My Review of Pagos: An Uninspired Disappointment

[K1tt]

I agree. I work all day, work out have other commitments and when I ran anemos for maybe an hour each night I felt I was making progress. An hour in Pagos and I feel like im making none, its so incremental. Id always thought the relic grind was supposed to be casual friendly and appeal to a very broad section of the player base but this really doesnt. It feels like they've forgotten who this content is for. Im not one to cry for nerfs but in this instance they really do need to rebalance pagos. More exp, have mobs be soloable at the appropriate level, allow nm fates to spawn much faster/frequentl etc. I want to like pagos I really do but right now I just cant.

[MomomiMomi]

There should have been someone at some point saying "Are players going to like this?" and they should be taken seriously. That they aren't isn't a good sign.

More worrying perhaps is that they didn't seem even consider the physical trauma of playing this type of content efficiently even for the duration of a single lockout.

It makes one wonder if they playtested this at all.

[Shurrikhan]

I was thinking about it this morning and I think one of the biggest differences between this Stormblood relic compared to HW and ARR is that you cannot embark on this journey alone. You absolutely must party find, from level 1 to level 35 in Eureka and every one of those levels is the same exact thing.

ARR and HW, your quest was a little more personal, everyone could hit it at different speeds with a variety of quests to grind. It was more of a personal progress.

Does that makes sense? I'm tired.

Also I'm salty there is no blacklist in Pagos. Lord, the shout chat, pls.

Makes perfect sense. And I couldn't agree more.

Honestly, the best compromise between a sense of group progression and personal flexibility would have been a revised version of the anima books, with a bit of the sense of earlier (highly bonus-affected) light farming and Wonderous Tails.

It feels instead like they sunk a lot of development time into Eureka without paying attention to almost any of the fundamentals of entertaining design and want it to be played despite that, by making it essentially non-optional.

[Iscah]

Just wondering, as I haven’t made it to Pagos yet, but what about the weekly challenge log? Can that make it bearable if you get a few people together, grind those three lots of 60-monsters-of-element-X for the week, and then leave it until the next reset?

The more people in your party, the less time it takes (since you share credit for every monster), and in Anemos at least it’s worth a few levels of EXP.

Though of course you’re not getting any lockboxes that way. But perhaps it can get you high enough to tackle other things more easily later.

(Just have to add, I really like some of the costume pieces they’ve released with Pagos, and it’s a pity they may be nowhere near as accessible as the Anemos ones. I’ve wanted that ‘circlet’ feather pin for my bard for a while, and I would have liked some of the other gear for a new character I’m starting. Anemos stuff is within a new player’s budget, Pagos is super expensive and appearing at a trickle.)

[RiyahArp]

More worrying perhaps is that they didn't seem even consider the physical trauma of playing this type of content efficiently even for the duration of a single lockout.

They did, that's why chains reset at 30. it's to tell you to take five and give you a stopping point. Players don't generally do well with those kind of soft nudges though. But yeah, in general i dont know why they thought a high APM game needed fast paced pulling.

[CorbinDallas]

Just wondering, as I haven’t made it to Pagos yet, but what about the weekly challenge log? Can that make it bearable if you get a few people together, grind those three lots of 60-monsters-of-element-X for the week, and then leave it until the next reset?

The more people in your party, the less time it takes (since you share credit for every monster), and in Anemos at least it’s worth a few levels of EXP.

Though of course you’re not getting any lockboxes that way. But perhaps it can get you high enough to tackle other things more easily later.

(Just have to add, I really like some of the costume pieces they’ve released with Pagos, and it’s a pity they may be nowhere near as accessible as the Anemos ones. I’ve wanted that ‘circlet’ feather pin for my bard for a while, and I would have liked some of the other gear for a new character I’m starting. Anemos stuff is within a new player’s budget, Pagos is super expensive and appearing at a trickle.)

Considering the challenge log only got me 1 level, and there only being 4-6 weeks until 4.4, no, it isn't bearable.

[KageTokage]

The only new mechanic I like there are the monster transformations.

The happy bunnys are terribly designed in that you only have a chance to get one from finishing one of the associated FATEs, and the only unique rewards I'm aware of aside from the bunny doll are items that make you get more EXP from particular NMs...except it's extremely difficult to even get at the treasures if you're not level capped due to them frequently being placed in dangerous areas.

[CorbinDallas]

The only new mechanic I like there are the monster transformations.

The happy bunnys are terribly designed in that you only have a chance to get one from finishing one of the associated FATEs, and the only unique rewards I'm aware of aside from the bunny doll are items that make you get more EXP from particular NMs...except it's extremely difficult to even get at the treasures if you're not level capped due to them frequently being placed in dangerous areas.

The bunnies are ridiculous. Not everyone gets the carrot and the treasure isn't shared. It can quite easily go to Mr AFK over there who doesn't contribute.

[Rockette]

Can I just share something I think is kind of sad...not sure this opinion will be shared.

I'm a level 35 no life in pagos. When we were spawning NMs for the first time, we were either below level or jusssst at level and the majority of the instance well below. When these bosses hit like, 10%-15% they get a new wave of mechanics that are like a soft enrage almost. Behemoth starts spawning harder and harder roomwide meteor aoes. Lower levels just disintegrate next to you like you're Thanos. Holy Cow spawns mobs that were HARD. It was so stressful! We had one of our rdm run out into the hills just incase the entire instance wiped and he needed to start the chain rezzes. The crab boss got up on his back feet and had a move called "100 slaps" or something and literally bslaps the main tank repeatedly with both hands. It was actually absurd and hilarious and I laughed watching it.

Here's the part I think is sad - now that people are becoming higher in level, these nms are starting to melt so fast. No one else will ever see these mechanics. It's just another grind.

It was the challenge that made the NMs rewarding* and fun :<


*Rewarding as in, killing the boss is rewarding. Grinding mobs for 4 hours non stop is not rewarding.

[Pomelo]

I'm also annoyed that the music is the same one we've been listening to in Anemos for months. Its boring now.