Occult Crescent, an early review.

[legg]

Hello, I hope this message got forwarded to the devs in hoping to improvise the long-scaled content.
first most I thankful for the inclusion of the new Field Operation in Dawntrail named "Occult Crescent: South Horn" in the patch 7.25 as I've been eagerly wait since the dawn of Endwalker. And like every other Field Operation, South Horn has some problem that i think majority of player can feel and relate.
So, in this forum thread, in hoping to be seen and heard, I wrote this critique.

There are several problems that i want to say, and I hope this message could be understood by many as English is not my first language.

=Occult Crescent and its content cycle=
Occult Crescent are the third series of Field Ops, after Eureka from 4.x series and Save the Queen from 5.x series. It also introduce to a Phantom jobs, similar to the Lost action and Logos action from the past Field Ops series.

There are several points that i would make:

• Monotonous CE/Fate chasing activity
• Single-Centralize Gold Farming spot
• (Intentional?) Very High-rate drop of misc. loot.
• Lack of "Duels" encounters.

*Monotonous CE/Fate chasing activity.
First and foremost, i would thank to the combat design team to be able create some of the most unique and fun encounter on this island. Not every day you see a moving AoE telegraph as the scary Lion Rampart and the prying eyes of the Observer trying to catch the player.

However, as the title implies, the CEs and Fate chasing is very and clearly emphasized more than Save the Queen and Eureka does. CEs spawning every close as 8 minutes and smaller fates spawn to accommodate those who are not able to enter the CEs. While the design philosophy are very straight forward, It still couldn't work on this very exact scenario.

Unlike Save The Queen area, the entry level are 71+ and you can enter as any job to Level them up in the Southern Front or Zadnor, Whilst also farming several currencies inside.
Eureka Anemos and its siblings, however, has a totally different philosophy but has more direction of its prolonged content, even though you have maxxed your Elemental Level, you would still go to the any Eureka zone just to simply farm the relic mats and/or farm a specific NMs to get a rare loot.

Occult crescent: South horn doesnt have the leveling aspect of Save the Queen AND the "Special NMs loots drop" aspect of Eureka.
Eventhough the first step of Dawntrail Relic can be done inside OC:SH, the drop count for tomes to get another batch of relics isnt as worth as doing it outside via duty Roulletes.

[legg]

*Single-Centralize Group Gold Farming Spot.
Another kind of activity you could do inside are Gold currencies farm.
Theoritically its similiar to the Cluster from StQ and Lootboxes from Eureka, but really different in execution.

But as someone who likes to run the fun with the group, id find it quite hard to seek "Alternative" best place to farm gold. The community acknowledge the Southern west side of the maps, the top side of the brazens, are the best gold farm knowns.
Unlike Eureka and StQ, if that very 1 spot are taken by a different group, you need accept that you cant farm as big like that group until they left.

Eureka has many alternative places to farm its Boxes, whilst StQ has MULTIPLE ALTERNATIVE to farm Cluster and not locked to 1 place only.

*Very High-rate drop of misc. loots
Inflation, and not good for inventory management.

*Lack of 'Duel' Encounter
Duels from StQ series are one of the most fun, good, and giving player more reason to care about its newly aquired Lost Actions.
its also a way for the player to learn and express their game knowledge into a kind of content that is designed for 1v1 pve, the lack of duel in OC:SH feels like a stepback than a improvement.

[legg]

And it came to the elephant in the room, The Forked Tower: Blood.
It execution are similiar to BA in which i equally both loved and loath, based on several experience with BA, CLL, and DRS, heres my thought on the good and bad side of the tower after clearing it.

*Inclusion of FT:B as an Open Dungeon
A Hard open dungeon, while is good in theory, It still not going to work in modern days of ffxiv .
Unlike CLL whose difficulty curves are forgiving and still could be cleared with blind players. FT:B are designed to be a hard and unforgiving open dungeon like how they designed BA back then.

Why it couldn't work in modern ffxiv?
- Lack player acknowledgement after a lengthy CEs/Fates chasing.
Players who are chasing CEs after CEs will think that FT:B is going to be as "easy" as any other CEs. Even though there have been a lot of precaution and warning about the difficulty curves, they will ignore them.
Meanwhile players who are already in a team to try tackle the tower, sometimes they be getting a Suprise.
Eventhough the "Sanguinite Cipher" work as the 'casuals gate', it still a bad design to a content as hard as FT:B

- too much of player babysit by the devs by simplifying the game design to its core.
Per Endwalker update, there has been a significant amount of "simplifying" the design of the game. OC:SH get the simplyfied treament.
the CEs/Fate monotonous chase and the gold farm is one of them.

- Limitation of server limit due to changes of OC:SH philosophy.
Every CEs are "can be entered by everyone within the instance" means that they changed the instancing and scaling. while its technically an 'upgrade' from StQ series.
Its a downgrade for FT:B runs.

FT:B runs arent really meant for pug, and usually the group who run FT:B has an arsenal of 48 players. which mean its a downside for the premade since they would need to do "Instance Prog" and making sure everyone are present in the instance.
With the instance only can handle 72 people per instance, it is an logistical nightmare for the groups. (Unlike BA whose max people in the instance are 144).

I hope the Devs will be reevaluate their works on developing North Horn,
Please be mindfull and be diligent because i trully love this Field Ops more than i doing deforestation in island sanctuary for 2 years straight.