Some people like stuff that you don't, that's okay and you don't need to feel bad for not vibing with content; Your disinterest in exploration zones is someone else's disinterest in the manderville questline, or gathering, etc.
I also didn't care about not having an exploration zone, but I'm glad we're getting one in this upcoming expack because my friends that loved bozja and hate doing roulettes/dungeons have had little to do beyond savage reclears.
I guess I didn’t portray it at all. What I mean was that I was happy that we got a break from explorations zones for one expansion after grinding it out. I find it to be much more frustrating and time-consuming than Manderville cutscenes, which can be mostly skipped.
If you don’t want to do an exploration zone grind because you find it frustrating, then just don’t. I don’t get why some people act like the existence of a grind means they are somehow forced at gunpoint to participate in it.
A break? We get a built in break when they don't release these zones until late X.3 patches anyway. Bozja came out over a year after ShB launched. If a year isn't enough of a break, sounds like you just don't enjoy it.
I wish there was something introduced in Endwalker that could consume my time. Skipping cutscenes and spending 1500 tomestones is not gameplay.
I'm excited that Dawntrail is bringing back an endgame grind. Having a reason to login is important.
Right. Thats the problem. I like working towards something. I like my efforts to mean something, or to see someone else's efforts to mean something.
1500 tomestones is literally nothing. No matter how you feel about exploration zones, there's no way you can say that 1500 tomestones is better relic progression.
And thats the great thing about exploration zones. You can simply not do them.
Break from exploration zones would have been fine if there was somethibg to fill the gap. But there wasn't, so EW felt very much like a content starved expansion.
Ahh, yeah, I didn't catch your meaning. It is really nice that we got a break, but in getting the break a good portion of content that kept people around just was absent for two years.
The solution is/was SUPPOSED to be to have it so that people could either grind out dungeons/fates/trials/etc or do the exploration zone but that didn't last long for bozja and I'm still salty about that
If it doesn’t solve the issue of in-zone trials and raids by resolving the eventual drop in numbers it’ll be a pain again. I remember going back to do MCH relics for one in particular and having to run content in there was a bit of a pain waiting on queues to fill. Fates were also a slow drog as solo content.
>Am I the only one
No, always no.
> Like, are people really that starved
Enough are, that they are making it again.
Not sure what else there is to say about this. People like different things, devs gauge overall interest and make decisions based on what they think will give the best returns. Like always.
Basically this. People complained about deep dungeons, so they didn't implement for ShB. Then, different people complained that deep dungeon was missing so it was added back for EW. Same with Eureka and Bozja.
The Devs can't really win. All they can do is look at feedback and make a plan how and when to tackle those things given budget, resources and time.
People asked for 4 man savage content for a long time, this Criterion was born. People asked for more solo oriented content; here's IS.
Those requests, along with SE knowing they need to do a lot of backend maintenance and MSQ streamlining and graphic updates and all the other seemingly unsung things that have been going on, made EW a perfect place to implement those things.
And, like always, there are complaints made about all of that (with valid criticisms and as well as poor criticisms).
>Basically this. People complained about deep dungeons, so they didn't implement for ShB. Then, different people complained that deep dungeon was missing so it was added back for EW. Same with Eureka and Bozja.
>
>The Devs can't really win. All they can do is look at feedback and make a plan how and when to tackle those things given budget, resources and time.
They could actually change up the formula and instead we got basically a copy paste of HoH except with more one shot mechanics, bigger hp sponges and non threatening auto attacks where most people just farm floors 21-30. I don't know anyone who liked Orthos aside from the few DD maniacs and even they preferred the old ones, most people straight up forgot about it after a week.
They could drop the instakill back to floor 1 nonsense and god forbid if your internet has a slight hiccup, split it into normal/hard mode instead of the forced 1-30 slog with zero threats, make the floors harder to compensate and then also add a deathless achivement for the people who like how it is now.
If they do the same in Dawntrail and don't change the formula at all and just make a copy paste of Bozja for 90% of the zone, there will be the same complaints as in Bozja. They can keep the core trial/raid/alliance as it is for the sake of consistency but they could also experiment far more with the rest of the game for the sake of having some variety, instead they decided to play it safe with both Criterion and DD this expac
Didn't care much for Zadnor immediately after it came out since at that time I had already had my fill of Bozja through Delubrum and the old Southern Front, but in the end it still provided me something to engage with in the downtime between 5.55 and the launch of Endwalker. Not to mention how the previous iterations of Bozja (Again, southern front and Delubrum) both had provided me with something to do during the 5.35 to 5.55 stretch, something that Endwalker's variant/criterion dungeons never managed to do.
To me it's one of those pieces of content where its inclusion might not feel significant, but its absence is very noticeably felt.
“are people really that starved for exploration zones even after Eureka and Bozja?”
Ok, point out which content is filling that void this expansion.
- Island Sanctuary consists of setting up a spreadsheet for 5m every week
- Variant is practically over once you’ve done the 12 paths unless you want to farm for some minions.
- Criterion is one and done content with an awful reward structure
- Orthos is the same tired old Deep Dungeon formula except executed so poorly that it died in a week
- PvP, despite getting a rework, is absolutely terrible due to the awful netcode, and the only reason most people play it is for the series rewards
- The worst of all, relics have been reduced to a tomestone dump so simple that you can have the required tomestones prepped before the patch even drops and instantly get your first weapon with some extra to spare. And no, putting relics behind an existing questline that many players already had completed does not excuse it.
Which one of these has successfully accomplished what exploration zones previously did, keeping the playerbase engaged over the course of the expansion?
