Quote Originally Posted by Talraen View Post
That's a fair analysis, but so what? If there's one thing I learned from Eureka, it's how much difference the downtime in a game like FFXI actually made to its enjoyment. FFXI was extremely obtuse and anti-player, yet people still loved it, and Eureka taps into a lot of the reason why that was the case. Why is that a bad thing? If it's designed to be fun, and it is fun, doesn't that make it well-designed?

The Magia board is a bit extraneous, but I don't know what design for that sort of thing would have actually worked well. The only thing I can think of would be to more heavily restrict how often you can change it, and I think that would have just made people mad. It doesn't really add anything to the content (except justifying a few quests), but I don't think it detracts either.
Considering the sheer number of players who AFK, I am hard pressed to call Eureka well-designed. Even should I choose to contribute, things die at some a breakneck pace, I often spam the same 3-5 buttons endlessly. What fun I have in Eureka comes from jumping into Discord chats or 'trolling' shout. The content itself is absolutely mindless.

Quote Originally Posted by Talraen View Post
I generally don't do a lot of penta-melding
How can you have an opinion on a system you do not actively participate in? As someone who does overmeld on crafters, gathers and combat jobs, I assure you, it feels absolutely dreadful. You have as little as a 5% chance to meld a single piece, thus you can spend over thirty minutes literally watching your gil blow out only to get nothing out of it. This says nothing of the sheer grind required to obtain higher level Craft and Gather materia—nevermind the abysmal Spiritbonding system. Good design does not have players screaming profusely at how unfair their luck is after blowing up 65 materia on a supposed 17% chance. There is no skill or effort involved. You click through menus, sacrifice a Lalafell and hope RNJesus doesn't hate you.