So, how is Pyros?

[Cidel]

Held-off on giving much of any Pyros feedback until I "finished" the Pyros relic step and been in there long enough to see the zone for the timesink trap it is. I've seen some (very few) people claim Pyros is worse than Pagos and I scoff at that notion. I also don't consider Pyros any worse than Anemos; Anemos was literally delegated to only being a glorified lobby of waiting around for the next NM to spawn unless you were one of the few bored souls not afk'ing and actively killing mobs ad nauseam. Anyway, here's my opinion/review/take on Pyros, I'll probably repeat points brought-up in this thread:


1) So you guys only like NMs eh? Here, do them until you're sick of them!
Somewhere between Anemos and Pagos (probably Pagos) the devs finally accepted the fact that NMs are pretty much the only thing players bother doing (like there's much of any alternative) as most players drop everything to get to a newly-spawned one. Whether they're mind-numbingly grinding trash mobs in the same spot for over an hour hoping to get a bar or two of light or more than a handful of heat/cold boxes or just doing something else less-boring and leaving their character afk at the main aetheryte with the map open, NMs are the lifeblood of this content; and why wouldn't they? They're FATEs. We have been conditioned to love and accept their prized FATE-system. The more we do them the more successful they seem.
But now players are practically forced to chase them around constantly so long as you're interested in upgrading relics.

As mentioned, you need 650 NM-tokens oops, Pyros crystals to get your relic to a step where you can even start putting stats on it and get that weapon-smothering glow. Trouble is, the NMs literally drip-feed you these crystals per kill. It says something when the Pazuzu/Louhi-level NM of the zone only gives you like 20 crystals per kill (and she hardly spawns compared to most others). Good thing all the NMs spawn quickly and aren't tied to highly-specific windows that could be hours apart. Oh, wait.

It never felt like collecting the crystals in Anemos and Pagos were prohibitive to progressing with my relics (I'm fairly sure you needed less and got more from NM kills). In Pyros, I hit level cap and made nearly every NM kill that was spawned in the process, but I was still short like 100 crystals. So there I was at level cap, and unable to start suffering through the light-farming step because now the new Eureka crystals are the designated gate of progressing relics.

2) We made Bunnies in Pagos! STOP IGNORING OUR BUNNIES! Take this-!
Not interested in glamour/cards/prohibitively-RNG-based-eyes-for-a-icecream-cone hat/whatever was in those chests from the hot/cold treasure maps Pagos bunnies? Yeah, seemed like most of the Pagos zone wasn't either. That's why most of the zone ignored those "Elemental conflicts" and just waited for "real" NMs to pop.

But we would suffer for our crimes. Most players weren't bothering with this layer of RNG for Eureka, so the only logical solution would be to make players see the fun in zerg-rushing NM-lite mobs and hoping that RNG actually gives them a bunny. And that bunny would lead them to a not-bronze chest. And that not-bronze chest would contain something they actually needed. How do you make players want to do this fun and exciting facet of Eureka? Why, by locking the new mount, hair, glamour and yes, even the ability to obtain "endgame" (lol) gear behind it; basically almost everything not-relic-related that comes from Pyros. Now, way more people in the zone are doing bunny FATEs- The content is a success now and everybody loves it! *Insert pun about dangling a carrot*

3) Pace Yourselves. Land of the R-N-Gee!
I think a lot of us understand that content needs some elements of RNG to have some degree of longevity. But by golly, Pyros must have needed all the help it could get because they slathered RNG on pretty much everything. You want an updated relic with decent-to-great stats? RNG. You want a silver/gold chest for the new shinies from Pyros? RNG. You want a bunny in an active zone to actually have a chance at those silver/gold chests? RNG. You looking for the items needed to add an extra Magia Board slot? Cassie-earrings-level RNG. What will your logograms be appraised as? RNG. Does your monster mutate/adapt? RNG. Did that killed mob give you light? RNG. It sure would be a shame if most of the rewards from tolerating all this RNG didn't have comparable ilvls to tomestone gear or lacked longevity before something better comes along.

4) It is more interesting than Pagos/Anemos.
It's more interesting. Not more fun (though even that doesn't say much). In my opinion, Pyros is what Anemos should have been, or at the very least what Pagos should have been. And I don't mean the things like 650-slow-to-collect crystals for relic or grinding mobs because relic light is drip-fed to players; I mean logos actions, the bunnies, everything. While logos actions are largely irrelevant outside of unlocking permission to start on the relic and meh-gear, they do provided options for much needed survivability to most jobs and utilities like any-job raising and movement speed/DPS increases. They're free to add these slightly "game-breaking" traits and abilities here because everything here seems like one giant test-study and largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things since it's isolated content. It's enough to give a small sense of potential for Eureka, but not enough to "save it" from it's drawbacks. The devs said these logos actions will be more important in the next additions. I am uneasy.

5) Final thoughts/misc.
Okay, for the many drawbacks I could find in Pyros, the devs did take some very selective "helpful" feedback about Anemos and Pagos. For one, the bunny FATEs give exp now... Which is nice at first before they eventually turn into like a two-centimeter difference on your exp gauge and you realize actual NMs are still the best. Honestly, I'm surprised bunny FATEs don't give some light yet.

The aetherytes are obviously more accessible and available in Pyros than in Pagos, which is a big help. However the devs still feel like players need to hit level cap as a rite to passage to be able to not die to whatever aggros you and trivialize most of that by just outrunning it on a mount. As much as I know people complain about it, being able to avoid aggro in sections just by toggling-off run is also better than being stuck because a cluster of mobs won't all turn around.

tldr:
1) NM-chasing is now a requirement and forced to do in large amounts to progress relic.
2) We ignored Bunnies too much in Pagos. So they forced it to be relevant for most rewards besides relic in some form, which creates a problem of-
3) RNG. The overuse of RNG speaks volumes about how shallow this zone is.
4) The logos system adds "more to do" and makes it slightly more interesting than the previous 2 zones.
5) The map/aetherytes/Bunny rewards are a slight improvement.

Again, I think Pyros is an improvement, but the devs have once again taken steps backwards in other areas of this Eureka zone. Most notably RNG, which has become such a crutch to hold people within this content that it's not even an issue about people being done with the zone within a week, but whether or not they'll even be ready to move-on by the next patch/Eureka zone. Unless you absolutely must-have the hairstyle or the hairy orange yeti as a mount (and can't buy them off the MB), nothing in this zone is worth the RNG-imposed time-gates they imposed on them.