Eureka... what were you expecting?

[Liam_Harper]

Something along the lines of WoW's Timeless Isle/Argus model, not a carbon copy but something similar. A large open world land that had something for everyone, a large range of rewards and different ways to play and enjoy it. Easy mobs, elite mobs, rare mobs, Fates, dailies, rep, minions, mounts, treasures, gathering, crafting, invasions, proper story chain, that sort of thing.

Eureka is basically the Fate train. That's it. That's all you do there.

How could they develop for 17 months, create a huge detailed island and only manage to come up with a single activity for it?

[Connor]

Literally anything that wasn’t diadem.
Look what we got!
On a more serious note I was expecting ‘fresh new content’ ‘unlike anything ffxiv has seen before’, not more FATEs

[Zumi]

Kind of expected what we got. There are a lot of people who like this content the zones are always full and tons of people of people by the kugane npc to enter too.

[Krotoan]

Kind of expected what we got. There are a lot of people who like this content the zones are always full and tons of people of people by the kugane npc to enter too.

Considering the option is do it NOW or be left behind to grind for days? I'm not surprised people are riding the initial wave. If people are willing to lowbie boost in a month or so my fears will be assuaged some but there is no feasible solo catchup possible right now.

[Chevronone]

I wasnt expecting expecting something full of reused assets and reskins.

But that's pretty much the theme of Stormblood...they even have to repurpose story elements from older games.

Their new motto must be the triple Rs: "Reuse. Reskin. Repurpose."

[Vhailor]

So much salt over Eureka... so many people disappointed over what we got so I'm curious as to what people were actually expecting... in detail... and simply saying "something close to what X game has" doesn't count unless you break it down for people who never played that referenced game.... and GO!

I was expecting content that was polished, and offered a fresh experience. In my mind, I got neither.

In regards to polish:

• The object culling system significantly impacts Eureka; clearly the development team never anticipated this (though they absolutely should have)
• Anemos crystals can only be traded in one at a time, an absolutely ridiculous oversight
• Crystals aren't registered as key items nor currency, clogging our inventory unnecessarily
• Creating Eureka as a Duty caused a number of nasty side effects, which SE made no effort to mitigate nor acknowledge; in particular: /tells are locked out, it's cumbersome to join a friend's party in progress (often not worth the effort), and we cannot idly spend time in Eureka whilst queuing for other content
• Numerous problems with reward incentives, such as Healers not having incentive to Raise others during NM fights, and parties getting their XP dinged if someone pokes a monster they claim and kill

In regards to a fresh experience:

• There's nothing in Eureka that fundamentally alters how we play our jobs; I was hoping for at least something resembling the Pomander system from Palace of the Dead (there's an FFXIV reference, for people like you who lazily insist on everyone connecting the dots for you rather than looking up a game system you're unfamiliar with)
• Combat is bland, with a heavy emphasis on zerging content in large groups; I was expecting content balance to be skewed toward something more unique (to FFXIV at least), ideally something that prioritizes teamwork. Again I'll reference PotD here, which prioritized teamwork by featuring non-linear levels that encouraged exploration in party sub-groups. Other examples of teamwork are featured in many 24-person Raid fights (positioning mechanics like Meteor impacts that need to be spread out, the Clouds in World of Darkness, etc.). Whether SE adapted ideas like this for 8-player groups or created new ones, didn't matter to me - but I wanted something besides parties that felt like collections of individuals, rather than a team
• Deeper mechanics, such as tiers of force-spawned NMs rather than just having normal monsters and NM zergs; maps offer an example of how this could work (killing normal monsters drop maps, which occasionally open portals to Aquapolis / Canals, which themselves build up to higher and higher tiers of items depending on how deep you go).

Finally, as others have mentioned, I expected the content to be more solo-friendly than it is. FFXIV has very few grinds that can be accomplished mostly-alone, and typically the Relic weapon quests offered the bulk of this. Unfortunately, Eureka is heavily skewed toward groups, because of the significant impact of Kill Chains and the nature of how participation is calculated for NMs. This leaves us in, again, the undesirable position of FFXIV having virtually no real solo grinds in 4.x. Had XIV not been designed around relatively friendly solo play, this would be understandable - but that isn't the case. The utter lack of warning on the part of the development team also exacerbated this.

There. That's what I was expecting. And by the way, just as an aside - comments like yours really come off as shameless and lazy white knighting. If you like the content, great. But there are plenty of specific complaints that people have been voicing since Eureka released. Don't agree with them? Awesome - either go enjoy Eureka, or come up with counter-points. Rather than arrogantly demanding that people frame their criticism around your own personal MMO experience, maybe try, I don't know, refuting some of the critiques? After all, if Eureka really doesn't deserve all the salt it's been getting, it really shouldn't be hard to show that the complaints are unwarranted. Go take your own advice.

[Destati]

Honestly?

Except that it wasn't supposed to be like Diadem, and something cool and exciting or whatever. I didn't really keep up with the news.
I didn't expect it to trigger my Yokai Watch Event PTSD though. /Shudder

[Keridwyn]

Honestly?

Except that it wasn't supposed to be like Diadem, and something cool and exciting or whatever. I didn't really keep up with the news.
I didn't expect it to trigger my Yokai Watch Event PTSD though. /Shudder

You too huh? At least I am not alone doing this grind, my fc thought I was crazy.

[hynaku]

Was expecting something that would be fun and not be so boring after a few minutes. Ones that don't get much time each day to play might as well never even step foot in it. Takes way to much time just to go up one level. 3 hours grinding and only 12 crystals. Total waste of 3 hours.

[Aster_E]

My expectations were split in two:

1) Higher: A hybrid of Jurassic Park and your run-of-the-mill amusement park, complete with a ticket counter of some sort, and gift exchange. A place where newer folk could come in and level a quarter of the way, solo, in little to no time, or find a group immediately and get to level 8 or 9 just as fast, if not faster. A fun time that still challenged us with mechanics, personal growth, and weapons and gear that at least all matched the current item level of (non-upgraded) tomestone gear, given the patch it was due and the trends in the past. Also, have two or three options inside the amusement park as to where to get the necessary item to get our i360 relics.

2) Low: Imagine what we actually got. Now make the entire area look bleak or hideous. AND THEN, make the weapon and gear development pull FFXI's crafting and have a chance at exploding in our faces, causing us to have to go back out and start from scratch on tokens. Finally, make every enemy outright boring with no mechanics, no cleave (unlike the majority of monsters in Anemos), and their melee attacks hit from further than any Bard or Black Mage can reach, because my PTSD from playing FFXI just wasn't bad enough without remembering that nonsense.