Eureka - from a FFXI point of view

[Rhymenoserous]

Here's a crazy idea, lets stop listening people that want to turn back the clock on MMO design. XIV and XI are drastically different games, one of them is a themepark and one of them is an early style MMO. They don't mesh. Trying to make them mesh is just going to frustrate the hell out of the people who play this because of the themepark. If some game dev ran up to me and said "HEY I HAVE A WILD IDEA, LETS TURN WOW INTO EVERQUEST" I'd treat them like they had just run up to me and attempted to communicate in a series of hoots clicks and whistles.

[Fynlar]

Interesting because other FFXI player seem to hate it as much as every other XIV player. Soooo.

I'm a old school FFXI player, and I'm fine with it. I actually like the open world combat mechanic.

But the progress is way too slow in here to be justifiable in a game like this where everything becomes outdated so quickly, and it's going to discourage people fast.

The ironic thing is that nowadays, FFXI is nothing like this. The leveling there is now *ridiculously* faster from what most people who haven't played it in years might remember. Also, the exp loss on death in FFXI was never anything as severe as it gets here in Eureka, even back when the game was at its most unforgiving, so even that aspect is mismatched.

[Gun-Cat]

This is nothing like XI. Well in a sense it is like low level Dunes XI experience where most classes were about the same. The thing is that, since XI was a lot slower than XIV, classes were able to play a lot closer together and the party dynamic was actually interesting. Each class had their own little role. Be it THF doing aggro management, BRD being on support/pull/sleep duty, DNC setting up TP based healing, healer in general having to manage mana closely while healing and buffing/debuffing, RNG being on pull duty or every DPS and tank setting up Weapon Skill chains that the magic users could burt off. It was interesting. Even the travel to the camps, or finding the camps to grind was interesting.

XIV has nothing of this. The party dynamic is incredibly basic and the other players might just as well be your squad. To me it feels they took the most boring aspects of XI and rolles them into XIV...

[Reynhart]

If I wanted to play FFXI, I'd play FFXI.

But, if you want to play the same type of content FFXIV spew every patch for 5 years now, you can still play every other content over and over. If Eureka wasn't there, this would be like any other .5 patch that would offer basically no content, and you'd still have to wait for months until you get something new.

This is different, this is new (to FFXIV), and for that, it's totally worthwhile, in my opinion. And the mere concept of the relic is grinding, if you don't like this grind, you still have other weapon and armor options.

Trying to make them mesh is just going to frustrate the hell out of the people who play this because of the themepark.

Or this type of content is simply not for them. It's like asking not to make Savage because it's going to frustrate people that want to clear everything easily. You still have plenty of themeparked content to play.

And, in one sentence, Eureka managed to have a better lore than the whole Sigmascape themepark, so yeah, I'll totally play it more than Omega.

[Darrcyphfeid]

XIV has nothing of this. The party dynamic is incredibly basic and the other players might just as well be your squad. To me it feels they took the most boring aspects of XI and rolles them into XIV...

Absolutely.

The way XIV is designed coupled with the "proper" mob camping style employed in games like XI also presented two problems for me tonight, one which was obvious and another that I didn't quite expect.

The first is that we didn't really have much time to communicate through text and quickly swapped to voice chat. You can't exactly kill monsters while typing at the same time like you can in XI. That's a problem if you're not in there exclusively with friends and yet would like some social interaction to help with the grind.

The second is that my hands actually started to cramp. I've played video games for a really long time and barring using tiny handheld devices like the DSlite for extended periods this hasn't happened to me before. Doing my (DRG) rotation constantly for 30-ish minutes, as it turns out, is rather stressing.

This is different, this is new (to FFXIV), and for that, it's totally worthwhile, in my opinion. And the mere concept of the relic is grinding, if you don't like this grind, you still have other weapon and armor options.

Nah man, this is a different beast all together. I have (just about) all of the Relics, Zodiac and Anima, finished in XIV. I also have Yoichinoyumi in XI, and was well over halfway finished with Kogarasumaru before I quit.

What Eureka does is more banal than any of that. It's not as involved or rhythmic as farming Dynamis, it's not as engaging as farming Salvage, and it's not as varied as what XIV's previous Relics has us doing.

[Fawkes]

After getting to play it I don't think it's that bad. It doesn't seem like it will be too awful to grind, and they'll likely nerf the number of crystals required in the future.

Although, I'm currently subscribed to FFXI, so my opinion may be somewhat terrible.

[Reynhart]

What Eureka does is more banal than any of that. It's not as involved or rhythmic as farming Dynamis, it's not as engaging as farming Salvage, and it's not as varied as what XIV's previous Relics has us doing.

Frankly, it's not that different from the early magian trials in XI. As for Dynamis, considering any mobs could drop ancient currencies, the first stage of the relic wasn't that involving, since you didn't have to "win" the Dynamis. And it's far too early to judge how it will expand in subsequent .5 patches

Sorry but "tomestones, tomestones, tomestones, lights, tomestones, tomestones, lights" is hardly varied at all, when you think about it. That's why my favorite stage of Anima was when you had to gather all the mysterious items and the specialist crafter items...that all of people found horribly grindy.

[Niqote]

and risking carpal tunnel from it.

I changed my controller from hold to trigger simply so i didn't have to keep holding L2 for an hour straight.
I'm a bit slower, but my hands are glad for it.

[Keramory]

For those saying “you reap what you sow” from people requesting more ffxi play styles... no one, and I mean no one, asked for the horrific mindless grind fest that this abomination provides.

Ffxi had its problems, and they took one of them and pumped it full of steroids, all while beautifully cutting away some of the positive aspects ffxi grinding did have (as many pointed out). That’s what this content is.

Legit think this was dev sarcasm to our requests lol

[Darrcyphfeid]

Frankly, it's not that different from the early magian trials in XI.

Oh Jesus Christ, if the Magian Trials are the standard by which we're judging content now we should just shut the entire game down. I've never met a single person that enjoyed that, be it the elemental staves or the mob family slaying or the finishing blow with X weaponskill. And the people doing that stuff were super dedicated to XI.

As for Dynamis, considering any mobs could drop ancient currencies, the first stage of the relic wasn't that involving, since you didn't have to "win" the Dynamis.

And yet, even now, it's an incredibly long grind to amass either the currency directly or the Gil to afford it. If you brush aside the proc system and the fact that Dynamis did much more than simply have us chain kill mobs for a singular purpose - then and now - then sure, you can directly compare Dynamis and Eureka. But that's why Eureka isn't appealing to a lot of us to begin with.

And it's far too early to judge how it will expand in subsequent .5 patches

Nah, to hell with that. We've waited more than a year and a half for Eureka to released, and what we have now is what gets judged. The development team doesn't get, doesn't deserve, any optimism for what they may or may not fix about this going forward. As-is, right now, Eureka will be judged by how it treats us from lv1 through lv12. Maybe lv20 is better. Maybe it's not. But 90% of the people inside Eureka right now will never reach lv20 so whether those lv23~25 mobs drop amazing amounts of loot is meaningless.

Sorry but "tomestones, tomestones, tomestones, lights, tomestones, tomestones, lights" is hardly varied at all, when you think about it. That's why my favorite stage of Anima was when you had to gather all the mysterious items and the specialist crafter items...that all of people found horribly grindy.

Hey now, I'm not saying that XIV's repetitive treadmill is good. Because it's complete dogshit and I'm unsubbing Friday in large part because of that all by itself. But that doesn't excuse this either.

And yes, the Relics were always at their best when they had some thought put into them. I'd argue that fighting the HM Primal trio in ARR as well as Hydra and Chimera are better things to highlight, though.