Please, dont bring Bojza back!

[DonutSteel]

6 of those 8 steps you listed were "dump your current tomestones" which is exactly what Manderville was when it was current.

Only two of those steps exclusively used tomestones, every other step that used tomes had them as an option.

Manderville was literally only tomes every step of the way.

[DreadCrow]

By that logic, you never need to upgrade your gear at all once you end the expansion, since those aren't required either - right?

There are other alternatives to relic weapons. Hell, in Shadowbringers, the tomestone weapon was better than the relic up until the very end.

[TheRealQuah]

Eureka pre-nerfs was the best content they ever had in this game, contributed a long way towards Stormblood being the best expansion for content.

[Kuroka]

This a Thousand times over!

Eureka was the only FF14 content that actually made me WANT to be doing 3-4 am fates, grinds, and runs because of the fun I was having with it. The crazy groups you got in! The wacky people you met while grinding! The community and comradery! To this day, I STILL remember some of the people I met in Eureka when it was new, they left THAT much of an impression. It was a WONDERFUL feeling and something that is sooooo missing in normal FF14 gameplay.

I loved it too, it was fun... i could life without the death penalty, at last give us some one time item to buy that auto revives us once, if you wanna be that harsh.

i hated how the 2nd and 3rd zone separated us and tried to stop fate trains... and i hated how we could not mount or teleport for ages in all of em - something they nerved really hard by now...

Bozja sucked though... the cant let ppl level in there or else you get the ppl that dont care for anything and the ppl that need stuff for the relic gettin in each others ways...

As ive said before, they need to make the instance a normal zone so youre not cut off from any other activity...

[TaleraRistain]

I'm curious. For those who considered it the best content, what do you consider its good points? What do you think were the bad points? What changes could they make to improve upon those points?

[Wolferey]

I'm curious. For those who considered it the best content, what do you consider its good points? What do you think were the bad points? What changes could they make to improve upon those points?

For me:
- Really easy to jump into groups, a shout and ur in.. heck when its really active ppl basically just toss out invites to anyone in the player search list for the zone
- Like maps, its just a fun way to hang out with friends/fc in a less high-stakes environment
- Sense of community besides hunt trains, seeing everyone on different silly mounts, everyone chatting it up
- For both: having a zone everyone is in makes it feel like what open world should feel like, FF14 in general sucks at making their open world mean anything besides going from point A to B, hunt trains or fate farming, so having zones where you have mob packs that could de-level/make you lose something inherently makes the zone feels more risky to explore which for me is fun at least.
- For eureka: bunny fates as a kinda "gacha" is a fun side activity. Figuring out the spawn conditions, weather etc. was fun.. its pretty much a solved thing now though
- For bozja: I could level up my classes and not want to smash a wall in frustration from how bad players are in dungeons, most fates are smoothbrain and then you had fun CEs in-between. Castrum and Dalriada is like a perfect alliance raid for me, from balancing top/bottom fights, each group clearing different wings, coordinating laser hallway etc.
- BA and DRS are top tier content, seriously find a discord, get working and run em, groups are still going strong to this day.
- Actions are really fun and can totally change your entire playstyle

For the bad/what I would want changed:
- Less grindy relic steps, the leveling was fine but the number of items you need per relic is often too high/too grindy, specially if you are going for them all
- Not being able to use duty finder to queue into castrum/dalriada/dr sucks, specially since the content is so good, I wouldn't mind having it in a rolo or something
- The pre-step to get into BA sucks

Honestly thats pretty much it for me, I much prefer FO over just dungeon/rolo spam, when you've been playing for many years you get really fatigued over old content so I absolutely hated manderville for that, none of the weapons feel special at all and I barely interacted with anyone for them, making the game just feel dead and soulless. I wasn't there for ARR/HW, maybe they were okay if they did stuff in the open world, I wouldn't know, but it mostly goes into the bad "steps too grindy so it overstays it welcome and sucks the fun out of it" camp.

[Nadda]

In a french interview Yoshi-P states that he planned to add exploration zones like Bozja/Eureka.

Quote:

Please... dont. I hate Eureka and Bozja. Nothing in there worked. The whole concept of Bozja/Eureka is horrible. People just played it because of the relic weapons. But it was not fun. You can do nothing except waiting or following the FATE-train.

People complained that getting relics was too easy last expansion and exploration zones is a perfect piece of midcore group content to keep dedicated players playing the game daily.

I don't see anything wrong with this because I learned that a good majority of players actually like having something to work towards bit by bit.

May not be my personal cup of tea, but what I want vs what makes people feel engaged in playing the game they love. <- they matter more than me.

[MoofiaBossVal]

I'm curious. For those who considered it the best content, what do you consider its good points?

Positives:

Basic sized mobs are challenging enough that you are incentivized to play with other people. You will be levelgrinding for hours so this is an opportunity to shoot the breeze and make friends.

Basic sized mobs take long enough to kill that you use your full rotation, also you can zoom in your camera and actually watch your character and the mobs, versus what happens in instances where you have to keep your camera zoomed to look for several AoEs going off and your character is buried enough a lot of special effects going off as he whacks away at the back of a boss' ankles.

I prefer to mount up and ride around a wide open world and fight random mobs, rather than AFK in town and queue for instances and get teleported into them to run through the same corridor with the same scripted events going off, fighting against story bosses with the same dialogue and RP each time. Being in Eureka is simply more immersive for me.

I liked the sense of danger as there were higher level mobs that you had to avoid, or mobs like the dragons in the second Eureka zone or the griffons around that quest point. Combined with the risk of losing EXP and the long travel times, it creates some sense of danger and stakes which this game lacks.

