Petition: Add Eureka Level Sync

[Emitans]

Brought some new friends into Eureka and the gameplay consisted of dropping party with them and standing around doing nothing unless they got overwhelmed by mobs. Why can't we actually play together?

[R041]

Brought some new friends into Eureka and the gameplay consisted of dropping party with them and standing around doing nothing unless they got overwhelmed by mobs. Why can't we actually play together?

Yeah exactly - The content was designed to basically force coop. But the early levels don't really survive when a constant flow of new players around their same level don't exist. So we have to resort to janky coop where our only options are to cheese just to play together.

[Midareyukki]

Brought some new friends into Eureka and the gameplay consisted of dropping party with them and standing around doing nothing unless they got overwhelmed by mobs. Why can't we actually play together?

Yeah exactly - The content was designed to basically force coop. But the early levels don't really survive when a constant flow of new players around their same level don't exist. So we have to resort to janky coop where our only options are to cheese just to play together.

It's because they were trying to replicate the FF11 overworld experience.

Basically you start out as a low level character, having to mindlessly grind experience mob by mob. You can speed the process a little by having a party, but they have to be around the same level as you. Any higher or lower, and the experience gets massively undercut, eventually even not even yielding anything. Once everyone was at a decent enough level, you'd then do dungeons, do content, but also importantly, spawn NMs, which are these minibosses in the overworld.

For an old school Japanese MMO of the mid 2000's, this worked out relatively well. Once their playerbase started dropping, they added in the Trust System, which allowed you to summon NPCs and form a party to help you through content while solo. The reason I say this worked out relatively well is because when your whole game is designed this way, all the gameplay, all the gimmicks, all the menus and especially all the combat and the skills you had would be done around such a design philosophy. It's still annoying there, but at least the game is designed around it, so it works.

I don't think this works in FF14.

The skills don't work well, they needed to implement other designs to keep Eureka entertaining and easier to get through (Challenge Log missions, Logos Actions), and the design philosophy is entirely different. This content is meant to be done with a party. AT THE SAME TIME. In FF11 this worked because that was the entirety of the game, and when it stopped being feasible because not many people were around to party up with, they implemented the Trust System. That wasn't a thing, at all, in Eureka. So they expect you to be able to keep up and level up with a party, or tough luck, just go the FF11 route, farm mob by mob and get what precious little EXP you could get from it. Like the world's most boring grind. The game is designed around co-op. It's the most effective way of getting anything done at all, and it's the best way to keep things coordinated and going. But Eureka as it stands already teems with people just standing there not doing anything. Many even expect you to do it for them. And it ends up.

To me, what's worse is that they even brought in the dying penalty for Eureka. Like this design wasn't already insufferable enough. Especially with the ledges. The fact that you can die ridiculously easily (especially in places like Pagos) stops being fun for a lot of people and quickly becomes a chore, one that only those that care for mindless grinding really find enjoyable. If there was ever a niche content in this game, Eureka's design is it.

It's why some people consider Bozja an upgrade, because it's not trying to replicate that system from FF11. It does still keep some of Eureka's design ideas, but alleviates a lot of the restrictions and challenge, to the point where those who prefer Eureka over Bozja claim it's "boring". I personally prefer to not get slapped by old-style design poorly implemented into a game that was never meant to have it in the first place, but to each their own. In Bozja you can do so much of it by yourself, and the Lost Actions are available to you from the start. The only times you really need co-op is in CE's, of which only one is mandatory to go through. Because of that one mandatory one, you do still have the co-op requirement from Eureka, but it's not a constant presence. Though Bozja still is incredibly dull to go through alone.

Both of these contents suffer heavily from the loss of constant player presence. To the point where at some parts it's outright a requirement to have someone else there with you doing the same thing you're doing. And though Bozja learned some lessons, it still has that flaw. Yet Eureka has no excuse. It's trying to emulate FF11. And if FF11 learned it can't rely on player presence all the time, FF14 can do that too.

