Bozjan 5.45 - My opinion

[TurtlesAWD]

I'd personally rather not see a return of the train, I think the inability to have a train in eureka these days is why people call eureka "dead" when the intent of eureka wasn't to have a train in the first place, it just manifested because it was efficient. That the zone is still doable as originally intended doesn't seem to penetrate the fog of "I can't do this unless by literally the simplest possible method" which people assume must be true because other people also assumed it was true first, and then they reinforced each other's opinions.

The current fates sometimes feel like they take a very long time to complete but I think this is mainly because people don't use essences so they intentionally nerf their own damage. But they otherwise progress, or manifest, the zone's story by getting the NPCs involved, as well as introducing new ones we might see more of later. To say that they should all be boss fates is I think to say that we should see less of the plot-relevant NPCs. I wouldn't be into it, the fact the devs of this game actually care about the story the game tells is what makes it unique among MMOs. Story's pretty clearly a secondary or tertiary concern for any made by a western team.

[Kuroka]

And yes, there is a target. Over the years I've seen tons of people complaining that this game isn't grindy enough, or that the content is done too fast, and demanded things they could spend a lot of time and effort doing.

True and i do like the long time grind with an worthy reward, but not if "long time" means starting at X.1 or X.2 for lousy 5 ilvl more at patch X.5.999999999 for like 6 weeks before the next addon hits lol

Honestly, id like the content itself, but the weapon just feels pointless - before it even hits i have to do the ex primal 99+ times or can augment my crafted.


Really they should not listen to savage players and give the relic a way higher ilvl from the start. Make it so you need tokken from the ex trial, weekly raid tokken or tome for gettin the highest ilvl before the next patch hits, anything, just dont let it be a fancy glowstick for 95% the expansion... please....

[TurtlesAWD]

Really they should not listen to savage players and give the relic a way higher ilvl from the start. Make it so you need tokken from the ex trial, weekly raid tokken or tome for gettin the highest ilvl before the next patch hits, anything, just dont let it be a fancy glowstick for 95% the expansion... please....

So I think what this is getting at is the standard methodology of item level being the marker of character progression after normal level caps out, which in the standard modern MMO set-up is always the first thing done, and at the greatest speed possible. I would also probably enjoy an item system where something's value is less easily determined by checking one individual attribute in favor of a larger variety of ways of determining an item's value. Though it's hard to say that it's obvious a more complex system would have the same player retention, player understanding, or more general player enjoyment.

[Vahlnir]

I'd personally rather not see a return of the train, I think the inability to have a train in eureka these days is why people call eureka "dead" when the intent of eureka wasn't to have a train in the first place, it just manifested because it was efficient. That the zone is still doable as originally intended doesn't seem to penetrate the fog of "I can't do this unless by literally the simplest possible method" which people assume must be true because other people also assumed it was true first, and then they reinforced each other's opinions.

The current fates sometimes feel like they take a very long time to complete but I think this is mainly because people don't use essences so they intentionally nerf their own damage. But they otherwise progress, or manifest, the zone's story by getting the NPCs involved, as well as introducing new ones we might see more of later. To say that they should all be boss fates is I think to say that we should see less of the plot-relevant NPCs. I wouldn't be into it, the fact the devs of this game actually care about the story the game tells is what makes it unique among MMOs. Story's pretty clearly a secondary or tertiary concern for any made by a western team.

That wasn't the original intention, but it is how things evolved. Even after trying to get rid of the train in Pagos, they received enough backlash that they decided to put it back in. So...it just became the standard.

[RyuDragnier]

Literally what I was thinking tbh, GW2 has a lot of flaws but the maps are actually fun and even content from 1 or 2 expansions ago gets ran on the regular.

Oh I know. The HoT metas live forever, especially Auric Basin, Tangled Depths, and Dragon's Stand.

[TaleraRistain]

The relic has always been aimed at the part of the community that likes grinding in order to obtain something and feel accomplished. It has never been intended to be for everyone, and neither it's enforced (I've never completed a single relic myself).

The grind isn't the niche content. It's things like CLL and DR. There's a market in the community for that sort of content. However, with previous relics, that part of the community could do the grind quickly and get their relics fast fast fast and that worked for them. There's another part of the community that tackles the grind at a slower pace and kind of incorporates updates into their normal daily processes. But something like CLL has a time limit, as we're seeing, when that niche group runs through it for everything it enjoys but abandons it because SE didn't make it worthwhile to keep running, and actually actively made it punish people in that niche group for doing so.

That group gave feedback to SE...which they just completely ignored. So they didn't do anything to make things better for the group that likes things like CLL by making it more rewarding for them.

And now they're telling the group that doesn't like CLL, who had the option to go do the former grind where they wanted at their own pace, that they have to clear this dead instance that the first group isn't keeping active because it punishes players for doing it.

So, nobody is happy. CLL is a huge bottleneck, it's not future proofed to stop this happening again, and they ignored feedback on how to make it worth doing.

[TaleraRistain]

Really they should not listen to savage players and give the relic a way higher ilvl from the start. Make it so you need tokken from the ex trial, weekly raid tokken or tome for gettin the highest ilvl before the next patch hits, anything, just dont let it be a fancy glowstick for 95% the expansion... please....

That goes completely against the intention. The Savage and Extreme weapons are there for those who want the faster option. The relic is the casual alternative that takes longer. And it's not glamour to a large part of the player base, ie, the player base that will use it as their actual weapon. You'd be cutting it off from its intended audience with a move like that.

[Packetdancer]

That goes completely against the intention. The Savage and Extreme weapons are there for those who want the faster option. The relic is the casual alternative that takes longer. And it's not glamour to a large part of the player base, ie, the player base that will use it as their actual weapon. You'd be cutting it off from its intended audience with a move like that.

