Need to address the Eureka in the room.

[Physic]

Yeah I think there's room to improve on Eureka.

I kind of wish there was more actual plot too. The Eureka story drags its heels a looooooooot. Feels like it would have normally been like one main zone worth of plot stretched into 4 + BA.

The elemental leveling system was just there for a grind to pad things out. It may have served a purpose if like in POTD you could level other jobs in it or something, but no.

The magia board sounded neat in theory but in practice it's just 'spin the wheel to the weakness of what you're hitting. Or maybe, if you're tanking or prioritizing survival over dps, flip it to the monster's own element. There's rarely any need to put thought into it. Sure a couple NMs here and there may have adds of a different element so you would swap, kill adds, then swap back but that's about as deep as it goes. It was ultimately disappointing and shallow. And even if you grind/buy the items for the two extra magecite it wouldn't really do much to make you think about where to put your elements.

The main thing though I think they need to do is diversify things. Everything comes down to chaining mobs. Chaining mobs for exp, chaining mobs to spawn NMs, chaining mobs for lockboxes, chaining mobs for light, with only NMs themselves to punctuate things. Oh and bunny fates I guess. They need to add more to do, add more sources of crystals etc.

One thing I did like though was a lot of the grind being front loaded. Once you get your first relic in a zone, getting the rest becomes easier. Granted, there's still a significant time sink, especially if you're unlucky with Pazuzu etc spawns, but still, you have a headstart on the next one which is interesting.

the e level's main purpose is to create a progression system that gives players benefit to killing monsters and progression into the area. It, ir something like it, is necessary. Other wise there is no reason to interact with most of the enemies in the area. Knowing what to kill, and when and how to do it effeciently is a big part of interacting with the enemies of the area.

The elemental wheel, ties mostly into choosing your enemies and handling a long term resource, as well as an extra layer of progression. It actually ties into what you fight, and how you choose to deal with enemies. Mutation is a big part of it. get more exp/drops, but have to deal with more elemental shifts. Overall, its partially aesthetic, they wanted eureka to be a lot about elements.

and yeah defeating monsters has to be the meat of open world type content. There needs to be something people can do, in small to medium size groups, and 95% of your charachter is designed to be killing monsters, so most of that will involve killing stuff.