Eureka Analysis

This post is my analysis on Eureka and is more to provide SE with some observation points as a player. It is not advice for SE as some of these observations I don't know how they would solve them (or need to).

I've thought about the elements of Eureka ever since Anemos and I think perhaps key observations got buried after the flurry of complaints died down due to the train. These observations and elements of the content design seem to have come back with a vengeance now that Pagos does not offer the same NM train distraction.

First off I believe the original concept of Eureka might not be that bad and after thinking and reading all the generic complaining people have, I have come to a belief that it isn't a few massive oversights that makes people so visceral toward the content as it was designed. I believe it is an accumulation of many small things that makes the overall gameplay feel like there is much to be desired.

Here is a breakdown on my observations.

1. Forming/Leading a party to gain exp via fighting mobs as the content was designed
When I decide to form a party (PF is easier than inside) I encounter a few challenges. As anyone who makes a party can attest to: it is significantly harder to have people join as dedicated healers and especially tanks. These reasons will be outlined in the fighting section. Because of this parties are not always easy or quick to make. Often times in order to get the party started I would hope to get a tank but most of the time I would just suck it up and tank myself. There are many people who won't go that route or can't because they don't have a tank leveled.

As leader you are also responsible to make decisions and sometimes these are unpopular decisions when running the group. If you are wishy washy about it then chances are the party will be unfocused and the exp will suffer. An example: Sometimes a few people want to take a detour to fight this mob or that mob for challenge log completion but as the leader you have to put your foot down and flat out say "no". This causes conflict and we humans generally don't like to cause conflicts so its extra work and stress for a group leader.

You also have to plan your party and the mobs you are fighting. Player level matters significantly due to the design of Eureka and forming a good party does take some planning. This is why you see PF and party shouts list level ranges and sometimes how close/far before they level. On the same note party composition also matters. Having a raid comp with 2 healers 2 tanks 4 dps is probably the safest standard but this also provides a downside. Having a 2nd tank while useful in matters such as pulling or emergency tanking when the other one dies, does not outweigh the upside of faster kills/faster exp by replacing them with 1 dps. Some parties this may even be required due to the dps' level or abilities. Having 1 tank 2 healers and 5 dps is probably the best composition due to the safety of having 2 healers so burst healing can be done in emergency situations. Having that extra dps also provides the downside to the tank outlined in the fighting section which makes finding tanks much harder. Having 1 tank 1 healer 6 dps may be faster exp but also assumes tremendous risk as a downside as wipes in Pagos can be very devastating. Having an undersized party is also not as desirable because by adding just 1 more person the kill speed and exp increases in a curve until you hit a full group.

Most people do not want to deal with these things so they won't lead parties and prefer joining ones. Anemos, when the train got popular, sidestepped this first hurdle because it didn't really matter who was in the party. Everyone was in a master train party and party leaders didn't really have to lead.

These are some challenges that you have to overcome to get the process started for an efficient chain party. And since this level of organization required for a party lead is rare in FF14 due to the way most content is designed, you don't have that type of trained skill readily available in the game currently. Even when raiding and doing extreme primals, a PF lead didn't have to worry about level and exp gain because there is no exp gain and the level is 75 manditory. In FF11 this type of organization was the way the game progressed and many people, just from leveling, had to exercise these skills constantly as a norm.

2. Player level and the interactions/implications
The way player level interacts with things like Exp, dmg output, and dmg taken is very reminiscent of FF11 and I imagine that's on purpose. The design by itself isn't bad. However, there are a few side effects people inherently understand but probably never thought of. The reason the gold standard for fighting mobs 5 levels higher than you is directly tied to this.

• For tanks: the sweet spot for dmg taken is exactly 5 levels higher. When you move 1 level beyond this the monster's dmg scaling becomes very difficult for healers to manage. They almost have to heal nonstop. There have been several times where the tank died from full hp because I casted a dps spell or even regen on the tank and in that time period they got hit twice and died. when you move to 5 levels the healers can actually do more than heal. When you go lower than 5 levels it gets much better but your exp suffers which will be talked about in the exp section.
• For healers: I think this is where SE got it perfect in terms of level interaction. Because heals are not affected by your level it actually provides a lot of benefit. Some of these benefits are not even tied to the exp/dmg/attack. Because healer's heals are not affected by level it means that party leaders can expand their healer level ranges 1 level lower than the party level. This makes it easier to fill healer slots for leaders and also lets players find and join a party that's 1-2 levels higher than them easier. You can't do this as a tank or dps without significant drawbacks.
• For dps: as with tanks dps thrives when fighting 4-5 level higher mobs. But just like tanks the drop off the moment you go from 5 to 6 is massive. But you also can't realistically get decent exp by fighting mobs 3 levels higher. This provides a strict guideline for parties on what to fight to get realistic progress.

Because of the downside on each end of the spectrum the ideal mob level is 4-5 higher than your party. This restriction adds to the list of things a group leader has to consider when putting together a party. Please note that this soft restriction isn't a good or bad thing. It just forces you to plan more. In FF11 you saw similar considerations being taken into account.

