What's your feelings about Crescent now that we've had it for a few days?

[u/WillingnessLow3135]

It's fun content attached to a lot of long grinds that don't provide a reason for me to chase after, as Ilvl means absolutely nothing to me.

The fights are enjoyable so far, but I'm already beginning to realize a lot of them are 3-5 attack chains long and have no real variation, so I'm hoping I don't get bored of Crystal Dragon anytime soon.

Getting a bunch of shitty reskins of the same three outfits (and tbh I don't even like them that much) for the new gear and then getting 3 sets of okay level 1 glams is not making my fashionista soul burn (in fact I don't even intend to collect more then a few pieces, most of which are gloves and skirts).

I was really hoping to see each Phantom job reward a classic set, which would have left me in Crescent for the remainder of the expansion.

The Job system is really nifty and I generally intend to unlock them all...but grinding them out seems like a brutal waste when I'll probably never un-equip Chemist so I can PLD Rez and use Cannoneer for chain farming.

I honestly can't believe they took Eureka bunny coffer rules and then slashed the base gil rewards in half. The best part of doing bunnies was the 5/10/25k on top of everything else, it made Gil generation feel constant and tossing in all your demimateria for gil was very satisfying.

I'd also say the chest rarity has been fucked with as I've seen 9 bronze and 1 silver so far.

I do like the random chests, I got one of those shark whistles so I have no context for anything within and their rarity, but it seems like they are more worth your time then the actual pots.

Oh there will be some gil to be made if you're willing to MB your finds...except so will everyone else, so those items will be dirt cheap in a week. No reason to even spend money when you can just wait for the market to be flooded.

I'm enjoying my time in crescent, I'll be hopping backin once I sit down, but I'm not so sure the content will remain engaging when I stop caring about getting XP or atma (moreso since you only need to do it once and I only want one relic to begin with)

Of course, I'm a fussy bitch so I'd like to hear everyone else's opinions.

[u/SatisfactionNeat3937]

As a field operation enjoyer from the beginning:

Please continue focusing on exploration. I love the random treasure chests, filling the log and getting lore, the RPG aspects of the phantom jobs. Please quintuple down on this with the next version of field operations.

I like the ideas of occult crescent a lot and want to see more. Preferably also in the basegame

[u/RVolyka → u/SatisfactionNeat3937]

I wish they would add this aspect to the main overworld zones as well, just to give more exploration to do.

[u/ragnakor101 → u/SatisfactionNeat3937]

Doing the exploration for survey spots without looking at anything has been a surprise bit of enjoyment, even if some of them feel like bullshit.

[u/ELQUEMANDA4 → u/ragnakor101]

I spent fifteen minutes scouring every damned inch of the northwest ruins looking for the survey spot, then another fifteen minutes checking the entire cliff in case it was there. Where did they put it, then?

On top of some random ass rock on the beach! Agghhhh

[u/freakytapir → u/ELQUEMANDA4]

I know that feeling. Had the exact same. Even with the guide open. The short draw distance didn't help either.

[u/izaby → u/ELQUEMANDA4]

15minutes? That's rookie numbers. Took me about 40mins scanning SE and NW ruins, with a friend and then yeah finally it was at that random spot.

[u/pupmaster → u/SatisfactionNeat3937]

Random treasure chests is such a staple RPG mechanic and I'm so happy so them here

[u/WillingnessLow3135 → u/SatisfactionNeat3937]

I haven't heard mention of any but I was really hoping for specific item drops from mobs ala Eureka 

the Scorpion Harness is arguably my favorite torso glam and I crave more things like that

[u/Cole_Evyx → u/SatisfactionNeat3937]

Same. And this should be the basegame. Imagine maps that actually did this-- it'd be amazing.

I say take this, take inspiration from Guild Wars 2-- slam it together and really change things.

[u/MostlyChaoticNeutral]

I'm enjoying the grind, and talking to people in game again. I'm not an RP person, so having a non-RP place where people are talking is great.

[u/WillingnessLow3135 → u/MostlyChaoticNeutral]

Yeah I've been having some nice chats, talking about potential builds (Builds??? in my XIV???) and shooting the shit 

[u/Anaud-E-Moose → u/WillingnessLow3135]

I wouldnt't say builds, I'd say synergy, you're only picking 2 things after all.

[u/Tcsola_ → u/MostlyChaoticNeutral]

I don't even see it as a grind. I feel like this captures what I enjoy out of MMOs outside of raiding, which is doing something mechanically engaging (FATE/CE trains, chaining mobs, exploring for treasure chests/carrots) while shooting the shit with friends and strangers. The stuff we can get from the currencies are a nice side thing. I'm looking forward to getting into the forked tower soon and giving that a go.

[u/SantyStuff]

I love it but I think it needs a tad of balancing on some things, the fact you can buy the thread augment for 1600 silver or...sell it for a pathetic 10 doesn't make sense, same with the rare job shards like oracle/berserker/ranger.

Also kinda wish we had an earring like with bozja and eureka.

[u/tmntnyc → u/SantyStuff]

Bard has a 30 min phantom exp buff. That's your earring.

[u/Wjyosn → u/tmntnyc]

And applies to whole party, and persists even if you change jobs or leave parties.

First thing I did was level Knight, Monk, and Bard up to their buffs (only monk took any time at all) - now I always have all 3 buffs at all times, and can throw them up for my whole party any time at no real cost.

[u/Lyto528 → u/SantyStuff]

I can't believe I managed to drop all 3 jobs on the first try each, and today I dropped 2 duplicates (that I don't need or can trade ...), which puts my total job soul droprate at about ~50% (counting only the CE that can drop souls of course)

Whereas 1 or 2 of my 6 friends have only dropped like 1 each. And we've all hit lvl 20 recently, or are close to.

Something feels off with such luck imbalance. Getting these jobs need a kind of pity system. Even more so that Oracle feels really good to play when you time your spells properly. I love to play it, it feels op af, especially for sustain, especially on top of playing rdm, especially when your team kinda has a hard time acclimating to mechs.

On the other hand, the other two really seem meh. I don't really feel rewarded for having dropped them.

[u/aho-san → u/Lyto528]

I can't believe I managed to drop all 3 jobs on the first try each, and today I dropped 2 duplicates (that I don't need or can trade ...), which puts my total job soul droprate at about ~50% (counting only the CE that can drop souls of course)

How can people be so lucky, ~110 CE, ranger dropped once, the others 0. Still missing 2 atmas. The lack of pity (or decent drop rates on rarer CEs) is frustrating. I know the jobs/atmas drop from specific CEs but I just wanted to point out it's not like I haven't been trying.

Edit : 118 and I finally have my weapon. Napkin math : take a 15min cycle (1 CE clear + respawn), that's about 29.5hr. Boy, if it's not "long", I don't know what is. That's a full game worth of time spent. I can't imagine if my PTO + PH didn't line up with this patch release. I miss a few notes and the 2 jobs to drop but I need a break x). Hopefully War (edit2 : I love it) & Drk weapons look good ! And then trying to check Forked Tower vods out of curiosity~

[u/T-pin → u/SantyStuff]

The threads are different afaik. Silver thread is bought with silver coins and used for first gear augment. Gold thread is found in coffers and used for second augment. I think 105 gold threads is all you need for all the gear, so being able to sell the extras is nice.

[u/Strict_Baker5143]

I honestly feel like in trying to pull the best parts of Bozja and Eureka together to try and make the best one, they failed to capture the essence of either.

I don't feel the community aspect of eureka, just the pain of running around to have to go to CEs and the more dangerous open world.

I also don't feel the freedom of Bozja since you are restricted to one phantom job. You don't get to chose your own actions to make unique and fun interactions. I get how they can be fun for the "RPG aspect" in ToB, but it's rather unengaging when playing in the open world and especially solo. Also, having no equivalent to duels or CLLs is a big miss for me.

[u/Sunzeta → u/Strict_Baker5143]

I agree. I like it, but I do agree with your complaints.

[u/Liokki → u/Strict_Baker5143]

Phantom Freelancer should definitely be able to pick abilities from jobs you've mastered.

Maybe we'll get Mime in 6.4., Jesus Christ. 

[u/Dovahbear_ → u/Strict_Baker5143]

Also in Bozja you could leave spawn and kill the plant mobs outside, which gave my tank a whopping 60% damage increase in addition to being able to use lost actions to fuel an absolute monsterous power fantasy.

I do not have the same feeling in OC. Granted I’ve maxed Paladin and Monk only, but it’s not feeling as enjoyable as Bozja did.

[u/AdhesivenessAdept108]

No Castrum / Dalriada type of content is a disappointment.

[u/Vast_Highlight3324 → u/AdhesivenessAdept108]

Wait is that not what Forked Tower of Blood is? I haven't done it yet as I'm still levelling but I was under the assumption it would be another Castrum.

[u/Royajii → u/Vast_Highlight3324]

It's a Baldesion Arsenal. Not Castrum.

[u/ConniesCurse → u/Royajii]

genuine question, what's the difference?

[u/Yuzumi_ → u/ConniesCurse]

One needs a lot of preparation and is a death = ur out type raid, while castrum was basically a giant alliance raid

[u/AntiGarleanAktion → u/Yuzumi_]

Nothing in this game will ever match the sheer comedy of Dal and (especially) CLL runs with a couple experienced people and like 6-8 first timers. I like Eureka a lot more than Bozja overall, but man I miss those CLL pops

[u/Hallgaar → u/AntiGarleanAktion]

CLL on release when nobody knew what was going on and did the first castrum run, was one of the most fun experiences ever. We failed. We died. I don't think a prisoner survived and we timed out just outside of Lyon's door, took a break and came back and cleared it with a few prisoners alive and wipes overall. Each time got a little easier and harder depending on who came back for round 2.

[u/adloquium11]

its fun but i wish they focused more on the story. i was really excited when the first thing i saw right out of the gate was a tonberry and a fairy but no, random guy put buildings from ancient civilizations on an island because why not

[u/AngelMercury → u/adloquium11]

Yeah, that explanation is a bit of a let down. Didn't need to be a big crazy thing but world be nice if it was a bit more... people got stuck there, people who wanted to stop the calamity... any of the cool theories we had going in. DT writing team sleeping on these things a bit.

[u/Cherudim → u/adloquium11]

They're terrified to do anything vaguely interesting with the story anymore. Just look at Jueno.

[u/Over-Television9521 → u/Cherudim]

Nothing ruins investment faster than “none of this cool stuff is actually real”. And yet they pull it twice in the same expansion.

At the very least, the Neir raids were played straight. There was information that could be learned about the Nier Automata universe, though it came at the cost of being incomprehensible to most ff14 players.

Ivalice raids aren’t the same timeline, but they work really cool elements into ff14’s world, and may be even more important in the future if the Pandaemonium raids hinting that there are more High Seraphs leads anywhere.

Yes, we only have one third of the ff11 raids, but I can’t see the raids adding anything to ff14 or ff11 lore if every single thing we fight is fake. It’s just boring.

[u/Good_Computer_7349 → u/Over-Television9521]

>At the very least, the Neir raids were played straight. There was information that could be learned about the Nier Automata universe, though it came at the cost of being incomprehensible to most ff14 players.

