So, how is Pagos?

[Zsolen]

The Lighthouse upgrade is for 'the general population' that doesn't want to grind or do relic.

[Rokke]

Lets talk about relic grinds, shall we? Aether grinding gave me the option to do different things to earn light. Sometimes I ran savage. Sometimes I farmed 24 mans for gearing alts. Most often, I just did my dailies. Books gave me the options to complete tasks in the order I wanted. Personally, I liked to knock the fates out of the way first so that I could do the kill counts little by little when I was bored. Fates could be done solo or with friends/strangers who were also working on their weapons or just willing to help out. Umbrite, crystal sands, and clusters could be bought from doing various different activities. Some were faster than others, but I could mix and match depending on my free time & how much progress I wanted to make in a night.

There are zero options here in Pagos. I'll type it again, this time in bold so hopefully my point gets through: There is no other way for me to earn this relic other than to suffer through Pagos's mindless training dummy grind. Imagine if spamming ARF was the only way to earn umbrite for the anima, that you had to hunker down and spam the dungeon over and over and over and over and over and over. Its just as stupid a concept as Pagos.

[Zsolen]

Lets talk about relic grinds, shall we? Aether grinding gave me the option to do different things to earn light. Sometimes I ran savage. Sometimes I farmed 24 mans for gearing alts. Most often, I just did my dailies. Books gave me the options to complete tasks in the order I wanted. Personally, I liked to knock the fates out of the way first so that I could do the kill counts little by little when I was bored. Fates could be done solo or with friends/strangers who were also working on their weapons or just willing to help out. Umbrite, crystal sands, and clusters could be bought from doing various different activities. Some were faster than others, but I could mix and match depending on my free time & how much progress I wanted to make in a night.

There are zero options here in Pagos. I'll type it again, this time in bold so hopefully my point gets through: There is no other way for me to earn this relic other than to suffer through Pagos's mindless training dummy grind. Imagine if spamming ARF was the only way to earn umbrite for the anima, that you had to hunker down and spam the dungeon over and over and over and over and over and over. Its just as stupid a concept as Pagos.

Then don't do relic. Why should anyone get a relic weapon, when they are focusing on other objectives/ content? You are basically asking for free stuff, while doing other things.

Bolding is no different from all caps. Please, don't do that.

If people are dying and losing chains, it isn't mindless. Anemos became mindless. Dungeons and 24 mans are mindless. A1S during the light step was mindless.

[Rokke]

Bolding is no different from all caps. Please, don't do that.

If people are dying and losing chains, it isn't mindless. Anemos became mindless. Dungeons and 24 mans are mindless. A1S during the light step was mindless.

PAGOS IS MINDLESS

and a serious reply:
Your argument is that all relics are grindy so thats why pagos should be grindy. Ok, well all relics gave me options to the grind ..but you say pagos shouldn’t because options are freebies. Were the old relics all freebies then? My Zeta, my various Anima were all given to me because I didn't want to beat my head against a single thing for days on end?

[Vnolan]

Pagos is fine as is if you're going for one relic weapon. It remains to be seen how it'll look if you want more than one.

Players reached lvl 35 around two days after the content was released and I saw a few relics over the weekend, and this was done when more than 95% of the players were at a low level, meaning fewer NMs would be spawned, and when spawn conditions were not known (spawn conditions are still being worked out).

Mobs that mutate or adapt give a x2.5 bonus. The 30th kill in a chain gives a x5 bonus. The entirety of a 30 chain is equal to killing 55 mobs. In the 30's, you get around 3.5k per mob, which translates to 200k exp with no mutations, no exp potion and no fairy exp bonus taken into account. If you get a mutation on chain 30, that kill alone would give 40k. Mutations/adaptations don't revert if aggro is reset, allowing you to save one for a chain 30 kill if you get it early in the chain.

A chain of 30 in a party of eight at five levels below the mob takes 15-20 minutes and you only need decent dps for the last part of the chain. If that's too long, you can always do +4 mobs or lower. Don't want to chain mobs? You don't have to. You can afk and wait for NMs, though you won't progress anywhere near as fast as those that grind, which is how it should have been in Anemos.

Because chaining mobs is a thing again, the fairy has use, since it gives a 10% exp buff (doesn't apply to NMs) and an increase in damage dealt.

In Anemos, there was no reason to kill any mobs but those that spawned the NMs. Mutations and adaptations change that. In Anemos after the first few days, dying meant sitting there and waiting for a res. Sleeping dragons, the map layout and chaining means getting a res isn't as sure a thing.

There are complaints about it being boring, but what are the suggestions? "Buff this, nerf that"

There are complaints about the exp grind, but it's the light portion that's the real grind.

Issues with Pagos at the moment are the lack of a sync function, kills having a small chance of not registering and to a lesser extent, AoEs on snow during heatwaves being a little difficult to see.

Buffs and nerfs aren't so simple. If they implement them, it would be an insult to the players that did the content early. The content will be nerfed in the future, for sure, but in a few months, not when the content is a week old. It would set a bad precedent: Don't like the grind? Go to the forums and complain until it gets reduced.

