Mixing up the formula - Will Eureaka be the answer?

This is more of a pipe dream, as I know the chances of this happening are unlikely.. However as someone who has played the game since 1.0, the current formula is getting a little tired.

This game is all well and good for newbies who are just starting to get into it now, however I am sure there are many vets out there like me that enjoy the game for the most part - but are getting a little burnt out. This weekly tome / weekly raid lockout formula is getting a little tired, and I really feel as though it needs to be mixed up a little bit. The formula was fine in ARR, however I expected HW to change it somewhat which it didn't, and now coming into SB I can see that they are sticking by it. I can understand why, I mean why fix something that is working, right? But there are only so many weeks of capping tomes and doing 1 raid clear for the week that people can handle.

For such a loyal fanbase (being a Final Fantasy title), you would think that the formula would be designed more on the long term and evolve, rather then the current rewash with a different skin.

I was a raider throughout ARR, and raided a decent amount in HW, however have dropped down to very casual play during SB and I am just clearing the easier raids in SB through PF. I have been enjoying the game very casually by running raids in PF, and doing the casual stuff in the game, but I can imagine myself not sticking around for too many more raid cycles unless stuff starts to change, which is sad because I have enjoyed my time, and would love to continue if I wasn't just getting bored of it all.

I am hoping Eureaka breaths a bit more life into the game (however I am not really holding my breath). I am also hoping it's more along the lines of Abyssea in XI. While I hate going back and highlighting that tired old game, there were some designs in there that could really work well for a modern MMO.

My thought process of how Abyssea-like content would work in this game for people that are unaware of what it's like -
It would be an open world zone with no lockout (could be instanced like Diadem). Your party kills monsters to get a pop item for a mini-boss (something of moderate difficulty). That boss drops [xxx] that you trade in for oils/coats/dips to upgrade your tome gear (or relic armor if that ever comes). It also drops 1 of 3 items that allows you to pop a mega-boss that is reasonably difficult (perhaps on an primal extreme level of difficulty). This boss drops alternate gear (horizontal progression), and also drops an item required to upgrade your relic weapon...

I honestly think an Abyssea-like system would be fantastic in this game, alongside the standard raid cycle. In fact I would very quickly give up the 24-man raids for this kind of repeatable content.

Now I am setting my expectation of Eureaka pretty low. I mean we got pretty hyped about the new/overhauled version of Diadem, to find out it was just changed to a zone full of Fates and a raid-like boss that pops once in a blue moon. Let's face it, Diadem was a pretty epic disaster and got boring extremely quick. I am hoping Eureaka will be a totally different story.

The most important thing for Eureaka to have is NO LOCKOUT or daily/weekly cap. Content has to be repeatable. Something that you can just band your friends / FC together and just go in whenever you want, with any number of people - and get stuff done. I understand SE's need to gate progression behind these lockouts, however they are possibly the most community damaging system they could use.

I am hoping for something good, I am expecting a new Diadem. I will be shocked if Eureka will be anything more then a casual thing used for catch up content with another way to get materia and a few mounts. I wish they would add a guild method of advancement endgame though would fix so many issues.

Diadem could of been great if they didn't make it a mindless zerg fate style content. Game needs large scale guild content which is actually meaningful. Diadem was not it.

And as much as I hated Abysea... that style content where you could take as many or as little ppl as you wanted and gear that was extremely easy to obtain like that would work in this game due to gears short life span... unlike the another game where it sorta killed the whole endgame scene.

I hope so because almost everything SE brings out that's suppose to be "New and refreshing" is a bust lol.
Well, no "lol"...I actually want SE to really succeed in bringing something new to the table.
PoTD is just a catch up for DPS to level on, and a boring tiny area at that...
Diadem had potential but man...what happened there.

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

And as much as I hated Abysea... that style content where you could take as many or as little ppl as you wanted and gear that was extremely easy to obtain like that would work in this game due to gears short life span... unlike the another game where it sorta killed the whole endgame scene.

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I have made this comment before - I don't think Abyssea was actually "bad" content, I just don't think it fit the XI model very well.
This game though? I think it would fit it exceptionally well.

Adding mild horizontal progression where there currently is none.
Introducing content that allows you to solo, or to go in with a full alliance and still get stuff done.
Content that isn't locked on some timer of "do once a week/day and be done with it".

Finally, adding back a sense of community into this game. This game is stuck in this whole "very large lobby with a bunch of instanced fights"..
Half the time people won't even say "hello" when you enter a dungeon anymore.
Give us some mass-scale stuff (like what Diadem should have been).

tired of all the daily and weeklies, need something new

I'm thinking Eureka will suck and be a gigantic waste of time.

I want it to be the new fresh thing that everyone is looking for, but I fear its going to flop like Diadem 1.0, 2.0 and Lords of Verminnion.

I, honestly, don't believe that Eureka will be something "entirely different" to the current formula.
Can already predict a series of quests and another 1000 FATEs grinding in that specific location, maybe with some new HUNTs.