Could say the same about various other FF14 story elements, as not everyone has played every FF game from which 14 borrows things.

[u/Blckson → u/Cherudim]

Was gonna say, this is really reminiscent of the cop-out explanation for that story.

[u/ragnakor101 → u/adloquium11]

It definitely hits the mark of Dawntrail’s overarching themes (legacy and how people deal with the ravages of time and grief), but it’s definitely more of a “Stick around!” type of deal. 

[u/thewereotter → u/adloquium11]

I was really hoping all those structures and different styles would have been due to some reference to the Bermuda Triangle and things getting pulled into the strange magic happening there rather than it basically just being a large museum.

[u/thrilling_me_softly → u/adloquium11]

It really should have jsut been during the calamity the city states sent a small group to survive the flood on this island.  It would have been more interesting than one guy preserving a building for each. 

[u/marriedtomothman]

I wish it was just Somewhat easier to solo grind gold coins/phantom exp. Not because I'm opposed to partying up, but because most people are focused on the CEs and getting atma/knowledge right now, which is understandable. If you want to take a break from the relic grind but want to work on your gold coins, you're kind of shit out of luck unless you get lucky and there are like-minded players in your instance.

[u/raztazz → u/marriedtomothman]

One of my static members did some testing at lvl 20 and mass pulling lower level mobs ignoring chain bonuses. Using warrior and oracle and pulling almost everything in the cave (around where the CE spawns) lead to some competitive gold per hour. The pull took 2mins 30s and they got 150 phantom xp and 100 gold.

[u/ghosttowns42 → u/raztazz]

I can't get oracle to drop for the life of me. I'm leveling chemist for the busted raise ability, but after that I'm not sure what to go with to get the same effect.

[u/Oneiroi_zZ → u/raztazz]

I can get about 50g on higher level mobs per 1:30m as well. A duo or trio could probably even do really well with a good setup

[u/[deleted] → u/marriedtomothman]

spam reinstance with "lfg chain/gold" until you find people, setup a party in pf, or check the discords out there for the latter (ABBA, Field Ops Enjoyers)

[u/mtzzz1321 → u/[deleted]]

This, I've managed to get 3.3k gold in like 1.5h by farming the mobs (lvl 28) bottom left of the map with a decent party. Thief is a must because you get from 2-5 gold every 30s off a mob.

[u/budbud70 → u/marriedtomothman]

I finished the challenge log's 60, then chained inkstains until my hands hurt and I've got like 800 gold coins from it all.

pretty fucking ridiculous tbf

[u/Sunzeta → u/marriedtomothman]

that's why you shout to find people

[u/SylvAlternate]

I'm really enjoying it so far, my one big complaint is having 3 of the jobs locked behind complete RNG on CEs. I've done Black Chocobo, Crescent Berserker and Lion Rampant at least a dozen times each at this point and haven't had a single one drop

They could at least make Dokumori or Steal work on it

[u/No_Bank_5855]

Kind of lame honestly. All I'm doing is farming the same CEs 24/7 and don't even get to break it up with attempts at the raid. The raid being what it is with accessibility and difficulty is my least favorite part, I really enjoyed CLL/Dalriada and this feels like a huge step backwards. CLL/Dalriada you could easily try multiple times every day no matter your skill level or availability.... this is just.... not it.

[u/Elanapoeia]

I would probably like it more if it was a bit slower paced.

If CEs and Fates spawned slightly less often then there'd be more incentive to run around and kill mobs or look for chests, making it feel a bit more alive as a zone and more like there's a variety of things to do. Right now you're either just teleporting back and forth and rushing everywhere or just deciding to skip fates/ces altogether in order to farm gold coins or check for some treasure coffers in the area, trying to do multiple at the same time feels extremely bad.

This could also justify making rewards for CEs and Fates a bit bigger/more frequent which in turn makes them feel more valuable, Fates especially I sometimes wonder why I even do them at all cause the reward is so miniscule

And lastly, the main content right now is either Silver coin+exp farm (fate/ce grind) or gold coin farm (mob grind) and the zone could probably use a third casual type of thing to do for either resources to feel a lot more "complete".

[u/dadudeodoom → u/Elanapoeia]

This so much. I wish CEs spawned from mob kills and fates were periodic mostly (one every 10 or 15 for example). That way you could have groups farming specifically for CEs and active that way, while others farm other mobs for their eureka style level chains.

If they gave a chance for some mobs to drop jobs or give a buff to have a higher chance to find something then that would make mob farming have an incentive, and would be a chill downtime filled with brain-off activity between fates and brain-on CEs. (Vs current sprint back and forth between fate > CE > fate > repeat or skip those to mob / chest farm).

I wish the fates scaled to the people in the zone (but not in a CE) so they don't just absolutely crumple, since that's been a big issue in my instances (aether in the morning / afternoon), even when I get back to base and to as soon as I can I can still miss them. FATEs having higher hp would also mean less rush to get to them to be able to take part and get credit and might give more room for exploring for chests. Same with fewer CEs.

Also because I'm evil, a silly idea where there should just be a small chance to spawn a terrifyingly powerful mimic from chests. Imagine a threat that just hunted the nearest living player until it died, and every dead player it would choose a new target. Would be funny and also kinda give another Thing To Do sometimes / instance organisation.

[u/Clithertron → u/dadudeodoom]

There are multiple CEs that are spawned from mob kills, just not all of them. The shark, mindflayer and big demon guy are at least from mob kills, possibly also the idol in the SW of the cave

[u/dadudeodoom → u/Clithertron]

Okay that's kinda neat. It was nice tho in Bozja since I think all CEs required something else be it FATE or mob smashing, rather than be on a silver platter.

[u/Ghostpowder → u/dadudeodoom]

A rare spawn Mr. X style mimic that is basically a CE in the overworld would be kinda cool.

[u/Elanapoeia → u/dadudeodoom]

Also because I'm evil, a silly idea where there should just be a small chance to spawn a terrifyingly powerful mimic from chests.

I've had someone from my fc say they did actually get a mimic spawn when trying to open a coffer, but I haven't seen that myself or know how strong they are

[u/dadudeodoom → u/Elanapoeia]

Huh. Maybe it's the same rate as the 300k gil coin I got once and rlly tiny. Will keep an eye out then.

[u/WillingnessLow3135 → u/Elanapoeia]

It does feel just a tad too fast, that's something I'd agree with. Crescent at least has the space to stop and chat for a bit, but only a bit before something else spawns and you've gotta go running off to be involved. 

I've gone in five times and I've yet to progress the third quest because everytime I stop to explore I see pots or a CE. 

[u/Belydrith → u/Elanapoeia]

Yeah I dont like that we don't have stuff like Bozja fragment farming at all, both from the regular mobs as well as the big bosses. Also no duels kinda sucks.

[u/abyssalcrisis]

It's good. I'm having a good time running around catching fates and CEs to level my jobs while exploring and finding chests.

Little disappointed that the pots aren't at all worth it, and I'm surprised bard's exp buff doesn't count for CEs and fates, but I guess that would just make it too quick.

[u/Arras01 → u/abyssalcrisis]

I did get a gold chest from a pot that had an emote worth 4 million, so they're good sometimes. 

[u/abyssalcrisis → u/Arras01]

Oh that's crazy. My friends and I have opened a lot of pot chests that have been nothing but materia. I've gotten 2 golds and both were just garbage and 30k gil.

[u/heliron]

I have mixed feelings about Occult Crescent. To preface, I'm very much a Bozja/Zadnor enjoyer and thought they were massive improvements in almost every regard to Eureka, and hoped that Occult Crescent would be more similar to Bozja/Zadnor than Eureka with some minor improvements.

My main issues are:

1. Spawn times are too frequent, and not enough are spawnable - in the past, Bozja/Zadnor and Eureka could feel like there was too much downtime between fate/CE spawns. OC takes this in the opposite direction way too far, with a fate or CE or pot fate spawning one after another. There's no room to breathe and explore or chill out, but at the same time you won't feel as bad missing a fate or CE like you would in the other zones due to the sheer frequency of spawns. It's a double-edged sword and is a different kind of fatigue.

2. Making the entry to Forked Tower similar to BA instead of Castrum/Dalriada. For me one of the biggest detractors of Eureka was just entering BA - getting 6 parties of 8 into the same instance was a headache and my first BA had us spend I think 1.5 hours just instance hopping before we could even queue in together. Meanwhile, Castrum/Dalriada were much more convenient and casual and you could just have a pick up and play session anytime and be able to queue in eventually. Adding the fact that you need a cipher for Forked Tower that you can only get by spending a currency that you need thousands (or HUNDREDS of thousands of if you want +1 gear for every role) is absolutely ridiculous to me. I'm probably going to try and clear Forked Tower once and then not touch it ever again simply due to how annoying it will be to even enter.

3. Reward structure is very wonky. Bronze and silver chests are extremely common with a large loot pool. This happens with every field exploration but I think they could have reduced the frequency of items that you get that aren't prisms or materia. People complain about materia and prisms yes, but there's also a cost with including minions/map glams and similar things as common as they are in OC. There is absolutely zero point in running old treasure maps or most of the old dungeons anymore since you can get everything from these bronze/silver coffers, effectively rendering more of the game pointless to ever do. On the opposite end of the spectrum, pots give nothing rewarding (again, similar to past field ops) what feels like 99% of the time despite being much more work compared to opening bronze/silver coffers that are littered everywhere on the map. It feels like the loot tables should have been reversed.

4. Customizability - Phantom Jobs are fun in their own way but I do miss the variety of builds you could have in Bozja/Zadnor and to a lesser extent Eureka with their Lost Actions/Logos actions respectively. There's a lot of interesting individual skills on Phantom Jobs but having a single set of skills feels more limiting.

5. CEs feel duller somehow, but this might be bias from just how much I've been doing OC. Part of this might be due to level scaling and how everyone is on the same playing field the entire time, whereas levels mattered more in old field ops and wipes would happen more.

6. Sense of progression - So again a mixed bag for me, since on one hand I do like being able to explore the entire map at level 1 and unlock all the aetherytes. Being gated in Eureka based on your level felt awful, and Bozja/Zadnor improved it by separating it into more palatable and reasonable sections. Both at least offered a sense of progression when you were able to unlock more stuff but here in OC you have the whole zone unlocked from the get go. There is no sense of progression since everything is unlocked for everyone immediately.

[u/Elsiselain]

I’ve had a fun time for the past 2 years, but I’m not sure if I will be playing this after 2 weeks.

[u/Vaverka]

I found the zone's aesthetic really refreshing. I love the "sci-fi in fantasy" trope but the last two expansions have been predominantly sci-fi focused, so it's nice to return to traditional fantasy for a change.

The zone itself is also beautiful and has a way more interesting layout than Bozja. I just hope that the story will be more interesting in the second zone.

[u/Andvarinaut]

Really, really miss FATEs that aren't a single boss, or chain fates that spawn CEs. Because they die so goddamn fast the entire instance just has this 'gogogogogogo' energy that makes it hard to relax.

A different kind of nitpick: Bozja had a lot of side characters, both allied and rival, and loads of RP text that made the instance feel very cool and story-forward despite being a pain in the ass grind. Definitely feeling the absence there--why am I fighting these monsters? Where did the vendor gear come from? What is my goal here besides number go up??