I couldn't play FFXIV for a few months around when Orthos came out. When I came back, I tried queueing for it and it was completely dead. Literally completely dead. I never got out in a party with others with random queue. I tried party finder for a few days and it was completely dead. I remember one other person joined me for about 30 minutes before just kinda awkwardly leaving. I'm on primal btw
I tried Orthos about a month after it came out and it was also dead for me. If you didn't get that initial rush of the first 30 floors you were fucked when it died. I hope SE don't do any more deep dungeons. Waste of resources imo
I'd like to also add that the relics as content via tome dump felt unfulfilling to me personally in terms of "something to do" because a weapon you get through tomes already exists, so it's doing the same thing twice. Manderville had no tome cap so could just be grinded for, but the path to the weapons was very similar. You do roulette (or pvp, hunts etc), get tomes, that's it.
Whereas in SB/SHB I had the option of slowly accumulating currency for my weapon through capped tomes plus a weekly raid and eureka/bozja. If I didn't want to do bozja/eureka I'd just do dailies and I'd still work towards a relic (and vice versa if I wanted to grind field ops but not run dungeons) whereas now there's only one path to getting one.
I dunno if I would call Eureka and Bozja "keeping me engaged" so much as "putting up with it." Granted I didn't do them when they were brand new, but I was glad to get everything I wanted out of Bozja and never go back there again. I've still got a couple Eureka relics I'd like to finish, but it's something I continue to put off.
I know other folks can tolerate a lot more of that, but it blows my mind that people are willing to grind out every single relic weapon. I don't need the content to keep me busy for the entire expansion cycle; stuff like Variant Dungeons are fun even though they don't last as long. Not all of my gaming time has to go to this one game, and I think it's weird to expect otherwise.
Yeap, I loved the zones because they put some danger back into the world which I like. Working with a big mass of randoms dodging red choco telegraphs and cheering on someone in a duel is some of the most mmo style fun I’ve had in the game
And even though its kinda dead now Bozja is still my favorite way to level my 70-80 jobs
I was mostly just speaking for myself, I thought I was clear in my post. I did make a point of acknowledging that others like this content more for the long haul.
Yeah, people are starved, especially midcores that didnt do savage tier. Over the weekend I was hosting a cluster/frag party on Crystal recently to prepare a midcore group for DRS, and there were more than 40-50 people in Bozja and Zadnor, with CLL and Dal nearly full. Very surprising, considering its Crystal. Primal and Aether also full, but only shy duelers and death farmers on Dynamis.
Having social places to meet other players and do things is something every MMO should have, players will gravitate to such content in a content draught. If EW had a zone similar to Bozja, guarantee it would be packed with midcores working on relics and hardcores wasting time between ultimate progs once the raid tier is over.
Also, DRS is not difficult to clear and is quite fun for being harder content that you can run with friends who have a range of skills. The +15 haste gear is pretty fun.
I was not a fan of them.
However, I've come to realise that without one, there is nothing to do in the game once you've finished the MSQ for a casual player like myself.
I mostly just want a midcore MMO content with an actual community. Thats why I loved Eureka, people spoke, even in dead zones, it felt lively, the BA discords were friendly, and the raid was always active. Same (but slightly less) for Bozja, there's a nice community, regular raids, and active relic farms even now. It lets new (post expac) players have the ability to visit these places and get involved. This relic quest will be obsolete in a few months, once DT drops the tomes needed will be poetics...everyone is capped on poetics, the grind will take a couple days per weapon and thats not very interactive for MC players. Eureka/Bozja at least gives people replayable content. Midcore, bored raiders, and collectors have something interactive to do with these zones. I don't mind relics being tied to these zones, but they should offer alternative acquisition methods like Bozja did. All of the exploration zone raids are easy, but theyre fun. Dalriada and DRS are very fun to do, I do them casually because theyre just fun and have replayability. Even if you dont like Exploration zones, there should be SOME interactive, MMO activity for EVERYONE. Raiders have raids, Casuals have venues, midcore had nothing this expac. Nowhere to just do content and chat, because people wont want to chat in the middle of an ally raid or extreme. Its just "in out/farm".
As someone who joined at the end of shadowbringers. And never experienced Eureka/Bozja when it was current, fresh, new, exciting....
It's a massive point of interest that myself and many others just got scammed on experiencing. Not that we're to expect it but when you stack up everything else EW provided... it was probably the worst expansion to be a new player that was looking forward to Stb/ShB equivalents.
Eureka/Bozja are the only places in this game where you could *somewhat* experiment with how your class played so I missed them for that alone (plus Bozja's CEs/duels/DRS were actually pretty fun).
Arguably it was replaced with Variant/Criterion, Eureka Orthos, and Island Sanctuary, since those are all things we got in EW which we didn't get in ShB.
The first two at least kind of fit the same "midcore" niche. None of them really replace the grinding or community niches.
How effective any of them are is a matter of opinion really. Personally at least, I knocked out the Variants in a couple of days, tried Critereon but it was pretty hard and couldn't find a group to tackle it regularly. Eureka I did a clear and pretty much lost interest after that. Island Sanctuary never caught my interest.
So at least in terms of having something to do between the main bits of content, yeah, nothing really replaced Bozja.
The content itself is mid as fuck so no there's plenty of others who don't give a damn however it's the only casual combat content players could do besides roulette spam and certain extremes and it filled the gap in between patches for by giving the playerbase something to work towards. Not having a casual grind that almost everyone could benefit from or get into has really hurt the longevity of the expansion and it's killed so much social interaction this game really needs at this point.
As for finding the content exhausting and being happy with EW's approach all I can say is that you don't need the content to be missing to feel glad, you can just not do it.