One of the best quality of life things FF11 did was to give players a level sync feature.
Now that being said I imagine SE did not overlook the level sync feature as it is a feature that comes up very naturally when discussing party levels. And I speculate the reason there is no level sync feature is the way the mob exp scaling and player level exp scaling works. In FF11 mob exp award worked based on how many levels the mob was above yours. There is a very low difference in exp rewarded when you kill a very tough mob in a lvl 20 party and a lvl 40 party. However, in Eureka this isn't the case. There is a difference in exp when you kill a mob 5 levels higher with a lvl 21 group compared to a lvl 26 group. I think SE did this so the ratio of mobs required to level as you got higher did not grow out of control like it did in FF11. They probably feared that if a level 30 player synced to a level 23 party the exp would be at a 23 level but their exp required would still be at the 30 level which means they have to kill way more and make the grind way worse. That being said I think they either overlooked the benefit of being able to play with friends/creating parties easier or decided that the lesser of the 2 evils was not including the level sync feature.

3. The chain fighting
You see a lot of people say its boring and they are pressing 3 buttons so it's terrible.
I actually think its the opposite that makes it tough to sustain for long periods of time. When you are fighting in that sweet spot of 5 levels higher and trying to keep the chain every role actually is forced to be highly attentive and engaged.

• For healers: Even though the tanks are not taking massive amounts of dmg when they tank 6 levels higher mobs, they are still taking a good chunk from the +5. This means you have to pay attention to the mobs autos and dmg abilities because if you loose focus the tank can and will die. You have to be very attentive to avoid this because of dmg scaling. If the tank dies the mobs can and will 1-2 shot everyone down the list and cause a wipe. A wipe without a raiser would be catastrophic in Pagos. This was negated in Anemos since most traveled together so a full instance wipe is very rare/near impossible. Even when I was chain farming in Anemos and a whole party wiped you can easily get a raise because its much easier to peel from a NM train to raise a group. Pagos is far different and you can read plenty of posts on why getting a raise is much much harder. The risk of not keeping the party alive was not as cutthroat in Anemos but is now critical in Pagos.
• For dps: Despite people saying "I'm pressing 3 buttons" its actually the exact opposite. If you are a dps and you are trying to maintain the chain and kill faster for exp you have to actually know what you are doing. This causes a conundrum because Eureka was designed with simplicity in mind for the casual player base. However, if the dps in the party is not doing a proper job rotation because they are not paying attention or don't know how it is very punishing when the chain timer gets to the shorter side. The chain timer even at 25-30 is generous when you have your dps that can do proper rotations and hit their OGCDs and buffs for more dmg. But that is where the inherent problem lie. Many people either play their off job rdm for the utility (because raise is so important in Pagos) or have not mastered their jobs (its suppose to be content with casual players in mind) but to level faster or maintain chains you kind of have to know the dps rotation to a decent level. I've seen the difference in my parties with good dps and bad. It's light and day on how fast the exp rolls in. So as a dps you have to pay attention to your rotation and press a lot of buttons to reap the baseline exp/hr expectations. This also requires a lot of attention and focus.
• For tanks: Tanks have a unique conundrum that is very specific to FF14 when compared to FF11. It is also why playing as a tank in Eureka is a huge hassle and why many don't want to join parties as tanks. In FF11 you had a dedicated puller. This would often be someone on a role like ranger or thief. When the mob is about to die the puller on a dps class would go out and time the next mob to arrive at camp when the current dies. Sometimes they might get hit once or twice on their way back and no big deal. This was made even better when ninja subjobs became available and they can use ninjestsu blink to give extra hit dodge in the pull. This system worked very well but it translates very poorly in Eureka. The mobs in Eureka are faster than the player, while in FF11 most normal mobs are around the same speed (outside certain ones that are designed to be faster like calibri). This means if you pull there is a high probability you will get hit every now and then and you don't have access to a blink equivalent. However, because the way dmg scaling works if you get hit by a mob as a dps puller you can very easily get 1 shot KOed. This forces the natural conclusion that a tank should pull because there is a significantly lower threat they will die doing a pull. This also means that the current mob being fought is being dragged away from camp since you pull the next mob before the current dies for chain preservation. A good tank will have the next mob arrive at camp the moment the current dies so uptime is maintained but at the same time they are not taking dmg from 2 high dmging mobs. This also means that the tank is doing a lot of work because they assume the duel role of puller and tank and cannot let their attention lapse or exp slows down. They are dictating how fast the pulls are and doing it properly is a lot of work.

Now all of this actually means you are doing more work in Eureka Pagos than in many other activities (even raid in my opinion) but the reward in the other activities is much faster, better, and/or more visible.
In Anemos the train provided cheap and low effort levels of work but this work was matched with lower level gear which didn't take too long to acquire. This balance swung in the negative with Pagos because of the amount of work required, the length of time needed and the meh ilvl of the weapons did not appear to be balanced by a vast majority.

The complaint of boring trash mobs is more a symptom of this effort vs reward. Its a given that fighting trash is boring but there are less complaints in other activities that kills things which functions in the same way because the reward is more equitable.

