My Final Verdict on Eureka (spoilers obviously)

[Transient_Shadow]

So when Eureka was first announced I was eager to see what was in store. People were upset but I kept an open mind and tried it out for myself. I gave Eureka the good ole try. So now that I've 'completed' Eureka I'd like to give my score and explain why I feel that way.

1/10

Not really a surprise but I'd like to just say that I wanted to like Eureka. I really did. Krile was involved and so was Baldesion. I was super invested in the story. Only to receive a firm middle finger at the very end.

1. Why would you give us a choice (all be it an extremely lopsided one) and then lock the 'true ending' behind an ex raid that can only be accessed behind the weirdest content gate ever?! I thought we learned our lesson with coils. Don't put important stories in areas that is in general a pain to get to. at least coils can be done un-synced.

What's worse is I know that it'll be referenced in the future taunting me that I never got that insipid ending even though Yoshi specifically said that BA wouldn't be tied to the story.

2. The weapons and armor really aren't worth it. I mean yeah they're beautiful imo but again they're locked behind content that the majority of the player base hates. We were misled from the start and for the first half of the area the devs made it clear it was their way hell or high water. Ie. Pagos

3. The entire formula is just bad. Hydatos is exceptionally bad. Every time I ported in I'd see 90% of the instance idling at spawn then flooding chat with "inv plz!" the moment a Notorious Monster spawned from the hard work of either an individual or small group.

In conclusion I'd like to leave the devs with this feedback. From my experience of Eureka it's nothing more than a glorified Atma grind with random bits from 11 thrown in to try to hide horrible design behind nostalgia. Hiding relics behind another Eureka won't work a second time. People are wise to it now and won't bother with the content since

A. The story is Bad
B. The relics are arguably not BIS
C. The entire design is downright terrible

[Vahlnir]

I generally agree with most of your points except about the story. The story wasn't bad...but it was spaced out way too much, at least imo. That made it much less enjoyable.

[Transient_Shadow]

I generally agree with most of your points except about the story. The story wasn't bad...but it was spaced out way too much, at least imo. That made it much less enjoyable.

The actual ending is hidden behind the Arsenal :T

[cakesphere]

The actual ending is hidden behind the Arsenal :T

the arsenal is horrible. if you're courteous in it you get ****ed and people will snipe you. If you just hop in portals people will harass you or add you to blacklists in discord. You literally can't win. Eureka is awful.

[BillyKaplan]

The actual ending is hidden behind the Arsenal :T

Despite Yoshi clearly saying that people didn't need to worry about BA because it would not be crucial to Eureka's story... this is it. This is the single most irritating thing about Eureka for me to date. He sat up in open panel and either had no idea what his team made, or he outright lied. Amazing.

[Nariel]

I generally agree with most of your points except about the story. The story wasn't bad...but it was spaced out way too much, at least imo. That made it much less enjoyable.

Hummm dunno, find it pretty bad. I know FFXIV is like cliché-topia but... The not-a-traitor rude guy, the sacrifice to save the world part, the friendship between Krile and rude-ass rival... The worst being we are just useless in the end. They pin-pointed those stones, Krile could have get them herself, Krile could have defeat the bad guy because she too can't be soiled by primals and any third party could have ended the final argument... We didn't do anything relevant to really help.

I expected something great for something the game teased me for so long and in the end its... meh.

[Kazrah]

I stopped a couple levels into Pagos, so it's nice to know exactly how wasted my time would've been if I had kept going. Thanks!

[Nihility]

I feel like the devs made Baldesion Arsenal like... F2P style without the pay to win part

the proper gear for it involves 3 ultra rare drops from pagos
and boosting survival involves 6 ultra rare drops from pyros and hydratos
It requires using a lot of consumabels that are kind of irritating to farm for and if you want to do double actions it also involves failure chances and losing the mats
It's clearly designed for highly organized groups. Yet to get in as an organized group requires spamming the instance until everyone finally gets into same one then trying to keep it secret that they're going in because the pug philosophy atm is avoid it at all costs unless you know an org group is trying then snipe portals as fast as possible.
The actual bypass tool to get in as an organized group is horrendous to make and you need one for every single person
It requires the assistance of people on the outside who likely either feel spited for not getting in or are too low level to get in and can't really offer any useful help
when groups do it it drains a ton of the manpower out of hydratos making the outside fates and whatnot take way longer
The freaking ending to the story is locked behind it even

Or did they really expect whatever lump of random people with mismatched classes patched up with logograms to function as classes they're not to do it?


It's like they held a meeting to come up with all the worst ideas they could cram into one thing and yet people keep going to eureka because they want the weapon upgrade.

Just make it a separate thing, jellyfish drops an admission token. So you can queue in with as many people as you want and just do the stupid place. It's actually a pretty cool dungeon if you strip away the 100 layers of BS wrapped around it

[Beckett]

The freaking ending to the story is locked behind it even

They're just going for the full FFXI experience! I actually really enjoyed doing very challenging content, in both XI and Binding Coil, with the reward of excellent story. That said, the FFXIV team said they weren't going to tie story to difficult content anymore and it is, at best, a very odd choice to change that now.

Also, I got a taste of Eureka's story from dipping my toe in Anemos, and if those cutscenes were any indication, I'm sure I'd be immensely disappointed with the post-BA cutscenes as well. While I love doing challenging content to unlock great stories, I loathe doing challenging content to unlock crap stories.

[BlitzAceRush]

I struggled through Eureka to finish my first ever Relic, I'll also be getting two sets of the glowing armour and then never returning. I honestly hated it, I like the concept of it as in the "giant instance with stuff to do" the problem is they then took everything I feel was the worst things about 2000 era MMO's slammed it together.

Not being able to get anything done solo, meaning if you don't rush on the wave with everyone the experience becomes worse.
Everything is RNG, well not everything but so many aspects of Eureka are tied to RNG it make an already long progression feel horrid.
The grind, I'm not the biggest fan of grind, but the first two points compound this into a massive turn off, not being able to do anything by yourself combined with RNG progression makes you feel like you're often spinning your wheels.

I often feel like I'm going nowhere for sometimes days, then suddenly the thing I need drops and I don't feel good, just relived like it's over (insert Frodo gif here) I never get satisfaction just dread followed by hate then glad I can stop.

I like the idea of Eureka but little of its execution, it takes the worst of the things it's trying to emulate without the redeeming parts, I don't personally like 11's grind ages for low RNG drops but it works for some because the items last so long, I never saw the ear rings, belt or hat in Pagos, tried for them but they never dropped but even if I got them, they would only be relevant till the end of Eureka.

To conclude, would I mind seeing something like Eureka in 5.0? No.
Do I want it to try and emulate older MMO's like 11? No.
Would I like it to be more like how 14 currently works, with just a big area to explore and to tasks and challenges with others or myself? Akin to Guild Wars 2's zones? Yes.