I doubt it will even live up to 2.1's Primal Focus quest. SE's devs apparently can't figure out how to make cool side content - to be fair, a lot of that has to do with how bland/restrictive their gear system is. With only 10 ilvls between welfare tomestone gear and raid stuff, there's not a whole lot of room to add mid-level gear. If you can't put decent rewards in something, it takes the wind out of its sails before it even gets going and makes its flaws stand out even more.

The Forbidden Land of Eureka--I wonder what makes it forbidden. Is it going to be a side-story? Is it gonna be a callback to the Eureka in whatever FF game it was in previously? Is it going to be a free-for-all PvP zone where anyone can PK anyone? Is it going to be a new PvP map? Is it going to be another Diadem? Is it going to be a "deep dungeon" like Palace of the Dead? Is it going to introduce a new race? New job? Is it going to show us the secrets and past lives of our favorite NPC comrades? All this and more will probably not be the case, and it'll end up being something totally different than what's listed here.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

I doubt it will even live up to 2.1's Primal Focus quest. SE's devs apparently can't figure out how to make cool side content - to be fair, a lot of that has to do with how bland/restrictive their gear system is. With only 10 ilvls between welfare tomestone gear and raid stuff, there's not a whole lot of room to add mid-level gear. If you can't put decent rewards in something, it takes the wind out of its sails before it even gets going and makes its flaws stand out even more.

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to be fair, actually that has to do with the people that play the game. Every time we get something cool, it has to be nerfed million of times, hours/days and weeks right after. Every time we get something "medium" ranged, and cupcake forbid it has a title/mount/gear/glamour/or just fun, there will be thousands of complaint threads that indicate these items being "gated/locked" behind content these players can't access, and it's unfair. Guess what, well right we gonna nerf it again and open it up to the public, just to find out that right after, we still need to complain about the difficulty.

I can see that some people might be happy about the release of Eureaka but I wouldn't get my hopes up. It will probably be something like "forced" content, watch and see, have to do it hundreds of times if you want a relic for glamour, at least that's one or maybe even the only method/guarantee, for the content not to be dead right at the start lol.

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Originally Posted by Jybril

I hope so because almost everything SE brings out that's suppose to be "New and refreshing" is a bust lol.
Well, no "lol"...I actually want SE to really succeed in bringing something new to the table.
PoTD is just a catch up for DPS to level on, and a boring tiny area at that...
Diadem had potential but man...what happened there.

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Diadem failed cos it was basically a fate grind. I did the rehashed one twice and itnwas just fates fates and more fates. Never set foot in it again. If eureka even has hints of fates or fate like content think a lot of people are going to be angry. Esoecially when it's suppose dto be all new content.

Also the game doesn't need lockout. I mean sure if they were removed a few people would grind the hell out of times fear everything in a week nad be done. But most wouldnt.

Content without lockouts is already in the game. Ex primal for example. It's possible to have every weapon and the mount within 24 hours of the patch going live because theres no lockouts on it. Yet even after almost 2 months theres still dozens of farm parties in the pf every single day. It's the one piece of content people can take there time with and catch up whenever they like.

If the no lockout beliefs were true then those primal would have been dead content a long time ago.

Tomes and raids even the 24 man ones. If You don't cap or miss a weekly drop you're always going to be behind so you're more forced into doing them. Primal though doesn't matter.

Been playing since 1.0 EU launch and I have to disagree. The amount of side content and stuff to do in general is a lot. Over the last 3 years, SE has brought a lot to the game and with more to come.

There is still a lot to do, you just have to be honest to yourself AND SE about what it really is you want. Also think about how many hours a week you spend consuming the content.

It doesn't matter what SE brings out if you gorge it within 2 days.

Keep up the good work SE. Your game is amazing!

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Originally Posted by Dzian

Content without lockouts is already in the game. Ex primal for example. It's possible to have every weapon and the mount within 24 hours of the patch going live because theres no lockouts on it. Yet even after almost 2 months theres still dozens of farm parties in the pf every single day. It's the one piece of content people can take there time with and catch up whenever they like.

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Just give tomes the same dropchance as primal mounts instead of the 100% reward chance and the devs can remove the cap.

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Originally Posted by LunaFaye

to be fair, actually that has to do with the people that play the game. Every time we get something cool, it has to be nerfed million of times, hours/days and weeks right after. Every time we get something "medium" ranged, and cupcake forbid it has a title/mount/gear/glamour/or just fun, there will be thousands of complaint threads that indicate these items being "gated/locked" behind content these players can't access, and it's unfair. Guess what, well right we gonna nerf it again and open it up to the public, just to find out that right after, we still need to complain about the difficulty.

I can see that some people might be happy about the release of Eureaka but I wouldn't get my hopes up. It will probably be something like "forced" content, watch and see, have to do it hundreds of times if you want a relic for glamour, at least that's one or maybe even the only method/guarantee, for the content not to be dead right at the start lol.

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This is actually somewhat inaccurate. The devs have a propensity to jump the gun. Neither Weeping City nor Final Steps of Faith were nerfed despite fan backlash, which goes to show if the devs stop setting a precedence, people will "git gud" if the content isn't too unreasonable. Gordias crossed the proverbial line. Unfortunately, they now seem terrified to even attempt difficult content at a higher level. Yes, you can fault people who feel entitled to clear everything despite not having the skill to accomplish it, but the devs need to recognize when content is legitimately poorly tuned (Gordias) or bad players whining (Zurvan). What leaves me on the fence with Stormblood is it appears they want to dumb everything down further as crafting has become a near joke and even Savage doesn't offer a challenge until its third fight.

