Was Bozja truly the miracle everyone claims?

[Kirutsuki]

Since someone posted a topic about OC being somewhat disappointing to them I started to read the comments on that thread. And every now and then you see people boast Bozja as something SE should have taken examples of instead.

But instead of accepting that as true, I wanted to do a little trip with the magic of time machine and find posts ~the timeframe of Bozja's release. October 13th 2020. This is by no means accurate due to how forums work, but I took links to all posts that had "Bozja" in that timeframe.

And well, you be the judge;



This is pre-launch topic and general thoughts from people:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...s/427048-Bozja

Here's on launch day thoughts:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...wn-from-mettle

This is the ONLY positive post in the timeframe, which specifically mentions FATE's being well done:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...uare-for-Bozja

5-days after launch, which already shows some "negativity";
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ueue-for-Bozja

Relic specific thoughts seem concerning;
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...elic-questions

Timings of CE's and Castrum;
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...rks-is-painful.

It's a grind fest without enough XP (apparently);
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...zja-EXP-please

And all of these are thoughts within the first few weeks of release. And most likely the more active HOT topics are getting pushed to more recent posts which are harder to find.

And there's SO much more of it.

Here is actually a reddit thread talking about Bozja and mostly the bad parts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...he_bad_mostly/

While not all of the links are what I consider legit complaints, it is ultimately very clear to me that on release not even Bozja was received all that well.

So even if OC took notes of Bozja as a base from where to start from it would still be received poorly by the community enlarge. And the reasons are quite simple, people either look at this type of content with rose tinted glasses, or the content has actually BECOME good with patches they implemented much later.

So people's perspective on Bozja today is much different from what it was on release and when people ask for "more Bozja" they actually mean "More current Bozja".

What do you think, am I wrong in my assessment that all "new content" is always met with a lot of similar critique as the next one? I know people tend to say their own perspectives of the release of Bozja or Eureka, but those are quite subjective things. I myself never got the chance to see either Eureka or Bozja on release, but I'm always trying to look at things with a bit of scepticism, when I see the praise.

[Kirutsuki]

Something to make very clear here I do not want this discussion to be overly negative. I am certain there are people who absolutely loved Bozja even on release.
And no-one should be allowed to take that away from you no matter what.

I personally only want to look at what the truth of it really was and you are free to link posts that highlight Bozja in a more positive light if you can find them. I just did a very quick scan of the timeframe and posts.
I'm sure people who actually lived the era have replies in more active topics.

[HammAndCheese]

So this all might sound a little long winded but w/e, I don't have any positive links but I'll share my experiences and thoughts.

I feel like a lot of people look back on Bozja with some nostalgia glasses on. Don't get me wrong, Bozja in it's finished product is/was great but there were periods of time in it's life where you couldn't even get people to do CLL because there lacked an incentive to actually do it. Having the relic linked to it eventually gave people the extra incentive needed to run it more. I absolutely spent more time within Bozja compared to OC, BUT I was mainly leveling my jobs and working on multiple relic steps (something that can't be done with OC).

While you could absolutely queue into DR (and have it pop quick) pre-made groups were better/faster.

Zadnor felt a lot faster than Bozja and DAL suffered from the same problems CLL did for awhile.

Lootboxes suffered from similar problems that the chests do in OC (maybe not to such a high degree).

I enjoyed Bozja a lot but it absolutely had glaring issues within its "on content" life span. Personally I feel most people overlook most of the old flaws because they only focus on things they liked at the time but not the entire package (leveling, relics, loot, and the large scale fights). It absolutely had more replay value, even if people would only run certain things a couple times. The replayability wasn't linked to outside time scheduling (BA, DRS, FT:B). There was incentive to be in a party (even though no one seemed to care about that outside of CEs). It also had a much better development schedule, they were churning out content for it. (compared to the nothing sandwich we've gotten with OC since launch)

I also want to add a point that I love FT:B and I understand why people have a problem with it (its obnoxiously dumb entry system on launch, rez restrictions, how you have to relevel to do it, and how one person could wipe the whole raid. The devs expecting random players to pug that...nightmare) but I don't want devs to stop making hard content like that (it's my favorite type of content in the game), they just need to add a normal version like CLL and DAL, but that normal version needs incentives to keep players coming back.

[Veritas-Ancora]

Eureka took a while to be amazing, but once it got there, it was amazing.

#EurekaForever

[Deejudanne]

compared to Eureka bozja was kinda poop

[Jeeqbit]

Rather than read history, I can simply say, because I was there for both Eureka and Bozja.

When Eureka released, everyone in FCs, linkshells, seemed to be having the time of their life. They were talking as if they were having so, so much fun. But what they were actually saying was extremely negative. They were criticizing it constantly, saying how bad it was, nobody said anything positive about Eureka at all when it was current. But despite the universal negativity, the way they were talking was as if they were having the time of their life. The aura in the air was one of extreme fun, extreme excitement, enjoying eachother's company. Shout chat inside it was so much fun, due to the banter between NMs. People made friends in Eureka. And when I did it myself? I had the time of my life. So, I disagree with their complaints for the most part, and think Eureka mostly nailed everything.

The forums, too, universally trashed Eureka. For a very long time after Eureka's release, I was almost the only one praising it on this entire forum. I'd say it and not get a single upvote. But the tide started to shift over time, as people went back to do Eureka, new players joined the game and did Eureka in its current nerfed form, and Endwalker had no Field Operation. People began to miss Eureka, and Stormblood. The saying goes, you don't know what you've got until it's gone.

Bozja was actually almost universally applauded, because it solved all of the complaints people had with Eureka, one of which was the long wait times for NMs that extremely casual players could not handle. That wait time meant a person with 2 hours to play per day could barely get an NM or two per day. The constant FATE loop into occasional CEs solved a lot for them.