I think it's more that you have three groups:

1. Those who want the top-tier thing and want it now, and are happy to throw themselves at challenging (savage or ultimate) content to get it. I.e., savage raiders of various stripes, etc.
2. Those who want a reasonably good thing, who don't feel up to savage/ultimate content, but are happy to grind hardcore short-term for a quick reward. The ones TaleraRistain refers to in the quoted text.
3. Those who want a potentially-outdated but visually shiny thing, who don't feel up to savage/ultimate content, and who don't feel the need to grind quickly and are happy if they get the thing several months later. These are the 'glamour players'.

(It's worth noting also that people in 1 may also want the visually shiny thing even if it's mechanically useless to them, or may want the relic because it's better than alternatives for an alt job they aren't gearing as seriously, so may fall into groups 2 or 3 in addition to being in 1. I admit to being one of those group 1 folks who is looking at the relic as a quickly-obtained viable weapon for alt jobs, thus also falling into group 2. And I like glamour, so I suppose for the jobs I don't play, I may also fall into group 3. Similarly, folks in group 2 might also be in 3 for alt jobs where they just want the glamour eventually because Shiny Weapon.)

Group 1 will go for the savage raid weapon of that tier, because they want the mechanical benefit and they want it as quickly as possible. Maybe the tomestone weapon (and augment for it) if they aren't clearing the tier yet or the augmented one is BiS for them.

Group 2 will go for the tomestone weapon maybe, though they're gated by weekly tomestone cap and needing seven of the normal-raid capstone weekly tokens. So if they want to go faster for additional jobs, they'll go for the relic weapon but go at the grind hardcore, because they want the relic while it's still Really Good (and "visually shiny" may be a factor as well). And even if it's not The Best, it's still better than many other alternatives (and even when it's outdated, you have the shiny for your glamour dresser). Some of group 2 probably look at Bozja and hey, it's just another grind, but others probably feel like needing to do new content instead of existing FATEs/duties makes the relic fall more under what would appeal to group 1.

Group 3 will go for the relic weapon at a casual pace, because they don't care about the stats or having it quickly, they just like the shiny weapon glam and it doesn't matter that much when they get it. But most of group 3, I think, wants a grind that happens naturally as a result of doing other content; maybe it takes them six months to get the relic, but it's six months where they don't need to actually do anything different, and just pick up crystals as a result of doing roulettes or FATEs, maybe with sidelining to doing specific ones for an hour or so once a week. So Bozja feels like a big wall put up in their path.

So people aren't going to agree on what the relic weapon actually is -- is it meant for group 2, who will tackle a challenge with determination to get a reward quickly, but don't want to deal with savage/ultimate content? Is it meant for group 3, as something you can get really as a side-effect of doing what you already do, even if it takes a very long time? Etc. And as a result, they certainly aren't going to agree on whether the process here is suitable or not.

(And this isn't helped by the fact that, while Square-Enix communicated the requirement ahead of time to advance the Bozjan story, they did not do so in a particularly clear manner. Meaning many people feel misled about what the relic grind would require, or even as though they were actively lied to or betrayed about said requirements.)

I personally think the relic weapon is targeted a bit more at group 2 than 3, and that having a bit of a system you have to engage with and progress to gain it is perfectly fine. (I also think that people's fears of Castrum and Delubrum are the bigger hindrance than the actual duties are, but that's both the fault of the game's skill at making relatively simple mechanics look flashy and intimidating like a stage magician doing one thing to distract you while they set up their trick... and also perhaps only tangentially related to this discussion.)

But I also recognize that this is my opinion, not any sort of objective fact. And I feel like that part is what we're often forgetting/overlooking in the conversation around Bozja and the Resistance weapons; unless the developers outright step in and explicitly state their intent, all we have is opinions. Which are not necessarily going to all be in alignment.

[van_arn]

The grind isn't the niche content. It's things like CLL and DR. There's a market in the community for that sort of content. However, with previous relics, that part of the community could do the grind quickly and get their relics fast fast fast and that worked for them. There's another part of the community that tackles the grind at a slower pace and kind of incorporates updates into their normal daily processes. But something like CLL has a time limit, as we're seeing, when that niche group runs through it for everything it enjoys but abandons it because SE didn't make it worthwhile to keep running, and actually actively made it punish people in that niche group for doing so.

That group gave feedback to SE...which they just completely ignored. So they didn't do anything to make things better for the group that likes things like CLL by making it more rewarding for them.

And now they're telling the group that doesn't like CLL, who had the option to go do the former grind where they wanted at their own pace, that they have to clear this dead instance that the first group isn't keeping active because it punishes players for doing it.

So, nobody is happy. CLL is a huge bottleneck, it's not future proofed to stop this happening again, and they ignored feedback on how to make it worth doing.

The problem with cll is the way you enter it, not necessarily the rewards. Rewards would be nice, but requiring two layers of rng (pop inside bozja + enough players in that specific instance of bozja) won’t be fixed until it is possible to queue into the place in gangos.

They could boost the rewards, but you’d still be beholden to the number of players with the time to run it in your instance. This is assuming you entered the instance when castrum hadn’t just popped, as well.

[TaleraRistain]

The problem with cll is the way you enter it, not necessarily the rewards. Rewards would be nice, but requiring two layers of rng (pop inside bozja + enough players in that specific instance of bozja) won’t be fixed until it is possible to queue into the place in gangos.

They could boost the rewards, but you’d still be beholden to the number of players with the time to run it in your instance. This is assuming you entered the instance when castrum hadn’t just popped, as well.

Yes that is definitely also a problem. But I've seen plenty of folks who say they have enough people in the instance but people just don't want to run it.