Eureka - from a FFXI point of view

[MirielleLavandre]

Having tried Eureka, I think that the majority of the reason people dislike it is due to a difference in playstyle and expectations. Mix this with what is, arguably to some, playing the content in the wrong way [zerging everything instead of forming a 4-8 person party, finding an empty camp with elementally appropriate mobs that are 6 levels above everyone's level and chain pulling them], and you'll have discontent with the extremely low xp per mob (because of zerg rushing the 'Easy Prey' mobs) and/or killing mobs not 'red' to you.

This zone really is much like FFXI - I played that game through Abyssea (stopped when cap was 90 with a WHM and NIN with mostly full AF3 and all the relevant atma). People need to approach it with a mindset of building a party, finding a camp, searching for appropriate elemental and level mobs, and grinding away while chaining.

This will be boring to many people, however, who have grown used to the way FF14 is structured and how questing/leveling/acquiring items has been thus far. It is a 'step back', in a sense, and people who have never played FFXI or a game like it [grinding the same mobs over and over just for minimal xp gain] will hate it.

I remember it taking as much xp to get from level 67 to level 75 in FFXI being about the same as it took to get from 1-67 // getting a level there often took a very long time, sometimes weeks depending on deaths, de-levels, and how often you could play and/or get a party (looking at you, dps :P ).

Eureka was just released, and it seems to cater to a play style that is foreign to many FF14 players, and is also one of the reasons some FFXI players left that game. However, I think if people can adjust their expectations, maybe adjust their methodology [mentioned above], and maybe have patience, it may not be so bad. No one is level 20 yet, and the 4.25 patch notes even say the best rewards/etc. come after level 20.

I don't think anyone is doing Eureka to increase their ilvl or for actual, usable gear. I think perhaps the main motivator is the relic glamour // in which case, the ilvl of the gear and the fact it will be (or is, in many cases) outdated shouldn't affect the grind, since the grind is for glamour and/or 'prestige' of having it once it can be completed. Just a few thoughts from a long time FFXI player who finds Eureka a fun experience if I approach it much as I did when making parties in the Dunes, Garlaige, Crawler's Nest, Cape Terrigan, etc..

[LastFireAce]

Interesting because other FFXI player seem to hate it as much as every other XIV player. Soooo.

[Jijifli]

If I wanted to play FFXI, I'd play FFXI. It's still on the market and easy to obtain and play legally.

But locking what is the potential relic behind it probably wasn't a smart idea, specially when it both kept getting delayed, and ate out of other developments.

[Naberrie]

As someone who played FFXI for seven years, Eureka immediately felt familiar and comfortable to me (and for those saying if they wanted to play XI they'd play XI, I would love to play XI again if it was available on a platform I have, so I'll take the next best thing). I call it Valkrum Qufim Jungle.

[Vidu]

...correct me if I understood you wrong, but you're saying that people left FFXI over this type of content already?

So... why did anyone think it was a good idea to put it into FFXIV?

Honestly: You're talking about people doing it "the wrong way" with the right way obviously being: Standing in one spot, killing/farming mobs over and over and over again - that might the most effienct way to do this content, but ask yourself: Is that fun?
To me it isnt. And not because I mind a grind - I did ARR and HW relics when they were current content, several of each, actually. So please understand that my issue isnt that I need to grind for rewards.
My issue is that this grind is probably the most boring one they could have thought off. And I dont care if the rewards increase at level 20 - a bigger carrot doesnt make hitting a mob more fun.
When the content itself isnt fun in and by itself, the rewards dont matter.
Its not about patience. Its about spending time with gameplay thats enjoyable. To say something positive about Eureka: I actually liked that little quest that made you find a certain spot, sneaking by enemies to discover it. I also like the exploring part. But the major part is stupid enough Diadem 3.0 - a content, that people stated wasnt fun two times already.
And no, its not more fun killing mobs in a group of 8 than solo. Its only faster. The mobs arent intresting.
They're good at developing intresting and more or less fun fights as trials or raids. They cant do that with those Eureka-mobs. Killings little rats all over again is just not fun. And it wont be fun at level 20 either.