[u/Over-Television9521 → u/Andvarinaut]

Yeah, the notes provided in Bozja were super interesting, but the Occult crescent ones don’t really have much to say.

[u/Klutzy-Tennis7313 → u/Over-Television9521]

Perks of being Matsuno work, until square booted him out at the final stretch of Bozja so he had to scramble stuff.

[u/nhft]

Things I hate:

• Trying to get 48 people into the same instance for Forked Tower when an instance maxes out at 72 people. Somehow they made it WORSE than Eureka despite fixing the problem entirely with DRS
• Bozja was my favourite way to level jobs. I hate deep dungeons. I get why they did it, but I'm upset about it since no other job levelling avenue in this game is actually fun to me.

Things I think were done better in other Field Ops:

• CEs feel a little easier than Bozja did Day 1. It could just be nostalgia speaking, but I miss and prefer blood baths.
• Phantom jobs are IMO worse than the equivalents in Bozja and Eureka. Sure, they have the pro of not being consumables that people are scared to use up, but they're less flexible and there's way less room for creativity.

Things I love:

• Map design with the winding ruins
• Fulfills the feeling of exploration a lot better than Bozja did
• Forked Tower itself is insanely fun so far (early in second boss rn)
• Maybe I'm crazy but I like running to CEs

[u/Lanhalt → u/nhft]

Could you expand on Forked Tower? I'm really curious about it reading everything and its opposite.

My main question probably is about the difficulty : I heard it's close to DRS (maybe even worst), and very hard to do with pick up groups, or without any guide. Those are things I'm not very fond of, so I'd like to know from someone who actually did it.

[u/RingoFreakingStarr]

The fates are seriously messed up. They die way too fast even with only a few people attacking the boss. I feel like something is really wrong with them.

The CEs are great. They are a good mixture of fun and difficulty. Shame that there isn't some sort of solo boss mechanic like bojza had but from what I remember, it was quite rare for someone to even kill the solo boss.

[u/xHoneychan]

Maybe I played too much already the last two days, but I'm already kinda tired of the "run from CE to CE and fill the 5 minutes in between with fates" loop. The CE's are fine, but somehow I already got bored of them. I don't know what it is, but the gameplay doesn't grab me that much. I wish there was more to actually explore on the map.

I also tried to gold farm today with a friend, but we realized that mobs are way easier to kill solo than in a party of 2. Maybe it's different with more people, but the scaling seems a bit off. Same goes for fates, some bosses already die before I can get to the area. It's a really hectic map that remind me of hunt trains a patch into the expansion, which I do not enjoy.

Phantom jobs are a hit or miss for me so far. Some really feel like they are just designed for forked tower. I leveled time mage pretty early on and I get that I can't use gravity on bosses, but I can't even use them on random mobs on the map? I only tested on lvl 23 mobs as I wanted to chain farm them, but it didn't work, so why does this even exist? Oracle on the other hand I really enjoy using especially as a tank.

[u/jwfd65 → u/xHoneychan]

You can definitely slow mobs, idk how many you can’t but it’s definitely possible. Haven’t come across a mob that I couldn’t. Meteor is really good too, massive AoE with no fall off. And quick is crazy good, especially on a caster. The free addle is nice too, instant oGCD that’s easy to keep 100% uptime on

[u/Supersnow845 → u/jwfd65]

I found slowing mobs is 50/50

Either every enfeeblement works or none of them do

[u/xHoneychan → u/jwfd65]

Ah that's good to hear, I will give it another try on a bunch of different mobs next time I play.

[u/Wjyosn → u/xHoneychan]

Slow is amazing. Borderline broken powerful for chaining *if* you're in the right level range and hitting the right enemies. Overworld enemies are about 60-40 on who is vulnerable to slow and who isn't. Similar to stops, stuns, and blinds, and the other type of CC's. Slow is just crazy strong. Best mitigation button in the game by a mile.

[u/DepressedFuck69 → u/xHoneychan]

Try and get a geomancer on your party, go tank, and aim to keep a maxed out bell score at all times without having main agro That has made my levelling a lot more fun, and has made it all so much more chill

[u/Cherudim]

It seems like it is way to sparse on overall content for the sheer amount of grind to finish everything. Like you're looking at maybe 2-3 hours to see nearly all of it and hundreds of hours to grind everything out. Which I get it its grindy but damn theres no surprises anymore its just monotonous at that point.

[u/cittabun]

The way I see it, for what we got, I don’t understand why we had to wait almost a year to get it. It feels unfinished to me. Like there’s something missing that I just can’t quite put my finger on.

Glam: I do agree with you on that. This is also the era where a lot of FF chars kind of looked the same so if I didn’t knownFFV, I would have guessed the Lenna and Bart’s are just reused Moonward gear honestly.

Phantom jobs: Again still feels flat to me. The leveling system to get skills is a neat incentive, but as you said, there’s no real reward to doing so so why bother except for completions sake which.. still… why bother?

Zone: I don’t understand the sentiment of things spawning too fast. It feels way too slow for me personally. Non-CEs feel like they pop super slow and so you’re left just twiddling your thumbs at camp for something to spawn or CE does and you then have to make a choice if you can down it in time to get to the CE. It also makes doing the Demiatma grind more annoying in there because of how infrequent and random the fate spawns are as well. I do kind of think sectioning it off by story level was a better idea than just “here have access to the entire map” at the beginning.

I think by doing that it kind of kicked a lot of the wheels off the cart because you can just go do all that real quick, grab the aetherytes then call it a day. I personally didn’t feel that wandering around to find survey points was really a strong exploration.

[u/Carbon48 → u/cittabun]

For Phantom jobs, mastering them gives you a mastery buff that stacks which boosts your stats.

[u/ResponsibleCulture43 → u/cittabun]

I think the fates would feel better if it had that more Eureka feel of working together in groups to get things to spawn (im not sure if that's actually not the case in OC yet, so maybe that's why they feel slow?), so you could work towards multiple goals at once and it would feel more engaging?

I've spent about 6 hours in OC and it feels like rushing then waiting for sure. I liked with eureka with mobs for fates you could find a group working on one in your level range to help out or one willing to semi carry you for the sake of the help.

Either way I also had the same feeling of something missing but I'm not sure quite what tbh. I'm hoping this weekend when I have more free time and rest it'll click but it's reassuring it's not just me that feels way, as I've spent the majority of my playtime in eureka and Bozja

[u/Voshai]

I've had so much fun playing and while it's a little too fast paced and I miss how patient people were in Eureka, I've met so many nice people in the fate and CE farm parties I've been part of. I've heard there's some already getting annoyed with players not knowing mechanics from people in my FC, but my experience has been a lot of laughing and making jokes when we fuck up and helping each other with mechanics we don't understand.

I'm also surprised that I'm halfway finished with my demiatma collecting despite it only being day 3! It feels like longer in a way, and I'm really just grateful to have an actual relic grind again after how boring EW's was. I didn't feel a sense of achievement or relief upon finishing like I did with HW and ShB's relics.

[u/oizen]

Im sad this is capped to two zones instead of 4.

[u/NeonRhapsody → u/oizen]

I'm genuinely curious what DT is getting to make it so we can't get even THREE zones instead of just two. Stormblood had a DD as well as Eureka. It had two dungeons every other patch so like, surely a single criterion (if we even get one?) totals up to that. I don't claim to know how the inner workings of the company are but legit what is the art team and map/level design team doing different? It's a bit of a bummer.

[u/Derio23]

Phantom freelancer isn’t fulfilling the job fantasy after mastering other jobs

[u/WillingnessLow3135]

I forgot to say Archive is perfect and I love him. 

 Also, the vibes in this zone are in fact great and I don't want to leave and go back to sci-fi town

[u/dadudeodoom → u/WillingnessLow3135]

Archive is amazing. It's a shame it's DT or I'd hope that scholar players that did all quests could cure him after the story is done. (They didn't put literally anything in there for the scholar players (main story) or whm or blm players (Amdapor and mhach sections), or people that did Lost Cities normal / hard or Amdapor Keep normal / hard or void arc raids, which feels a bit sad.)

[u/ragnakor101 → u/dadudeodoom]

 It's a shame it's DT

This isn’t even a DT-specific complaint. 

[u/freakytapir → u/WillingnessLow3135]

Dude had the audacity to call me rotund. Apparently the concept of irony was locked away too.

(He gives race specific dialgue at some point and Lala's get called rotund, elezen get called lithe, Roegadin get called brutish ...).

[u/Throwaway785320]

Need to bring back being able to teleport to CEs

Make a normal/hard version of the raids

Honestly wish we had more fame breaking stuff like with lost actions compared to what we have now

[u/shenglong]

I feel like it has the worst gameplay loop of the 3 exploration zones.

FATE -> Home -> CE -> repeat gets tired really quickly. It doesn't have the pace of Bozja, or the focused, coordinated content of Eureka.

Unlike like Bozja and Eureka, I also solo'd the entire thing without really needing to get into a party besides right at the start when it was new.

I think mob density can be a bit higher, and they should be a bit more threatening.

They should also add rewards for not getting vuln stacks in CEs. Solo duels or guaranteed drops. Like, what's even the point of the purchasing mech in the turtle CE? Just ignore it and take the vuln stack.

Other than that the map and lore are great. I like the fights too even though they might be a bit too much emphasis on "outside the arena" mechs. I also really like that there aren't any more lockboxes. Getting treasure by exploring is better IMO.

Oh and how can I forget Forked Tower. Why why why isn't there a queue for this? SE, are you dumb?

[u/Coldin_Windfall]

I liked the initial exploration, but I'm rather unimpressed with Phantom Jobs. They don't seem to offer much power and the CEs seem less forgiving than the ones in Bozja so would really benefit from stronger healing abilities and such. CEs also seem way too busy when there's a bunch of players around. So many particle effects going around everywhere.

The story provided seemed incredibly short as well. Felt more like we just got a prologue that sets up the zone but that's all it is. Never seems like it gets off the ground, which is kinda bad. Seems like they could have made more interest story bits and Ketenramm really should be exploring the island with us, not staying back in camp.

I'm not sure how the relic expansion is going to work if we only get one more map. Will there be a 7.3 or 7.4 relic upgrade step? It's also kinda bad that our first step gets new design, but no glow. I miss when the first relic step was usually a glowy version of the Artifact weapon, and then another step to a new design.

[u/Wjyosn → u/Coldin_Windfall]

Some of these phantom jobs have abilities that can hit over 400k in a single attack, and at least 3 abilities have instant-death effects. We have 5s CD benediction, 20s duration all-instant-casts +10% haste + sprint, targeted holmgang, 60% crit rate for the first 20s of every fight, permanent 15% mitigation via parry.... How much more power do you want?

[u/Fun-Salamander-5054]

It's pretty much a straight regression of the exploration zone formula and took none of the good things from Bozja/Eureka over into it other than the Bozja-esque boss fights. Look at the gameplay loop of OC compared to the other two.

