Was any of the 6.3 content worth waiting 4 months for?

[CidHeiral]

Yeah I thought it was a great patch. Looking forward to the rest of it.

[CaedemSanguis]

As a hardcore raider doing TOP, definetely yes

[CNitsah]

I really feel the patches reception suffer from the lack of eureka/bozja like content. With hunt trains, those are the only place that really feels mmo, and had the advantage of keeping people occupied, with the whole reput and rare items farmings.

That might not have been much in term of story, but it gave something to go back regulary, that a lot of people seem to miss, and that deep dungeon don't really fill (none of the previous one never had the long term viability that eureka or bozja have). And let's not talk about the Variant Dungeons, that joined bahamut raids in the very selective club of abandonned (combat-oriented) content after a few weeks.

[Themarvin]

I really feel the patches reception suffer from the lack of eureka/bozja like content. With hunt trains, those are the only place that really feels mmo, and had the advantage of keeping people occupied, with the whole reput and rare items farmings.

That might not have been much in term of story, but it gave something to go back regulary, that a lot of people seem to miss, and that deep dungeon don't really fill (none of the previous one never had the long term viability that eureka or bozja have). And let's not talk about the Variant Dungeons, that joined bahamut raids in the very selective club of abandonned (combat-oriented) content after a few weeks.

Pretty sure we will get more with the relic in that direction... also keep on note that last patch major part was Orthos Eureka Deep Dungeon... and yes quite a bunch does not have the nerve to go beyond floor 30, though they should, you need to keep on your toes to do the content later on in it...

I just think that people need to accept that content is not of interest for all, but everyone get something to do.

[Kaurhz]

I really feel the patches reception suffer from the lack of eureka/bozja like content. With hunt trains, those are the only place that really feels mmo, and had the advantage of keeping people occupied, with the whole reput and rare items farmings.

That might not have been much in term of story, but it gave something to go back regulary, that a lot of people seem to miss, and that deep dungeon don't really fill (none of the previous one never had the long term viability that eureka or bozja have). And let's not talk about the Variant Dungeons, that joined bahamut raids in the very selective club of abandonned content after a few weeks.

In many respects,

this content shouldn't even exist and most if not all design elements from Bozja/Eureka should be naturally embedded in the more general open-world content, rather than a separate piece of content itself. Granted, doing it successfully is a massive undertaking in and of itself. But hunts should be akin to critical engagements, each zone/major area should have its own dungeon/critical engagement - This is something they've had as early as Diadem with the EM, but have still failed to utilize outside of exploratory content, well... Outside of DR.

Frankly, an expansion should not hinge entirely on a particular piece of content to be considered a success or to be a make or break for that matter.

[Themarvin]

In many respects,

this content shouldn't even exist and most if not all design elements from Bozja/Eureka should be naturally embedded in the more general open-world content, rather than a separate piece of content itself. Granted, doing it successfully is a massive undertaking in and of itself. But hunts should be akin to critical engagements, each zone/major area should have its own dungeon/critical engagement - This is something they've had as early as Diadem with the EM, but have still failed to utilize outside of exploratory content, well... Outside of DR.

Frankly, an expansion should not hinge entirely on a particular piece of content to be considered a success or to be a make or break for that matter.

It is very difficult to place in the open world due to complexity in it, but IT IS in the open world, you just don't have an Aetheryte to go to the place and it is nice to have a game inside the game as well, and even better you need to do the content before you can pass onto the next stage.

[Kaurhz]

It is very difficult to place in the open world due to complexity in it, but IT IS in the open world, you just don't have an Aetheryte to go to the place and it is nice to have a game inside the game as well, and even better you need to do the content before you can pass onto the next stage.

What I mean is that it simply shouldn't need to be developed for a separate zone entirely, but just be naturally embedded into all the zones - The moment I query into Bozja or Eureka zones, I am in a duty, and this duty essentially locks you out of other forms of content.

Having a game inside of a game is crucial, yes, but when you have a fair perception of players that seem to think, or at the very least suggest the expansion is a failure simply because of the inclusion of exploratory content then it's a pretty unhealthy state to be in. I'm not one for doom-saying or anything of the sort, but exploratory content should just simply be embedded into existing zones rather than having a separate open-world zone design specifically for that piece of content.

Granted, I can acknowledge the complexities of such a design. Nevertheless, I still think it is a design choice worth striving for.

[Raven2014]

What I mean is that it simply shouldn't need to be developed for a separate zone entirely, but just be naturally embedded into all the zones - The moment I query into Bozja or Eureka zones, I am in a duty, and this duty essentially locks you out of other forms of content.

But that's exactly what it is though? You only queue into Bozja because you need to actively do something there, even if you queue into it to wait for something happen, you don't really want to engage other contents and risk missing it when it pop anyhow. Also, it's to enforce real participate in order to rip the reward. Otherwise you would have something like S-hunt, where majority don't contribute anything but wait for a call out and teleport over.

Even not accounting for the technical complexity behind it, can you give an example of how Eureka/Bozja content can be integrated into the openworld?

[Kaurhz]

But that's exactly what it is though? You only queue into Bozja because you need to actively do something there, even if you queue into it to wait for something happen, you don't really want to engage other contents and risk missing it when it pop anyhow. Also, it's to enforce real participate in order to rip the reward. Otherwise you would have something like S-hunt, where majority don't contribute anything but wait for a call out and teleport over.

Even not accounting for the technical complexity behind it, can you give an example of how Eureka/Bozja content can be integrated into the openworld?

Hunts reworked into 'critical engagement'-esque battles, with fairly substantial EXP to incentivize, and rewards that would have otherwise been in the exploratory content itself. e.g., let's say a mountable Yilan, for example. The whole.. Waiting, and not necessarily contributing to the spawn itself, in combination with there being some level of... We are a train, therefore we own it -- Not that I blame the people entirely... It's a system, but it's barely functional, that I think would be better placed under a different gimmick. You can then also place these critical engagement battles under the wondrous tales log.

Behind these critical engagements, rework it so in that you get logs detailing the information, and upon completion of the entire log you get something akin to a mount, title, or minion, per each expansion - As opposed to it being something you simply speak to an NPC for - This at least then gives some sense of achievement, and it doesn't need to be a guaranteed reward, but rather an RNG % drop rate.

Next, rather than using a currency such as the Bicolour Gemstones, I would rework these into lockboxes, or tokens that don't give a guaranteed reward, that way if people do want something specific they will be required to engage further in the content rather than farm for that particular item. Bicolour Gemstones do work, but it honestly doesn't feel substantial enough.

Possibly the biggest one - But open-world dungeons, rather than these being separately instanced, have one that triggers, wherein people can just join regardless of whether they are a tank, healer, or DPS, and then allow players to select 'logos' equivalent actions for the duty (no farm required, just a simple select 'loadout' - Have it scale based on the number of participants, and/or give people the option whether they want to try the instance solo with actions depending on the player participation with NPC participation - Unironically, this is one of the few things I enjoyed about Steps of Faith where NPCs would join (Granted, they didn't accomplish much)

I do want to be as bold as to suggest that incorporating bunny FATEs into the more general open-world zones would be fun too, but I am also aware of the cascading effect with bots.