Eureka - from a FFXI point of view

[Connor]

As someone who fairly enjoyed XI but is very disappointed in Eureka, I think I can explain why some (or at least I) used the comparison and why it feels different.

Eureka is evidently based on an XI-style MMO where essentially you grind mobs to pop more mobs that might drop something you want.

In XI, you had more options on what role you want to take in the party (dps, healing, buffs, debuffs, tanking, a mix of any of the above) and a variety of options on what to do during the fighting. Try and hit the enemy’s elemental weaknesses, do skillchains (depending on which expansion you were in), Stun dangerous attacks, focus on crowd control, tank the mobs, use dps focused buffs (haste, Adloquium for tp regen, etc), utility buffs (Bard songs, Regens, resistance barrier spells, Refresh), debuffs to lower enemy damage and defenses, or for crowd control like paralyse or sleep.

When these abilities do exist in FFXIV, they’re on very long cooldowns that can’t be manipulated, and generally have a significantly lessened effect on the battle due to balancing.

In a game based on this style of content, you need to have a deep and engaging battle system that’s multifaceted enough that even grinding base mobs can become interesting and fun.

XIV doesn’t generally feature enemy debuffs that can turn the tide of battle, nor buffs that aren’t in a cooldown, nor crowd control spells that have an effect on the enemies for more than a few seconds. The battle system is largely supplemented by the fact that a majority (if not all) are oriented around dps-checks. Buffs, debuffs, crowd control can be easily done away with when every battle is a check of how much damage you can do in a limited period of time. Obviously it would be tedious if every normal overworld mob could one-shot you if you didn’t do enough damage in time, so it doesn’t apply to them. This means that the main driving force behind ffxiv’s battle system, beating the dps check, is absent. So when you’re grinding mobs in an area like this, without any mechanics to accompany the battle system, it ends up feeling dry.