Making the effort to teleport back to base and switch to a healing job and then riding out to a dead player to raise them (or always carrying a phoenix down with you) feels somewhat meaningful with the threat of exp loss. If people die in a hunt train no one really cares about raising the dead because they can just respawn and teleport back in a few seconds with no loss.

I liked the sense of progression in seeing places packed with higher level mobs that you can't go to yet, and then levelling up and coming back and being able to venture into those areas. It also felt satisfying to being able to unlock the next Eureka zone to go to.

I liked that the second Eureka map had some slightly more engaging navigation required, with you having to walk by the sleeping dragons, and to slowly walk off steep cliffs onto the narrow ledges below to enter a cave to go forge you relic weapon or to fight the zone final boss.

Searching the Eureka zones for a sprite so you can stand in the AoE and get a buff was neat. Spruces up the grind.

You spend a lot of time in these zones and begin to recognize the same names in map chat. This is the most socialization I have ever seen in FF14.

Even after you have acquired the cosmetic items you want, you could still stick around in Eureka/Bozja and make some gil by farming for the 6th/7th magicite mats in Eureka or farming for hairstyles and the robot mount in Bozja and selling those on the auction house.

Having a glowing Eureka weapon felt prestigious, though glowing weapons are now a dime a dozen now. The devs would have to do something like the Mists of Pandaria legendary cloaks to make them feel special again.

The mutation system in Eureka where mobs can evolve into different elemental monsters with different abilities depending on the conditions was neat.

Critical Engagements are fun. There is a wall that prevents people from running far away from cheesing the fight by running away from the AoEs, and the wall prevents people from graveyard rushing the fight, meaning the people inside either have to dodge, raise dead people inside, or wipe and lose. Actually difficult world encounters. Only thing that feels dumb is that you can queue for the CE and teleport into it from anywhere on the map, which does tie into FF14's issues with teleporting which makes the world/geography feel vague.

The novelty of seeing someone get into a duel and watching them try the fight.

I liked how the IVth Imperial Legion was fleshed out, not just with mechas like every other legion, but also with sorcerers and beastmasters. A lot of the characters were cool like Gabranth's tall lieutenant in Dalriada who pilots the mech, and ofcourse Lyon and the beastmaster Lalafell girl. There was also a neat subplot through Bozja and Zadnor about Bozjan resistance fighters recognizing their fellow countrymen fighting for the Legion. Gabranth trying to create his own country was an interesting idea.

While Baldesion's Arsenal is happening, people outside in the open world can still help out by fighting a boss monster. This also opens up portals to BA so you can join the raid that is in progress if you wish.

Several Bozja NPCs had more lore than MSQ characters on an expansion poster...

The Bozja lore also fleshed out the FF14 setting, like the renowned beastmaster family in Ala Mhigo who let their griffons go when the invasion happened but then that one son betrayed them and defected to the empire and taught them his family secrets.



Neutral:

Magia board is a little pointless since everyone just dumps their points into whichever element is strong against the enemy they are fighting and one or two points into the defending element, but it looks nice. Also, the 6th and 7th magicites provided something to grind for so you could become more powerful, be it playing Eureka content or farming gil outside of Eureka and buying the mats off of the auction house.

Bunny FATEs in the last two Eureka zones where you follow the bunny to the treasure chest spruced up the grind, but not rewarding enough to do more than once or twice once you have toured the content.

Bozja music was cool but becomes grating to listen to for hours on end.

The war vibes of Bozja were cool, but it feels bad to spend so many hours fighting in Bozja or Zadnor only for the war situation to never progress. There is always Garleans everywhere and you never push the frontline forward like you do in a GW2 meta event like Dragon's Stand, nor is the map ever phased so that you permanently capture territory and it becomes peaceful like in WoW. In that regard, Eureka worked better as you just fought against random magic animals so there was no plot dissonance to think about.



Negatives:

The Bozja instances were too story heavy/scripted. Delubrum Reginae being an instance you have to be outside of Bozja to queue for and enter was the most egregious. The whole reason I am doing Eureka/Bozja in the first place is because I want to be out in a wide open world. That's why I am here and not in AFKing in town while I queue for the same scripted story trial or scripted linear corridor dungeons over and over again. Baldesion's Arsenal is also linear, but at least there is very little story going on there so it doesn't feel like I am reenacting the same climatic military operation over and over again. To be clear, I do like Castrum and Dalriada. They are good one off setpiece raids like in WoW, but like WoW I don't want to do the same scripted raid over and over. Instanced raiding where you run through the same scripted thing over and over should be its own content. At least with Castrum and Dalriada, you can still communicate with people on the outside, but DR is its own isolated instance entirely. I never got my ShB relic weapons past the Timeworn Artifact grind because it would require doing raiding.

The Bozja FATEs do not have voice acting like in WoW or GW2, so it is very easy to miss the storyline that is happening because your eyes are looking at your rotation at the bottom of your screen and sometimes looking at the AoEs in the middle, or the HP bars of your party members on the left side. You don't have time to be reading several lines of text at the top.

Discord premade groups trying to do BA or Castrum have difficulty trying to get into the same instance, and you spend a lot of time zoning in and out of the instance until eventually all parties are in the same instance. The raids aren't hard enough that you need discord, and I often see random people in Bozja/Zadnor who queue for Castrum/Dalriada and succeed, but for some reason I rarely see random people in Hydatos who attempt BA.

[Turtledeluxe]

Sorry but that content is essential for players like me to sub for more than two months. It's like housing, savage, crafting, you name it. If you don't like it don't do it. It's coming in 7.0.

[SieyaM]

I loved this content- and if you remember, it wasn't a requirement & you weren't forced into it.

If I am remembering correctly, to unlock relic steps and start gaining materials in other content you had to complete Bozja quests, which required you to reach certain ranks in the zone so yes you had to do it.