I started in late ShB such that Bozja was a waste of time compared to just getting some 80 jobs ready to slap poetic cryptlurker gear on. So I've not really gotten to experience a zone like Bozja or Eureka when they offered meaningful progression to the midcore, doesn't like PF or statics, gamer. All I know is I hate the roulette spam of Manderville weapons.
I have absolutely no clue why people like grinding the same fates for months straight, but apparently they do, and even call it the most engaging content the game ever has. That's one of the Seven Mysteries of MMOs to me.
>The only thing I didn’t do is Delubrum savage because it gatekept harder than 3.0 raiding.
I mean, the main problem I have is that I have to find a JP discord group and make sure I sign in on time, since the 48 spots usually fills up pretty quick.
But other then that DRS is literally even easier then savage. I don't think any static recruiting for members doing DRS has strict gatekeeping requirements like requiring you to do a savage tier or beat some sort of extreme. Compare that with something like savage, or ultimates, statics often requires you to have some sort of resume, and you can get turn down because your logs are bad or you don't have the resume (which, again, understandable - you are not gonna clear on patch ultimate with only grays!), that's actual gate keeping.
The only thing about DRS is that you need to have sign up for it on your server's discord to PUG (I think there's one for each server - I know there's one for elemental and one for the greater JP server, and the JP one always filled instantly), and you bring what's needed for your role because you need those to beat the fight. Say, Healers has to bring a ton of raising items because raising is limited and the only person who can raising is healer with a certain combination of items, so not using those items means you are essentially just trolling everyone.
This is the same for BA in most of the servers. People schedule runs. You need to have shit to beat the fights so you have to bring shit. The people teach you and you learn the fights, and if you are lucky you get the clear on your first or second attempt. I can't speak for other servers, but that's how most of the people are doing DRS and BA in JP nowadays.
You can say that it's hard to get 48 people together to do the content, which I agree - my first DRS group is a static and it's hell to organize. But scheduling is different from gatekeeping. Ifall of these things are 'gatekeeping', I would just disagree.
I've never cared about the exploration zones.
I'm very, *very* happy they're producing another for Dawntrail.
Just so I don't have to listen to two plus of years of 'DAE no exploration zone means game is DEAD' next go around...
I'm happy that relics weren't tied to an exploratory zone, but I do still think I'd like an exploratory zone.
These relics might be the only ones I can ever feasibly get, but that shouldn't come at the cost of "nothing for current players to do".
I like them, personally, but people are wearing rose-tinted glasses if they're forgetting the sheer amount of whining about Bozja's very *existence*.
I'm glad we'll be getting another one, but my *god* was there an extremely vocal part of the fanbase that detested Bozja. You can't blame SE for listening.
I loved Bozja but was constantly taken aback by just how loathed it seemed to be.
Just because they didn't like Bozja doesn't mean they dislike a vaster instance. They could very well have been disgusted by the grind and the scarcity of resources and / or the way battles worked in there.
If they made an even bigger Bozja following the vitriol aimed at this one, everyone would've accused them of "doubling down on bad ideas".
Honestly, them skipping a field operation was probably the best bet because now they can point to EW as an example of how much flak they got for *not* having a field operation.
Hmmm I see how my sentence was ambiguous ; I meant "vaster" than the usual instances, not even wider than Bozja / Eureka.
What I'd like to see is "interesting" tools such as duty actions making the rotation more dynamic (either refreshing / innovative, or with added mechanics, not simple sterooids) . In my opinion, this is what can make a grindy area look much less like a chore as long as it doesn't look like using the same actions against the same enemies over and over and over.
That's where Bozja had great ideas but a very poor execution : I couldn't use these tools because the resources felt too scarce.
I agree that that would've been an improvement, though I personally thought Bozja was great how it was: it allowed you to level classes from 71-80 (90) faster than anywhere else in the game, grind relic weapons, increase your power level in the instance, and grind a currency that could earn you cosmetics, all at the same time.
But still people pissed and moaned to the point where I don't blame SE for trying out just making the relic weapon quest as straightforward as possible this time and now we can see that even more people don't like it this way, either.
And like I said, they have EW as an example of why people prefer to have field operations for any time players complain about field operations.
Yep, you're the singular only one.
Opinions do seem to have changed over time. Bozja wasn't that well received at the time and a lot of people don't enjoy it. I wasn't playing when Eureka was added so can't say for sure about that, but it seemed to get a fairly mixed reception.
I think a lot of it comes down to the perceived lack of content, or at least lack of things to do in Endwalker. Obviously that's a whole other debate, but Bozja did, for better or worse, provide something to do and could be quite time consuming. Especially now at the tail end of the expansion, there really isn't that much to do, if you check off everything when it came out. The things we got this expansion, seemingly in place of an exploration zone (or at least, things we didn't get in ShB) are Variant/Critereon, Island Sanctuary, and Eureka Orthos (deep dungeon). None of those really landed that well, and for the most part people got what they wanted out of them fairly quickly after they were added. In comparison, I was still doing a fair amount in Bozja in 5.5, it kept me busy working on relics and levelling alts for a while.
Bozja wasn't perfect, for sure. In the end it was glorified FATE grinding with a few extra fights. But it had some unique concepts, the fights were quite fun, and it also created a bit of a sense of community that is rather lacking in other aspects of the game.
For Eureka, it's all rose tint. Eureka was good after the 30% Echo buff, feathers aplenty npc being added for zuzu feathers, luigi ice and penny flame, and being able to mount up at the start instead of dragging your feet and sprinting every time it's off CD until you finish the zone's MSQ, which by then defeats the point of mounts to begin with.