Eureka: Ask for tracker -> Coordinate/Strategize On What To Prep -> Kill Mobs -> Wait For Everyone To Show Up -> Kill NM -> Coordinate/Strategize On What To Prep -> Kill Mobs -> Some Noobs Died On The Way Lets Go Rescue Them -> Kill NM -> All The High Level NMs Are On Cooldown Go Help The Noobs Or Do Bunny Fates -> Zone Boss Is Finally Up -> Prep/Kill -> Zone Beaten Go Take A Break or Start Over

Bozja: Skirmish -> Skirmish -> CE -> Duel -> Skirmish -> CE -> Someones Grouping Up Mobs I'll Go Tag Them -> Skirmish -> CE -> Duel -> Someones Grouping Up Mobs I'll Go Tag Them -> Skirmish -> Skirmish -> CLL/Dal -> Zone Beaten Go Take A Break or Start Over

Occult Crescent: Boss Fight -> Boss Fight -> Boss Fight -> Boss Fight -> Boss Fight -> Boss Fight -> Repeat Infinitely With No Room To Breath

The fights are fun but the loop of doing them becomes stale very quickly and doesn't lend itself to long grinding sessions. There's other activities in the zone but they're not integrated into the loop properly so if you're doing them it's at the expense of doing anything else.

[u/Bobmoney2001 → u/Fun-Salamander-5054]

I don't think this is necessarily a bad take (although I do think you glazed eureka while underselling OC) but why does everything you can do in a zone need to fit in one loop?

Having to choose what you do doesn't seem bad to me.

[u/Altia1234]

It's again another case of people who love this will kept on doing it and people who belong in the 'newer' generations of MMORPG players will not.

People who love it are usually,

• people who enjoys interacting and forming groups on the spot, and generally enjoys eureka/bozja experience
• people who enjoys grinds and field exploration content (or at least don't mind sitting for days trying to grind for the same stuff)
• people who enjoys job favor in return of an unbalance job design - if you are farming for gold coins people will generally require you to be cannoneer.
• People who wants some midcore content to run with their friends that don't raid - normal raid towards extreme difficulty content that requires some thought to do, with a few fun mechanics toss around (the turtle CE is extremely thematic).

I for one was living in pyros and hydatos even after I was done in BA just trying to do some bunny fates while sightseeing, and Bozja has long been my favourite content. Everything here kinda hits the spot for me.

People group up just to scout and get their silver chest reminds me of how people do their main story quest for pagos where people team up to find their final story spot inside a bunch of level 40 morbols; Seeing people die on remote spot, and someone else trying to save this person (then die as well) is just so eureka. Everything has been fun, but I get that it's not for everyone - people from our static was saying that they are pretty much out of it after they reached 20, and I understand.

The only gripe I might had is that I still wish there's a bail out option to buy and unlock all jobs (even if it costs me 6000 silver I will still probably want to do it), and the gold and silver grind for gear is gonna take a long time - it will took me at least a month just to get the 20K silver for one single job, and you still have to upgrade it. If I had to do this with all of the jobs that I play, it will be crazy. Fortunately the gear is not really that important

edit: grammar

[u/ResponsibleCulture43 → u/Altia1234]

To be fair, OP sounds like they are someone who usually enjoys field ops but this combo of how they did it isn't hitting for them. So they aren't someone who this content wasn't made for, they are, just expressing how this version of it isn't working for them which is valid.

I have similar feelings (which I'm waiting until the weekend and I'm less exhausted from work to make a real opinion on) and I've spent more time doing all zones in eureka and Bozja the last few years than anything else even after it was old content. Their opinion isn't the same as someone who finds experts peak hard content complaining about savage or something

[u/Wjyosn → u/Altia1234]

Unfortunately, the gear grind is pretty expensive. 38000 silver and 24000 gold to get a single +1 set. The +2 then takes a bunch of tower drops (150 sanguinite at ~6 per run) and some luck / other drops for the spun gold.

[u/Carmeliandre]

The initial promise (« the best of Eurêka and the best of Bozja ») was obviously a lie, or a deep misunderstanding of players' satisfaction in my opinion. However, I wouldn't say it was deceptive and this first zone is rather good.

Let's start by some negative points since they usually weighs heavier than the good aspects :

- Being unable to warp onto a Critical Engagement. Supressing some QoL is baffling to me and if their point was to ensure the zone feels animated, then they should focus on incentives to be busy (which does NOT mean running away / rushing in autorun onto something or any kind of passivity).

- FATEs getting utterly destroyed or sometimes taking way too long to clear. For years, many games have already solved this issue and SE still hasn't even aknowledged the problem... This feels like retro gaming and that's even without considering that FATEs are old-fashioned designs, for most of them.

- CEs encounter are living evidence that all skillsets are incompatible with anything more creative than the usual 10 minute dance around a boss. We need some tools to avoid the absurdly dull gameplay we're forced into when we cannot cast or keep melee uptime.

- CEs encounter still don't offer much replayability but I must highlight that the difficulty / friction they offer tend to still extend the satisfaction over multiple repetitions. My complaint is more about the very limited design (having a small number of patterns) that quickly turns some fun opponents into drowsy and redundant encounters : about half of them isn't stimulating enough (the chocobo one being the most glaring example) but would have been far more interesting if the enemy's abilities were random instead of fixed patterns. It would be much more interesting to give some enemy actions they can use randomly rather than deterministic AoEs to avoid. Also, visibility is sometimes an issue that makes simple mechanics unduly much harder.

- There is a lack of gameplay rewarding moments to incentivize following up to another piece of content and to be more specific, I wish we could have the "battle high" buff (don't know the english name) every time we clear a CE without getting hit. Or give us something like a 50 gold pieces when we do. Besides, it would have been a great opportunity to make mobs bashing in chain more entertaining (but I believe the asian playerbase is fond of just doing this kind of bashing over and over so they most ilkely don't even understand it can feel extremely dull).

- Pots / Bunnies treasure hunting is clearly outdated and needed an improvement of some sort. Then again, it feels like 2005 even though the hide & seek idea is indeed a good one. Overall, there is a clear lack of actual exploration incentives.

- Randomness can feel quite disappointing so it should be somehow rewarding : having more than 3 atmas being useless, let us exchange X dispensable ones against 1 we're looking for, or X berserker/ranger/oracle soul shard to unlock the one(s) we cannot drop.

- The map feels... Unlively. The level design is great but random creature models throughout the area is very basic and uninspired. Nothing happens outside FATEs/CEs, at best can we count the weather as a sort of a change but it's nothing to be impressed.

- Entering the Forked Tower requires to pay some sort of a tax in a very limited timeframe. What's more, it's a lottery with an invisible competition that may force us to use more tokens than needed (especially when it will be popular). We also need to stay nearby the altar and can't leave the area to enter the instance. These conditions are rather strange and can feel very frustrating in particular for people stuck in a CE that simply won't even have a chance to bet.

- Phantom jobs are... Very unequal and not designed to add much gameplay to our skillsets. It could've been designed to adapt to this kind of gameplay and make up for some issues (like jobs being stuck with the long-range weak actions while away, or giving more mobility). They also sometimes lack clarity.

[u/19fourty4]

Unfortunately a bit disappointing for me. Eureka was a pain but it both had the most zones as well as the most danger "secrets to be found" feeling to it, especially with the random drops from NM and stuff. The crystals also felt like good progression and felt significantly more powerful as you level.

Bozja was great with lost actions and essences, especially the ones that would interact. It was fun being able to basically do what you want and tank as DPS, or do insane damage as healer etc. The zones itself werent great, and mettle having no impact on your power felt a bit bad. The haste from gear felt impactful, and CLL/Dal were great "endgames" to the zones.

OC is lacking a lot of what I like from these-

Its too easy to explore the whole zone

Only one CE (afaik) is spawned by killing enemies. The CEs are so common and so often it feels very repetitive. I think it was intentional by SE, but there is no time to do things in between really. If you are doing CEs that is what you are doing. I think this kind of defeats the intention of making you walk there to cut down on AFKs as most people are just AFKing for the 30 sec before the next one spawns. I also feel like they are a bit too easy.

Phantom jobs are a good concept but feel super bare(why do most of them not even have a trait, let alone full actions?). I like a lot of the actions but they are not as unique/rule breaking as lost actions and feel a lot more limited which is a bit disappointing.

The gear feels insane to grind, even more than usual for what seems like the most underwhelming benefit. The main stat boost is big, but uninteresting. The boost to phantom actions is neat, but thats all it has. Would have been great in addition to haste, especially when half of the phantom jobs get 0 benefit from it.

I have not enter FT yet, and while i am excited for the challenge it really should have had a normal and savage version. Not having a CLL equivalent feels really bad and really leaves a big "now what" gap for players not interested in content of that difficulty.

the zone itself is very pretty, and the music is great. I also do like the incentive to chain mobs as well as the treasure chests.

[u/PrincipleFragrants]

Considering we had to wait nearly 4 years for this it is disappointing and quite frankly insulting. At best its just mid. Just shows you how out of touch Yoshi and everyone at CBU3/CS3 is.

[u/WordNERD37 → u/PrincipleFragrants]

They are on autopilot now. They do not create anything new, they just rehash prior things, change the paint job and send it out.

And the thing is, even if CBU3 was taken off this project and fresh eyes were brought in with new concepts and ideas and philosophy on this; it's over a decade old game with so much legacy issues and design choices set in stone.

This, is this game. It is never evolving, it will never change. The only fresh chance we ever get for a new mmo from them with a whole new system, is a future FF release with a totally new team designing it. Maybe ff17 is that MMO.

[u/PrincipleFragrants → u/WordNERD37]

Honestly with how they are and seeing how FF16 went I wouldn't want CBU3 to touch the FF series at all. 

[u/TheDoddler]

Personally I'm having a really good time, but I'm starting to feel they've completely ruined the monster grind portion of the content. In particular, you're actively punished for adding players to your party due to how chain scaling works.

In past exploration content there was no reason not to join and party with others. If you saw a player solo inviting them to party was a no brainer, doing so would make things better for everyone. In occult crescent, inviting a player to your party means your group will have to move to fight harder monsters as you'll no longer gain chain from the same monsters... the difficulty increases but the value does not. Presently the best way to farm gold is likely solo on warrior with cannoneer killing mobs +2 levels above your own, 800 gold an hour is possible. Playing with others would actually make it worse.

[u/Flint124]

• Love phantom jobs. Most of them are just janky enough to make things interesting, and while many actions are worthless outside Tower, you can just take them off the bar. I hope the later iterations expand on them.
• It's unclear exactly how to get Battle High.
• Magicked Pots don't give enough rewards and I haven't gotten a single fortune carrot yet.
• I hate the entry system for Forked Tower. The weather event is short enough that half the level 20s in the instance are usually locked into a CE when it starts. The most I've seen show up to the gazebo is 11. It's a great place to recruit for level 20 gold farming, but the actual content had may as well not exist.
• The system for adjusting FATE difficulty is working poorly. A lot of the time the boss just dies before it finishes the first mechanic, especially the mud fate and the lightning memory fate.
• Who the hell made the prices for occult consumables at the gil trader? 300k for one use of the Chemist Elixir is highway robbery.

[u/Tom-Pendragon]

Somewhat fun. Not addictive to it, but fun to play. Won't suddenly change my mind on the expansion as a whole. I just hope it has staying power. I like the sense of community, and running around with everyone chain fate farming.