The game shouldnt take a step back but rather a few forward. This is a step back in any way and form.
I just dont understand how no one said during they development phase "Wait... this IS like the content that already flopped two times... lets stop!"

The main problem with the content isnt that its a grind. Its that the grind is the most boring one possible.
The problem isnt the grind - the problem is that its not fun killing little rats, dealing about 10% of the damage I should deal all over again.

[KaplanHomahru]

But answer me this: If you're going to take some content from FFXI and put it into FFXIV, why WHY would you take the most boring thing (exp / merit parties)? Why not something engaging? Any of the end game type fights? Instead of just literally pull a mob, kill and repeat until you see a FATE?

I'm all for adding the fun stuff from XI but this.. They've tried to make it work 3 times now. and its still just as boring as it was in xi.

[Rokke]

I did not know it was possible to make something more mind numbing than diadem. I never played XI but if this "feels" like XI, I'm glad I didn't. Im bored to tears.

[Lambdafish]

I never got to play XI when it was relevant and I always wanted to. You are exactly right about the mentality of the content, I hated the first 30mins of the content, I was on the beach fighting the crabs thinking "is this it?", Then I decided to challenge the content, go out of my way to work it out. I found a party, we went north and found the most challenging enemies we could. It was exciting finding the buff NPC up north and it made me wonder what else the island had in store. XIV doesn't have emergent gameplay, and the way eureka keeps you in the dark about lots of its content makes it compelling to me and makes me want to grind to discover what else is on the island

[niwaar]

Having tried Eureka, I think that the majority of the reason people dislike it is due to a difference in playstyle and expectations.

Yes they do dislike it for those reasons, and more.As a former XI player myself (and I assume a lot of people still playing XIV are as well), they have tried to implement this type of content before. With Diadem they had to close it down and rethink it and tweak it. They failed to do so then, and they spent 18+ months (this time cutting back seriously on content for patches 4.0 through 4.2 in order to implement a prettier and only slightly better version of diadem with arguably a worse reward structure. We played "Merit Party: The Game" we expect more out of a modern MMO. There are many parts of FFXI the community would have loved to see Eureka have been modeled after, the "Merit Party" grind was not one of them.

We would have taken:
New Dynamis (hell a lot of us would have rather seen original dynamis over what we got) - With its open area design, timed inclusion but goal orientated structure + higher drop rates. (Arguably we got a hyper grinding version of this, but XI's implementation is still better on its face.)

Abyssea - Sure you could do the alliance merit party grind we see in Eureka in Abyssea. But the core of Abyssea was based on repeatable and non repeatable quests. NM spawns, forced spawns, and the typical XI Hierarchical HNM Spawnings with the added "fun" of obtaining atma from various sources.

Assault/Nyzul - A series of time gated missions we could choose and party up to complete giving various rewards/currency and character ranks that both rewarded progress in the world but gave better vendor rewards.

When we were told about Relics being obtained through a zone instead of Materia, Light, Fate and Duty grinding. We all had the worry that it would be more Fate grinding and then were told it would be different. That they didnt want us doing the same thing over and over again in old content to obtain our weapons. What we were just given took away the gil grind. It took away the duty grind (which had a real purpose and WILL effect the game as the expansion continues to get older over the next 14-16 months it has left. What we got was Mob Grinding and more Fate grinding. All wrapped up in a shell that gates players and requires an old school party creating/joining set up that this community never has had to use. The lack of a duty finder option (and correct me if I'm wrong, lack of cross world party finder accessibility) is the last straw to the stupidty of the content itself.

[Zumi]

If you played FFXI this is very much like Abyssea where you had groups of the same family of monster and you had a camp with a bunch of those monsters and you killed them for exp.