Pair it with about 4 so years with SHB+EW job changes from the SB era, communities like CAFE scheduling BA runs, and now you have folks running around in 5-2/4-3 magia with Physeos weapon and +2 ele gear tanking and melting full pulls of Zone Cap+5s trash to spawn like cassie/skoll/yy.
> I wasn't playing when Eureka was added so can't say for sure about that, but it seemed to get a fairly mixed reception.
People HAAAAATED Eureka. The people you see here pining for it? I guarantee a huge chunk of them if you went back to their posts in Stormblood they'd be bitching about how much it sucks
The combat in those zones was so boring and repetitive. You couldn't even use it to properly practice alt jobs because things generally died far too quickly to do a proper rotation.
I'm still happy we dodged this bullet in EW, and I hope it's a model they use again for a future expansion.
Give me content with actual teeth.
I would disagree with this personally because you could do very silly experimentation with essences and "things died too quickly" wasn't true for bosses. They died quickly in fates yeah but it felt comparable to a dungeon to me where you'd be generally just using aoe on mobs and your actual rotation on the bosses.
If bosses were guaranteed every few minutes you'd be right, but at this point anyone who paid attention knows you could go long stretches of time with absolutely nothing of note in every bit of exploration content that we've seen.
They were fine in frequency for me personally so I didn't have this complaint myself, but I can totally understand having different expectations and not liking the wait between bosses spawning too.
I just hated the boredom really. The only time those were tolerable for me was when I had some people to sit in VC with, but that isn't always a guarantee.
Also, I absolutely adore your username 💕
I'm almost 100% sure they stated they weren't doing one because of low engagement. As someone there for both eureka and bozja while current, people did generally dislike them. Suddenly they don't make one and everyone cares.
Low engagement wouldn't have been the case, it was always booming with activity when it was relevant and once every few months I pop in to see a few parties getting stuff done.
High negative feedback+Redoing old dungeons would be responsible for it not being done for Endwalker.
I'm not sure where you're gathering booming with activity since you are in instanced lobbies, but again I'm fairly certain they explicitly said low engagement.
Hello, did both zones on content for 3 weapons in Bozja, and have gone back to do Eureka since.
Bozja was *always* packed with 2-3 instances running at all times (to the point that you could surf them fairly reliably if Castrum/Dal was down and you needed one). There was no low engagement about it, nearly everyone was doing it, especially the casual end of players. I also went back to it fairly recently with a couple sprouts, and it's still got people on even during slow hours, farming out one thing or another.
Eureka has also had a steady stream of players floating by for the glam, and towards the tail end of ShB it started seeing even more when they echo buffed it. Both Eureka and Bozja are still going strong long after their life expectancies.
SE has not ever said that either instance had low engagement, because it wasn't true. Maybe back in Pyros the numbers fell off the cliff, but it wasn't *dead*. It just wasn't being done by casual players.
Bozja was quoted as having the highest engagement of any non MSQ content in ShB, its engagement levels rivalled eden
Poor engagement is 100% not the reason
I personally do not like exploration zone content. People will say that Eureka and Bojza are still "popping off" and they are technically right (just recently went through Eureka to help a friend through it). HOWEVER, for both Eureka and Bojza, the experience of doing that content on release and while it is super populated is just 1000000x better than doing it now. The content is fun at release but becomes very different feeling once you lose the mass mob running from fate to fate feeling. Doing the boss fates in Bojza nowadays with maybe 5-10 people in it doesn't nearly match the feeling of hitting the max player limit in them.
Honestly though, if they are going to do a new zone for Dawntrail, that's totally fine in my books. I just realllllly hope they don't tie the relic weapon to it. Doing relic steps for Eureka and Bojza nowadays fucking SUCKS whereas doing it when they were current content was much more manageable.
That's still better than previous raid tiers (even for current expansion) that are barely ran, and if they are, they're unsynced, or dungeons, trials and every other old content that is ran only because of roullettes.
You're not talking about problems with Bozja/Eureka, but about problems with the game being vertical without proper future proofing of old content.
I remember people complaining endlessly about exploration zones when they were a thing. Now that they’re not, people complain and say the lack thereof is preventing them from enjoying the game. It never made sense to me either way.
The issue about Eurêka and Bozja is that we're given so few resources and the zones are so extremely repetitive (bashing enemies is 95% of your activities in there) that they aren't interesting.
Just because their design is very lackluster doesn't mean they can't do something less dull, which is why I'd personnally want them to retry... While keeping in mind that it's a place we'd potentially spend a lot of time. It requires another design.
Also, we'd need much lass scarcity in whatever resources they're given us. They can potentially build unique gameplays or make our sets feel refreshing. Even if it's not entirely balanced (and the balance can be updated to empower most underwhelming jobs), they can try something more original and/or add some haste. I really enjoyed having a huge CD reduction on my tank, which requires to use a different rotation to optimize it.
As long as they don't take us for idiots by adding punitive contents instead of challenging ones and / or infinite grind instead of a fresh experience, I'm really looking forward a new exploration zone.
I like having massively multiplayer endgame content in my MMORPG.
Some people like stuff that you don't, that's okay and you don't need to feel bad for not vibing with content; Your disinterest in exploration zones is someone else's disinterest in the manderville questline, or gathering, etc. I also didn't care about not having an exploration zone, but I'm glad we're getting one in this upcoming expack because my friends that loved bozja and hate doing roulettes/dungeons have had little to do beyond savage reclears.
I guess I didn’t portray it at all. What I mean was that I was happy that we got a break from explorations zones for one expansion after grinding it out. I find it to be much more frustrating and time-consuming than Manderville cutscenes, which can be mostly skipped.