What I want :

- Light fates and Medium fates.(fates give treasure maps sometimes)
- 3 Big fates (as Odin, Behemot...) which can spawn with conditions (one with treasure maps cleared, one with dungeons cleared, one with fates cleared)
- Treasure maps. You can find the location only with Chocobo (new feature, like in FFIX). It's happen rarely, it's a big encounter. In that case, you can invite 2 others party to form an alliance. Exclusive loots from here (you get one dungeon key on each treasure map)
- 2 mini-dungeons instance (10 min) which open with keys treasure maps (you have low % chance to get the right key in a map) . One boss mid progress, and one final boss. The dungeons are semi-random (a mix between normal and PotD). Exclusive loots from here. It's tied to the party. It's more difficult than usual dungeon.
- 1 big fight instance (as Diadem 2.0) which pop always at least one time for each timer. Exclusive loots from here. It's for all party on the field.

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Originally Posted by Skogli

There is still a lot to do, you just have to be honest to yourself AND SE about what it really is you want. Also think about how many hours a week you spend consuming the content.

It doesn't matter what SE brings out if you gorge it within 2 days.

Keep up the good work SE. Your game is amazing!

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Is there really? I certainly play an absurd amount, thus I never expect the devs to match my playtime with an equal amount of content. They couldn't. That being said, taken at a glance, how much do we actually have?

- Two laughably easy EX Primals which may as well be normal modes
- An equally easy raid tier
- The Savage equivalent where arguably the first two bosses roll over
- High level crafting reduced to easy to make macro-ing
- A somewhat hollow progression system
- New crafting/gathering scrips that are literally worthless

Now that is overly pessimistic. I, for one, am indifferent with tombstones and the weekly cap. I've also enjoyed a number of the fights, dungeons and etc. But that doesn't change how much Stormblood feels like a re-skinned Heavensward. We don't need sweeping changes to current systems, however something to reinvigorate things would be much appreciated.

Honestly, my biggest gripe with Stormblood is how easy everything has become. I don't want everything to be painfully difficult, but I would like to feel challenged. I love Susano, for instance. Too bad he's such a joke with gear only a month old.

I hope no fates are involved at ALL there. We have far then enough content that revolves around fates (seasonal events, relics, etc..)
Palace i know may not be for all but was fun, and Aquapolis and Canals are really enjoyable so they need to bring something at that level of fun, just hope something entirely different then what we have ever had.

I also will agree that Diadem could have been so great but they missed out on that one, even the "re-work" of it was a fail i think? Have not been there since before that

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Originally Posted by Skogli

Been playing since 1.0 EU launch and I have to disagree. The amount of side content and stuff to do in general is a lot. Over the last 3 years, SE has brought a lot to the game and with more to come.

There is still a lot to do, you just have to be honest to yourself AND SE about what it really is you want. Also think about how many hours a week you spend consuming the content.

It doesn't matter what SE brings out if you gorge it within 2 days.

Keep up the good work SE. Your game is amazing!

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Yeah sorry bro there really isn't much to do. I understand that you may think that if you don't have a whole lot of weekly playtime however there comes a point where the content gets dried up.
The fact that the main system for progression is gated behind a weekly cap simply means that all I am logging in for, is to top up my new 450 tomes and do a couple of raids (see also: trials).

I admit my playtime is probably a touch higher than the majority (or at least was last raid cycle), however there really isn't a whole lot of content to do.

I could do Susano/Lakshmi for the mount, but that means grinding the same extremely scripted fight over and over. The weapons are useless to me as I can craft any i320 weapon or accessory that I need.
The raids are on a weekly lockout. So I can only do them once a week.
I could level other jobs that I don't care too much about (what I am doing to fill in time now).
I could do treasure maps for........... wait what are maps for again? gil?
I could earn gil that I don't need to spend because I have everything I need/care for including a mansion.
Hunts? What do I need hunts for? Clusters? I can just buy Materia with all the gil I don't need.

There really isn't a whole lot of content that is rewarding enough for me to do, and the content just isn't fun enough anymore for what little rewards (if any) it gives, as it's just the same rewashed formula.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy doing what I am doing for the most part, however my point is that I am getting to the end of my XIV life in the nearish future I think, unless some new content that stirs the pot gets released.

Eureka is content created for the sole purpose of progressing your stormblood relic. While there might be other minor rewards such as tomestones, I'll doubt you'll be able to obtain anything here that is not involved in progressing your relic.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

Diadem failed cos it was basically a fate grind. I did the rehashed one twice and itnwas just fates fates and more fates. Never set foot in it again. If eureka even has hints of fates or fate like content think a lot of people are going to be angry. Esoecially when it's suppose dto be all new content.

