Eureka is meant for casual players.

[Rokke]

I am casual. My FC is casual. We're not doing this because we enjoy it, we're doing it because we're terrified that if we don't do it now we won't be done when the zone is dead once the bulk of players hit 20.

[Nora_of_Mira]

I hate it but my FC loves it. It's good game design. If you're going to have a popular MMO, you have to cater to all levels of play.

the skill floor is low enough that anyone "can" do it, but its also high enough that good players can level up faster by knowing the spawn order/weather/how to chain mobs as fast as possible. everyone I see saying its "mindless" are usually pulling 1 mob at a time taking 30-60 seconds to kill as a full party. Yeah, that is IS pretty mindless. My parties are going after the NM mobs that are about to spawn and taking down the 4-5 NM's that spawn and either restarting or going to a new instance. and as we level and take down higher level mobs, the chain of NM spawns will increase, increasing the total NM you can get in an instance.

[WaffleFaerie]

I like the environment, the little FFXI throwbacks here and there, and the fact that I can just poke my head in during the day, see if there's a fate train, and if not, go do laundry. I do worry about what will happen when/if everyone's level 20, but maybe by then another area will be released from 21-40. After three chain #30's, though, I'm ready to go do something else.

I will mention, though, how impressed I've been with Aether over the last two days, organizing themselves and working as a team. I imagine other data centers are the same, people pulling together and making the best of it.

[St0rmchild]

A casual player can get better gear on a shorter timeline by capping tomestones every week. Eureka's gear caps at 350 - gues what, tomestone is 360.
We're 6 weeks into 4.2 ... collecting a 350 set from sigmascape takes 5 weeks!

The completely mindless grind in Eureka (which, 2 days in has (d)evolved into zerging mobs to forcespawn a boss fate, then zerg down the boss fate, move to the next monster to repeat the procedure) is endless ... if anything will destroy your will to play and have fun, it's monotonous grind like this. The only real difference between the mobs are the elements you need to spin your wheel for (a cool mechanic reduced to a gimmick because efficiency doesn't matter when you zerg down everythign with 100 people) and the shape of the single aoe skill they do. Whoopteedoo.

What pains me so much is how much beteter it could have been; imagine daily/weekly quests for specific mobs, for doing a task (think beast tribe flavor), an in-zone hunt board that refreshes daily/weekly ... anythign to break this mind dulling monotonoy of grind mob, grind boss, move to next area to repeat.

[ShanXiv]

Eureka weapon is the easiest Relic.
I played two days, I am LV9now, and got 1200 crystals, need 100 more, then I will have my +2 weapon,
just zerg the NMs, you will get 200-300 crystals in 2hours,
it's even faster than grinding tomes in roulette

[Nora_of_Mira]

Eureka weapon is the easiest Relic.
I played two days, I am LV9now, and got 1200 crystals, need 100 more, then I will have my +2 weapon,
just zerg the NMs, you will get 200-300 crystals in 2hours,
it's even faster than grinding tomes in roulette

you're gonna need more than crystals for that last step.

[xxvaynxx]

Raiders looked at it once, laughed, then went back to where the rewards are. (Savage)

I didn't. I actually like Eureka.

[Nora_of_Mira]

Casuals ESPECIALLY hate it. Raiders looked at it once, laughed, then went back to where the rewards are. (Savage/EX)

ironically, I've been clearing o5s/o6s with my static (still in prog on o7s) for 5 weeks now and I have yet to get a drop and I'm pretty sure I'll have my relic step complete in <5 weeks. as a DRG main, the tome lance makes me cry and I'd rather get the 355 relic any day of the week.

[Kyuuen]

you're gonna need more than crystals for that last step.

In which if you're doing the Fates/NM's you'll get about~ 80 - 100 Anemos crystals per 3 hours of Eureka, that is of course provided you get a Eureka instance with people properly training the Fates/NM's.

It really doesn't take as long as people make it sound. Just the usual rabble surrounding the relic stages per usual.

Then when the final stages of the relic appear, people will whine that they didn't invest time into them earlier.. just like the previous relics.

