Expectations for Occult Crescent?

[Ardeth]

Eh, I got bored of slapping around fish while watching the XP bar barely move, the game then gave me a mission with no marker of where to go, and then I got constantly jumped by things while trying to move through an area until I died and gave up.

I don't really know how other people stomached this until they finished it, as I barely made it half an hour before I was sick of it and never wanted to go back.

The XP issue is a big one. Even with 300% faster XP and the armor and the challenge log XP, it took forever. It's something that bothered me with Islands, Eureka, and Bozja. Losing XP in general is bad game design. So I was happy that at least in Bozja you didn't lose your rank.

But for me, it's just the tedium of the zones themselves and the systems in them. No quest markers is a big one. That pissed me off more than anything. I get it was to make it like XI, but XI sucked. I'm sorry I hated that garbage game.

As I said I will probably hate Occult Cresent, but I'll try it at least. Hopefully, it won't be as anti-social and toxic as Bozja was for me. Eureka was great on the social side. Everyone was helpful and knowledgeable. Bozja felt like World of Warcraft. It was one of the worst experiences for me in this game. It was toxic and unhelpful. I'd tell the Castrum story here, but I'd be a broken record.

[FuturePastNow]

Eh, I got bored of slapping around fish while watching the XP bar barely move, the game then gave me a mission with no marker of where to go, and then I got constantly jumped by things while trying to move through an area until I died and gave up.

I don't really know how other people stomached this until they finished it, as I barely made it half an hour before I was sick of it and never wanted to go back.

Aye leveling up was the worst part of Eureka. Especially since players 5+ levels above you can't directly help. The best part was latching on to a big group spawning and farming NMs, and I'm being generous here since I don't like Eureka at all. I never finished a Stormblood relic and I'd rather do Bozja CEs and farm clusters all day than go back there. So I have no idea how I'll feel about the Occult Crescent but it looks like the goal is a blend of the two that aims to fix some of Eureka's biggest problems. I want fun content for 2025 and IDGAF about the old school MMO experience.

[VeyaAkemi]

In general Bozja handles those elements better, BA ends up fostering that type of gameplay because it is so punishing, a failed BA run will also delevel you, take god knows how long to have another attempt, so on, and that leaves a huge *feels bad* feeling everyone wants to avoid, DRS is much more learning-focused because there is little penalty to failure, you just zone out, reinstance, and try again, with the only thing being lost being essences and however much Mettle you had on you.

Modern MMO design in general focuses on removing or minimizing penalty for failure so failure can happen more often, Eureka specifically focuses on being archaic in that regard since it is based on FF XI, and even then it is not as punishing as XI was to my understanding, and that type of design just leads to players guarding themselves against failure as much as possible, it's just an element of human nature, and some people, me included, actively enjoy the process of pre-planning and execution, the fact there are people out there with thousands of BA clears proves there is an appeal to that, so to say it is simply "badly executed" is incredibly reductive.

Also if you learn nothing, skill issue, it's fair to say you don't have to learn it, but surely if you are familiar enough with this game, you will be able to put together why each callout is is given at sight.

[Valence]

In general Bozja handles those elements better, BA ends up fostering that type of gameplay because it is so punishing, a failed BA run will also delevel you, take god knows how long to have another attempt, so on, and that leaves a huge *feels bad* feeling everyone wants to avoid, DRS is much more learning-focused because there is little penalty to failure, you just zone out, reinstance, and try again, with the only thing being lost being essences and however much Mettle you had on you.

Modern MMO design in general focuses on removing or minimizing penalty for failure so failure can happen more often, Eureka specifically focuses on being archaic in that regard since it is based on FF XI, and even then it is not as punishing as XI was to my understanding, and that type of design just leads to players guarding themselves against failure as much as possible, it's just an element of human nature, and some people, me included, actively enjoy the process of pre-planning and execution, the fact there are people out there with thousands of BA clears proves there is an appeal to that, so to say it is simply "badly executed" is incredibly reductive.

Also if you learn nothing, skill issue, it's fair to say you don't have to learn it, but surely if you are familiar enough with this game, you will be able to put together why each callout is is given at sight.

I don't doubt that running it enough and associating this with guides on the side makes learning a thing. That's not what I was saying however. What I'm saying is that 90% of the party's grease monkeys those days can perfectly clear by going in blind and just follow instructions like little mammets. It's boring.
I actually do love pre planning and managing resources. But BA didn't even tickle that for me. When it was current it was just making you grind the base tedious content further to buy tickets so you could get in.
I think they made it way too binary, with a crappy shelf life once figured out.

[Reimmi]

Expecting the same thing as eureka and bozja
farm fates and mobs for stuff 1 or 2 gimmicks and some neat bosses
hopefully they dont do duels again those are terrible, why couldn't those have just been something you queue for without a wait, like wow's mage tower?

[Laerune]

I just hope no fomo doa content.

[ViinaS]

I just hope no fomo doa content.

That's quite the tall order judging by current FFXIV, which is just a big oof overall.

[Khryseis_Astra]

I couldn't get into Eureka, and will likely skip Bozja when/if I unlock it, so I'm not really interested in Occult Crescent.

Field Operations is just another one of those things that's beyond my skill level.

It’s not so much about level of skill as it is understanding how the environment works… if you tried Eureka, happened to go in there alone and/or when not a lot of people were there and got killed in like 5 minutes and didn’t know using return when KOed would mean losing xp, I can see why you’d think it was harder than it is.

Best to go in with a few other people, or shout for a group to level with… start off with challenge logs to build up elemental level quicker, and the mobs that were one shotting you in the beginning won’t even notice you later on.

I suspect that most Eureka enjoyers will be trying out OC for awhile after it releases, but it still tends to be quite active outside of major releases like that.

[TakoyakiLala]

I don't really have any expectations. I'm just waiting for to come out it already so I have more to do on my main! xD