I've played since 1.0 so I was technically around for things like Bozja and similar zones but I never actually did that content. So when I came back mid DT I was excited to see what this new zone in that format would be like. I spent a good chunk of time getting all my classes up to 100 and geared in progression-ready crafted kit to prepare.
Then I got there. I am sure someone somewhere enjoys it how it plays but I cannot for the life of me fathom why. A large zone that forbids flying where your ground mount is also noticeably slowed even further until you grind out tokens to buy a speed increase is tedious enough. But the gameplay loop of the Fate grinding... who was this for? Fates themselves are up for 20 seconds at most making the vast majority of the time spent in the zone rushing between pops and mashing buttons hard enough to hopefully get credit before it ends in 10~ seconds and then repeat. Also many Fates have mechanics that can actually one-shot non-tanks just for added aggravation. There's no enjoying the fights, no learning the mechanics, no trying to perfect your own rotations.. the Fates aren't up long enough for that. Instead it's just rushing from one arbitrary hotspot to another and mashing buttons praying to get enough credit for it to count.
And if that by itself wasn't bad enough the zone continues a long standing issue of Fates themselves feeling completely arbitrary both in what they contain and where they spawn on the map. So many of these don't feel like hand crafted events that thought was put into, they feel like they could have been procedurally generated content with no rhyme or reason for why they are happening. Which is a shame as the concept of Fates feels like it could lend itself to really cool events and chains of events. Instead they almost universally just seem to be "random group of mobs" or "random mini boss".
I've heard and read that there were many people who had problems with the later raids tied to the zone, but personally the basic gameplay of rushing from Fate to Fate just praying you get there before it ends has made the entire thing arguably one of the most unenjoyable game play loops I've seen in this game. And I'm including 1.0 in that statement.
I deeply hope if we get more of these zones in the future, especially if they tie into our progression, they go back to the drawing board on how they are built. More power to anyone who did find OC enjoyable, but everything about it to me has felt deeply undercooked. Even the "phantom job" mechanic feels so lack luster for what could have been an interesting itteration on the XI subjobs mechanic.
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Then I got there. I am sure someone somewhere enjoys it how it plays but I cannot for the life of me fathom why. A large zone that forbids flying where your ground mount is also noticeably slowed even further until you grind out tokens to buy a speed increase is tedious enough. But the gameplay loop of the Fate grinding... who was this for? Fates themselves are up for 20 seconds at most making the vast majority of the time spent in the zone rushing between pops and mashing buttons hard enough to hopefully get credit before it ends in 10~ seconds and then repeat. Also many Fates have mechanics that can actually one-shot non-tanks just for added aggravation. There's no enjoying the fights, no learning the mechanics, no trying to perfect your own rotations.. the Fates aren't up long enough for that. Instead it's just rushing from one arbitrary hotspot to another and mashing buttons praying to get enough credit for it to count.
And if that by itself wasn't bad enough the zone continues a long standing issue of Fates themselves feeling completely arbitrary both in what they contain and where they spawn on the map. So many of these don't feel like hand crafted events that thought was put into, they feel like they could have been procedurally generated content with no rhyme or reason for why they are happening. Which is a shame as the concept of Fates feels like it could lend itself to really cool events and chains of events. Instead they almost universally just seem to be "random group of mobs" or "random mini boss".
I've heard and read that there were many people who had problems with the later raids tied to the zone, but personally the basic gameplay of rushing from Fate to Fate just praying you get there before it ends has made the entire thing arguably one of the most unenjoyable game play loops I've seen in this game. And I'm including 1.0 in that statement.
I deeply hope if we get more of these zones in the future, especially if they tie into our progression, they go back to the drawing board on how they are built. More power to anyone who did find OC enjoyable, but everything about it to me has felt deeply undercooked. Even the "phantom job" mechanic feels so lack luster for what could have been an interesting itteration on the XI subjobs mechanic.
Continue reading...