4. Misc observations
The bunny fate: I personally find the 0 exp okay for this. It was an attempt to diversify the activities in Pagos. This isn't bad. The system causes some unintended side effects though. Because of the treasure hunting aspect for everyone who gets a bunny it actually provides a massive distraction and disruption to the chain grinding. When a party decides to participate in the bunny (maybe they want the o hat) it causes the group to split off in pursue of the loot. I find often there is no recovering from this as a chain party. The zone is designed to be dangerous. People wandering off in all directions dying to bad luck or some wandering off making others who want to resume chaining wait is highly undesirable for trying to reach 35 as a goal. This usually causes the party to collapse due to not progressing in the goal of getting to lvl 35. The 12 minute timer also means you cannot do this later after the party is done but you have to do it asap. Now I don't think this is too big an issue because the party lead just needs to decide the party will not do the fate and let people do it on their own time (this is what I encourage them to do). However, this particular side effect should be made a note of as it does cause a disruption to the chaining parties.

NM spawns and chaining: The interaction between NMs and chaining also provides a strange motivational dilemma.
- In Anemos this dilemma was almost nonexistent because the decision was basically made for you. The rate at which the NMs spawned in Anemos was quick enough where there is a noticeable difference in speed of leveling even when you discount the effort element. When I tried chaining mobs in Anemos and going to NMs as they spawned it was inefficient to do both. You simply couldn't do it effectively because you would get to camp chain maybe 10 mobs and have to run all the way to a NM spawn to get a lot of exp. Afterward you would return to camp (which took time) and after 5 mobs you would have to move again to another NM. This made chaining and NM hunting pointless. If you just focused on chaining the exp is just not fast enough to compete with the amount of exp from the NMs (plus its more work chaining). This means your decision was pretty much made for you and even if you didn't like the decision it yielded better results for you because it was faster.

- In FF11 this was a nonissue because NMs were hunted for items and not part of the leveling process. Very rarely/almost never did an exp party have to run to a high reward high exp event. Even if they did, there were silent potions and invisible prisms to get there quickly without too much risk.

- In Pagos this dynamic actually presents a dilemma Anemos made for you. Getting to a camp safety and setting up to start chaining takes a bit of time. To leave the camp to get to a NM that spawns less frequently and then getting back to camp actually is a decision that needs to be made. 99% of the players in Pagos will always default to going to the NM without thinking about the opportunity lost by staying and chaining because they can see the immediate reward of 50-100k for what seems like a few minutes investment. However, sometimes it might not be worth going to the lower level NM when you measure it. Keeping a chain might be worth the same or more exp without the hassle of traversing the map, but here in lies the psychological problem. Because the NM rewards a seemingly large amount of exp for killing 1 mob all at once and is highly visible the positive feeling of getting that is far greater than seeing 3-4k incremental exp gains over 10-20 mobs. The small rate at which boxes and crystals drop from the normal chain mobs are also not common enough to trigger a constant positive feeling. This means that for a party lead that track these elements to get as much exp as possible they have to decide whether to make everyone else angry for not going to the NM or potentially get less exp and deal with the hassle of getting everyone back to the camp. Both of which might cause enough hassle or animosity for the party to disband.

There are many more observations I have made when looking at Pagos, Anemos, and FF11 but I won't go into it (it's already a 3238190382 page doctorate paper).

Does SE need to fix it? Can they fix it on a programing end? I don't know. But I have a feeling if we look at some of these things and somehow tweek them then the actual process of chaining won't feel as bad to a lot of people. I don't think sweeping changes are needed because I think the foundation is good enough. I think a lot of people will be happier with a better coat of paint and nicer looking furniture.

Fun Fact:
You can pass the character limit by editing your post.

1 interesting thought I had about the magia board that doesn't really serve as a solution at this point is:

The current board works to % boost to dps and def, both of which is on an exponential curve when it comes to effect.
Boosting your dps 100% from 200 dmg to 400 dmg because your 7 levels lower than the mob (net gain of 200dmg)
Boosting your dps 100% from 1500 dmg to 3000 dmg because your 1 level lower than the mob (net gain of 1500dmg)
Taking 50% less dmg from 20K to 10K per hit because your 5 levels lower than the mob (taking a 10k auto which is manageable)
Taking 50% less dmg from 50K to 25K per hit because your 7 levels lower than the mob (still taking 25k auto even when its 50% less)

What if the magia board acted like a level booster instead and provided no % boost. Maybe 4 stones max and each stone acted like a level boost.
4 stones in defense means your defense at lvl 20 acts like its lvl 24 when fighting a lvl 25 mob. (highly noticeable)
4 stones in offense means your hitting the mob as if your lvl 24 at lvl 20 when fighting a lvl 25 mob. (normalized dmg)
you can now have the option of dps pulling with 2 stones in offense and defense because they are taking dmg as a effective defense lvl 22 on lvl 25 mobs (which is far more manageable) while still hitting the mob as an effective lvl 22.

This actually gives tanks and dps more flexibility to decide how to spec instead of 5 in def 5 in offense. The dmg reduction from acting as a lvl 24 instead of 23 might not be worth the trade off of putting that in attack and hitting harder. It might allow people to play with min maxing their magia specs.