Eureka Suggestion: Some sort of level sync. Or de-level (other than repeat death)

So I finished the Eureka grind to 20. On the whole, I have only good things to say about the balancing/mechanics of it. (I know plenty of people disagree, and that's fair, but I had fun.)

My main complaint right now is that there's no meaningful way that I can go back and party with friends of mine who either didn't have the time to put in that this week or aren't as enthusiastic with it as I was. I know I could go and spawn NMs for them, but that feels like I'm playing Eureka FOR them, and not WITH them at that point.

What I would like to see is some ability to either level sync myself down to them or some implementation of a de-level mechanic, but with a reward (since I know I could repeatedly die and respawn to de-level myself). This could be like the Call of Duty prestige system where we fully drop to level 1, but get some cosmetic reward like a title or achievement (can do multiple times for achievements and longevity of the zone). Or could be an npc in town that lets me de-level one level at a time. One thought with the second option was that that could give rewards like protean crystals or something zone related.

I think something like this would help keep the players who enjoyed Eureka have incentive to actually stay around and help other people who are late to the party.

Thoughts?

Actually that prestige idea sounds wonderful! It fits with what folks have been saying about how it's "totally a korean grinder", Ragnarok Online had multiple levels of "prestige classes", hey they could just throw an aura on you for the 2nd prestige level or something. Or ideally provide you with some kind of damage or defense boost for starting over.

Never heard about prestige system o,o it sounds cool!

Either de-level or level-sync would be cool, I'd like to party with low level people and help D: I feel like I'm wasting time when I help them with NMs.

Palace of the Dead has the option to effectively ‘spend’ levels to acquire the special weapons, so there would be a precedent for doing something similar here. Convert your built-up elemental change into... something.

I'd like to just have a party sync - either down sync all to lowest+2 or sync all to an average level of the party.

we should just be able to edit our level at the magia thingy. Reset our points spent when we change level so you can't have all your elemental points at lower levels. I really wouldn't even care if they didn't add rewards for being under level I just wanna be able to go back and do the content with people who will be late to it

Oooh, I love this prestige system.
This way the zones won't flood with lvl 20 folks who rush to NMs and the lowbies have hard time following either due to lack of mount access or cause they can't pass higher level mobs!

Yup. Tried to group with friends last night who actually like Eureka (since it's more tolerable with lots of friends) and I can't play with them now on anything outside NMs because I get zero XP due to the level disparity on every normal mob in the zone.

How did SE not think of this? level sync is only a thing that features prominently in the rest of the game....

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Originally Posted by kykmorph

Thoughts?

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Knowing SE, they'll "address" this issue with a Eureka Jump Potion on the Mog Shop instead >.>

Or, we could have a system akin to The World Ends With You where you manually reduce your level (only at the magia plate, of course) to increase the chance and number of rewards.

It would not only help keeping a decent income of cystals when helping low level friends, but also allow some people to try challenging some NM at a reduced level. It would increase the end reward, at the risk of reducing one's contribution or, if too greedy, being too weak to survive some stray AoEs.

I think either a group sync or a phase out of exp for higher level players while keeping it for lower level players would be goo to have. I would have no problem helping lower level players power level to catch up if I knew they would get full exp credit.

The De leveling is already bad enough for dying and you want it to happen even if you DON'T die? Really? Oh my god some people.

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

The De leveling is already bad enough for dying and you want it to happen even if you DON'T die? Really? Oh my god some people.

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You know how level sync is a thing in the rest of the game so you can play with your friends? Yeah, that. Eureka currently doesn't let you play with your friends if they outlevel you significantly, which is something of a spectacular failure of design in a MMO that goes out of its way to encourage that otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Knowing SE, they'll "address" this issue with a Eureka Jump Potion on the Mog Shop instead >.>

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You say that but all I thought was "Y'know...I do hate the grind..." and am now very disappointed in myself.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Yup. Tried to group with friends last night who actually like Eureka (since it's more tolerable with lots of friends) and I can't play with them now on anything outside NMs because I get zero XP due to the level disparity on every normal mob in the zone.

How did SE not think of this? level sync is only a thing that features prominently in the rest of the game....

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You know... I hadn't thought of that but it really is odd how they insist on syncing us down in virtually every other piece of content except the one mode where it'd benefit most. Just adds to the feeling Eureka was rushed. Granted, I do get the impression they believed grinding mobs would be fun. I kinda doubt they anticipated Eureka becoming little more than a locust swarm.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Yup. Tried to group with friends last night who actually like Eureka (since it's more tolerable with lots of friends) and I can't play with them now on anything outside NMs because I get zero XP due to the level disparity on every normal mob in the zone.

How did SE not think of this? level sync is only a thing that features prominently in the rest of the game....

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I think tanking for them as PLD helps, since flash takes aggro but due to no damage, it's a good way to cake walk them.

As to why they didn't think of it? I don't think they expected it to be a zerg rush.