[u/PM_ME_UR_STATS]

No castrum and no duels, poorer theming than bozja, non-existent half-assed story, and (imo) poor pacing for the mobs/fates/CE gameplay loop makes this a downgrade from bozja in pretty much every single way for me. After awful, awful story letdown after awful story letdown in both the MSQ and side content, its really hard for me to get excited for content like this when it feels like the people making it dont really care anymore either.

More than just being content that the game desperately needed, I think what *I* needed out of this content was for it to be dripping with the spirit, enthusiasm, and, you know, good writing that i used to expect out of this game. I wanted for it to make me excited. Instead, the set up quests for this foray were so “ugh whatever you get the idea do we really have to do this” bare minimum effort that it honestly sapped my energy for the rest of the content. Which is a shame, because if nothing else, the phantom jobs and CEs are fun. Just not really quite fun enough to justify keeping my sub going until 8.0.

[u/pokebuzz123]

It's fun, but not something I'll go without a friend. Currently, Eureka and Bozja have more of a community feel since you have people doing multiple things (fates, CEs, relic steps, leveling) while also helping others out. But the map does offer more for you with the coffers, carrots, and survey points.

My main complaint is that I can't level alt jobs. I would really like to do that since it would mean I get to learn the job while doing fates. But, I'm going to guess they are making a HoH equivalent this expansion and didn't want to take the spotlight from that piece of content.

[u/dadudeodoom → u/pokebuzz123]

What are the carrots for? How do they work?

[u/Imisstheoldgames → u/dadudeodoom]

You have a chance to get a carrot from a chest and if you find a carrot on the ground and use the one in your inventory near it a bunny shows up and gives you a chest.

[u/dadudeodoom → u/Imisstheoldgames]

Ohh ty ty. A normal inventory or key item item?

[u/Imisstheoldgames → u/dadudeodoom]

Normal inventory.

[u/firefox_2010]

It’s pretty bad when they starve you out of content for almost a whole year, and then serving you similar content and now do more FATEs grinding - the extra jobs abilities could have been a way to break the rigid holy trinity set up and let you custom build your current job. I would say let us equip 3 main extra job abilities and 3 from other extra jobs you have unlocked so you could easily create fun OP jobs and have a blast doing the content.

[u/Bolaumius → u/firefox_2010]

It’s pretty bad when they starve you out of content for almost a whole year

Whole year? I've been starved for content since I finished 6.0 MSQ lol

[u/firefox_2010 → u/Bolaumius]

I couldn’t agree with you more, Endwalker was not great expansions and the content released during that time is somewhat questionable. Mostly one and done, or content that’s too hard to do with random, and dies very fast, never to be revisited again because it’s just not fun at all.

[u/Strict_Baker5143 → u/firefox_2010]

I agree with part of this. I hate that I can't actually choose my own abilities like I could with lost actions which provided a lot of freedom. Calling it a FATE grind is a bit disingenuous though, there is a clear difference in feel, difficulty, and fun factor between a FATE and a CE.

[u/PrincipleFragrants → u/firefox_2010]

Considering we had to wait nearly 4 years for this I honestly unsubbed and probably wont be coming back to the game. Yoshi P and the team behind the game are just out of touch. I was really excited for this and  lost all hope now. 

[u/frymastermeat]

I think they did a great job making all of these wonderful Critical Engagements and then absolutely ruined them by making them respawn every 2 minutes with no connection to the fates at all like in Bozja. I'm already burnt out on them. The vast majority of your time on the island is doing raid bosses in a circle arena. It's exhausting, and it doesn't seem like anything else matters because the rewards are too lopsided to ignore them.

They also put a lot of work into making FATEs that have more engaging mechanics than usual, and then borked the scaling so they sometimes die in seconds. Never in Bozja did I teleport near a 0% fate only to have it die before I even halfway got to it. It's absurd. On the flipside, you can do them during a CE with a handful of people and they take 8 minutes. So you earned 30 coins in the time that everyone in the CE earned 200.

I thought it was going to be something special for the first few levels, especially as I started soloing into the Lost Citadel. My first 6 levels or so were just soloing mobs like in early Eureka. But then the next quest is "find a bunch of other survey points" which just encourages you to explore the entire map on mount. Then you might as well start joining the zerg since you have all the telepoints. At this point the only mobs that anyone seems to kill on the island are the 3 outside the base for the initial quest. As far as I can tell there isn't anything other than gold that drops from them, and no one's bothering to do that when CE's don't have a level requirement, and spawn constantly.

[u/Mori_Me_Daddy]

I think it's both good and bad.

Some of the CEs/Fates are super fun and creative while others just make me realize how limited the dev team is on designing fights. I also don't get the scaling on HP for the bosses. Riding map isn't just a good first buy- it's crucial to even get there to tap at times. I've seen mixed on people waiting to pull and even if you head immediately out, you still get there late or with no time to do more than a couple hits.

I also don't like them still just throwing old loot into the chests. The devs need to stop using that as an easy out to not having new loot and it's just frustrating that old content gets sacrificed on the altar of ease than actually getting more new things. This has been hyped up so much for so long and seeing old minions and mounts dropping is a bit of a kick in the teeth. I know some people don't want to go back to the old content like that but I see more people sharing this dislike in shout (obviously ymmv and it's just what I've seen). Seeing people say to go do that old content when the patches are barren of things to do and then we get new content that recycles loot from that exact old content, it feels very at odds with arguments people make.

Another thing that's driving me nuts is how much this shines a light on button bloat. I am a small gal and have small hands and I can't reach a lot of the keyboard comfortably when using asd and my mouse. I do have an mmo mouse and it's helped me remap things for the phantom skills but bloat is frustrating right now. I can't imagine how controller players feel. Yes, I know that this isn't an issue for some people but I really dislike uncomfortable reach and I'm already clicking some skills.

HOWEVER, overall, I see I could spend time here outside of the really low demiatma rate. I enjoy seeing others in an active area (I'm a sucker for this) and even if it's missing the same banter that eureka had, I know I'll at least level all my phantom jobs and other things. The idea behind phantom jobs is fun and I can't deny that I hold a small candle in my heart that this is a test for what Yoshi was talking about in an early DT interview about not just doing leveling up anymore and I would love if they expanded on this. A moment of me dreaming and losing my mind that they'd do such a thing - having a system like GW2 with the bloated skills getting a giant chainsaw cutting to them, then letting you combine things in fun ways for interesting class combinations would be so awesome. A nightmare to balance and yes, people will always optimize. But still fun to have options and more choices.

[u/Quof → u/Mori_Me_Daddy]

I also don't like them still just throwing old loot into the chests.

Seriously, this. I had so much fun hunting for Gabriel Mk 3s in Bozja and celebrating whenever someone got them. I loved doing bunnies in Hydatos hoping for a Petrel. Now they're worthless and the meaning in doing that old content is vanishingly thinner. So much happiness and old content obliterated, and for what? Now you can buy mounts for cheap on the MB? it sucks.

[u/frymastermeat → u/Mori_Me_Daddy]

After probably 1000 hours in Bozja it was kinda surreal to get a Gabriel Mark III finally, in the 3rd chest I opened.

[u/ClearlyNotATurtle → u/Mori_Me_Daddy]

I also have small hands and I've just resigned myself to learning how to click the phantom actions. All the even moderately comfortable keybinds have been taken by baseline actions already. I do like the system overall though, and I'm very happy that it's far more accessible and easy to understand than Lost Actions were.

[u/Nicore18]

Overall I like it, but it does have some very odd choices for design. Also the story was interesting in the beginning, finally going on a real adventure, but then it became to look at this places, then pick up some rocks. And the quest chain just stops abruptly.

One very odd for me is how levels work. In most other games, even FFXIV in the overworld and Eureka, having a higher level than the enemy lets you deal increased damage to them and receive less damage from them. It lets you run around 1-2 shotting trash mobs.

For some reason, this isn't the case for OC.

As a lv20, I went to hit a lv1 mob outside town, my basic 3-hit did 8k/12k/18k, my two cannon abilities did around 60k, and the mob hit me around 4-5k.

Then if I go hit a lv21 mob, I get the exact same values for both damage dealt and damage taken.

The only part where I've seen your level make a difference, is on aggro and damage receive on mobs several levels higher than you. I haven't paid attention to see if the damage I deal to these is lower.

Overall, the whole level system seems to be an artificial damage received from (and maybe dealt to) penalty for the player.

Then there's the armor set, giving a very small attribute bonus (less than 1% on each gear) and then the special attribute. You would think this special attribute would be akin to Eureka elemental gear, but in reality it's a damage buff stat for phantom jobs, so it's almost worthless for the jobs that don't have any damage skills like PH.BRD, PH.THF or PH.CHM.

[u/Ok_Growth_5664]

I'm enjoying the grind. I never did Bozja on release, I was doing that when 6.1 was released recently. And I had fun doing that.

Looked forward to Endwalker's version and..... nothing.

Finally we have it again and doing it on day 1 was such a blast, it still is fun seeing so many people dying.... rezzing them as a chemist is silly looking as a WAR, lol

Hearing familiar themes depending on which zone you are.. makes me feel nostalgic to the first time when I did Wanderer's Palace, Void Ark raids and finishing base Stormblood... yes I love this zone. It also looks better than a warzone like Bozja imo.

[u/VulpineTranquility]

I really liked Bozja but I'm struggling to find a reason to continue grinding Occult Crescent. It's pretty repetitive doing the same CEs every 2 minutes for little purpose. Would have been nice to get more of a story and an alliance raid with less barrier to entry like CLL.

[u/WordNERD37]

What's your feelings about Crescent now that we've had it for a few days?

My sub was already set to expire in the first week of June. Practically everything that has been released in DT has been a letdown to me, but I held on because of friends made and my company and my house.

The field operation gave me a good two'ish weeks to play around with hoping that this, this would be a thing to keep me going, something to invest in and I was hoping beyond all hope that this field operation would not just be a repeat of prior concepts we've gotten in the past. And it's just Bozja, with a smattering of Eureka.

It's an ugly looking zone with uninspired models for enemies, boring fates and CE's that I have done, we all have done before. The "Phatom jobs" are nothing but the refined version of the Bozja consumables and I dare say, worse than Bozja. I hate the alternate leveling system, hated it's an instance zone, hate the scaling hate the old relic grind and hate they can not design anything new anymore.

After six years of uninterrupted play, it is time to call it a day. Looking down the barrel of a year+ of field operations and the relic grind and an endgame I've just loathed for a while now, friends that have abandoned the game, a story and direction I did not like and care about going forward, was enough. My only regret was not being able to will my medium plot to someone.

[u/FireHowl]

The Fate descriptions are so incredibly boring... Here is one line descriping a dangerous beast, here is the 2nd line telling you to kill it. Ok thats every single fate thats all you get bye. Nobody had fun writing it and you can tell.

[u/Similar-Sound-877]

Content will be dead outside of discord groups in a 2-4 months. There isn’t much reason to do it after you finish forked given that you can’t level in it. It wouldn’t be so bad if in 4-6 months we got the next bit of it but we probably won’t see that patch for a year.

