Out of touch? PLL

[bp_isa_ff]

x.1s rarely have low-end content, right? Unreal trials and (maybe) Chaotic alliance raids serve as introductory high-end content. Even non-raiders gave Criterion a shot, I anticipate they'll give Chaotic a shot too, and if it's balanced well then those players will stay. If not, unsub until Shade's Triangle.

[Supersnow845]

It's heavily worth noting that Bozja/Zadnor was directly tied to the relic weapons in that expansion, so just looking at % of people that "did" something may give you an inaccurate view of how many people liked or enjoyed doing it. Take me for example - I'd be one of the people who made it to Zadnor but never got Rank 25. Personally, I found it a slog, and only did it because it was the most efficient way at various points to progress the relic. It was such a slog to me that I actually did the final step of the relic weapon the really long way just to avoid having to do more of Zadnor. And while I've liked the approaches earlier expansions used of using the relic weapons to promote older content, I didn't particularly object to the tomestone approach, either, and found them both of them preferable to funneling me bigtime into the exploratory zone.

You didn't need Eureka to do the relic weapon from its expansion, and notice how less than 20% of the playerbase actually took that all the way to max Elemental Level. I'd put a major caution sign up before thinking people "doing" Bozja/Zadnor meant that they actually enjoyed it.

If Bozja would have failed without the relic and it was the relic that kept the content alive then why was their such a small drop off in players between arriving in Zadnor and reaching resistance rank 25

The requirements for the relic end at delubrum, after that the relic has no relation to Bozja. If you were only in Bozja for the relic you’d drop immediately after delubrum, but the stats say that 90% of people who completed delubrum reached resistance rank 25

I just hate how you're punished for dying. The xp is terrible. And the majority of the time, the zones are dead. If I could casually go in fail, die solo FATEs, etc. I would like it more. Unfortunately, I have to worry about my instance being full and other players being in the zone of Zadnor that I am in. It's terrible. Think of the idea of making an exploratory zone that punishes you for exploration. It's moronic. I get it's to emulate 11, but 11 was terrible. It's such archaic garbage. And if I never finish it, then so be it.

The punishment for dying is so negligible that it’s meaningless and if the zone is dead then it scales just to you which means you can solo the fates and solo them damn easy with the correct essences. I used to hope my instance would lock and everyone leaves so that I could solo everything, if it was busy I’d follow the crowd because that was always the best experience per hour

A lot of the Bozja complaints I’ve seen seem to not understand how powerful the essence system is

[Tint]

It's heavily worth noting that Bozja/Zadnor was directly tied to the relic weapons in that expansion, so just looking at % of people that "did" something may give you an inaccurate view of how many people liked or enjoyed doing it. Take me for example - I'd be one of the people who made it to Zadnor but never got Rank 25. Personally, I found it a slog, and only did it because it was the most efficient way at various points to progress the relic. It was such a slog to me that I actually did the final step of the relic weapon the really long way just to avoid having to do more of Zadnor. And while I've liked the approaches earlier expansions used of using the relic weapons to promote older content, I didn't particularly object to the tomestone approach, either, and found them both of them preferable to funneling me bigtime into the exploratory zone.

If relic grind enjoyers would go such lenghts to argue for savage raid removal, how would people react? I mean savage raid is clearly less popular than Eureka / Bozja was. And I would argue most people also only do it for the rewards, so they clearly don't enjoy savage raiding. I mean Criterion had no proper rewards - how popular was it? Getting the savage raid weapons for 1500 tomestones would be so much more enjoyable for the majority of people than actually forcing themself through the content as well.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]People don't understand the Essence System, so I won't tell you what combination gives you the ability to solo stuff. Proving my damn point without much effort[...]

Counterpoint: the joy of finding your own combination of essence/LAs isn't a novelty. That's the reason why I rarely outright tell people what to use. I want people to discover in their own pace AND seek out outside knowledge if they want to or feel the need to. It's the same reason I will never spoil or explain mechanics until somebody asks.

It also protects my sanity from "you don't pay my sub"-mentality for offering 'unsolicited advices' lol.

[Ardeth]

Counterpoint: the joy of finding your own combination of essence/LAs isn't a novelty. That's the reason why I rarely outright tell people what to use. I want people to discover in their own pace AND seek out outside knowledge if they want to or feel the need to. It's the same reason I will never spoil or explain mechanics until somebody asks.

It also protects my sanity from "you don't pay my sub"-mentality for offering 'unsolicited advices' lol.

Again, thanks for the not help. Still just as lost.

Gonna block you, because obvious reasons.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Again, thanks for the not help. Still just as lost.

Gonna block you, because obvious reasons.

Wow uhh lmao.

Was I supposed to hit you up with the full comprehensive guide (not to mention the inappropriate thread!) instead of explaining my perspective on the matter, then? I don’t even know what you wanted.

I'm sorry that you've experienced such distress from the content that you feel the need to just avoid it like a plague, but at the same time you expected to not get a pushback after you come in here trash piling a content that another might love? Tough ask, mate :/

Either way, have a nice day I guess lol.

