longer than the current iteration.

Lets face it. All you want is things to be easier so you can run around with some glowy weapon that you haven't worked much for. Also you want to remove the sharp edges so there is no risk if you screw something up and end up dying in the middle of nowhere. Uh no.

Seriously. I haven't spent all that much time in Eureka. I got in early and leveled quickly with a good set of people. In that time I've managed to setup 8 full relic weapons. Doing NMs drops Anemos crystals which convert to between 2-5 Protean EACH. My run from 1-20 netted me over 4 stacks (yes 4000 of them). I still have enough crystals to get several more weapons, I just lack the jobs at 70.
I NEVER had things this easy when I tried to farm atmas... or having to endlessly grind tomestones to afford unidentified materials, or sand, or "insert a large number of specific fetch items". This is EASY content already. Almost laughably so. The fact that people who haven't spent a great deal of effort on the content are nearly DONE with it, tells you they need to slow it down a bit. This time last relic, people were barely getting the first "upgrade" component complete - let alone the whole weapon.

What they really SHOULD do:
- Reduce the spawn rate of NMs. This will force people into a "normalcy" of XP chaining between monsters. The XP chaining is very good if you spend time doing it.
- Increase the NM HP scaling based on the total level of people in the instance. As the player levels increase, the swarm is able to kill NMs in record time, and will only get worse. Make them harder to kill so that lower players have more time to get there and participate.
- Add more robust party finding features. This has been covered
- Allow for more than one at a time crystal conversion - because that is just annoying for the sake of annoying.

This has been a good first step. Certainly more to be done, and more complexity to be introduced (multi-aspected mobs), more diverse environments. But under no reasonable expectation should they increase the rate at which players gain XP or receive crystals. Its already absurdly fast.

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Originally Posted by TekspaR

What they really SHOULD do:
- Reduce the spawn rate of NMs. This will force people into a "normalcy" of XP chaining between monsters. The XP chaining is very good if you spend time doing it.

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You can write more than 1000 characters at a time by editing your post.

And please not this one -- not without offering something more interesting between NMs at least.

No.
What "interesting" things did you do when waiting for book fates to appear before they nerfed it and made them more common?
What "interesting" things did you do instead of grinding tomes endlessly to buy unidentified items?
This is for long-term and "casual" advancement of your character. It should take a long time. If you wanted interesting, go do the more quick and risky activities that are immediately more rewarding. I happened to find the whole experience interesting myself. So speak for yourself.

The content was designed around the forming of parties and the chaining of mobs for XP, with the additional benefit of spawning something "special" to enhance the experience. They should focus on that primary aspect. In fact, Chaining is VERY productive with the correct party - to the extent that my party started skipping the lowest of NMs because we were getting 500xp BASE off monsters 5+ levels above us and were hitting Chain 30 regularly. Looking back at some of it, we were getting about 500 at level 15+ off of appropriately difficult monsters. It wasn't worth it to run, get a tag, and run back for some of the lower fates. It was rather relaxing when we got into the groove, and even better when we started getting new NMs from higher level monsters that wouldn't have been seen otherwise.

An increase in the spawn timers for NMs would mean that with the same amount of lockout, higher level players would seek out a better use of their time and try to spawn the more valuable NMs that were "worth more". Allowing those who benefited from chaining on lower mobs to work on those separately. NMs should be a rare treat. Not the expected norm.

Right now, the system is tipped in favor of the leech, and penalises people who may have been trying to do it "as intended". The NM train is a lazy, but effective strategy for a system that probably didn't intend it. And that should be stopped. If they want to sit around and wait for an NM to appear, fine. But this strategy should be a MUCH slower progression - leaving them lagging behind people who put in the effort. It is absolutely bonkers that people could EASILY get to max level within the first 3 days and have completed ALL upgrade stages for multiple weapons in that time. If you don't like the intended play-style, you don't have to participate, but you should not be able to reap the rewards for it.

In fact, I believe that the current iteration of Eureka is the nerfed version. Since they were so far behind releasing this, it feels like they're setting us up to be back on track in terms of progression for a release of phase 2 much sooner than we expect. the Ilvl 355 stuff would have made sense back in 4.15 as a grindy upgrade, with the Byakko weapons matching in 4.2. This is about the time they would have started making nerfs to the "previous" steps to get the laggers caught up.

