I Hope SE Learned Their Lesson From Eureka And Bozja

[Styrmwyda]

I've actually had enough of FATEs, NMs, skirmishes, and CEs. These kinds of "open world content" are just not for me. I prefer instanced battle contents that I can queue into any time I want rather than contents that make me try to spawn enemies or wait for them to spawn by themselves, often at an inconvenient time (like when I'm watching a cutscene or doing other things).

In fact, I don't know of any open world content in any MMO that I've ever liked except possibly for guildleve, and again, that's because I can choose when to start a guildleve.

Ok, maybe not FATEs, at least, not specific FATEs.

[GeminiReed]

What I find funny is that people deliberately forget that nothing is set in stone, especially in an MMO. CT is like a million years old and people still run it to this day. How do you explain that. Who's to say we won't get it added to DF with a nice reward further down the line?

Because CT has actual incentives to run it? CLL has no incentive and some pretty glaring disincentives. There was a glimmer of hope that CLL would be doable for a couple weeks on the assumption people were interested in getting to the next step. Big nope.

Square's had ample opportunity to course correct CLL and they did nothing. Maybe they like being embarrassed. Will they get around to fixing this? I sure hope so but I've lost what little faith that they even care.

[Halivel]

Yes, which is why I am concerned by the time I get Shadowbringers (or the latest expansion) stuff like Eureka will be even harder to find people for.

you don't really need a lot of people tbf. Eureka was adjusted enough for a small group of people being able to do everything with no issue - find 2-3 friends who're up for some farm and you're fine. There's a very high chance that it will be the same with Bozja.

The only really concerning part is dungeons like Baldesion and Litore/Delubrum. They should eventually add them to normal DF, maybe even dedicate a separate Daily Roulette for that cuz that's the only part of Eureka and Bozja that can noticeably die out (though people still run Baldesion to this day).

[TurtlesAWD]

Yeah I don't think you should assume content "dies" after its current expansion like it does in other MMOs, populations dip but not to an extent that it can't be completed.

[Alaray]

I prefer Bozja/Eureka over the HW method, tbh.

I'll agree that they probably shouldn't have required Castrum and DR, without informing the playerbase prior. But I do think Castrum/DR ought to be the premier methods to advance the relic steps, above to doing LoTA ten minute runs.

Stuff like Castrum/DR'll last so long as there's incentives for it to last. Baldesion Arsenal is still done, to this day, mostly just for the Ozma mount and partly for the cosmetic drops inside.

They can make the most fun fight in the game, but ultimately, if there's no incentive no one will do it. Castrum struggling to fill has more of an issue with its rewards vs. it's risks (20 coins and some actions vs. potentially 20-40k mettle loss pending how frequently someone dies).

That said, Castrum fights aren't that hard relative to even other 24 man fights baseline. Some minor coordination, and 1 group functional enough to do the Lyon portion of the final fight... but mechanically speaking, they're... about the same as most 24 mans. Just with the added benefit of being able to make them easier via Lost Actions.

DR itself isn't really that rough, either. Mechanics in there are pretty intuitive to figure out, and again, Lost Actions make it all the easier.

Doom can be rough I spose, but tbh, pop on a re-raiser if you need to and have someone carry around Lost Arise. But ultimately, aside from a minor mettle loss, dying there isn't that big of a deal (and if you have 0 intention to do it again, then the mettle you lose in there, at that point, literally doesn't matter).

I agree with decoupling the mandatory aspect, but I disagree with removing Exploratory Content entirely from a relic grind, especially if it's done alongside a more traditional HW-style.

I much prefer Bozja than outdated fates.

[Jennah]

My biggest fear on the announcement showcase? That they will proudly announce they have doubled-down on their Eurekan Mistake.

[TaleraRistain]

So I've got mixed feelings on having an exclusive zone. On one hand, it could be very fun to go through the zone-specific lore with an engaging story line where they can do some new things. On the other hand, if you can only ever go there, you start feeling a bit isolated. You may still have daily things you wanna do but, nope, gotta grind here. I felt that very much going through Eureka.