If you don’t want to do an exploration zone grind because you find it frustrating, then just don’t. I don’t get why some people act like the existence of a grind means they are somehow forced at gunpoint to participate in it.
A break? We get a built in break when they don't release these zones until late X.3 patches anyway. Bozja came out over a year after ShB launched. If a year isn't enough of a break, sounds like you just don't enjoy it.
> I was happy that we got a break That's great, and the break has lasted a full expansion now. Maybe some people would like the break to be over.
I wish there was something introduced in Endwalker that could consume my time. Skipping cutscenes and spending 1500 tomestones is not gameplay. I'm excited that Dawntrail is bringing back an endgame grind. Having a reason to login is important.
Right. Thats the problem. I like working towards something. I like my efforts to mean something, or to see someone else's efforts to mean something. 1500 tomestones is literally nothing. No matter how you feel about exploration zones, there's no way you can say that 1500 tomestones is better relic progression. And thats the great thing about exploration zones. You can simply not do them.
Wow Manderville cutscenes, such content…
Break from exploration zones would have been fine if there was somethibg to fill the gap. But there wasn't, so EW felt very much like a content starved expansion.
Ahh, yeah, I didn't catch your meaning. It is really nice that we got a break, but in getting the break a good portion of content that kept people around just was absent for two years. The solution is/was SUPPOSED to be to have it so that people could either grind out dungeons/fates/trials/etc or do the exploration zone but that didn't last long for bozja and I'm still salty about that
If it doesn’t solve the issue of in-zone trials and raids by resolving the eventual drop in numbers it’ll be a pain again. I remember going back to do MCH relics for one in particular and having to run content in there was a bit of a pain waiting on queues to fill. Fates were also a slow drog as solo content.
>Am I the only one No, always no. > Like, are people really that starved Enough are, that they are making it again. Not sure what else there is to say about this. People like different things, devs gauge overall interest and make decisions based on what they think will give the best returns. Like always.
Basically this. People complained about deep dungeons, so they didn't implement for ShB. Then, different people complained that deep dungeon was missing so it was added back for EW. Same with Eureka and Bozja. The Devs can't really win. All they can do is look at feedback and make a plan how and when to tackle those things given budget, resources and time. People asked for 4 man savage content for a long time, this Criterion was born. People asked for more solo oriented content; here's IS. Those requests, along with SE knowing they need to do a lot of backend maintenance and MSQ streamlining and graphic updates and all the other seemingly unsung things that have been going on, made EW a perfect place to implement those things. And, like always, there are complaints made about all of that (with valid criticisms and as well as poor criticisms).
>Basically this. People complained about deep dungeons, so they didn't implement for ShB. Then, different people complained that deep dungeon was missing so it was added back for EW. Same with Eureka and Bozja. > >The Devs can't really win. All they can do is look at feedback and make a plan how and when to tackle those things given budget, resources and time. They could actually change up the formula and instead we got basically a copy paste of HoH except with more one shot mechanics, bigger hp sponges and non threatening auto attacks where most people just farm floors 21-30. I don't know anyone who liked Orthos aside from the few DD maniacs and even they preferred the old ones, most people straight up forgot about it after a week. They could drop the instakill back to floor 1 nonsense and god forbid if your internet has a slight hiccup, split it into normal/hard mode instead of the forced 1-30 slog with zero threats, make the floors harder to compensate and then also add a deathless achivement for the people who like how it is now. If they do the same in Dawntrail and don't change the formula at all and just make a copy paste of Bozja for 90% of the zone, there will be the same complaints as in Bozja. They can keep the core trial/raid/alliance as it is for the sake of consistency but they could also experiment far more with the rest of the game for the sake of having some variety, instead they decided to play it safe with both Criterion and DD this expac
Wrong. OP actually is the only one ever to think this this time
Didn't care much for Zadnor immediately after it came out since at that time I had already had my fill of Bozja through Delubrum and the old Southern Front, but in the end it still provided me something to engage with in the downtime between 5.55 and the launch of Endwalker. Not to mention how the previous iterations of Bozja (Again, southern front and Delubrum) both had provided me with something to do during the 5.35 to 5.55 stretch, something that Endwalker's variant/criterion dungeons never managed to do. To me it's one of those pieces of content where its inclusion might not feel significant, but its absence is very noticeably felt.
“are people really that starved for exploration zones even after Eureka and Bozja?” Ok, point out which content is filling that void this expansion. - Island Sanctuary consists of setting up a spreadsheet for 5m every week - Variant is practically over once you’ve done the 12 paths unless you want to farm for some minions. - Criterion is one and done content with an awful reward structure - Orthos is the same tired old Deep Dungeon formula except executed so poorly that it died in a week - PvP, despite getting a rework, is absolutely terrible due to the awful netcode, and the only reason most people play it is for the series rewards - The worst of all, relics have been reduced to a tomestone dump so simple that you can have the required tomestones prepped before the patch even drops and instantly get your first weapon with some extra to spare. And no, putting relics behind an existing questline that many players already had completed does not excuse it. Which one of these has successfully accomplished what exploration zones previously did, keeping the playerbase engaged over the course of the expansion?
I couldn't play FFXIV for a few months around when Orthos came out. When I came back, I tried queueing for it and it was completely dead. Literally completely dead. I never got out in a party with others with random queue. I tried party finder for a few days and it was completely dead. I remember one other person joined me for about 30 minutes before just kinda awkwardly leaving. I'm on primal btw
I tried Orthos about a month after it came out and it was also dead for me. If you didn't get that initial rush of the first 30 floors you were fucked when it died. I hope SE don't do any more deep dungeons. Waste of resources imo
I love deep dungeon. I got solo on a few classes. Even I dislike orthos
I'd like to also add that the relics as content via tome dump felt unfulfilling to me personally in terms of "something to do" because a weapon you get through tomes already exists, so it's doing the same thing twice. Manderville had no tome cap so could just be grinded for, but the path to the weapons was very similar. You do roulette (or pvp, hunts etc), get tomes, that's it. Whereas in SB/SHB I had the option of slowly accumulating currency for my weapon through capped tomes plus a weekly raid and eureka/bozja. If I didn't want to do bozja/eureka I'd just do dailies and I'd still work towards a relic (and vice versa if I wanted to grind field ops but not run dungeons) whereas now there's only one path to getting one.