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Tbh while there are parties in pf their are alot fewer than a few weeks ago, I mean for laksimi u can get right side peices for every five clears. I actaully waited this weekend for in a laksimi party for a whole hour, normal omega and crafted gear has def made this content less popular than it was. And for susiano I cleared it and feel its really zero reason to go back ten clears for one weapon when you can buy the same ilvl weapon off market board in most cases under a million. So I wouldnt exactly say this stuff is booming like it was a few weeks ago and I can only see a decline on the way

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Originally Posted by Skogli

Been playing since 1.0 EU launch and I have to disagree. The amount of side content and stuff to do in general is a lot. Over the last 3 years, SE has brought a lot to the game and with more to come.

Keep up the good work SE. Your game is amazing!

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And which one of those was truly a success? Diadem was such a failure that SE even tried a second version which also failed quite fast. LoV was nearly death on arrival thanks to being way to complicated and not really that fun. TT turned into a big RNG grind. Gold saucer itself only sees a big amount of people if there is an event otherwise you will barely see anyone there. Palace is one of the few places which people constantly run so its at least a bit successful.

PVP was only brought back from near death thanks to all the items that they throw at it. (And the exp it gives)

So would be kind of curious what the big amount of successful side content is that was created? I mean they can throw a lot at this game but it needs to be successful otherwise its a waste of money.

@Topic: Well I will remain skeptic. Its just strange that Eureaka was not part of the initial launch since we dont have something new at the endgame. It really makes me feel like its either not ready (which makes it sad since they tease us with that for a long time) or they are not confident for its success too.

Anyway Yoshida said that the titan fight at the end of HW would be amazing and something new and it was just Titan with some flavor text. So I kinda wait and see if the new cool content is truly that new and cool.

considering it's related to our new relic but on the other hand has stuff like long respawning mobs I'm really curious what euraka will be.
If it's another fate grind zone i just hope that it has an independent reward system hopefully without any weekly caps

Abyssea ruined FFXI, took all the skill out of the game. People left the game in droves. Let's hope they don't do that here.

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Originally Posted by Zarabeth

Abyssea ruined FFXI, took all the skill out of the game. People left the game in droves. Let's hope they don't do that here.

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I was under the impression that it had nothing to do with the skill and everything to do with "my time spent leveling is invalidated because it is now easier to level"

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I was under the impression that it had nothing to do with the skill and everything to do with "my time spent leveling is invalidated because it is now easier to level"

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If I recall correctly, that was also the expansion that invalidated a lot of the previously established horizontal progression. A lot of people considered obtaining that gear as well as abusing it with the macro system skill, although really it was just looking up a bunch of guides.

I had high hopes for Diadem, but it ended up like a Peter Molyneux / No Man's Sky thing where the moon was promised and nothing was delivered. Then Diadem relaunched as basically just FATEs and was dead on arrival for a second time. My expectations are really low. I wish Eureka to be the hot new great thing, but I can only look at precedence and lack of imagination on the dev team to inform my expectations.

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Originally Posted by Altena

Adding mild horizontal progression where there currently is none.
Introducing content that allows you to solo, or to go in with a full alliance and still get stuff done.
Content that isn't locked on some timer of "do once a week/day and be done with it".

Finally, adding back a sense of community into this game. This game is stuck in this whole "very large lobby with a bunch of instanced fights"..
Half the time people won't even say "hello" when you enter a dungeon anymore.
Give us some mass-scale stuff (like what Diadem should have been).

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Yummy, Abyssea. And while you're at it...

Add Sky, Sea, Besieged, and Campaign. Wow me, do it better than before in this version and give players something constantly to progress towards without needing to queue up, actually bond with FC members or same server players. Hell, throw in a party synergy system so meta isn't about who can play with themself the best via rotations.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

Yummy, Abyssea. And while you're at it...

Add Sky, Sea, Besieged, and Campaign. Wow me, do it better than before in this version and give players something constantly to progress towards without needing to queue up, actually bond with FC members or same server players. Hell, throw in a party synergy system so meta isn't about who can play with themself the best via rotations.

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You obviously know where it's at.

There were so many positive elements to take away from Abyssea it's not funny.
People just see it as the doom and gloom of XI (which it statistically wasn't considering how subs increased during that time).
There were negatives about it, sure.. However Abyssea was actually a good thing at the time - minus the short falls of being able to EXP in there from level 1 etc..

The other content was also great at the time but for it to fit in XIV I would imagine that it would have to see rather large adjustments to it.
I think Abyssea is the best example of a solid system that would slot right into XIV with very minimal adjustments.

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Originally Posted by Altena

You obviously know where it's at.

There were so many positive elements to take away from Abyssea it's not funny.
People just see it as the doom and gloom of XI (which it statistically wasn't considering how subs increased during that time).
There were negatives about it, sure.. However Abyssea was actually a good thing at the time - minus the short falls of being able to EXP in there from level 1 etc..

The other content was also great at the time but for it to fit in XIV I would imagine that it would have to see rather large adjustments to it.
I think Abyssea is the best example of a solid system that would slot right into XIV with very minimal adjustments.

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The thing with Abyssea was as great as it was in itself, it offered the first pieces of gear that was better than most 75 gear that did not take 1/2 as long to obtain as that 75 gear. Without the super buffs, abyssea was still pretty challenging content that allowed players to make steady consistent progress. The option to level to 99 practically faster than anywhere else or being carried to 99 pretty much made other outside options seem slower.