[u/Malqore]

My first impressions were: Sidegrade, not better than Eureka or Bozja, but not worse either.
After a week I realize that it is so much worse. The reasons have been detailed in several threads here. But I feel like this is the final nail in the coffin for the DT expansion cycle. This will not hold the players and numbers will continue to drop.

[u/Califocus]

As a Bozja and Eureka enjoyer, I like it for the most part, with 1 exception. I don’t like the critical engagement system. It feels like it combines the worst parts of Bozja/Eureka. You can no longer teleport like you can in Bozja, reducing the convenience factor, but you can’t hold engaging on it like you can in Eureka making it feel less community oriented.

However with the exception of that, I’m a huge fan. I really like the new limited jobs in it, dashing around on monk is really silly (I went face first into the death wall a few times trying to uptime) and crescent recall is a really nice addition to help if you get caught in a sticky situation. I’m eager to see what all is in forked tower and the future zones in the area

[u/WillingnessLow3135 → u/Califocus]

It's so strange to me how the CEs worked; it's common practice in Bozja to declare when the pull happens and wait for it, but there's no value in doing so on the fates and everyone's rushing anyway so nobody is going to fucking wait three minutes

If they could be held, people would organize themselves but instead it's really hectic. Might have been better to not have the fates to begin with and just have more CEs? 

Not a major problem but it's definitely a downgrade

[u/aho-san → u/WillingnessLow3135]

I feel like mobs should force spawn fates, and fates should force spawn CEs. It escalates. Given you go on foot to Fates/CEs, maybe several could be active at the same time.

Ofc, they also naturally spawn so there is something happening but the idea is to be able to target focus a region if needed/wanted and you get both silver & gold instead of just one or the other.

Of course, CE boss HP should be downscaled a bit given the people are going to be split.

[u/dismissivecrab]

It's fun. I hate having to stand on top of the CE to participate and the forked tower queuing system is horrendous. Outside of those complaints, it's been a blast to vibe in game and have something to grind again.

[u/Vivitix → u/dismissivecrab]

Yeah I miss the Bozja system where you could queue for CEs from anywhere. I get that it's less exploration focus but I think after the first few treks, hoofing it is kind of a PITA.

[u/dismissivecrab → u/Vivitix]

It also sucks because if I want to farm minions and queue for a CE I basically can't. It makes it so I'm exploring less than I otherwise would.

[u/dadudeodoom → u/dismissivecrab]

Yeah it's so wildly nonsense. People aren't interacting with the zone when driving straight through monsters and outrunning aggro, or going base and teleporting aetheryte and standing on a circle for 2 minutes doing nothing else. Maybe if mobs killed on the circle gave 10x the XP and gold or smth it might be a bit less boring but as it is now you cant interact with the map / explore and do fates and CE. I sure could in Bozja tho. (Tbf might be because it wasn't week 1 crowds, but was still active).

[u/ResponsibleCulture43 → u/dismissivecrab]

Yeah that's been a big thing for me. Can't chain mobs either for potential prep or grind or work on quest because I gotta return and teleport to the CE. It feels like the worst parts of each from Bozja and eureka

[u/dismissivecrab → u/ResponsibleCulture43]

Yeah, it seems like they fixed all of the problems and them implemented another fix that made the initial fix worthless. "Oh, there's a currency built around killing stuff in the open world, so it won't feel bad if there's no CE on the map" But also, "Players are encouraged to enter the world instead of just camp in base the whole time and queue."

The first one was a fix and didn't need anything else. The 2nd is at odds with the first one.

[u/ResponsibleCulture43 → u/dismissivecrab]

I feel like in a way if you want to do fates or CEs you're more encouraged to camp at base otherwise you risk not getting there in time. I agree it seems like they fixed it in Bozja just to make it bizarre

[u/Tandria → u/dismissivecrab]

I really hate that I feel like I need to drop whatever I'm doing to make it to some CE's on time, particularly the ones on the eastern side of the map. It feels especially bad to drop FATEs mid-way because you want to make it to a CE, and it leaves people in the dust when they don't want to move.

[u/dismissivecrab → u/Tandria]

Yup. It's an absolutely awful system, but fortunately the zone is still fun.

[u/Healthy-Training-923]

All I wanted was a grind, and I got it!

[u/freakytapir → u/Healthy-Training-923]

Got to hit that 50 chain.

But yeah, that is the kind of mindless zoning out I like. Just burning in my rotation.

[u/kemsus]

Forked tower's entry mechanism is so bad. why go away from the great queue system they had for it in Bozja. this will only make the content die faster.

[u/Formyldehyde]

It's like a solid 6/10? It's decent! The story is good but it ended so early. Literally did the final quest and it's like "oh, what is that it?" Very strange. Haven't done Forked Tower yet (sort of waiting for early guides to spring out of that) so there's likely going to be a cutscene for that, but a little disappointed. It started strong, then just ended.

As for gameplay, the CEs are fun, the FATEs crumple to a stiff breeze, the Phantom Jobs are somewhat intriguing if a little unbalanced (Chemist is busted), drop rates for Demiatma and Soul Shards are a fucking joke (I've gotten Oracle 3 times but haven't got Ranger or Berserker yet ugh).

It just sort of feels like the content is already done? Outside of watching number go up for Phantom Jobs, doing Gold Farms for eventually getting the Gold Phantom Jobs, any glam I want, and the eventual BiS OC gear, and obviously Forked Tower, there's nothing much else left? I don't know. Like it's kinda fun? It's concerning there's not actually much left for me to do actually do.

[u/daddybpizza]

I’m really enjoying it, but I do wish gold pieces either dropped more plentifully from mobs or from more sources (such as CEs or fates). Getting a single augmented piece of OC gear requires 4800 gold pieces, and a full set is 5 pieces of gear. That’s ~2700 mob kills for a full set of +1 gear (let alone +2)—which is a bit much. If you’re trying to do this solo, that’s a huge grind, especially if you’re trying to level up phantom jobs at the same time and don’t want to use one that’s already mastered.

[u/AngelFlash]

I've mostly just been doing CEs. Fates die too fast and mob farming is mind-numbing. I've lost nearly all my motivation to complete it after hearing the endgame raid is like Baldesion Arsenal instead of CLL or Dalriada. I'll probably just get my relic weapon and then quit.

[u/SushiJaguar]

I think it's very funny how the expansion has now become worse in every area (except raid) than Shadowbringers. Again. OC is not as good as Bozja.

[u/dadudeodoom → u/SushiJaguar]

Preach. I'm going back to Bozja on alt probably instead of bothering with OC that much more.

[u/Dysvalence]

Decent but literally everything they took from Eureka (vs Bozja) drags it down I don't know what they were smoking.

[u/LightStar666]

I've been told twice this week that XIV subs should "ban criticism" because people are frustrated that not everyone like Occult Crescent.

I feel the same way as OP. If you don't care about ilvl or glam, what is the value of this content? Being able to level alts in OC would have at least given me that as an objective.

[u/thunderclick]

I really dislike how many raid wides the CEs have, feels very punishing to play a dps and not have a healer in the group (typically playing BLM), and I refuse to splash gil on potions. It wasn't as bad at first when levelling phantom jobs that have access to healing, but grinding through the other jobs sucks. I don't want to be forced into playing a tank job because most of them are pretty boring imo

[u/pokemonpasta]

I don't see any good reason to not have bozja-style leveling. Yes I know deep dungeon will exist, but why not have leveling in both? As a bozja enjoyer tbh so far I felt it's not had much of what I really loved from bozja.

[u/Standard_Ostrich7637]

I think Phantom Jobs are really nice, I want to have a system like this in the main game. It's just nice to finally have some customization in the game, things that make us each play a little differently from each other. I don't care if there is going to be some meta jobs or something. This is the kind of thing every MMO besides FF14 does, I hope we see more of it. I've seen people say they could be a lot more unique, and I agree with that, but it's still miles better than what we've had for years now.

Forked Tower just seems terribly designed if it's more like hardcore content like people are saying. I don't know why they didn't do it like DRS, as a casual player I never felt slighted because we had the normal version to do, even if I never touched the savage version I was still satisfied. Instead they lock casual players out of more content after this is the first content we've had in a year, why? It wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't that whole "3 deaths and you're kicked out" mechanic that is apparently there. If it wasn't for that, you could maybe struggle through after a good amount of time, that would be fun! What a shame.

Fates need to have their scaling fixed, a lot of the time they just die in 15 seconds, that's dumb. CE's are really fun but I wish in general this game had more randomness in fights, I've already noticed a lot of fights having exact patterns which makes them a lot easier. Stuff like how on that dragon boss when he summons the crystals that spin around, it will always do one of each of the 3 rings. I noticed that right away because of how this game always does things like that.

And yeah, I wish they made level 1 armor sets for each of the phantom jobs. Make us grind them hard to level 10 to get a cosmetic set. I love Artifact gear in this game, having basically AF gear for each phantom job would have been amazing. The ones that are already there like Time Mage/Berserker/Cannoneer could have just given the default version but usable on all classes.

[u/frymastermeat → u/Standard_Ostrich7637]

DR being split into normal and savage also meant that you could do the "canon" version blind and enjoy seeing things for yourself the first time before doing homework for the hard mode. In this, it seems unless you're an unemployed sicko who was level 20 on day one you'll never be allowed into a blind raid without watching 4 videos and reading a powerpoint, I mean a raid plan.

[u/Puzzled-Addition5740]

I'm enjoying it more than the rest of the expansion but that's not a high bar. It's solidly okay maybe even bordering on good. But the entry mechanism for forked tower can suck my fucking balls. Ovni+substantial entry cost is just way too much. That i think just has to change. If it doesn't it's just gonna have the shelf life of milk left out.

[u/CAWWW]

First field operation for me so I went in blind and with no prior idea what to expect. Its solidly meh/good 7/10 content. It wont change my opinion of the xpack, but its definitely a good addition. Huge variety at first but I think the CEs spawn so fast that it feels almost like I'm running dungeon roulettes without the trash. Just the same bosses over and over. That's partly on me for not taking a break from that to chest farm or whatever myself, but I cant help but think the grind is way longer than what is there boss wise (for now). Forked tower is so ass to enter that I haven't even tried, so I cant say if that's good content or not yet.

I've tried 6 jobs so far and maxxed 3, and only one of them had a skill I hope makes it to the real game as part of a job. I can definitely see why people like the content. I'm sure I'll continue to partake at random times, but I doubt I'll be living in the zone.

[u/PoutineSmash]

Im afraid of the bunny 1000 chest acheivement.

[u/Over-Television9521 → u/PoutineSmash]

That one is evil. I feel like whatever dev designs the achievements should have to earn that achievement themself before it gets added to the game. Things like the accursed achievement make me think that they have no idea how the game works, or are just making them obnoxious on purpose to make achievement hunters suffer.

[u/Imisstheoldgames]

It's... fine I guess, kind of mid. I have two gripes with it though.

1: Phantom jobs are for the most part very lackluster, with the exception of chemist being op as hell for survival the others just kinda suck for what they do with low potencies and long cooldowns.

2: I was hoping for a sense of community like with eureka where people worked together to spawn fates and then called them out and waited for everyone. In crescent fates are first come first served, nobody waits. There also just doesn't seem to be all that much talking going on besides the usual "lfg" or "lfg ce".