The other issue place where things come to a head is the zone caters to only a certain type of player. That player likes to jump into the content, grind continuously, jump into something like CLL, grind that, and then hop on to something else. Which is fine if players who don't have that mentality never have to deal with it. Then SE can make that a zone that is rich and rewarding to the players who like that.

However, now after giving outside Bozja options in the first step, they tied to the relic to it. So they're trying to drag people who aren't their target audience kicking and screaming into the zone by locking an item that those people are intended audience for behind having to deal with the zone. This is exacerbated by the idea that they didn't listen to the pro-zone folks on improvements, so they didn't make the zone rich and rewarding so those pro-zone folks can keep things alive for the anti-zone folks.

If they really want to do this, they have two options. Make the quest line for the relic zone-agnostic. Allow updates at equal rates both outside and inside their special instanced zone, so people can choose the level they interact with it. The bonus here is that presented with the choice, many may get curious and try some things out and find something they actually enjoy there.

The second option, and in my opinion the better option, is do things to make the zone appealing to both sides. For Bozja specifically, make normal mobs, daily quests, and the challenge log give mettle. Keep all the special other drops because those could turn into those "hey I really liked this part" for the anti-zone folks. Make the relic quest line a solo quest line with an option to group. So if they want to top an arc with a group instance, have a group instance and a Trust version. Take things like CLL and DR and make them optional challenges. Make them worth doing. I think I see a lot of folks saying if they weren't just a mettle sink but if completion helped you get that mettle back or gave you a boost or rewarded you in some other substantial way, they would be a lot more willing to tackle that challenge.

I think if SE just put in a bit of effort to entice with the carrot instead of prod with the stick to do their content, they'd see a significant improvement of participation, at least among their NA audience. And they would boost the morale of the player base, because there wouldn't be so many who were just doing the content through gritted teeth. They would want to be there.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

I'll agree that they probably shouldn't have required Castrum and DR, without informing the playerbase prior. But I do think Castrum/DR ought to be the premier methods to advance the relic steps, above to doing LoTA ten minute runs.

They did though, literal months ago.

"Your resistance weapon can be upgrade in 5.45, but you need to finish the story including Delubrum Reginae normal
2 upgrade steps and you can customize the substats during the 2nd upgrade" ~ Yoshi-P, 11/27/2020, liveletter from the producer LXI.

The Bozja story includes castrum; they gave extremely advanced warning to go get Castrum done.

I do agree however Bozja should have been the premier choice for advancing the relic.

[ItMe]

By common I mean that people would continue doing it and it would be easy to find players to do it with you. Daily Roulettes, for example. Meanwhile, if lets say if someone who started Eureka recently, well, most people have already gotten their relics for that, so, people have less reason to do that content again.

(Hot damn I looked away for a few hours and this thread already has 3 pages?)
Ah, I understand the distinction you're trying to make. Thanks for clarifying.

As long as Boz has juicy rewards people keep coming back for the content can stay healthy enough to survive. Eureka is one of the best places to farm poetics, so this week (while working on my HW relic ironically enough) I've spent hours in eureka engaged in spawning and calling out NMs.

Though I do hope that they're done adding "public dungeon access zones" after this, because having 2 (one of them being 4 zones) is already kinda stretching things pretty thin.

And you're def right, the cards are stacked against it.

[TaleraRistain]

They did though, literal months ago.

"Your resistance weapon can be upgrade in 5.45, but you need to finish the story including Delubrum Reginae normal
2 upgrade steps and you can customize the substats during the 2nd upgrade" ~ Yoshi-P, 11/27/2020, liveletter from the producer LXI.

The Bozja story includes castrum; they gave extremely advanced warning to go get Castrum done.

Problem is their English audience has to rely on unofficial translations of those Live Letters and you can find five or six different answers with no official statement for the English audience to go by. I went looking a few days before patch and still couldn't find anything definitive, just various suppositions from different sites. They really need to make sure we get official statements on this sort of thing. Especially because they have seen (or should have unless they're just outright ignoring us) the confusion and questions over the past few months and did nothing to definitively clarify.