Observations From Someone Trying Eureka for the First Time in 2022

[Jeeqbit]

(1) The punishing leveling system
If you die enough times, you lose levels in Eureka. This is quite unacceptable to me, and is one of the biggest reasons why I may not ever go back. I understand there needs to be some punishment for dying, so yes, let me lose exp, reset the whole level bar back to 0 exp if you must, but there is no good reason why I should ever be able to drop to any level below the highest level I've reached.

Eureka is meant to pay homage to how MMOs like FF11 used to be, where they were extremely grindy, extremely punishing and had drop rates so low that you would probably never see things drop. They didn't want to make the entire game this way, but they are happy to make an isolated area that way for people who like how they used to be.

(2) Eureka penalizes you for working with others
Eureka is the only content I've done where I don't want help from others. When I was solo grinding levels, I noticed I earned less exp when other people joined me in fighting a mob.

This is usually to prevent higher level players from being able to speedlevel you. If you fight NMs in a party it's fine and that's what I did. PLD was best for fighting high level NMs as a low level because it's a tank and they can heal themselves and go invincible.

(3) You can't change jobs once you leave the base/home area
I struggle to think of a good reason why this is a thing.

This is a good point because it was changed in Bozja, the successor to Eureka. Eureka isn't anti co-op though, because people used to ask for a rez all day long and people would go out of their way to go to the home point, switch, then return to get them. Most people just played as a red mage or a healer anyway so they could rez eachother. It was nice. Before NMs were nerfed lots of times, it wasn't realistic to solo spawn most of them so that was co-op as well.

It's sad because I feel like Eureka has the potential to be so good if the devs would fix these issues. I know folks have been complaining about Eureka for years, but I want to believe that if enough of us (respectfully) raise our concerns, the devs will hear us and dedicate time/resources to fixing Eureka.

I love Eureka as it is because the struggle is fun, at least it was before the nerfs and buffs. I don't think the devs will do much with it because they usually don't touch old content. Look at the ARR dungeon rework which took them 9 years to start changing.

[Jettinson]

While I've gotten all of the other relic weapons for my main, NIN, I am unlikely to ever do Eureka—the content just doesn't appeal to me as a casual activity. The two big turn offs for me:

• There are no quests to track what you're meant to be doing. I dipped my toe into Eureka a while back, but since there's no questline tracking progress, I'm not sure what I was doing or what I should be doing if I tried it again.
• Looking ahead, needing to join a discord or use a tracker for rare mobs and such is just more effort than I'm interested in putting into this.

Getting all of the other relics in the game was fine—it was either a casual grind that I could slowly do whenever or current content (I joined during ShB). Eureka just doesn't seem to fit the mold of something I can do as chill, low-impact content when I don't feel like doing anything else.

I'm not suggesting that Eureka needs to change or anything like that—I'm just saying that I'm not likely to ever do it, which is fine.

The only reason i am mostly doing the Eureka relics is thanks to how much poetic i need for the HW ones... clearing all the NMs in a zone really helps even though I am stuck with thousand of lockboxes...

And Pagos, because one day I will get either the crab ring or cassie earring. ONE DAY

[Boblawblah]

sorry, I'll read the post now.

[worldofneil]

If you think it's bad now, you should have seen it when it was new... you couldn't even use a mount until you had finished all the story quests in the area (which meant you also had to be near the max level for that area).

The aetherytes all had higher (and different) levels associated with them so often even if you managed to get to one, you wouldn't initially be able to attune to it.

I lost track of the amount of time I spent trudging round Pagos on foot. It was not fun.

I'm not saying it's a walk in the park now, but compared to how it was... be glad they changed it at all!

[Jeeqbit]

If you think it's bad now, you should have seen it when it was new... you couldn't even use a mount until you had finished all the story quests in the area (which meant you also had to be near the max level for that area).

The aetherytes all had higher (and different) levels associated with them so often even if you managed to get to one, you wouldn't initially be able to attune to it.

I lost track of the amount of time I spent trudging round Pagos on foot. It was not fun.

I wish that hadn't changed, because I found it a lot of fun. It forced you to walk past sleeping dragons to get to NMs and you either became good at doing this or your character's body went on display for all the people walking past to see. I loved it.

[Atelier-Bagur]

You actually only lose exp if you don't get revived on time

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

I noped out of Eureka when it was current content. I just found the experience horrible. I refuse to touch it until it gets nerfed so hard into the ground that I can steamroll my way through it for glams. And if that never happens I'll just continue to pretend it doesn't exist. Same goes for Bozja.

[Espon]

Eureka was designed to be a lot like FF11, content that many people were requesting at the time, hence why it's so harsh.

I noped out of Eureka when it was current content. I just found the experience horrible. I refuse to touch it until it gets nerfed so hard into the ground that I can steamroll my way through it for glams. And if that never happens I'll just continue to pretend it doesn't exist. Same goes for Bozja.

Except it has been nerfed into the ground as it used to be much more difficult. Before it was nerfed, you were unable to use mounts until max level and there was no massive echo effect to boost your stats. Even fighting enemies that were the same level as you would likely get you killed without a party, and NMs could 1-shot you with almost any attack if you were not a tank.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Eureka was designed to be a lot like FF11, content that many people were requesting at the time, hence why it's so harsh.



Except it has been nerfed into the ground as it used to be much more difficult. Before it was nerfed, you were unable to use mounts until max level and there was no massive echo effect to boost your stats. Even fighting enemies that were the same level as you would likely get you killed without a party, and NMs could 1-shot you with almost any attack if you were not a tank.

I've stuck my toe in Eureka since those nerfs. They aren't enough to get me back in there. The mobs are all still massive hp sponges. I was able to solo single mobs in Eureka when it first launched without any risk of dying. It just took a year and a day. Then there's the whole separate leveling system. When I say "nerfed into the ground" I mean I wanna be able to go in there as a lvl 90 (or higher) and one or two shot packs of mobs with impunity. The experience in Eureka is distasteful. I don't want to be in there any longer than I have to be, and right now, how long I'd have to be in there is too long for me to be willing to subject myself to such an unpleasant experience.

No, I'd rather live without the glams and TT cards (which means I'll never be able to finish my TT collection or certain TT achievements since some cards/npcs are locked behind doing the bulk of Eureka/Bozja) than to spend my precious game time doing things I don't enjoy. As I said, if Eureka and Bozja never reach a point where I can just solo steamroll my way through them at a pace I find palatable, I'll just continue to pretend they don't exist. The aggravation just isn't worth it otherwise.

[Fawkes]

I read in an online article that Eureka was designed for vets of classic MMORPGs to feel a sense of nostalgia for "the good old days." It's an homage to "preserv[ing] the essence of first generation MMOs." I'm genuinely curious as to whether the devs have given any thought since Eureka's initial launch, whether this is still a good idea. Does the modern player want to play MMOs as they operated back in the "good old days?" Do these systems make good content for the average MMO player in 2022?

Nowadays Eureka exists for fans of old MMOs to be nostalgic about being nostalgic for those old MMOs. "It used to be better".

And no the devs probably don't remember Eureka exists or care if it's fun to do. I don't think you're meant to do it anymore, really. It wasn't designed to be long lasting content. It was just a stopgap timewaster for that expansion.