The smart thing it did was have multiple zones of the content. If Abyssea was confined to one zone without time limitation parameters, there would be lag and over population issues at a more frequent rate. Assuming SE did bring over an improved version here. I would hope SE keep that in mind when designing it.

If it doesn't use recycling ilevel like the rest of the game.

How could SE make it a relic upgrade style content that doesn't become so good it has most players playing it versus other contents sparingly?
Could experience point parties or even skillchains become a thing in this version?
Should the super buffs come into play here?

Lots of questions.

It's weird that people still don't understand why Diadem 2.0 went the way it did. One of the complaints of 1.0 was that it was just standing in one area and zerging the same few mobs over and over until the time limit. There was no structure, so everyone went to the easiest and faster method and got bored of it. So to add structure to it, the devs gave a reason to actually move around to different islands and locations and fight different mobs. They did this by marking them with big blue glowing circles called fates. It's the same respawning mob spam as before, but with structure added to it. It was "just fates," but it was still the same thing as before. 1.0 just didn't have the fate marker over the mobs like 2.0 did.

What happened that made 2.0 fail? A certain niche of people got exactly what they asked for. They hyped it up as something and people that didn't want that thought they did. Once they got that content, they realized the didn't and never wanted it, so they stopped doing it.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

The thing with Abyssea was as great as it was in itself, it offered the first pieces of gear that was better than most 75 gear that did not take 1/2 as long to obtain as that 75 gear. Without the super buffs, abyssea was still pretty challenging content that allowed players to make steady consistent progress. The option to level to 99 practically faster than anywhere else or being carried to 99 pretty much made other outside options seem slower.

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Well that's just exactly it. Probably the biggest / most glaring issue wit that content in XI was that it made a large portion of reasonably difficult to obtain gear - obsolete. And by fairly cheap / easy to obtain items as well..
That and EXP was just too fast in there. They were probably the biggest take-home notes from Abyssea.

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The smart thing it did was have multiple zones of the content. If Abyssea was confined to one zone without time limitation parameters, there would be lag and over population issues at a more frequent rate. Assuming SE did bring over an improved version here. I would hope SE keep that in mind when designing it.

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I imagine it would be instanced (similar to diadem) with a player cap per instance. Instances are fine for the most part, the issue with the current formula is that we are confined to (mostly) 4, 8, 24 man content (with the exception of PvP). And all of the content aside from Diadem are dungeon crawlers or individual trials.

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If it doesn't use recycling ilevel like the rest of the game.

How could SE make it a relic upgrade style content that doesn't become so good it has most players playing it versus other contents sparingly?
Could experience point parties or even skillchains become a thing in this version?
Should the super buffs come into play here?

Lots of questions.

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I imagine iLvl would still be a thing. Just reasonably comparable to tome/raid gear. They could even have it at equal iLvl but one less meld slot or something. That would honestly be enough to encourage people to aim for raid gear.
My thought would be aetherial gear similar to Diadem (perhaps less random), however in addition to that - add in some form of currency that drops from the mini/zone bosses that you can trade in to upgrade your tome gear.
I understand the need to make raids still worth doing, and it's a difficult thing to balance.
However in saying that, I never liked the concept of forcing people to raid to upgrade their tome gear - because raiders would generally try and chase BiS anyway. So their reward is essentially getting BiS with gear that exclusively drops from raids.
Raids should still be top tier. They should also be more difficult. Unfortunately with the stat reworks, horizontal progression is even less likely because the lines of BiS are a lot more blurred.
I am saying that as someone who used to raid quite often (but a lot less these days because of a declining level of interest).

Skillchains / bursts were a good design in XI first and foremost, but they just wouldn't work in this game. Not sure if you played 1.0, however they tried a similar system early on (Battle Regimes?) and it just didn't really work and was very clunky to use. Now that the battle system has changed completely, that sort of system would have even less chance of working now. Skills are too heavily rotational based and just bluntly - just would not work.
I am not pushing to make this game more like XI. I am just pointing out how well the content that some people proclaim destroyed that game - would fit extremely well in this game, partly for the reason that the design of XI was inherently so different to XIV to begin with.

I think remove the EXP element from it entirely. Treat it as end-game content purely for progressing your gear and relics. We have plenty of other effective ways to gain EXP in this game and I don't really think we need any more.

As for the superbuffs / atmas, I posted this in an earlier response..
They could add optional quests while you're in there that take a bit of effort to do, however give the entire party a temporary buff (eg. 10% damage increase, 10% damage mitigation etc).
I guess the best example is what they tried to do with Diadem, however instead of forcing it on people - make it optional. You can put in the effort to get all these extra buffs and kill the bosses, or just skip all of that and go kill the bosses without them.

Final note, is that I am pretty certain I am going to be disappointed with Eureaka but a person can dream a little can't they?
I am dying for some new content that doesn't flop so hard. I think Abyssea-esque content would just fit so nicely..

