First impressions of Eureka (FFXI player)

[Callinon]

So I wanted to get this out there because there seems to be a lot of noise on this issue and a lot of misunderstanding from people who never played FFXI.

Eureka is FFXI in a bottle.

Yes, mob grinding is the name of the game here. The trick is to do it efficiently without exposing your party to too much risk because there's an actual penalty for death beyond the mild inconvenience you get in the rest of FFXIV. Hell in FFXI, your gear used to fall off if you de-leveled as a result of death. Were you carrying max level-1 gear on you to make up for that? Of course not.

I felt this aspect of FFXI was well captured. I acted as the puller for the parties I was in today and introduced XIV players to the concept of camping in one spot while someone else brought the mobs to them. This is an almost completely foreign concept in modern MMOs where the tank is expected to do this because of how aggro usually works. In Eureka, you want someone else to do it, tank's busy doing tank things. A good puller will always have the next mob(s) ready to go as the current one(s) die(s). If the party's pace is nice and steady and the puller knows what they're doing, this leads to a nearly seamless train of stuff for the party to be doing at all times. You can easily get on a roll here and go for hundreds of mobs before someone finally has to stop and breathe for a second.

FFXI aggro mechanics also seem to have been introduced. In addition to the normal sight/sound aggro already in FFXIV, I also noticed blood aggro is now a thing. Be careful about being at low hp around the undead. They like to eat that.

The grind...

So then we get in to why we're doing this in the first place. Those crystals. You need literally thousands of them. A full set of AF+2 including the weapon will cost 4300 protean crystals. A full set of dye-able AF costs 750 anemos crystals (which themselves are worth 2-5 protean crystals each). Is this a lot? Absolutely. Is this out of line for relic progress (which is what this is)? Absolutely not. This is right in line. I did a few runs at Eureka today, and I'm now level 5 and have about a hundred protean crystals. If I can keep up that pace I can finish the currently-visible part of the relic grind in about a month and a half. There's nothing unreasonable about that time frame. Would it have been better for it to start at the launch of 4.2 before we all had our sigmascape weapons? Yes. Yes it would. It didn't happen though.

Let's be real here. This grind is no different in scope or length than any old Atma grind. And it's wrapped up in some actual gameplay instead of mindlessly bashing out level 5 FATEs for days on end.

I've already used abilities in Eureka I NEVER use in the normal game. I was healing on AST for a while and deliberately held a Spire. Let me say that once again for the cheap seats... I held a Spire... on purpose. Because my WAR tank kept running out of TP.

I've also had some of the best party interactions I can remember in here. People are friendly and talkative now that there's something to talk about and now that they're going to spend the next couple hours with a group of people rather than a 30 minute dungeon they've all done a hundred times before never to see each other again. Problem solving, humor, actual like... speech. It's amazing. Please don't misunderstand here, I recognize the need for automatic matchmaking in dungeon content, but it definitely takes a toll on party interaction and communication.

So.. ramble ramble.. I'm enjoying Eureka overall. The grind is a grind for sure, but it's not an unreasonable or unenjoyable grind. FFXI is a marathon, not a sprint. Play the game the way it's meant to be played and you'll have a lot more fun with it.

[Chevronone]

If i wanted to play ffxi, id buy a time machine.

[Isala]

As an FFIII player, FFXIV Eureka holds up pretty well to FFIII Eureka. A place to literally grind for hours/days to make yourself as powerful as possible, with all sorts of gear to boot. That said... The sheer amount of salt I have at the fact that there is not a remixed version of the original soundtrack could sink the island back into the ocean.

[Lambdafish]

If i wanted to play ffxi, id buy a time machine.

Except they don't exist so you get Eureka instead. Or, if you don't want to play XI style content, go run another piece of content, there is dungeons for casual players, raids for mid-hardcore players, ultimate for very hardcore players etc. etc. etc. Not all content is right for all players, and to some players, this kind of content is what they wanted.

@Callinon - very nice summary of the positives of Eureka. Its not perfect and definately has room to grow and improve, but I'm enjoying it.

The sheer amount of salt I have at the fact that there is not a remixed version of the original soundtrack could sink the island back into the ocean.

Give it time, this is Eureka Anemos, there will be more in the future

[Callinon]

If i wanted to play ffxi, id buy a time machine.

I think it's good to get people out of their comfort zone sometimes. This is one aspect of FFXIV, not a fundamental change to the entire game. Take it for what it is.

[Kogasan]

This is what I've been wanting for a very long time now. I'm having fun with eureka only thing I will be sad about is when the leveling is over. Leveling to me is my end game. I've leveled so many characters in the course of my time playing ffxiv. That it drives my husband bonkers. He doesn't understand why I do it. So yes thank you Square-Enix and Yoshi for making Eureka and keep up the good job.

[Ayer2015]

If i wanted to play ffxi, id buy a time machine.

I mean, if you don't like Eureka, don't do it.... Others have been enjoying it despite all the complaining on the forums.

[St0rmchild]

If i wanted to play ffxi, id buy a time machine.

If you want to play FFXI, it's still running and charging a sub.

[Enyalios]

My only issue is the poor choice of item level. It’s not even comparable to i360 tome gear making it pointless until path 3.55

[ThysGuy]

I felt this aspect of FFXI was well captured. I acted as the puller for the parties I was in today and introduced XIV players to the concept of camping in one spot while someone else brought the mobs to them. This is an almost completely foreign concept in modern MMOs where the tank is expected to do this because of how aggro usually works.~~If the party's pace is nice and steady and the puller knows what they're doing~~FFXI aggro mechanics also seem to have been introduced. In addition to the normal sight/sound aggro already in FFXIV, I also noticed blood aggro is now a thing. Be careful about being at low hp around the undead. They like to eat that.

Yeah, where was all this VITAL INFORMATION explained? Was it in the notes? I could see this information being VERY USEFUL to a player who plays FFXIV, y'know, THE GAME IN WHICH THE CONTENT IS IN.