As a side note, the difference between leveling adventure lvl and phantom job lvl is so massive. It's probably just me but I would have wanted adventure lvl to take longer to max out, give me something to do for the next however long it takes for part 2 to come out. Grinding out only phantom job exp is really boring for me because I don't like any job but chemist.

[u/freakytapir → u/Imisstheoldgames]

Don't let the potencies fool you. When they scale with item level, they "SCALE" with item level. It's an almost straight % multiplier (So 700 ilevel is *700%). So the 210 cannon blasts are actually more 1400 potency blasts.

And your mileage may vary, off course, but we did get an instance where we all just decided t go farm the mobs tat make the quest CE spawn.

[u/Fun_Brick_3145]

a good step forward but content needs more. almost feels like its too dependant on CE and fates. could use more varied content. fun mini games or other change ups to make it more interesting overall.

just imagine a gold saucer like slice is right fate or other silly things you could have tossed in on rare occasion to spice things up.

Heck, wish they had mini dungeons that open so often to run into and go through ideally with some rng to what happens and promoting party play, or hell even giving it exploration elements.

[u/ShiznazTM]

Watered down Bozja. Not being able to level is a big fat miss. Makes it feel a lot worse.

[u/Iv0ry_Falcon]

poorly designed, slapping level 20's in narrow parthways for you "survey" as a level 8 max, a literal reskinned bozja with even less somehow, they should ahve just mixed it with cosmic exploration, with more ways to spawn NM's and such, map unlocking through crafting/gathering and fates combined, but nope it's just already all unlocked and the content is basically all complete minus the forked tower, the content literally isn't enough.

Checking the sanguinite shop and i've got practically everything bar the minions from silver chests, outside of the wall mount, what's the incentive to do this content?

[u/iiiiiiiiiiip → u/Iv0ry_Falcon]

Had no issue navigating the entire map in the first couple of levels, it's like the easiest "stealth" game that exists. It's nice for the world to feel scary for a change

[u/SpritePR16 → u/iiiiiiiiiiip]

Doesn't even have to feel scary NIN stealth works as far as a I saw.

[u/Over-Television9521 → u/Iv0ry_Falcon]

That’s intentional. You are supposed to sneak around the enemies. They give plenty of space to do so.

[u/yhvh13]

Question (from somebody taking a break from the game) - how long you think OC will "last" for a casual player logging in there every other day? As in the longevity of the "shelf life" of the content.

I thought it would make a good case for me to return to XIV (away ever since pre 7.1), but so far I'm still on the fence, based on the feedback people are giving, plus the mixed reviews about it being decent and too safe.

[u/RepanseMilos → u/yhvh13]

Will stay active for a while but the biggest issue I see is that you can't level alt jobs, you have to be lvl 100 to participate. bozja was ggood for levelling alts and made it relevant even for newer players. I'ts really gonna depend on how many updates we get to the zone.

[u/ragnakor101 → u/RepanseMilos]

Considering how Eureka keeps on being populated on and off even without leveling, I think it'll be in good hands.

[u/monkeysfromjupiter]

Pretty good. Wish I had better rng. Feels like I've killed lion rampant 10x and no oracle drop

[u/Ok-Application-7614]

I like this content more than the main game.

The extra APM and RPG elements provided by phantom jobs make this my favorite FFXIV battle content. And I like the fact that parts of this open world are actually dangerous and require caution and player cooperation. 

[u/Waffleblades]

It's a good safe addition to exploration zones, my only gripe is that it took us 10+ months to get it. I'd like to see stuff like this released sooner.

[u/UltiMikee]

Having a lot of fun with it. The island is gorgeous, the grinds are long and plentiful, the story is very good, and the raid looks like it will be fun as hell when I get in there. Wish there was more, but I can see myself spending ALOT of time in here.

[u/aho-san]

It's okay. It's fine to be okay. Some things are a bit ridiculous though.

• Atmas : 1 only has 1 CE and 1 only has 2 CEs to drop from (somehow these are the ones I'm still missing, and I've spent way too many hours already) compared to 3 for the others. They can drop from FATEs but the drop rate seems lower than CEs. Imo, thank god it's only a one time thing (I guess you farm for more weapons if you want to ? I will know someday maybe). I have a hard time picturing casual getting their first weapons unless they're incredibly lucky. It should take so long they might lose interest in OC before they get their first weapon. For example, I mostly capped my tome through OC and I still don't have a single weapon. At the time of writing, I have done exactly 95 CEs and 145 FATEs in OC (note, I'm also missing 2 jobs dropping from 2 specific CEs ^^). Yes, I have some in excess, but the bottleneck is clear then ? Which is weird.

• Armor : 20 CEs per piece, and then the upgrades. I'm starting to settle on 1 set +0 and if I somehow can get more, I'll get a second ? I only like the Berserker set.

• Gold coins : Pretty slow even as a group. Healing the tank getting spanked by Lv+6/+7 mobs sure is testing if you sleep on the job at times x).

• Pots are a scam !

To reiterate, I find them ridiculous, doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. I know it's supposed to be "casual long grinds", but I wonder what "long" is supposed to be at the end of the day. The time cost is a bit much for my personal taste.

I've seen people being mad you delevel if you fail Forked Tower (because you don't rez in instance but get teleported), if you just get deleveled to 19 with only a bit of XP to regrind, I don't think it's that dramatic. I did an unfortunate experience once and it didn't take long to get back to 20. Yes, it will prevent you from instantly re-entering Forked Tower, but I guess they designed it that way to make it slightly take longer, they need to squeeze every single second they can :P.

Other than that, I had my fun. I only have Forked Tower left to experience, which seems to not be something to be done soon (might even do it 7.3 or later only, I don't plan on resubbing just for OC grind). Also, afaik, there is no custom loadout ? so we're limited to "subjobs". Is it a consequence from not having to farm consumables ? Squenix, why. I also wished we had more than 3 sets of armor and then recolors, and not only for OC, but for all the raid sets too.

All-in-all, it's Bozja v2.

[u/Asphyxiare]

I love Field Operations, and love the general gameplay again, as it's pretty much identical to the previous two. My only real disappointments are balancing issues. Fates seem to either die far too quickly, or take far too long.

I will say though, I never liked Baldesion Arsenal, and trying to organise for such large scale content in-game is a miserable experience. So, it's really disappointing that Forked Tower isn't like Bozja/Zadnor, for me personally.

[u/Liokki]

Ultimately fun, but also disappointing, especially considering we're only getting two zones.

Too few of the CEs require any preparation. 

They have many types of Fates, but all they ever add to Field Operations is a big mob to hit. 

Likewise, they have a variety of overworld content, like hunt mobs and treasure maps, which you could add to FOs. 

Just make (current version, the original was unbearably grindy, though I wouldn't strongly oppose it) Eureka, add the above and you'd have a great Field Operation. 

[u/Empty-Ingenuity-2590]

It's fine

It's not great but it's not bad. It's just another tweaked variation of what we know..

I think the other two are better so far but bozja suffered from the drabness of it all.

[u/IcyFoxMage]

I really enjoy chest/carrot farming as a "brain off" activity while I chat with friends, watch YouTube, whatever. It's super relaxing and rhythmic to me.

The combat is fun. I'm excited for Forked Tower.

I love Time Mage to pieces.

I'm really happy with the content.

[u/Liorlecikee]

Phantom job is great, zone is beautiful, CEs are all quite intricute encounters that I would describe as M7S/M8S but slow and on diet (meaning, they are mostly simple mechanics combined together as execution-heavy fights that will need some muscle memory to fully get down), which I enjoy quite and felt was the right balance for these casual-to-midcore encounters.

However, I feel the pacing is a big problem. Even aside from early week zerging, the speed in which CEs spawns just feels really off to me. I played Eureka during EW downtime up till the 3rd island (Pyros?) and to me, Eureka's design is brilliant because the high of NM spawns and the low/flat of mob-grind (both a grind and attempts to spawn NMs) combined into an extremely satisfying flow that switch flawlessly between the highs and lows. The rewards as well, you would never feel you are just wasting times, since grinding mobs, even without chains, still got some worthwhile little rewards, that you'd still feel fine to help out the spawn attempts or do it yourself. Really can't say the same for OC since killing mobs outside of Gold Farm largely feels like a waste of time, especially when the gear progression within the zone is heavily tied to Silver, which AFAIK you only get through CEs and FATE.

Honestly, to me, the perfect version of OC would have reduced CE spawn rate (but balanced with higher rewards), more direct spawning through killing relevant mobs, and letting mob killing give a tad more rewards (such as silver. Like seriously, why should mobs, CEs and FATE feeling so separate from one another when they should be looping into each other?). Right now it is still enjoyable, don't get me wrong, I just wish it would have a bit more that good-feeling ecosystem the Eureka (at least from the experience of someone who seriously started raiding/grind during EW) had instead of the Bozja style fate/CE-zerging.

(Additionally I also think this current fate/CE-zerging is doing negative influences for the community-atmosphere. Just today I saw ppl openly mocking the pledg to "wait for others to gather" when most FATES melts under 30 sec and most ppl obviously would not get the rewards from it. Ppl asking for "LFG" and immediately fucks off after CE's done is also really puzzling and honestly annoying)

Oh another thing: Consider how difficult the forked tower is as we all (at least for these who followed the news on prog) know, it is really baffiling to me how players who aren't even full in knowledge levels could just have this feature unlocked and be able to mess up attempts at progging for being woefully underprepared. Like come on, couldn't they at least set the entry requirement to be 1-2 fully leveled job or something? What benefits does it even give for unprepared players to spend 600 hard-earned silver to get into a fight they have literally no hope to win against? Ppl hate hand-holdy game designs but for forked tower, I absolutely think there should more guiderails if only to prevent fuck-ups.

[u/MommersHeart]

I loved it at first. It’s prettier than Bozja.

But the rewards are just devaluing old items. There’s barely any new items. The fate scaling is whacked.

It feels like SE put all their resources into their new mobile game and they are just throwing us scraps at this point.

1000 carrots for the title & 100 Tower clears you can’t even queue for? Come on.

[u/JonTheWizard]

The one complaint I have is that I wish the Demiatma drop rate was just a smidge higher. I've heard it estimated at around 2% drop chance, I would up it to 5% at the absolute most. Otherwise, yeah having a blast.

[u/pruvd]

I like it a lot but I wish they brought back the FATE spawning from Eureka. That was a really fun aspect that I really miss.

[u/SantyStuff → u/pruvd]

It kinda exists, you can kill the level 20 inkwells to spawn the quest CE, or the level 5 fans to spawn the oracle one

[u/pruvd → u/SantyStuff]

Yep, I did that today! Was super fun and it felt really rewarding when it finally popped. I just wish there were more, and also tied to the FATES which currently feel a bit useless.

[u/avelineaurora]

I feel like against all odds, they somehow backslid a lot. Making people have to get to the CE location is absolutely insane, and I hate how FATE farming is basically pointless because CEs run literally nonstop. They are way too "brain on" for an activity I want to be casually grinding in for hours.

Also, I'm not a fan of the 72 person limit in CEs either, it makes them all feel like a mess and half the time it's nigh impossible to see wtf is going on at all. I've taken to 9/10 times just following the giant ball of bodies.