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

It's weird that people still don't understand why Diadem 2.0 went the way it did. One of the complaints of 1.0 was that it was just standing in one area and zerging the same few mobs over and over until the time limit. There was no structure, so everyone went to the easiest and faster method and got bored of it. So to add structure to it, the devs gave a reason to actually move around to different islands and locations and fight different mobs. They did this by marking them with big blue glowing circles called fates. It's the same respawning mob spam as before, but with structure added to it. It was "just fates," but it was still the same thing as before. 1.0 just didn't have the fate marker over the mobs like 2.0 did.

What happened that made 2.0 fail? A certain niche of people got exactly what they asked for. They hyped it up as something and people that didn't want that thought they did. Once they got that content, they realized the didn't and never wanted it, so they stopped doing it.

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I can't say much for Diadem 1.0 because I was actually taking one of the aforementioned breaks at the time. When I came back (few weeks after it was released) my FC basically told me that it sucks and not to bother with it. So I never really tried it.

I think the problem was more that there was no purpose to killing the mobs.
Killing mobs in the FATEs beyond the quests gave you very little. The rewards were pretty hogwash and extremely random at best.
Speaking of rewards specifically, the reason people did it was a chance for the weapons. However the Emergency Quest was just a random pop, and the players in the zone had no control over it. It just popped every now and again.
There was little reason to actually sit there and grind the FATEs.

As far as structure, they could have done it a number of ways. However they chose to recycle the FATE design. They really shot themselves in the foot with this one because FATEs have a pretty bad stigma associated with them in the first place.
Adding structure could have been done much better than how they chose to go about it.
For starters, the emergency quest was a good start - but why was it completely random?
Make it so that if you kill boss A, B & C the emergency quest pops.
To pop boss A, you need to kill mobs x,y,z. Repeat for different mobs for bosses B & C and you have yourself a tiered boss system.

Pair that with reduced RNG and decent filler rewards and it might have actually been worth doing.
However I can't count the number of parties I went with where all they wanted to do was clear the quest and wait around for the EQ.

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Originally Posted by BubblyBoar

What happened that made 2.0 fail? A certain niche of people got exactly what they asked for. They hyped it up as something and people that didn't want that thought they did. Once they got that content, they realized the didn't and never wanted it, so they stopped doing it.

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Well in the end both versions are just zerg fests. The first one was the dino island and the second one was fates. Anyway you just had to kill monsters mindlessly in both and instead of making that big monster spawn by having teams going at fates all the time it would just randomly spawn. So instead of still killing something, you just did your objectives and most people stood around and waited for it to spawn. And on top of that if it finally spawned you might not be able to kill it depending on the numbers of people that are there and the amount of bad players in the groups...and if you finally finished it, someone randomly got a random weapon. Nothing from Diadem 2.0 is really much fun. I am not really sure who on the team thought that this would be better liked than the first version.

Also I am not sure if anyone ever asked for it to be just like fates. People wanted group content that is more than just mindlessly killing things. They kinda wanted more "personal" hunts that would spawn after doing things. Not something that only appears randomly and is barely possible depending on the numbers.

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Originally Posted by Altena

Well that's just exactly it. Probably the biggest / most glaring issue wit that content in XI was that it made a large portion of reasonably difficult to obtain gear - obsolete. And by fairly cheap / easy to obtain items as well..
That and EXP was just too fast in there. They were probably the biggest take-home notes from Abyssea.

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Well here it would either make other gear obsolete if too strong or be obsolete itself if it was too weak in an ilevel system.

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Originally Posted by Altena

I imagine it would be instanced (similar to diadem) with a player cap per instance. Instances are fine for the most part, the issue with the current formula is that we are confined to (mostly) 4, 8, 24 man content (with the exception of PvP). And all of the content aside from Diadem are dungeon crawlers or individual trials.

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Multiple instances of the same content, otherwise we get Ixion all over again.My issue is all the content is either solo or group and no dynamic in between for all content.

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Originally Posted by Altena

I imagine iLvl would still be a thing. Just reasonably comparable to tome/raid gear. They could even have it at equal iLvl but one less meld slot or something. That would honestly be enough to encourage people to aim for raid gear.
My thought would be aetherial gear similar to Diadem (perhaps less random), however in addition to that - add in some form of currency that drops from the mini/zone bosses that you can trade in to upgrade your tome gear.
I understand the need to make raids still worth doing, and it's a difficult thing to balance.
However in saying that, I never liked the concept of forcing people to raid to upgrade their tome gear - because raiders would generally try and chase BiS anyway. So their reward is essentially getting BiS with gear that exclusively drops from raids.
Raids should still be top tier. They should also be more difficult. Unfortunately with the stat reworks, horizontal progression is even less likely because the lines of BiS are a lot more blurred.
I am saying that as someone who used to raid quite often (but a lot less these days because of a declining level of interest).

Skillchains / bursts were a good design in XI first and foremost, but they just wouldn't work in this game. Not sure if you played 1.0, however they tried a similar system early on (Battle Regimes?) and it just didn't really work and was very clunky to use. Now that the battle system has changed completely, that sort of system would have even less chance of working now. Skills are too heavily rotational based and just bluntly - just would not work.
I am not pushing to make this game more like XI. I am just pointing out how well the content that some people proclaim destroyed that game - would fit extremely well in this game, partly for the reason that the design of XI was inherently so different to XIV to begin with.