[Supersnow845]

It’s not condescending to tell people to use the system that’s there and that’s designed around compensating for solo play in a group situation

If you are on healer use aetherweaver as you can already sustain yourself, if you are struggling with incoming damage then use platebearer to psuedotank

If you are on tank you are already probably set with your sustain but if you aren’t feeling confident you can use bloodsucker for the extra sustain, if your inbuilt sustain is enough use maritalist

For DPS use bloodsucker

That’s an absolute barebones approach to sustaining solo fates, reraise is a good safety net, a lot of fates can be reflected and there is many combos you can built off of that

All the info on essences is out there and people will help you if you ask

[Erzaa]

Per Lucky Bancho's census data:

• Completion of Normal Abyssos across Level90 characters is 44.69%
• Acquisition of the Island Mandragora Mount across Level90 characters is 21.69% (16.04% of total active)
• Percentage of Level70+ characters that went at least to Eureka Pagos is 34.55% (30.38% of total active)
• Percentage of Level70+ characters that reached Elemental Level 60 is 18.93% (16.65% of total active)
• Percentage of Level80+ characters that went at least to Zadnor is 47.14% (38.67% of total active)
• Percentage of Level80+ characters that reached Resistance Rank 25 is 34.80% (28.55% of total active)
• Percentage of active character that completed the MSQ is 69.35%

So this "largely unpopular content" saw nearly 50% of the entire playerbase reach at least Zadnor. For comparison sake, the only other singular piece of content with that level of engagement is the MSQ. The supposedly unequally unpopular Eureka saw nearly 20% make it all the way to level 60, which is only obtainable by both unlocking and participating in the last zone.

Now Eureka did see a noticeable drop in participation primarily due to Pagos being widely disliked due to changes nobody really asked for. Despite those changes, nearly as many people continued to grind Eureka over Island Sanctuary. Which kind of highlights how big a flop that content was.

So... yes, by the metrics we have, they dropped what was the most popular content in Endwalker given 47% of the playerbase made it to the second zone. However, I don't ever recall Yoshida being surprised or even commenting on Bozja outside the usual. So where exactly are you getting this idea he was surprised by the supposed sudden turn around in opinion on exploratory zones?

Why are you using acquisition of the Mandragora Mounts, which are either purchasable with cowries, or the Adenium which takes like over 6 months to get (not to mention how hideous those mounts are that many players may not even want them?), as a measure of Island Sanctuary participation, but only using Elemental Level 60 as a measure of Eureka participation?

What percentage of players have the Ozma mount and Elemental Gear +2 and continued to grind BA after reaching Elemental Level 60 and completing the Eureka storyline?

What percentage of players have completed a max rank of Island Sanctuary and possibly bought the actual popular mounts?

[Supersnow845]

Why are you using acquisition of the Mandragora Mounts, which are either purchasable with cowries, or the Adenium which takes like over 6 months to get (not to mention how hideous those mounts are that many players may not even want them?), as a measure of Island Sanctuary participation, but only using Elemental Level 60 as a measure of Eureka participation?

What percentage of players have the Ozma mount and Elemental Gear +2 and continued to grind BA after reaching Elemental Level 60 and completing the Eureka storyline?

What percentage of players have completed a max rank of Island Sanctuary and possibly bought the actual popular mounts?

It’s because while elemental level 60 is public information IS rank 20 is not

Is there a portion of the population who is at 20 who don’t have either of these two mounts………yes. Is it likely anywhere near big enough to make up for the almost double participation rate that Bozja has, extremely likely not

[Erzaa]

It’s because while elemental level 60 is public information IS rank 20 is not

Is there a portion of the population who is at 20 who don’t have either of these two mounts………yes. Is it likely anywhere near big enough to make up for the almost double participation rate that Bozja has, extremely likely not

I'm arguing about someone using statistics as a bad faith argument to create a gotcha moment to win their argument. It's comparing apples to oranges.

If we're going to use Eureka Elemental Level 60 as a measure of Eureka's popularity, then it's only fair to compare it to Island Sactuary's Maximum Rank percentage.

If we're going to use the Island Adenium Mount as a measure of Island Sanctuary continued grinding past the story content, then it's only fair to compare it to the Ozma acquisition percentage, or maybe the Elemental +2 gear. Like for like.

Especially since reaching Island Rank 20 still doesn't give enough cowries to purchase every mount, minion, glam and portrait. A player would have to continue playing Island Sanctuary for some time to acquire every reward, and for many players reaching their maximum rank and acquiring the things they like, is just good enough.

To claim that Eureka, and to an extent Bozja, participation wasn't at least somewhat boosted by them being linked to relic weapons is completely disingenuous, especially when complaints about how grindy they are, is very common.

I will concede, Bozja is slightly more fun due to CEs than Eureka, but the one off relic grinds for the first relic were still miserable to do, and chores aren't fun, that doesn't mean we won't suffer through them.