The primary (and common) complaints with Bozja were just "done in a day" (by which they meant the story/ranking, not the grinds). And the other complaint was the opposite - the mount grind - which took some people months due to RNG on the field note drops. But so many other things were great. The CEs were so much fun, leaving bodies everywhere. The raids were tons of fun. CLL was an example of how midcore content can work. Dalriada left bodies everywhere on the last boss normally. DR devastated alliances, especially with the hot and cold mechanic. And the Savage version seemed satisfying.

However, these complaints about Bozja were really nothing compared to the amount Eureka got. "Done in a day" is barely a complaint since it ignores the grinds and can be used for most other content in the game as well if you ignore their grinds. Make no mistake though, I think Eureka was better in many aspects; just most people did not agree with me on Eureka being better at many things.

So now if we move over to Occult, it has plenty of grinds and they take quite a long time really. I mean, leveling all the Phantom jobs, getting everything with the currencies, getting Demiatma, getting certain loot and doing the raid. So I don't think it is "done in a day", unless you only care about the story and knowledge level.

The problems with Occult, in my opinion, are the enemies are not really threatening and rarely even aggro you the way they did in Eureka, despite being right next to them. Granted, I'm practiced at navigating around them from Eureka, but it's like I don't even have to try very hard in Occult. The other problem is that while there was a big FATE loop in Bozja, you could at least choose to wait for CEs instead the way that you would wait for NMs in Eureka, so that you could focus on other activities instead between CEs (quests, Fragment farming, sorting actions and inventory, exploration, treasure hunting, etc). In Occult, you have to mentally filter out both FATEs and CEs to be able to do anything else at all and that's hard to do until you've leveled everything and got all rewards. But well, if SE doesn't do this, the players with only 2 hours to play will complain.

The other problem with Occult is of course mechanical creativity, in how they could have come up with brand new game mechanics entirely or used existing ones in creative ways - underwater exploration, underwater combat, making use of robot vehicles, what about Phantom jobs interacting with the environment in various ways? There are no developers thinking of that at all.

[Bonoki]

Honestly, all the field operations were bad. Each for different reasons. Some obviously better than others but none were remotely close to perfect. It's all rose tinted glasses. Two expansions form now, you'll have people reflecting back on how OC was actually the best one and the circle of life will continue.

[Azurarok]

I think Eureka hits classic MMO notes a lot better than Bozja by miles, and people expecting that really made Bozja feel like a total downgrade. Going anywhere on the map at your own risk, encouraging teaming up with whoever to do the heavy grinds, and rewarding taking risks. Bozja gated exploration by level and was a lot more linear in comparison and was also a lot more open to solo play.

What Bozja did better imo were the fates, CEs, 1v1s, CLL/Dalriada, and lost actions. I also really appreciated the mini arcs through those between the imperial and liberation armies, sometimes including characters from job quests and so on, along with the notes to collect to get more info on them.

In short Eureka I think delivered a better MMO experience while Bozja had a lot more going on with its writing (which South Horn's kinda failed at both?).

Also iirc there was supposed to be a third map for Bozja that was scrapped along with the rest of that story, which means we never really got the complete package for it. Been wondering if that was also due to them tossing the Garlemald expansion for EW.

[Daralii]

I think Eureka hits classic MMO notes a lot better than Bozja by miles, and people expecting that really made Bozja feel like a total downgrade. Going anywhere on the map at your own risk, encouraging teaming up with whoever to do the heavy grinds, and rewarding taking risks. Bozja gated exploration by level and was a lot more linear in comparison and was also a lot more open to solo play.

What Bozja did better imo were the fates, CEs, 1v1s, CLL/Dalriada, and lost actions. I also really appreciated the mini arcs through those between the imperial and liberation armies, sometimes including characters from job quests and so on, along with the notes to collect to get more info on them.

In short Eureka I think delivered a better MMO experience while Bozja had a lot more going on with its writing (which South Horn's kinda failed at both?).

Also iirc there was supposed to be a third map for Bozja that was scrapped along with the rest of that story, which means we never really got the complete package for it. Been wondering if that was also due to them tossing the Garlemald expansion for EW.

The IVth had effectively gone rogue even before the Empire fully collapsed, so they probably weren't going to be part of that story. The third zone was scrapped for the standard covid reasons, and its story was put in the field notes that gave Gabranth a very abrupt end. Yoshida and Matsuno said more recently that it was going to be continued in some capacity, but time will tell.

[Voidmage]

I'll be honest, I don't understand the point of this thread.

No one in their right mind would claim that Bozja was perfect but that it was a good foundation to build on.
Feedback is a product of it's time and back then Bozja was different from Eureka. Some liked it more and some less, nothing really to do with rose tinted glasses and such.
It had things that were good and things that were bad, things people disliked at first and liked later and the other way around.
Important, like always, that it's different people who complain and who like things.

The initial reception is also kinda unimportant imo because at the end of the day OC, outside it's fun fights is a downgrade in freedom of skills, story (it barely has one at this point), a raid for everyone, leveling of jobs and more.
Bozja being received neutral to negative at first doesn't make OC better, the problem is that the devs had two entire field operations to learn from mistakes and they squandered it.
OC will also be judged in its entirety at the end of the day and if North Horn is somehow miraculously better then people will say so and if not then it won't automatically be seen as good unless the next exploration zone is even worse
People don't just automatically say that past things were better (just look at Eureka Orthos, original Diadem or the EW relics).

In the end the big picture is important if you ask me.
Yes, Eureka, Bozja and the relic weapons had their criticism, some deserved and some not but now we have seen just how much worse it can actually be so people rightfully point to things like Bozja and say that it was better.