[Ardeth]

I can't stand Eureka. I'm level 38. I'm in Pyros and I'm just too overwhelmed by it. I can't go out and experiment in it because dying is too costly. Plus on my datacenter it's dead. So I have to travel. And people are not kinda to you not knowing something. I just hate it with a buring passion. I want to complete it so I never have to touch it again. I have never enjoyed it. I hated it in Stormblood and I hate it now. All I want is to do BA and get that mount and it can get deleted for all I care.

I would literally buy the mount off the cash shop for $100 just to be done with it. That's how impossible it feels to me.

[kite384]

There is a lot of friendly people in eureka here on NA. I would join as many eureka discords as i can people can help answering any questions you have so you have a easier time leveling etc. Ask people for the eureka discord invite links when you are on another datacenter. Dynamis DC eureka is always low activity you have a much better time on Primal, Aether or Crystal.
I can list all the eureka discords for NA
Primal DC: The Help Lines, Agents of Eureka, PEBE and FRAAAG RUN?!?!
Aether DC: ABBA
Crystal DC: CAFE
Dynamis DC: DAFU and DBA

[Ardeth]

There is a lot of friendly people in eureka here on NA. I would join as many eureka discords as i can people can help answering any questions you have so you have a easier time leveling etc. Ask people for the eureka discord invite links when you are on another datacenter. Dynamis DC eureka is always low activity you have a much better time on Primal, Aether or Crystal.
I can list all the eureka discords for NA
Primal DC: The Help Lines, Agents of Eureka, PEBE and FRAAAG RUN?!?!
Aether DC: ABBA
Crystal DC: CAFE
Dynamis DC: DAFU and DBA

I've tried. I'm sure I've been a member of all of them once. I cannot stand thousands of people filled discords. There's nothing better than being ignored by thousands of people when you have questions. There's nothing better than feeling like a burden to thousands of people. They only care about BA or the awnsers they give are links to guides and not awnsers. I'm 100% sure my question is in that guide, but you know the awnsers and you just don't want to tell me. I have a learning disability and a guide is the equivalent of telling me nothing. I have tried really hard to deal with how crap this community is to being helpful and I'm done. I'm not joining huge discords anymore. I refuse. So I will just never get Eureka done. It's why I feel the way above.

I was struggling with learning high end crafting. I asked a million questions on a million discords, but it wasn't until someone stopped being annoyed with my questions to help me that it changed. It wasn't until someone came to me and taught me one on one did I learn. And I will never forget that.

That's a me problem I know this. I'm just tired of being handed a guide when my question is simple.

[TaleraRistain]

Yeah this place needs level sync. It's really stupid that a max level player can't bring someone into Eureka and join them on their journey. Instead they either have to cheese things or rely on NMs, which is why the fate train became a thing in Anemos in the first place. I remember people tried the chain pulling exp parties but it was a huge amount of FOMO and if you started late or didn't play every single day you weren't going to get into a group because they were far past you. Plus old school camp and grind was the most boring thing on the planet, and just got worse when it became run around killing things for NMs getting zero exp and then wait for everyone to be ready to kill the NM, rinse and repeat.

Or you have tell your friend, sorry, go solo until you catch up.

Awesome options there.

[Kemiko]

Eureka was, from my understanding, paying homage to old MMO style play - such as FFXI. Or, more specifically, paying homage to FFXI. Most of the mobs and gear obtained from there are straight up FFXI. So, it's absolutely funny that in this content paying homage to FFXI - in a game with level sync already in it's pockets - that it didn't add level sync as something you could do to play with friends, which is something you can do in FFXI. Albeit, early in FFXI's lifetime you couldn't level sync but that was added so that people could more easily group with their friends (and it was absolutely celebrated when it released). It took QUITE a few years before hit FFXI (6 years, I think or something - it released in 2008 and FFXI released in 2002 so, about 6 years).

But point is, it was a feature in FFXI a good 3 years before FFXIV released. A good 5 years before ARR released or 10 years before Eureka itself released. Basically, a long enough time that it should've been considered for Eureka, or at least added in during any of its patches to make Eureka more enjoyable.