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Originally Posted by TekspaR

What they really SHOULD do:
- Reduce the spawn rate of NMs...
- Increase the NM HP scaling based on the total level of people in the instance...

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absolutely all of this, esp point 1-2. in the past couple of days, as more ppl have reached higher levels, nms are dying insanely, Insanely fast. was farming void scales and a fresh nm spawned right outside the cave. by the time we killed our one mob, mounted and ran to the mouth of the cave, it was dead.

also ppl aren't calling out nms anymore (from my recent experiences), so unless ur apart the monster train, u have no chance to get there in time. even low level fates, ppl are pulling right as they spawn and they're dead. some mind of scaling needs to be implemented, definitely. it's not fair to other who have the misfortune of chain killing away from the train, show up last and with no xp.

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Originally Posted by TekspaR

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I believe most went into this expecting to grind in some form. The complaint isn't about the grinding. It is about how it is structured and how to build variety and interest in the grind. The ideas I mentioned earlier in this thread would very easily resolve many issues that people have with the content.

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Originally Posted by Airget

There needs to be a way of limiting the effects of content being "Zergable". A majority of the NMs in Eureka could be fun and engaging if it didn't come down to players being able to brute force it because they have the numbers to overcome it.

I would like to see an option where Eureka could serve as a hub for players to gain levels and fight the NMs in said open world but also the option to challenge NMs as a party of 8 or an alliance of 24 with increased rewards.

The game needs more instances of players actually being able to challenge themselves with content, not content that just allows players to zerg it once their levels are high enough.

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So in other words, it should be a trial and not open world. Instances were created exactly because when you stick something outdoors and let everyone have it, everyone will. Zerging is defacto in the design.

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Originally Posted by TekspaR

So much of this discussion is on watering down the content because it's too grindy.

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No, because it's boring, has severe technical problems, and omits basic things like party level sync so you can actually play with your friends. Might be worth reading the feedback before you dismiss it all.

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THIS IS THE RELIC OBJECTIVE - IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE GRINDY.

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It is it also supposed to be best done while watching Netflix? Because that seems like a design flaw to me.

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Do none of you remember the Atma farming? The stupid books? The gathering of light? Alexandrite? Some of the MANY different grinds that they put on to get your relic - all of which took significantly longer than the current iteration.

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So past boring and repetitive tasks mean that we should be content to settle for an even more boring and repetitive task now? Talk about low standards.

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Lets face it. All you want is things to be easier so you can run around with some glowy weapon that you haven't worked much for. Also you want to remove the sharp edges so there is no risk if you screw something up and end up dying in the middle of nowhere. Uh no.

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No, I'd like to be able to play with my friends and not be punished for it by getting zero XP. I'd like NMs to not randomly vanish while fighting them because the server can't handle people being in the same area in content that's expressly designed to get people into the same area. I'd like for there to be some actual depth, beyond "set the board to whatever element you're fighting and just spam kill stuff." I can get that gameplay on my phone for far less money.

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- Reduce the spawn rate of NMs. This will force people into a "normalcy" of XP chaining between monsters. The XP chaining is very good if you spend time doing it.

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NMs are the only thing that make the place even remotely interesting. Less of them is not a good thing unless the goal is to bore people into submission.

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- Increase the NM HP scaling based on the total level of people in the instance. As the player levels increase, the swarm is able to kill NMs in record time, and will only get worse. Make them harder to kill so that lower players have more time to get there and participate.

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I could go for this. Letting people mount earlier so they can keep up would help, too. The train can get spread out sometimes, and woe to folks trying to chain who are far away and not part of the train. (Honestly, the train is the only part of this I find fun because there's actual danger from those higher level mobs and trying to dodge around raising people is more difficult than just spamming a rotation on easy trash).

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- Add more robust party finding features. This has been covered
- Allow for more than one at a time crystal conversion - because that is just annoying for the sake of annoying.

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These two things are simply amateur level mistakes that never should have been allowed into production, especially on something that was delayed so many times. Absolutely needs fixing.

Overall, aside from the technical problems, the train is where Eureka actually works. You get some real social aspect going, and lots of people working together. They should encourage more of that rather than trying to break everyone up into little equal level groups that just grind. This is theoretically a social game, after all.