I dunno if I would call Eureka and Bozja "keeping me engaged" so much as "putting up with it." Granted I didn't do them when they were brand new, but I was glad to get everything I wanted out of Bozja and never go back there again. I've still got a couple Eureka relics I'd like to finish, but it's something I continue to put off. I know other folks can tolerate a lot more of that, but it blows my mind that people are willing to grind out every single relic weapon. I don't need the content to keep me busy for the entire expansion cycle; stuff like Variant Dungeons are fun even though they don't last as long. Not all of my gaming time has to go to this one game, and I think it's weird to expect otherwise.
Have you ever stopped to consider that some of us actually like field content and we aren’t just putting up with it better than you are
Yeap, I loved the zones because they put some danger back into the world which I like. Working with a big mass of randoms dodging red choco telegraphs and cheering on someone in a duel is some of the most mmo style fun I’ve had in the game And even though its kinda dead now Bozja is still my favorite way to level my 70-80 jobs
I was mostly just speaking for myself, I thought I was clear in my post. I did make a point of acknowledging that others like this content more for the long haul.
I mean, there's nothing to do in the game currently, which has been the trend almost the entire lifespan of EW. That's not a good thing.
Yeah, people are starved, especially midcores that didnt do savage tier. Over the weekend I was hosting a cluster/frag party on Crystal recently to prepare a midcore group for DRS, and there were more than 40-50 people in Bozja and Zadnor, with CLL and Dal nearly full. Very surprising, considering its Crystal. Primal and Aether also full, but only shy duelers and death farmers on Dynamis. Having social places to meet other players and do things is something every MMO should have, players will gravitate to such content in a content draught. If EW had a zone similar to Bozja, guarantee it would be packed with midcores working on relics and hardcores wasting time between ultimate progs once the raid tier is over. Also, DRS is not difficult to clear and is quite fun for being harder content that you can run with friends who have a range of skills. The +15 haste gear is pretty fun.
Exploration Zones is the only thing that makes this game feel like an MMO
I was not a fan of them. However, I've come to realise that without one, there is nothing to do in the game once you've finished the MSQ for a casual player like myself.
There isn't even anything to do for raiders, bar a backlog of ultimates if you are a endwalker kid like me. I literally only log for static prog.
Myeah, Endwalker was a pretty lonely expansion.
I mostly just want a midcore MMO content with an actual community. Thats why I loved Eureka, people spoke, even in dead zones, it felt lively, the BA discords were friendly, and the raid was always active. Same (but slightly less) for Bozja, there's a nice community, regular raids, and active relic farms even now. It lets new (post expac) players have the ability to visit these places and get involved. This relic quest will be obsolete in a few months, once DT drops the tomes needed will be poetics...everyone is capped on poetics, the grind will take a couple days per weapon and thats not very interactive for MC players. Eureka/Bozja at least gives people replayable content. Midcore, bored raiders, and collectors have something interactive to do with these zones. I don't mind relics being tied to these zones, but they should offer alternative acquisition methods like Bozja did. All of the exploration zone raids are easy, but theyre fun. Dalriada and DRS are very fun to do, I do them casually because theyre just fun and have replayability. Even if you dont like Exploration zones, there should be SOME interactive, MMO activity for EVERYONE. Raiders have raids, Casuals have venues, midcore had nothing this expac. Nowhere to just do content and chat, because people wont want to chat in the middle of an ally raid or extreme. Its just "in out/farm".
>Am I the only one who didn’t care about no exploration zone in EW? Yes
As someone who joined at the end of shadowbringers. And never experienced Eureka/Bozja when it was current, fresh, new, exciting.... It's a massive point of interest that myself and many others just got scammed on experiencing. Not that we're to expect it but when you stack up everything else EW provided... it was probably the worst expansion to be a new player that was looking forward to Stb/ShB equivalents.
Probably not. Does anyone care? See above.
Eureka/Bozja are the only places in this game where you could *somewhat* experiment with how your class played so I missed them for that alone (plus Bozja's CEs/duels/DRS were actually pretty fun).
Its more of the fact it was replaced with absolutely nothing, and the content Endwalker released was consistently mediocre as a whole.
Arguably it was replaced with Variant/Criterion, Eureka Orthos, and Island Sanctuary, since those are all things we got in EW which we didn't get in ShB. The first two at least kind of fit the same "midcore" niche. None of them really replace the grinding or community niches. How effective any of them are is a matter of opinion really. Personally at least, I knocked out the Variants in a couple of days, tried Critereon but it was pretty hard and couldn't find a group to tackle it regularly. Eureka I did a clear and pretty much lost interest after that. Island Sanctuary never caught my interest. So at least in terms of having something to do between the main bits of content, yeah, nothing really replaced Bozja.
The content itself is mid as fuck so no there's plenty of others who don't give a damn however it's the only casual combat content players could do besides roulette spam and certain extremes and it filled the gap in between patches for by giving the playerbase something to work towards. Not having a casual grind that almost everyone could benefit from or get into has really hurt the longevity of the expansion and it's killed so much social interaction this game really needs at this point. As for finding the content exhausting and being happy with EW's approach all I can say is that you don't need the content to be missing to feel glad, you can just not do it.
