So, how is Pagos?

[Solarra]

Pagos rejects the concepts of NMs with how the devs went about it... you're lucky to see an NM spawn at all.

Point taken.
What I was trying to get at is that Pagos is basically the same design as Anemos only with a severe nerf to the rate of NM spawns introduced as a way of derailing the train. That isn't going to work; take out the NMs (or reduce them as they have) and there's nothing left except grind, which only a very small proportion of players seem to enjoy. If the train was such a bad thing that it had to be countered, then the devs needed to come up with alternative ways for people to play and they haven't done that.

I really can't see what harm the train did personally, it had people playing together and co-operating and it also helped low-level players catch up. It feels to me that the devs are either out of ideas or on such a tight schedule that only minimal tweaks can be made to content after release. Their solution to the train was relatively quick and easy to implement, but it has caused much bigger problems than the one it was meant to solve.

[Edax]

Point taken.

I really can't see what harm the train did personally, it had people playing together and co-operating and it also helped low-level players catch up. It feels to me that the devs are either out of ideas or on such a tight schedule that only minimal tweaks can be made to content after release. Their solution to the train was relatively quick and easy to implement, but it has caused much bigger problems than the one it was meant to solve.

I'm sure the devs got pissed because entire sections of the Eureka Amenos map and most of the mobs remained entirely untouched because the train allowed players to bypassed the mob grinding all together, so thought they'd FORCE us to get acquainted with each individual mob in Pagos intimately and experience the content they worked so hard to make, even if they had to make the player miserable to do it. Maybe it's revenge, I dunno. They probably saw the train as an exploit like Destiny's loot cave.

[InkstainedGwyn]

They probably saw the train as an exploit like Destiny's loot cave.

This is [one of many reasons] why I'm so angry. The NM train is not an exploit. (I know you're not saying it is, I'm saying this in regards to them changing Eureka as if it was.) All the methods utilized to create it are within game capacity - all it takes is a large group of people, working together (which, correct me if I'm wrong, is one of the definitions of the PVE portion of an MMO.) An exploit is like ungarmax, taking a skill that was not designed to exist (and does not exist within the current UI) but finding a way in which to access the skill elsewhere. An exploit is like the alt+f4 method of skipping cutscenes in MSQ roulette.

Anybody who has played any kind of social game ever understands that even if you leave a trail of breadcrumbs, having thousands/hundreds of thousands of players accessing it means that your "desired path" will be strayed off, deviated from, and adjusted. Even a small handful of people can do this; take a look at practically any D&D/pen-and-paper campaign ever created. A DM can spend hours crafting a puzzle only to have his players ignore it altogether in favour of the random rock he happened to describe that the party has determined holds the key to their campaign - or, after scratching their heads, hit upon an unforeseen weakness that clears the puzzle within seconds.

A good DM encourages exploration, listens to what their players like, adjusts the campaign so that the players are having fun. That's what a game is - a collaboration between DM/creator & player. A bad DM forces the party back into the puzzle, changes the rules halfway through so that they can't solve it in any way except the DM's way, and forces the players to sit there for hours until they find the exact thought process that the DM "planned for", even though there are other ways to solve it.

Guess which path XIV has been taking?

A game shouldn't be a railroad (unless it's Ticket to Ride). A game should be a collaboration between DM/devs and players to create a game that is doable by the devs and enjoyable by the players. All of these tantrums because we're not properly appreciating their Anemos intentions are petty and show me that they're more interested in showing off their grand ideas than actually seeing what the players want.

[Lauront]

Like several other things in the game lately, it's meh. A very tedious grind.

Hard to find a party in the limited free time I have during weeks, so it is consigned to weekends for the most part, when I would much rather be doing things I enjoy more, including the very broken frontlines. People are extremely flaky and self-absorbed and parties fall apart rather quickly.

I also used to main BLM but I've grown rather irritated by their design choices for the job, and the relic is no exception.

And yet, it's still less of a disappointment than HoH was, in just about every aspect.