Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.5 (Part 2)

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Pagos and Pyros are almost copy pastes of one another in terms of scenery, aside from Pyros's copy pasted Lava caves. Not a lot of thought went into the zone design after Anemos, best exhibited by Pyros/Pagos similiarity, but also by Hydatos being a large rectangle of mud with an interesting skybox and more unique weather relating to Baldesion's Arsenal. Baldesion Arsenal along with Lost Actions are really the only interesting and new, planned out content in Eureka. The rest of it is like an homage to FFXI while actually being nothing like FFXI, as glorified Fate farming with extra steps and different loot.

Basically it's like getting half of an overworld zone with faintest sniff of a story. More thought goes into dungeons, as well as more art and work. As all of the fate bosses in Eureka are reused, pared down raid/dungeon bosses we've previously seen with new coats of paint that don't even use the full skillset.

You're really going to complain about how similar looking Pagos and Pyros are but not about the fact that HW had five HM dungeons (six if you count Fractal as an Aetherochemical reskin) compared to SB's two? You could at least try to make even comparisons.

Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

You're really going to complain about how similar looking Pagos and Pyros are but not about the fact that HW had five HM dungeons (six if you count Fractal as an Aetherochemical reskin) compared to SB's two? You could at least try to make even comparisons.

Plus Sohm Al followed by the Aery. Floating mountain with a volcanic middle bit full of dragons. They blur together.

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Meh. At least those HM dungeons had associated sidequests and story, with new bosses aplenty, top to bottom, side to side. New trash monsters completely in some of them, too.

The only point of the comparison is that rather than all be snowy mountains like in Pagos, they changed their paste tool to lava caves for half of Pyros. The Eureka zone design was lazy (though I enjoyed it). HM dungeons seem like that, but they incorporated new things in them, usually. There's also usually a drastic aesthetic change that makes it feel like a new place, with the alternate path.

ARR had 9 HM dungeons, and I won't complain about those, either. Some of the most memorable content in the game comes from HM dungeons, and they've used said content to leap frog into other stories and side quests too.

There is also one comparison in which SB was a letdown, and it's about the zones.

6 new zones... but in practice it feels like 4, because all of the Gyr Abanian zones look exactly the same.

Ideally, if that's the case, Gyr Abania could be easily just the Fringes and the Lochs, and having an extra zone in the Far East.