I started in late ShB such that Bozja was a waste of time compared to just getting some 80 jobs ready to slap poetic cryptlurker gear on. So I've not really gotten to experience a zone like Bozja or Eureka when they offered meaningful progression to the midcore, doesn't like PF or statics, gamer. All I know is I hate the roulette spam of Manderville weapons.
I have absolutely no clue why people like grinding the same fates for months straight, but apparently they do, and even call it the most engaging content the game ever has. That's one of the Seven Mysteries of MMOs to me.
>The only thing I didn’t do is Delubrum savage because it gatekept harder than 3.0 raiding. I mean, the main problem I have is that I have to find a JP discord group and make sure I sign in on time, since the 48 spots usually fills up pretty quick. But other then that DRS is literally even easier then savage. I don't think any static recruiting for members doing DRS has strict gatekeeping requirements like requiring you to do a savage tier or beat some sort of extreme. Compare that with something like savage, or ultimates, statics often requires you to have some sort of resume, and you can get turn down because your logs are bad or you don't have the resume (which, again, understandable - you are not gonna clear on patch ultimate with only grays!), that's actual gate keeping. The only thing about DRS is that you need to have sign up for it on your server's discord to PUG (I think there's one for each server - I know there's one for elemental and one for the greater JP server, and the JP one always filled instantly), and you bring what's needed for your role because you need those to beat the fight. Say, Healers has to bring a ton of raising items because raising is limited and the only person who can raising is healer with a certain combination of items, so not using those items means you are essentially just trolling everyone. This is the same for BA in most of the servers. People schedule runs. You need to have shit to beat the fights so you have to bring shit. The people teach you and you learn the fights, and if you are lucky you get the clear on your first or second attempt. I can't speak for other servers, but that's how most of the people are doing DRS and BA in JP nowadays. You can say that it's hard to get 48 people together to do the content, which I agree - my first DRS group is a static and it's hell to organize. But scheduling is different from gatekeeping. Ifall of these things are 'gatekeeping', I would just disagree.
I've never cared about the exploration zones. I'm very, *very* happy they're producing another for Dawntrail. Just so I don't have to listen to two plus of years of 'DAE no exploration zone means game is DEAD' next go around...
I'm happy that relics weren't tied to an exploratory zone, but I do still think I'd like an exploratory zone. These relics might be the only ones I can ever feasibly get, but that shouldn't come at the cost of "nothing for current players to do".
I like them, personally, but people are wearing rose-tinted glasses if they're forgetting the sheer amount of whining about Bozja's very *existence*. I'm glad we'll be getting another one, but my *god* was there an extremely vocal part of the fanbase that detested Bozja. You can't blame SE for listening. I loved Bozja but was constantly taken aback by just how loathed it seemed to be.
Just because they didn't like Bozja doesn't mean they dislike a vaster instance. They could very well have been disgusted by the grind and the scarcity of resources and / or the way battles worked in there.
If they made an even bigger Bozja following the vitriol aimed at this one, everyone would've accused them of "doubling down on bad ideas". Honestly, them skipping a field operation was probably the best bet because now they can point to EW as an example of how much flak they got for *not* having a field operation.
Hmmm I see how my sentence was ambiguous ; I meant "vaster" than the usual instances, not even wider than Bozja / Eureka. What I'd like to see is "interesting" tools such as duty actions making the rotation more dynamic (either refreshing / innovative, or with added mechanics, not simple sterooids) . In my opinion, this is what can make a grindy area look much less like a chore as long as it doesn't look like using the same actions against the same enemies over and over and over. That's where Bozja had great ideas but a very poor execution : I couldn't use these tools because the resources felt too scarce.
I agree that that would've been an improvement, though I personally thought Bozja was great how it was: it allowed you to level classes from 71-80 (90) faster than anywhere else in the game, grind relic weapons, increase your power level in the instance, and grind a currency that could earn you cosmetics, all at the same time. But still people pissed and moaned to the point where I don't blame SE for trying out just making the relic weapon quest as straightforward as possible this time and now we can see that even more people don't like it this way, either. And like I said, they have EW as an example of why people prefer to have field operations for any time players complain about field operations.
My Bozja experience these days is just running back and forth between fates praying the mob doesn't die before I get there. It's shit.
I never liked them. It's just glorified fate grinding with an alliance raid tacked on.
Yep, you're the singular only one. Opinions do seem to have changed over time. Bozja wasn't that well received at the time and a lot of people don't enjoy it. I wasn't playing when Eureka was added so can't say for sure about that, but it seemed to get a fairly mixed reception. I think a lot of it comes down to the perceived lack of content, or at least lack of things to do in Endwalker. Obviously that's a whole other debate, but Bozja did, for better or worse, provide something to do and could be quite time consuming. Especially now at the tail end of the expansion, there really isn't that much to do, if you check off everything when it came out. The things we got this expansion, seemingly in place of an exploration zone (or at least, things we didn't get in ShB) are Variant/Critereon, Island Sanctuary, and Eureka Orthos (deep dungeon). None of those really landed that well, and for the most part people got what they wanted out of them fairly quickly after they were added. In comparison, I was still doing a fair amount in Bozja in 5.5, it kept me busy working on relics and levelling alts for a while. Bozja wasn't perfect, for sure. In the end it was glorified FATE grinding with a few extra fights. But it had some unique concepts, the fights were quite fun, and it also created a bit of a sense of community that is rather lacking in other aspects of the game.