I think remove the EXP element from it entirely. Treat it as end-game content purely for progressing your gear and relics. We have plenty of other effective ways to gain EXP in this game and I don't really think we need any more.

As for the superbuffs / atmas, I posted this in an earlier response..
They could add optional quests while you're in there that take a bit of effort to do, however give the entire party a temporary buff (eg. 10% damage increase, 10% damage mitigation etc).
I guess the best example is what they tried to do with Diadem, however instead of forcing it on people - make it optional. You can put in the effort to get all these extra buffs and kill the bosses, or just skip all of that and go kill the bosses without them.

Final note, is that I am pretty certain I am going to be disappointed with Eureaka but a person can dream a little can't they?
I am dying for some new content that doesn't flop so hard. I think Abyssea-esque content would just fit so nicely..

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This is my opinion.

I think while the ilevel has served it's purpose so far, reasonably is in the eye of the beholder.Some people believe raiders should have the end all/be all BIS. I think having a global ilvl will eventually obsolete another content because while the ilvl always raises the content does not.

The currency trade in no matter what it is called would be the same thing as Ilvl as long as it is global and it recycles. My want is for each content to have it's own set that is good in that particular set of content and not usuable in other content. For example, PvP has it's own BiS, raider's should have their own BiS, and eureka or abyssea have it's own progression items and boons.
PvP would give PvP specific boons, Raids would give best group boons, eureka best solo boons, etc.

Perhaps Abyssea could be it's own self contained content with horizontal progression. The gear is not upgraded or recycled like current ilvl. It only powers up and is called +1,+2,+10,+100, or +1000. This content is for people who want a reason to play for hours upon hours and here it would be possible if the gear and boons are self contained. No raider would feel cheated because the gear they earn raids is the best in it's purpose which is super difficult instanced content.

Abyssea type Horizontal proposal:

• You get an option of 3 gear sets per job which differ from one another.
• Set 1: Earned via merit points, each merit point grants you a currency.
• Set 2: Earned Via challenging instanced content within the zone/zones, think of a guildleve like fight. Outside players can see you but they can't participate.
• Set 3: Earned via an special instance you have to farm abyssea to gain entry to the most difficult abyssea content

Breakdown of how stuff could work:

• The gear power ups +1 thru +1000, this is the ceiling.
• Super Buffs typically traits are boons granted based on difficulty and are rare in this content.
• Job skill customizations are earned via experience points in this content, think of this more similar to these experience points being called merit points aka job customization versus Champion points from ESO which are global character buffs.

I don't propose this content to be available for normal experience points or be accessible to low levels. This content is only accessible to max level players. And from that point you are earning merit points, super buffs, and specific gear sets all not messing with the outside meta since this content is self contained. All this super power only works in these particualr special zones.

Final Note:
Skillchains would work here but they could never work the same way. Awhile ago I posted an idea how that could happen. It basically would require a system similar to Limit Breaks, except you have to build your own special proficiency to access a higher tier of synergistic party weaponskills and spells using an enchained system. Which might sound confusing but really it is not much different from building up gauges in the job gauge, only difference is the skills can combine with other party members.

Look at the link for a read. I am not saying XIV has to have anything skillchain related to implement an abyssea type content, only that it could work. And if my skillchain idea is too confusing or difficult to comprehend or you just flat out don't like it. Then Claire Pendragon suggested in that link to just have a personal LB that allows 8 seconds to synergize with another player if another player follows up with their own.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3806707

I'm very apprehensive about how Eureaka turns out. I was initially hopeful at its announcement, but as time went on and content had been released, I'm not particularly confident that they know what significant parts of their playerbase wants or dislikes.

Diadem turned into a giant level 70 FATE-chasing zerg instance with the "carrot" being a cluster-you-know-what boss that highlighted the "dangers" of large amounts of random people from the Duty Finder by letting one mistake snowball into an unsalvageable waste of everyone's time. All for the reward for one random person out of all the alliances with a random weapon they might not even be able to use. Its no wonder pretty much everyone said "forget it" almost the same week Diadem re-launced. Yeah, there were other "tasks and activities" and small little knick-knack prizes in the new Diadem, but lets not kid ourselves: they were all lackluster.

Early on they mentioned long respawning/ timed bosses for Eureaka; is anybody else getting red flags from this? Look at the Ixion fiasco the devs just recently had to "solve," and that only had a glamour item at stake; could you imagine progression/ exclusive gear? There's so much animosity over something as trivial as hunts- I can just picture the outrage over not being able to get to a monster like this either because the area is full of timer-campers or not being online at the exact minute it spawns within a 2-day period (again, Ixion highlighted both).

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

Add Sky, Sea, Besieged, and Campaign. Wow me, do it better than before in this version and give players something constantly to progress towards without needing to queue up, actually bond with FC members or same server players. Hell, throw in a party synergy system so meta isn't about who can play with themself the best via rotations.