Tides come in, tides go out. Sun goes up, sun goes down.

[TarynH]

I log on almost every day and do hunts, beast tribes, and sometimes goof around crafting and gathering. Despite having leveled every job to 70 with hunts/tribes/leves, (except RDM which I took through story), I still enjoy doing that daily stuff. I sometimes play PvP, despite hating PvP in almost every game. I like doing group content at times for the fun of it, but do not like needing groups to do content. So basically I really enjoy logging on and having a little something to do; usually alone.

I don't log on every day and do roulettes, because I see no need to. I don't do savage raids, which is why I see no need to get tome gear. I ran the 24-man raid exactly 3 times, and was already crafting better gear before it even came out. So it became pointless. Which is sad, because I usually enjoy the 24-man raids more than other raid content. Everything in 4.x seems a step behind, both on gear and on when patches are released. My RDM is perfectly capable in crafted 350 gear for everything I do, and I don't expect to have my hand held if I do attempt harder content.

That being said, I was excited to try content that appeared on the surface extremely casual. I've been waiting for something like Dynamis from FFXI (after it was changed), that could be filler content for me to do, either alone or with a friend. Something to do over time, and feel like I accomplished something in the end. So from the perspective of a casual player, I can honestly say this content has some potential, but simply failed in delivery.

The good: You can (sort of) go in alone or with a friend and casually grind on mobs.
The bad: Poor experience points (worse than FFXI ever dreamed). You hardly get any reward in doing so. Even chaining to 30, people have said is not 100% guarantee on crystal. (I guess I got lucky?)
Result: Not being casual friendly in the slightest, as it runs the risk of being wasted time.
Solution: Have each mob drop a protean crystal upon kill, and a chance at an anemos crystal upon chain 30. Even at this rate, soloing/duoing would take a long time.

The good: Sometimes you just want to go it alone, or with a friend, and you don't want to run around a zone with a group every time.
The bad: The systems in place seem to punish people that don't team up, or invest their time in running around going after NMs and mass pulls.
Result: Punishing players for wanting to play casually in a casual setting. Mass pulls with AoE spam, and NMs seeming like the only viable option to get things accomplished.
Solution: Better balance.

The good: Beautiful area, with harsh changes in weather, and nice environments.
The bad: Monster placement makes it seem compacted, and allows few areas to "camp." On top of that, is random elemental spawns with the weather. They were not fun to aggro in FFXI. They are not fun to aggro now.
Result: Discourages smaller groups from finding safe places to camp, and again pushes them to rely on a large AoE-spamming group to feel safe. Even FFXI had safe camp spots.
Solution: Fix monster placement.

The good: NMs are a nice break from the monotony. Traveling to get to one can be both dangerous and rewarding.
The bad: Every single NM has been reduced into an ability-spamming zerg fest.
Result: You cannot even see the NM. It is covered up by seizure-inducing lights that cannot be filtered. The amount of people needed to take one down causes severe lag. It is not fun at all to fight these. Sometimes they don't even load in. They're like poorly designed S ranks.
Solution: At least add some filters to abilities, and give priority targeting to the NM, and not the 50 people, or 5 lesser mobs surrounding it.

The good: Relic and AF+ gear as an end game. With 15 jobs at 70, this is perfect content to slowly acquire gear if I want.
The bad: The prices. The levels. The entire collection of AF can all be replaced with 350 gear I can already craft.
Result: Crafted gear is fine for what I do in the game already, making this entire journey in Eureka pointless. Even on behalf of the weapon, I'd probably get one and be done. All of that other gear is simply wasted resources even on the quintessential casual player like me. It doesn't even matter if you add levels to the gear later, it will still not be worth it.
Solution: Reduce the grind (prices) on basically what is glamour gear, or make the gear worthy of the grind.

If anything, they stole the one thing I absolutely hated from FFXI. It's not the grind. It's not what everyone else is saying. It's the thought process of having extreme negatives for every little tiny positive. It's the mentality of adding +1 STR to a piece of gear, but giving it -20 ACC. That was how FFXI "balanced" things. And that's the kind of "balance" I see with Eureka.