You can get gold on NMs as a solo tank player, so I don't think its much about them thinking but just how simple the "merit system" in place is.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Knowing SE, they'll "address" this issue with a Eureka Jump Potion on the Mog Shop instead >.>

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Stop giving them ideas.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

You know... I hadn't thought of that but it really is odd how they insist on syncing us down in virtually every other piece of content except the one mode where it'd benefit most. Just adds to the feeling Eureka was rushed. Granted, I do get the impression they believed grinding mobs would be fun. I kinda doubt they anticipated Eureka becoming little more than a locust swarm.

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I don't know how it could be rushed when it was announced well over a year ago and delayed twice. It seems more like they either didn't have a vision for what they wanted, or didn't have the resources to implement it. But given how much more XP and rewards the NMs give and that a player zerg blob can spawn them faster, how could they possibly not realize players would do that? It's the most obvious conclusion to come to once you understand how stuff works in there and you say "how do I get my stuff with as little time and effort as possible?"

And by scaling damage so quickly with level and XP the way they do, they created this situation where my group of friends is effectively divided into at least three groups when it comes to playing in Eureka instead of the one we want to be (and can be in basically everything else because level sync).

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Originally Posted by Mahrze

I think tanking for them as PLD helps, since flash takes aggro but due to no damage, it's a good way to cake walk them.

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Maybe. I imagine that's really tedious for the PLD, though.

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As to why they didn't think of it? I don't think they expected it to be a zerg rush.

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Have they not seen what players did throughout the history of the game? As soon as players figure out the mechanics, they optimize to minimize time and effort. ALWAYS. That's what players do. Players are very, very good at that.

If nobody at SE saw this coming, then they have an astounding lack of understanding of their own customers.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Have they not seen what players did throughout the history of the game? As soon as players figure out the mechanics, they optimize to minimize time and effort. ALWAYS. That's what players do. Players are very, very good at that.

If nobody at SE saw this coming, then they have an astounding lack of understanding of their own customers.

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It's easy to say hindsight is 20/20 when talking about anticipating how players would react to Eureka, but it's important to remember that SE HAS that hindsight. We've gone through the same song and dance twice before with Diadem and then back to 2.X with fate trains.

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Originally Posted by Metsonm

It's easy to say hindsight is 20/20 when talking about anticipating how players would react to Eureka, but it's important to remember that SE HAS that hindsight. We've gone through the same song and dance twice before with Diadem and then back to 2.X with fate trains.

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It also happens every time they come out with a world boss like Ixion, Odin or an S Rank. Eureka is really nothing more than these in a single location.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Maybe. I imagine that's really tedious for the PLD, though.

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Naw, if the tank is over-leveled they can solo anything. If you need help I can tank stuff to help your group catch up. HMU on discord since we're in the same DC.

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Originally Posted by Tridus

Have they not seen what players did throughout the history of the game? As soon as players figure out the mechanics, they optimize to minimize time and effort. ALWAYS. That's what players do. Players are very, very good at that.

If nobody at SE saw this coming, then they have an astounding lack of understanding of their own customers.

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Well, going for 5 years since ARR and they still make these mistakes. I do honestly think they didn't anticipate it, as absurd as it sounds.

I am more dumbfounded that they didn't put a cull option based on activity. 144 people in an instance and I can be very certain that a good percentage of that number is people on the outskirts of NM farms just standing there with the songbird cheer emotes. I am OK with Lowbies doing it, but you can always see people that can help (aka, High lvls), hiding in the midst of the crowd.

I wonder how they will introduce level sync in to a place like Eureka. I'm sure SE don't want players to abuse how they can get xp by letting them sync down and attack easier mobs. I'm sure they also don't want to introduce a level sync system that would make them lower level but still be unable to get xp from mobs. Neither is good at all. Sure they could just make it so you no longer affect the xp gain of others but I doubt many would do it if it meant they got -nothing- from it.

I don't play CoD so I don't really know anything about the prestige system OP is on about and how it can be adapted for XIV.

Not saying I don't want level sync, I do. I'd love to be able to help other players without obliterating their xp gains. I'm just not sure how it can be done without any abuse while still rewarding everyone involved. Eureka, as I'm sure I don't have to explain, isn't like other areas of the game where you can level sync.

Just remove the disparity level effect, no need for a level down system

Edit to save space:@ mahzre: The protean are already dropping like candies I don't see the problem at this point

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Originally Posted by Penthea

I don't play CoD so I don't really know anything about the prestige system OP is on about and how it can be adapted for XIV.

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So for anyone unfamiliar with the prestige system is, it is this: Once you reach max level, you have the option to reset to level 1 for what amounts to just cosmetic rewards. It lets you continue to get xp and level ups as you play, without having that feeling of being 'done' with content.

I feel like it would be an easy thing to implement in Eureka. And it would be easy to add an achievement that would be similar to other content in XIV. Players who like a particular thing can invest a lot of time in it for a tangible reward like a title or mount (I think of the 300 frontline wins, 5000 feast wins, etc etc). Entirely optional, but incentivizes the people who like the content to continue playing it. Which increases the lifetime of the content, and allows players joining late to the game to have people to do it with.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Just remove the disparity level effect, no need for a level down system

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Since the lvls and protean rewards are interwoven, all this would do is have some easy aoe spam job murder on lowbie areas and if the lowbies don't hit it, they get nothing. I can totally see this happen, and SE likely saw this happen too.