[TheGrimace]

There's a big difference between "asking for free stuff" and "asking that content not be crap." They continually delay Eureka, content they advertised as casual and possible to solo, and it's released as something entirely different. People have a right to be upset and to complain about SE's actions in this, especially when people continually tell the company their problems only to be ignored. The most we got was a half-hearted wishy-washy response in the hotfix that they may or may not do something in the coming weeks. Their response to people's continued frustration is to once again ignore the complaints, which is another reason why people are irritated.

[Zojha]

Then don't do relic.

Truth be told, that would honestly be the best thing people can do.

Don't do it and tell other people to resist the temptation as well unless they really like Eureka. Everyone who forces themselves to do it for the relic really just tells SE that their attempt to compensate the design of Eureka with a highly coveted carrot is working as intended. Which means there is no need for them to change anything about it.

[Deceptus]

The entirety of a 30 chain is equal to killing 55 mobs. In the 30's, you get around 3.5k per mob, which translates to 200k exp with no mutations,

And in your 30's you need millions of exp to level so you're doing that chain at least 10 times. That's 300 mobs for a level. Not exactly great gameplay.

A chain of 30 in a party of eight at five levels below the mob takes 15-20 minutes

So between 2 and 3 hours of constant, mind numbing fighting for a level. Non.Stop.Fighting.

You can hear the bones and tendons in your hands and your migraine begging you for a break.

[Vnolan]

constant

I don't think that word means what you think it means. 10 chains would be with zero NMs. Contrary to what the forums have been saying, they aren't that rare. It's more likely several of those chains will be interrupted by a NM, and it's still the early days. And that's only if you wanted a more efficient method. You're free to do nothing if you want.

[Souljacker]

And in your 30's you need millions of exp to level so you're doing that chain at least 10 times. That's 300 mobs for a level. Not exactly great gameplay.

So between 2 and 3 hours of constant, mind numbing fighting for a level. Non-Stop Fighting.

You can hear the bones and tendons in your hands and your migraine begging you for a break.

And that's only providing you even get into a party of people all with ideal level ranges, get to camp alive, and everyone stays to play for that entire time. This game isn't designed for that kind of leveling and the playerbase isn't used to it. In XI we would actually plan to be in a party for a minimum of an hour after getting to camp and would actually look for our own replacement if we had to go and the party was going to continue. It's really crazy how SE has completely forgotten how it even worked.

Or *why* it worked, for that matter. It worked in XI because the process was a lot slower and more forgiving, and camps weren't nearly as crazy dangerous to get to as they are here. No seriously, they weren't. About the hardest camp to get to was probably the camps where you went through true sight Imps, but even then they were placed carefully and with forethought so a little patience got you to your party.

NONE of that is present here. Every single mob is true sight\sound because there's no stealth spells or meds, and the pathing is so random there is absolutely no way they didn't purposely program it to hurt the exploration experience. That's not what we remember from XI. At least, it's not what *I* remember.

I remember making my way through Konschadt Highlands carefully through the goblin patrols and the occasional ram pop. I remember the bats in the tunnel in the dunes that aggroed to sound, and normally some high level was wandering around and would kill them. Or with some careful planning I could kill them myself at around 16-17 depending on job. Same thing over in Qufim Island - The Dancing Weapon was about the most dangerous thing there on your way through and it could be stealthed through but usually someone was there to help kill it. And it stayed dead for a really long stretch. There wasn't much at all dangerous in the jungles because we could hop on the chocobo there at Kazham. The camps in Garliage were all easily accessible and didn't need any stealthing - not even the bottom floor camps that were alternative to the Nest (and that was super easy to get through too). The camps in Aht Urgan were all easy to access, especially once you got all the runic portals. I think that Mt. Zhayolm was my fav place to go - I liked the crawlers up there.

I'm really stretching my memory here but I can't think of a single camp that is anywhere near the level of unforgiving with mob placement, spawns, or terrain as this new map. So like, this idea that it's some throwback to an earlier time just isn't accurate, or other people have a very different memory of how leveling and getting to camps actually was in XI.

It was a relaxing experience. It wasn't a freak out stress getting to the camp every time (first time is always exciting, but here in Pagos it's just stress EVERY time), it wasn't a freak out because other parties would try to mpk you because 6+ groups are all camped on top of each other and competing (at most we'd have 2-3 parties at a camp and very rarely did we go out of our way to hurt one another's xp), and there wasn't this expectation that you never. stop. moving. for. a. single. moment. because of a GCD. Most of all, people *stayed*. They *stayed* in the party. And if they had to go, they generally gave notice. Here? Folks just drop and you're lucky to even get a courtesy "thanks for pt".

This game wasn't designed to handle this kind of play. It's why we didn't do it in Anemos. It's why rather than even play Pagos, I logged out for the last three days and cancelled my sub. It's why this particular iteration of the content is doomed to fail.

XI was a great game. I wish we could see more of what made it great come over here. I do NOT want this dev team's interpretation of it. They don't have a clue about their own game.