Exploration Content: Salvation or Stopgap?

[Renathras]

My own thought on Bozja was that there were three main problems:

1) It was MORE efficient to gather relic mats outside of Bozja than in. It should have either been equal or Bozja have the slight edge.
2) Despite being group content, for some reason, the high content/achievements were tied to Duels, which were solo affairs. I get wanting challenging content, but when you cut people out, it's not MMO/community anymore.
3) There were several bottlenecks (CLL, DR, and to a MUCH lesser extent, Dal; and CLL was even worse to start since the rewards were so little and you lost so much Mettle from dying, people wouldn't do it a second time); even now, the DR step is almost impossible to do to get those shards, so you have to solo PotD for them (though you can do floor 51-60 with somewhat relative ease, the drop rate isn't great...though I've gotten one from floor 1-10 before, so it IS possible...)

4) A lesser problem, but the environments were dreary (yes, warzone, I understand, BUT...) and kinda samey palate from the first and second zones. Part of this may have been covid (imagine if the second zone had all been exploring the underground ruins and fortress around DR with DR being the CLL of the zone?) as they did say they had to cut a zone/the middle zone, but Eureka zones are distinct other than Pagos and the first half of Pyros. Anemos, Pagos/half Pyros, the other half Pyros, and Hydatos are all different, which helps decrease boredom and the feeling of samey-ness.

The difference: one calls out the developers. The other disparages and insults other players on the forum.

Okay that's fair I can accept this.

The one problem with this: I'm not the one insulting other players on the forum here, Noumenon. And you just lied/accused me in another thread as being known to report brigade people, something I not only haven't ever done, but have never even been accused, much less "known for", doing before you just did it today.

As I said there, I'm known here for many things - long posts, foot in mouth, stubbornly trying to have good faith discussions in the face of hecklers and bullies - but report brigading people is not something I'm known for, no matter you trying to sell that lie.

When you're lying and insulting other players in most of your posts, and I'm not, then that's the difference here:

Not to mention you were quick to shoot down my thread pointing out Thras/Titanalt was not me. Very suspect.

One calls out the developers and lies, disparages, and insults other players on the forum, while the other, me, try to have good faith discussions and debates, as I'm doing so here with you trying, yet again, to bad faith derail what would otherwise be a good discussion:

Is FFXIV carried by Eureka/Bozja type content?

How does this make sense when the content is very unpopular when it goes live?

[Supersnow845]

I think the thing you miss here ren (while I do agree with your point that a lot of the rewards for massive group content were tied to the duels which was strange design) is that the content wasn’t very unpopular, it just had a lot of agressive posting online about it

Bozja has always had fantastic stats as long as we have had stats for Bozja, the bottlenecks were messy I agree, it’s why I’m glad they fixed them, I don’t think relics being better outside Bozja was good or bad, it definitely helped cater to people who didn’t like relic zones

[Renathras]

Oh, I agree.

It's what I say about (a lot but not ALL) of the complaints and complainers now. There are always people who will complain.

What I'm more pointing out is that there's not a situation where some groups aren't saying doom. But you know I like Eureka/Bozja already. I was just thinking "Was that the only thing I enjoyed in ShB and SB?" and my personal answer was no. While it was something I enjoyed, especially in SB (since I had more time to play once I got out of the military; when Eureka was current I didn't get to spent much time there for that reason), it wasn't the reason I stayed subbed. Especially in ShB, where we didn't even get Bozja until the expansion was half-over.

I 100% think not having one is bad and EW has proven it. And I 100% want more in the future. And I also want them tied to the relic (I don't mind there being a tomestone "second 'relic' glowy weapon" for the hypercasuals, but I want a relic grind, too). I do think we've seen reason they should decouple the tome weapon from clearing 7 weeks of normal fights. But I think there should be Exploration Zones and relic weapons (AND ARMOR!!!) tied to them.

I just think people need to be sober minded about all this and go in with eyes open, not occluded by various shaded goggles.

Fair enough?

[Kemiko]

I'll say that I believe that people had their own reasons for enjoying, or not enjoying, content like Eureka and Bozja. I've done both, personally, and enjoyed Eureka for what it was though I didn't enjoy Bozja outside of some character stuff before and after their Fates (and I'm not going to pretend they're anything other than Fates).

I loved what Eureka was and even more enjoyed the "overworld mobs are actually threatening until you sufficiently level". The. . .elemental wheel was a very weird addition but otherwise I enjoyed it. Absolutely no one else in my circle of friends enjoyed it but I had fun enough that I went through it alone. My gripe about Eureka came from the relic. While I loved the relic armor the fact that the relic system was tied purely to Eureka was horrible and alienated people who don't enjoy that kind of content. Prior relics, ARR and HW, weren't gated behind 1 specific kind of content, it tried to touch as much as it could from the expansion of its release. While I was able to get the relic because I enjoyed Eureka it certainly wasn't fair to those who didn't. It's not content that everyone would, or should, enjoy.

Come Bozja I was actually pretty excited for it at the start. I loved Final Fantasy Tactics (not Advanced or Advanced II or even the Lions War remaster) so it having the completion of the FFT Raids being a requirement I was very Looking Forward To It. Until I reached the camp and. . .had to go through the whole ordeal with Cid. It was a lot of red flags about the kind of story I was about to see unfold. And, of course, they once again tied the relic to it. This time it at least wasn't AS BAD as Eureka. You can fulfill the grindy bits of relic system outside of Bozja but you were still forced to engage thoroughly with Bozja to progress it. You can't get your relic without Bozja. You can't progress stages of your relic without progressing Bozja and if you wanted to finish your relic, you have to finish Bozja. So, once again, for the people who didn't enjoy this type of content, but wanted to get their relic, they're back in the same boat as they were in Eureka.

I'm just gonna go ahead and state that Bozja and Eureka, while are the same TYPE of content, how they function are very different. 90% of the map in Bozja was not threatening outside of very specific areas with one-shot type mobs. From the get-go, it was very different from Eureka and the "customizable skillsets" that were added in the later half of Eureka was available at the start in Bozja and, while in a better form that what we had in Eureka, it was also a thing I didn't particularly like in Eureka.

After experiencing Bozja, I left and wouldn't come back until the mount achievement for all the notes was released. I wanted the mount, so I came back and collected all the notes in what I'd arguably say was the worst grind I've experienced in XIV in my years playing it - and I couldn't even collect more than 2 ATMA for several months when that terrible system released. I only came back for the mount and never touched it again after I got it.

That type of content certainly won't save or break an expansion. Heavensward is a testament to that due to it not ever being referenced when people are giving EW crap for its lack of it because you can give people PTSD just uttering HW Diadem for those that were there for it.