Southern Front Problems

[MicahZerrshia]

They are mostly "just Fates", that much is true. But in my opinion, Critical Engagements are Fates as they should have been from the beginning. Dynamic, challenging boss battles that require more than half a brain cell.

The problem with that is a good portion of the player base does not want to do things that take more than half a brain cell. That is why when they do come up with interesting fights, they get nerfed quickly and the fights also seem to becoming less and less complex.

But outside of that, they just really need to start thinking outside of this really small box they have put themselves in when it comes to systems like Eureka and Bozja. It doesn't necessarily need to be punishing and difficult, although I wouldn't scoff at a good challenge, but it needs to at least be interesting. Something that even years later you want to go back and do because it was different and fun and rewarding. Not just fates or even upscaled fates like crit engagements.

[Alleo]

In my opinion it was probably a mistake to let people get the relics outside of Bozja, it was definitely a mistake to make it the fastest method.

I much prefer doing Bozja to grinding HW fates, but the knowledge that I'm playing inefficiently inherently saps some of the fun out of the content. I'm not the best player in the game but I do at least try to avoid deliberately playing the game wrong, and that's what engaging with the relic content to get my relic feels like, playing the game wrong. In the time I can get one from Bozja, I could have got two or maybe even three from Heavensward instead.

I do agree that its a bit strange that they made the version outside of Bozja into the more efficient one...at the same time my biggest problem with it is more that its not as optional as they said it would be...Eureka was imo a problem because it was the only way to get the relic...I was so happy when I heard that its not the case for the Shadowbringer one but in the end that is only half the truth....you can do it another way..but if you do that with your first relic you wont be able to do the next step because somehow Bozja is still mandatory...which in turn is bad for anyone that wants to do the relic later...

Right now I can do the ARR and HW relic whenever I feel like it. No matter how many others want to do it or not I can progress. With the last one and this one this is not the case anymore... you need to hope that other people are there and willing to grind through it in separate content. (And castrum is the worst since there is imo no real reason to do that if you dont want the coins)

Honestly in my opinion they should just get away from making new content for the relic...why not simply have it be for old content? Why was it changed so much? All the work put into it and yet it might stop people from doing it further down the way...

[Vickii]

I don't get why it's HW area's also like... HW had its use of being a relic area with HW, why not stormblood since the only relic area was eureka idk I just find it odd that put them in HW again.

Yeah it seems odd. We got ishgard restoration this expansion and the gathering tools are done mostly in ishgard with the occasional going to SB content.

There’s the ‘populate HW areas for free trial’ theory , ‘say goodbye to HW once and for all’ theory and the ‘Ishgard is about to become super important again’ theory. But yeah they’ve put quite a bit of focus back on it for whatever reason.

[Derio]

The problem is that the relic is 10x faster to get outside of the instance. This promotes people only doing the southern front for the story and once you get lvl15 and have done castrum there really is no point in being in there unless you are grinding for the mount. But even the mounts are purchasable on the market board.

The grind for the relic outside should be longer or at least on par with what it is in Bozja.

They said the next step will be more of a grind that what this step was. But if it is once again easier to do outside of Bozja then we will have the same problem all over again.

[Deceptus]

I don't get why it's HW area's also like... HW had its use of being a relic area with HW, why not stormblood since the only relic area was eureka idk I just find it odd that put them in HW again.

This is an easy answer. The free trial.

Free trial goes up to lvl 60 now. The FFXIV Developers want that content to seem "alive", so the put the most efficient way to get the relic there.

HW open world content and lvl 60 dungeons, and the leveling dungeon for a daily bitter memory

The fact they did it without outright admitting it chafes me a bit. It's blatantly obvious.

[GeminiReed]

Honestly, if they released Bozja MUCH earlier in the expansion(like no later than 5.1 - which might even be considered too late by some), then I'm sure people would have used it to level classes. As is, there was likely a very large(myself included) portion of the player base who had all their classes at max by the time it came around.

I've heard a metric derived from public lodestone stats that only 24% of the player base has the Amaro achievement. I've "only" been playing for two years and I finished mine a couple weeks ago. I had high hopes for Bozja to help level 10 or so jobs. Unfortunately the XP rewards are stingy enough to make Bozja too grindy for my taste. I mostly dipped in at the tail end of levels if I could do it in 2-4 encounters. For the last 2-3 jobs I was sick enough of Bozja that I didn't even bother.

It's not fun on its own merits, it stinks for leveling, it stinks for grinding memories AND it's in a super inconvenient spot that requires an expensive teleport.

[ItMe]

lol Liam you posted this on page one and I've been meaning to ask you but kept getting distracted. Sorry.

Honestly, who cares. They're HW Fates, old content that can easily be soloed. Shouldn't the participation rate of un-soloable current expansion content tied to storyline and future instalments be more important?

Since they were intent on making Bozja only one way of obtaining the relic, and wanted to give players another means of doing so, what do you think a more appropriate alternative path would have been?

[Vickii]

This is an easy answer. The free trial.

Free trial goes up to lvl 60 now. The FFXIV Developers want that content to seem "alive", so the put the most efficient way to get the relic there.

HW open world content and lvl 60 dungeons, and the leveling dungeon for a daily bitter memory

The fact they did it without outright admitting it chafes me a bit. It's blatantly obvious.

They have the gathering and fishing mostly there for that relic too.. and people in Foundation for the crafting one.

I do think ‘ishgard restoration’ was more to do with how popular the characters and things were though.

[Deceptus]

The problem with that is a good portion of the player base does not want to do things that take more than half a brain cell. That is why when they do come up with interesting fights, they get nerfed quickly and the fights also seem to becoming less and less complex.

Incorrect. Ultimately, the playerbase wants to be rewarded for their time spent.

Eureka got this wrong in Pagos

Bozja has similar issues. People are refusing to run Castrum in Bozja because it's simply not worth the time invested. You can easily come out worse than when you went in.

It's like they learned something, and then said "Nah, F* it. Here are some terrible design decisions that we've done in the past. Let's re-use them!".

Since they were intent on making Bozja only one way of obtaining the relic, and wanted to give players another means of doing so, what do you think a more appropriate alternative path would have been?

There's a segment of the population who are getting tired of SE trying to revitalize old content by putting the relic or anything else in there (crafting is another)

Embrace the new content, design for it. Not the content that is now 4 years old.

[ItMe]

There's a segment of the population who are getting tired of SE trying to revitalize old content by putting the relic or anything else in there (crafting is another)

Embrace the new content, design for it. Not the content that is now 4 years old.

So... you would have wanted them to design new Fates for the Heavensward areas?
I'm not sure I'm following the alternative path you're proposing.