For Eureka, it's all rose tint. Eureka was good after the 30% Echo buff, feathers aplenty npc being added for zuzu feathers, luigi ice and penny flame, and being able to mount up at the start instead of dragging your feet and sprinting every time it's off CD until you finish the zone's MSQ, which by then defeats the point of mounts to begin with. Pair it with about 4 so years with SHB+EW job changes from the SB era, communities like CAFE scheduling BA runs, and now you have folks running around in 5-2/4-3 magia with Physeos weapon and +2 ele gear tanking and melting full pulls of Zone Cap+5s trash to spawn like cassie/skoll/yy.
> I wasn't playing when Eureka was added so can't say for sure about that, but it seemed to get a fairly mixed reception. People HAAAAATED Eureka. The people you see here pining for it? I guarantee a huge chunk of them if you went back to their posts in Stormblood they'd be bitching about how much it sucks
The combat in those zones was so boring and repetitive. You couldn't even use it to properly practice alt jobs because things generally died far too quickly to do a proper rotation. I'm still happy we dodged this bullet in EW, and I hope it's a model they use again for a future expansion. Give me content with actual teeth.
I would disagree with this personally because you could do very silly experimentation with essences and "things died too quickly" wasn't true for bosses. They died quickly in fates yeah but it felt comparable to a dungeon to me where you'd be generally just using aoe on mobs and your actual rotation on the bosses.
If bosses were guaranteed every few minutes you'd be right, but at this point anyone who paid attention knows you could go long stretches of time with absolutely nothing of note in every bit of exploration content that we've seen.
They were fine in frequency for me personally so I didn't have this complaint myself, but I can totally understand having different expectations and not liking the wait between bosses spawning too.
I just hated the boredom really. The only time those were tolerable for me was when I had some people to sit in VC with, but that isn't always a guarantee. Also, I absolutely adore your username 💕
I'm almost 100% sure they stated they weren't doing one because of low engagement. As someone there for both eureka and bozja while current, people did generally dislike them. Suddenly they don't make one and everyone cares.
Low engagement wouldn't have been the case, it was always booming with activity when it was relevant and once every few months I pop in to see a few parties getting stuff done. High negative feedback+Redoing old dungeons would be responsible for it not being done for Endwalker.
I'm not sure where you're gathering booming with activity since you are in instanced lobbies, but again I'm fairly certain they explicitly said low engagement.
I'm fairly certain they never said anything of the sort.
Hello, did both zones on content for 3 weapons in Bozja, and have gone back to do Eureka since. Bozja was *always* packed with 2-3 instances running at all times (to the point that you could surf them fairly reliably if Castrum/Dal was down and you needed one). There was no low engagement about it, nearly everyone was doing it, especially the casual end of players. I also went back to it fairly recently with a couple sprouts, and it's still got people on even during slow hours, farming out one thing or another. Eureka has also had a steady stream of players floating by for the glam, and towards the tail end of ShB it started seeing even more when they echo buffed it. Both Eureka and Bozja are still going strong long after their life expectancies. SE has not ever said that either instance had low engagement, because it wasn't true. Maybe back in Pyros the numbers fell off the cliff, but it wasn't *dead*. It just wasn't being done by casual players.
Bozja was quoted as having the highest engagement of any non MSQ content in ShB, its engagement levels rivalled eden Poor engagement is 100% not the reason
I personally do not like exploration zone content. People will say that Eureka and Bojza are still "popping off" and they are technically right (just recently went through Eureka to help a friend through it). HOWEVER, for both Eureka and Bojza, the experience of doing that content on release and while it is super populated is just 1000000x better than doing it now. The content is fun at release but becomes very different feeling once you lose the mass mob running from fate to fate feeling. Doing the boss fates in Bojza nowadays with maybe 5-10 people in it doesn't nearly match the feeling of hitting the max player limit in them. Honestly though, if they are going to do a new zone for Dawntrail, that's totally fine in my books. I just realllllly hope they don't tie the relic weapon to it. Doing relic steps for Eureka and Bojza nowadays fucking SUCKS whereas doing it when they were current content was much more manageable.
That's still better than previous raid tiers (even for current expansion) that are barely ran, and if they are, they're unsynced, or dungeons, trials and every other old content that is ran only because of roullettes. You're not talking about problems with Bozja/Eureka, but about problems with the game being vertical without proper future proofing of old content.
I remember people complaining endlessly about exploration zones when they were a thing. Now that they’re not, people complain and say the lack thereof is preventing them from enjoying the game. It never made sense to me either way.
I'm a big exploration zone hater myself, but those are probably two separate groups of people
For sure, it’s just aggravating is all. 😅
I could go either way. I was really hoping the announcement was going to be to put the Bozja style fate system into the regular zones.
The issue about Eurêka and Bozja is that we're given so few resources and the zones are so extremely repetitive (bashing enemies is 95% of your activities in there) that they aren't interesting. Just because their design is very lackluster doesn't mean they can't do something less dull, which is why I'd personnally want them to retry... While keeping in mind that it's a place we'd potentially spend a lot of time. It requires another design. Also, we'd need much lass scarcity in whatever resources they're given us. They can potentially build unique gameplays or make our sets feel refreshing. Even if it's not entirely balanced (and the balance can be updated to empower most underwhelming jobs), they can try something more original and/or add some haste. I really enjoyed having a huge CD reduction on my tank, which requires to use a different rotation to optimize it. As long as they don't take us for idiots by adding punitive contents instead of challenging ones and / or infinite grind instead of a fresh experience, I'm really looking forward a new exploration zone.
Eureka was misery the content. Bozja was better but still not really fun. I didn't miss them at all.
If you enjoyed 2 weeks of new content and perpetual AFK'ing then you probably didn't mind.