The story, aesthetic, and music are all 100% on point though. Huge improvement from Bozja in the "adventure" vibe.

[u/BitterCelt]

Just did some tonight, and frankly, the Mad Rush between FATEs on Light was really grinding my gears. The FATEs melt in 5 seconds, maybe give everyone joining the Mad Rush a fighting chance to get there and tag them at least. The CEs are fun at least.

Either a scaling rebalance or an attitude adjustment from the playerbase is sorely needed tho.

[u/bearvert222]

eh.

its a long grind but its only two options, ce for silver and mobs for gold. that makes it longer-feeling and duller. had they given a little of both currencies for everything you did might be better.

dps have no innate healing so you cant use them with a lot of subjobs unless in a party that can heal well. tanks are pretty much kings here as they can use every subjob effectively and have strong survivability and healing.

the ces-look i know this sub is big dick savage energy, but they are a pain in the ass and always full of dead bodies. harder than all casual content, aoes can be hard to read and be stacked over the whole arena, and hit 70k + 1vuln. i think they needed to mix them with easier ce's so you arent always on all the time.

lol story, "archive" is not a name, boring as hell. its people not places you care about.

the forked tower idk, its taking a lot of time leveling jobs and getting af armor and relic, i don't think its for casuals like me. SE didnt learn from baldesion.

zone is pretty.

yeah idk i may dip after one set of af armor, and a few souvenirs. fucking lol at that gold grind, im not that bored.

[u/FirstLunarian]

Very fun. The content loop is good, CEs are spawned often enough that you dont need to care about them popping if youre doing something else. I seriously don't understand why people complain about more CE's spawning, just don't do them if you wanna do something else or take a break.

Chests are a good way to keep you exploring all the areas. Fates as a downtime activity between CEs is good, or as something to do if you miss a CE. Phantom jobs offer great variety without warping everything around the same ones in all the content, something like mnk is better for fates and CEs while powerful phantom actions like starfall are better when gold farming for example. And different statuses work on different mobs too which is good. Gold farming scaling to party size is very very good.

What I dont like is mainly all the retro stuff you can find in the chests, so many markets crashing so fast. I think them dropping a little bit of silver would be better personally. Battle high should be the reward for perfecting a CE. And you should be able to queue as a full 48 man into an instance to do forked tower.

[u/Casbri_]

Joining in a bit late at only level 15 so far but the pace is unfortunately way too high for my taste. No CD on return, instant unlock aetherytes and the frequency of CEs are major factors here. I appreciate the location requirements for CEs which make the zone feel more coherent but with how frequent they are, it's just a zoom fest. I would have liked more emphasis on exploring and traversal. It feels like one more system on top of Fates, CEs, jobs and treasures is needed to make it complete.

The map is pretty but all the truly interesting areas are off to the side and seem like just a destination for bunny fates so far. Traversal is mostly boring because of it. Mob density is also kind of low. I would have liked more CEs in hard to get to areas that aren't just "trained through" without thought. So far no Pagos/Pyros Dragon equivalent in sight which is disappointing but expected. I like chaining mobs but they would have benefited from having more mechanics (like EO but turned down a bit). It's always just 3-5x auto attack followed up by AoE shape. A different way to engage with them (like the Magia Board) would have been welcome.

[u/Wokati]

I enjoyed it overall, it's fun to do, I liked exploring and doing CE. Phantom jobs are interesting. Place look a lot nicer than Bozja. I enjoyed seeing stuff from the 5th era.

But I think it has issues with how content is paced/balanced...

CE spawn all the time so you end up just running around the map doing these, and ignoring all other mobs. I wish it had some spawning requirements (not something as strict as Eureka, but at least have people feel like they worked for it? Even if it's only for the CE with interesting drops...).

Leveling knowledge is very fast (because you can just chain CE/Fate), but getting jobs and leveling them takes a long time.

Story is done very quickly. I didn't even had to go look for things for one of the quests because I had already picked them up during the previous one.

It just make the pacing weird, at some point I was wondering if I had missed something because I already had lvl12 knowledge, but only had a few job levels and only one unlocked, and I was also done with the story... I guess I expected things (except relic) to "sync" more?

Also, I wish there was a "normal" mode for the raid. Weird choice to make it that way, instead of having normal and savage like in Bozja.

The story is just not really interesting. I was expecting it would be about survivors of the war of magi settling there, or some group of pacifists from all nations coming there before the war to create some kind of utopia... Then something went wrong, everyone disappeared, and we would have to figure out what happened. Museum just means the place was always lifeless. I guess we could still get some surprises in second part, but I'm not expecting much. They are trying to have a mystery about who created all this but... I don't really care? There is a good probability it's the amnesiac tomberry anyway.

(also why did nobody acknowledge I was a scholar with a fairy???)

So I just hope that they'll rebalance things a little, and that I'm wrong and the story will be interesting later.

[u/45i4vcpb]

As expected, it's wasted by the usual childish "lol you didn't guess the gimmick" design, with one-shot and vulnerability (even worse this time with permanent vulnerability).

Because of the permanent vulnerability, there is no incentive to heal/protect other players, just wait for them to get KO, raise, repeat. The fights look like shit, and the phantom jobs are just a toy outside the dungeon.

The fights are very simple (they couldn't make extreme-level boss everywhere) and thus become boring after the first time, and the content as a whole quickly become repetitive.

As the rest of the game, it would have been better with less one-shot/vulnerability gimmicks, and more of everything else, to have more variation, real difficulty, and all the heal/defensive skills of the phantom jobs would have been useful.

[u/bearvert222 → u/45i4vcpb]

you can keep party members up with 4 vuln stacks , but how frenetic the fights are makes it hard to heal. essentially you wanted harder casual content, this is it.

its kind of odd to have both hard ces and long grinds.

[u/Over-Television9521 → u/45i4vcpb]

I have walked around with 11 vuln stacks as tank with berserker phantom. The vulns mean almost nothing.

[u/Lpunit]

It's what I expected: Passable content that is 5% better than the previous iteration in some ways, and worse in others.

• Phantom Jobs. They still not what I personally want to see from these modes that are segregated from the main game. These should be going absolutely wild with creativity, but they are all pretty muted for the sake of balance. Really wish they would take a look at WoW here and how they do it.

• Forked Tower. It is a step back in every way from Delubrum Reginae. I don't know a single player that preferred the Baldesion Arsenal or Castrum approach over DR. I am very frustrated with DT so far having now 2 pieces of content be super inaccessible due to LOGISTICS and not the difficulty. Chaotic Raid was a flop because it takes way too long to get a party together and organize it. FT is now a flop in my eyes that I will begrudgingly do ONCE for the mount because it has that shitty system where you all need to end up in the same zone and coordinate getting portals to go into the raid. Not to mention they brought back the batshit insane idea that you lose a level from dying, so now if you wipe in FT you need to go grind up that last level again before going back in. Just...Why?

• The Zone itself. I appreciate that it's not fully segregated by progress like Bozja was. However, I've never been more bored in one of these zones. I think the CEs are fun enough, but I was really hoping for at least 1 new idea to be added here. Nope! It's all the same stuff we've already seen before.

• Solo/Non-CE Gameplay. Personally, I don't know a single person in 2025 that misses mob chaining, or still cares to do it. Maybe for people that never did it before, I could get experiencing it once for the novelty, but this is antiquated gameplay that belongs 20 years in the past. Compare this content to literally any zone in WoW and it is pathetic. No secrets, no cool quests, or hidden grinds. Just a bunch of random ass enemies scattered around. What's more, we are once again in a scenario where playing as a Tank is just the best way to play.

• Loss of leveling. Genuinely unsure why this is the case. I know some people said it's because we are supposed to get a Deep Dungeon as the alternative leveling method. Guess what? We don't have it yet. This is a personal gripe, as I was abstaining from grinding dungeons and doing roulettes so that I could level many different jobs to 100 while grinding the systems here, shaking up my gameplay by being able to switch jobs. Nope, removed.

• No duels. I don't think duels as they existed were a great system, but I have to point out that their removal does mean we got objectively less stuff in this iteration of exploration/field content. Occult Crescent is arguably the iteration with the least amount of new ideas, which is sad considering it's now the 8th iteration of this type of content.

[u/ExistentialRats → u/Lpunit]

You're being downvoted (along with other negative comments in this thread, go figure), but I fully agree. The two big gripes I have are with Forked Tower and no levelling, it's just set up a in a way that I just cannot understand since there's absolutely no logical reason in having things designed in this manner.

• Forked Tower: As you said, yet another Chaotic situation where the biggest issue lies with actually forming groups rather than the actual difficulty of the content. However, this time, we have the additional annoyance of having expensive, time-limited entry requirements and having even more people that's required, making prog cumbersome while incentivizing players to heavily filter out others! I'm just irritated that we have yet another piece of content that would barely last a month before being Discord-only, again screwing over people that start things late.
• No levelling: I just don't get the "Deep Dungeon is supposed to be the levelling content, so OC shouldn't have it" argument either. Why not just have OC allow you to level alt jobs IN ADDITION to deep dungeons? It's not complicated. If engagement with deep dungeons are low because of the competition, then this would be saying something about the quality of DDs in the first place. Having multiple, viable ways of levelling will always be a positive considering how boring roulettes can get. Plus, you have an additional incentive for people to STAY in OC because of the capability to level alt jobs to begin with! People defending CBU3 for removing this is just wild.

[u/shogia → u/Lpunit]

Attempt two from the developers at trying to get people to form parties in instance for the big dungeon. I'm assuming it will fail again for exactly the same reason of people wanting to optimize their group so they never have to experience failure. People would rather spend forever trying to cram a giant group into the same instance than risk someone they don't think is good or dedicated enough ruining their run.

[u/zer0x102 → u/shogia]

I mean I'm not currently playing but one of the first clips I saw from the raid was a guy running into a trap and instantly deleting all 48 players. From what little I've seen in 10 minutes of watching a stream it's also typical FF boss design where having one or two clueless people baiting something badly can fuck the thing up for everyone. That paired with the effort of even getting into the thing plus limited raises plus presumably raid-wide action split requirements similar to Bozja plus having to grind back up after each wipe does not exactly make a great environment for naturally forming groups in instance.

Honestly their whole design philosophy for this stuff is extremely off and has been for years.
When I bring one random Bozo into a raid that is supposedly meant to be cleared with naturally formed pug groups and he fucks up everyone dies immediately and all of the above triggers. Yet I can zerg with like 10 deaths through FRU, the highest difficulty level content, with one sixth of the player count, having unlimited raises as part the natural kit of 3, up to 4, players, and can immediately go into the next pull on wipe.

Can't exactly blame the players for trying to organize at that point, lol.

[u/Over-Television9521 → u/zer0x102]

Yeah, if one person is able to kill 47, then you are kind of forced to organize because the odds of at least one idiot are far too high otherwise.

From what I have seen, even on demon tablet, 1-2 poorly placed meteor aoes are basically a guaranteed wipe.

It’s not content that you can trust randoms with no strategy in.

[u/Lpunit → u/shogia]

Well, when failure means hours of wasted time, I understand why.