I agree that it would fix one thing, but then bring another problem.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Edit to save space:@ mahzre: The protean are already dropping like candies I don't see the problem at this point

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Protean drop like candies when you're in your level range, if they dropped the same by 1hKO on lower areas, you'd have a bigger problem.

WoW pretty much has almost the same thing (Honor Level recently), but in those systems your "level" doesn't mean as much as in Eureka, it's basically just a bar you can fill then once maxed out you can reset it and fill it again. At one point the WoW version had you learn abilities/passives at certain honor levels so when you decided to prestige you lost them all but they scrapped that.

Basically you hit the max level (In this case it would be 20), you can then reset it and be prestige 1 but you start at e.level 1 again. Get to 20 again, reset it, now you are prestige 2. Usually there are cosmetics like mounts, etc that you can get for being a high prestige level. It is sort of like a New Game+ I guess, but every time you "beat" the game you get some kind of reward usually a cosmetic.

It might work better when it isn't attached to a system where level differences get you killed like in Eureka. Instead of resetting the level, they could add something at level 20 where you can keep "leveling" into an overflow (Kind of like merit points from XI) and every time you do you get some kind of currency you can turn in for cosmetics or some kind of other reward if we want to go that route. Same sort of thing, except you get to keep the benefits of being higher level. Add a level sync to supplement the lowbie problem.

GW2's reward tracks are pretty much the same thing, too.

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Originally Posted by kykmorph

So for anyone unfamiliar with the prestige system is, it is this: Once you reach max level, you have the option to reset to level 1 for what amounts to just cosmetic rewards. It lets you continue to get xp and level ups as you play, without having that feeling of being 'done' with content.

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While this sounds very good, I'm not sure it would work. It is very possible that we will be able to get higher than 20 in future patches.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

While this sounds very good, I'm not sure it would work. It is very possible that we will be able to get higher than 20 in future patches.

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I mean, I feel like it could still work. They would just have achievement tiers. Like a certain count for resetting from 20 to 1. And a certain count for resetting from 40 or whatever the new cap is down to level 1 or level 20, depending on what they want.

Also, that 'future patches' is probably quite a long ways out. And they will have to do something to keep Eureka relevant and its player population from dropping precipitously as people finish. As a level 20, there's no incentive for me to actively spawn NMs or kill mobs. You just afk in town, and wait for fates to pop, then tag them for crystals.

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Originally Posted by kykmorph

Also, that 'future patches' is probably quite a long ways out. And they will have to do something to keep Eureka relevant and its player population from dropping precipitously as people finish. As a level 20, there's no incentive for me to actively spawn NMs or kill mobs. You just afk in town, and wait for fates to pop, then tag them for crystals.

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Whether you're done or not at lvl 20 is up to you. Some players only want to get to 20, some only want the weapon, some are more interested in lockbox and fate loot than anemos gear, others want all gear regardless of value on their main and completionists want anything they can get. SE decide the requirements to access the next tier, but the players themselves decide when they're done with Eureka.

Also nothing suggests that what we have access to now will be entirely obsolete in the next tier. The tooltip for Anemos Crystals say they're aspected to wind. This suggests that others like it aspected to other elements will be available in the future. We may need crystals from several elements for future rewards. If that is the case that would keep the current tier of Eureka relevant potentially to the final step of the relic.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Whether you're done or not at lvl 20 is up to you. SE decide the requirements to access the next tier, but the players themselves decide when they're done with Eureka.

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The thing about that is, most other aspects of the game have some way to bring players back to them. Level roulette and mentor roulette see that old dungeons stay populated, wondrous tales does the same thing. Diadem, PvP, Gold Saucer all have achievements that you can make progress towards some pretty obscenely high benchmarks.

In less than one week of Eureka, I have every drop multiple times over, 1500+ untouched lockboxes, and 11/15 relics for this stage. Without all that much time invested, all things considered. Finishing eureka is FAST. If SE does nothing to increase its longevity somehow, it'll become pretty desolate real quick.

My only suggestion would be decreasing the level disparity. It's way way too apparent in Eureka. It's not too much of an issue now but it quickly will become an issue when the players actively doing the content dies down.

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Originally Posted by kykmorph

all things considered. Finishing eureka is FAST.

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It's only "fast" if you can dedicate a huge amount of time to it in a few days. A lot of players have school, college, jobs or families. Many players I know who have these sort of responsibilities haven't even reached lvl 10 yet, never mind 20. The people I know who are lvl 20 played Eureka all day for several days and did literally nothing else. If Eureka was actually fast to do for any type of player to get to 20 in less than one lockout, the forums would be flooded with people being like "wtf I hardly played it and I'm done with it already."

And once again, it doesn't end at lvl 20 unless you want it to. If you want to get all the gear fully upgraded for one class you still have to play a lot at lvl 20. Getting to lvl 20 does not give you enough currency to get absolutely everything as soon as you ding.