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So much this. When are we going to get meaningful endgame content you can participate with people in your Free Company and linkshells (or even just server) with more/less people than exactly 8? Back in ARR it was asked when we would be getting larger-scale content for say, Free Companies, and their response was an incredibly bewildering excuse that they "didn't want to inconvenience people in small Free Companies by making content like that." I guess that means linkshells and statics aren't a thing. They can design endgame for strictly 8 people to play jumprope-or-die with each other weeks on end (with carefully-planned party compositions) but are afraid some people lack the capacity or means find any larger group of people through various outlets to participate in content with? I don't buy it.

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Originally Posted by Cidel

So much this. When are we going to get meaningful endgame content you can participate with people in your Free Company and linkshells (or even just server) with more/less people than exactly 8? Back in ARR it was asked when we would be getting larger-scale content for say, Free Companies, and their response was an incredibly bewildering excuse that they "didn't want to inconvenience people in small Free Companies by making content like that." I guess that means linkshells and statics aren't a thing. They can design endgame for strictly 8 people to play jumprope-or-die with each other weeks on end (with carefully-planned party compositions) but are afraid some people lack the capacity or means find any larger group of people through various outlets to participate in content with? I don't buy it.

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I honestly think it's less about having larger scale content, and more about having content that isn't bound to the 4/8/24 rule.

PotD was a step in the right direction with the fact that you could go in with 1-4 players.. Diadem attempted this with a free party composition as well, which was great.. It's just a shame that Diadem was just god awful for so many different reasons, many of which we have already covered.

This game truly does lack the ability to just go do meaningful endgame content that progresses your character, whenever you want, without being bound by some form of lockout or cap.
Furthermore, it lacks the ability to play with a small group of friends.
In saying that, it also absolutely does lack mass-scale FC content - however my biggest point here is that the strict party comp has to get blown out the window..

My expectations for Eureka are pretty low. I know that it is intended to be the medium for advancing the Stormblood relic weapon - and I also know that the previous relic grinds were simply too magnificent a resource for SE to simply pass them by. However things turn out in Eureka, I'm pretty convinced that enormous amounts of grinding of low level content will be required. Still, I suppose it's best to wait and see. Maybe SE will have something clever in addition to the massive grind.

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Originally Posted by Altena

Well that's just exactly it. Probably the biggest / most glaring issue wit that content in XI was that it made a large portion of reasonably difficult to obtain gear - obsolete.

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I find it very odd when people say this, because it's simply not true. FFXI gear was not at all like equipment in FFXIV; there were many pieces of gear that were viable WELL beyond their level. Heck, there were choice pieces of level 10 equipment that weren't out-of-place on a level 75 player! The top-of-the-line gear at 75; Salvage, Abjuration, and so on, were still great pieces to have at 99. You'd still be macroing in bits of Hecatomb gear for weaponskills no matter what junk you'd managed to scrape together in Abyssea, because the STR and Acc on the stuff was still leagues ahead. RDM's Pimp Hat took a long, long time to replace, as well. Those are only a few of many, many examples.

It wasn't until Seekers of Adoulin that the stuff actually started to become obsolete. That was the point at which the game started to introduce item levels, and the stat boosts from that by necessity blew anything 99 and below away. It is the point at which gear in that game became almost as boring as gear in this game. It's also the point at which SE introduced and began to flesh out a glamour system, basically the only good reason to bother with lower level gear from that point onwards.

But, no - pre-Abyssea gear was still powerful and useful, even with all the higher level gear Abyssea tossed at us.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

My expectations for Eureka are pretty low. I know that it is intended to be the medium for advancing the Stormblood relic weapon - and I also know that the previous relic grinds were simply too magnificent a resource for SE to simply pass them by. However things turn out in Eureka, I'm pretty convinced that enormous amounts of grinding of low level content will be required. Still, I suppose it's best to wait and see. Maybe SE will have something clever in addition to the massive grind.



I find it very odd when people say this, because it's simply not true. FFXI gear was not at all like equipment in FFXIV; there were many pieces of gear that were viable WELL beyond their level. Heck, there were choice pieces of level 10 equipment that weren't out-of-place on a level 75 player! The top-of-the-line gear at 75; Salvage, Abjuration, and so on, were still great pieces to have at 99. You'd still be macroing in bits of Hecatomb gear for weaponskills no matter what junk you'd managed to scrape together in Abyssea, because the STR and Acc on the stuff was still leagues ahead. RDM's Pimp Hat took a long, long time to replace, as well. Those are only a few of many, many examples.

It wasn't until Seekers of Adoulin that the stuff actually started to become obsolete. That was the point at which the game started to introduce item levels, and the stat boosts from that by necessity blew anything 99 and below away. It is the point at which gear in that game became almost as boring as gear in this game. It's also the point at which SE introduced and began to flesh out a glamour system, basically the only good reason to bother with lower level gear from that point onwards.

But, no - pre-Abyssea gear was still powerful and useful, even with all the higher level gear Abyssea tossed at us.

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Well sort of with a caveat. That 75 gear that used to dominate was still applicable because SE added ways to upgrade alot of that old gear if you stuck around.

But by then it was already too late, top that off with the beginnings of mmo casualization and other things.