Yes, really. Support us on Patreon! ▻ http://patreon.com/playframe ______ STORMBLOOD series playlist!
source
Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood – #59 – Eureka
Yes, really. Support us on Patreon! ▻ http://patreon.com/playframe ______ STORMBLOOD series playlist!
source
Dan didn't quite explain how the Magia Board works, so I'll provide a quick explanation.
The Magia Board is composed of three loops that form two rock-paper-scissor sets. Slotting one magicite into an element will provide you with a bonus to attack or defense depending on the monster you're fighting. For example, while figthing the water based fish, Dan used lightning on the Magia board to deal more damage, but he could have used water to give himself more defense.
As this is an MMO, if you're not playing as a tank in a group, you should always use elements that give you more damage.
Now you may be asking, what happens when you fight an enemy outside your current rock-paper-scissor group?
As you may have noticed while Dan was talking to Krile after the great grindening, Durmin's element is now ice. This is not because he re-slotted his magicite, but because the Magia Board can be rotated. It has charges that accumulate over time, so it should never be an issue to swap to an element you need.
You will acquire more magicite as you explore Eureka, and it is recommended to put all your eggs/magicite into one basket/row. Dealing more damage means the enemies have less time to damage you, and the bonuses really add up. Consequently, Durmin was at a serious disadvantage doing Anemos because he didn't have the 4 other magicite you can get there while leveling to 20.
Your a mad man for doing Eureka but thank you for doing so, it the main place for showing of Krile's story. Also it crazy how much of the lore here connect to other parts of the game's world.
56:35 there’s me in Dan’s farming party that day! Gen Rhapsodos at your service!
And again now visible at 56:42 !
Shoutout to the Fordola cosplayer that followed Durmin around. I hope we see more of Fordola in the future!
YESSS thank you for doing Eureka!!! it's such a weird and wild part of the game, i love it so much..
Strangely enough, I think Eureka is actually more player hostile in some ways than FFXI is now. FFXI has added a lot of QoL stuff at this point and makes it pretty easy to get to level cap to do end game content now. Also, you seem to lose a lot less relative XP in XI compared to Eureka when you die, and you can summon NPC "trusts" to basically steamroll most content for you.
Ooh, first part of this series where what's going on is new to me too; try as I might I simply could not bring myself to feel anything positive about Eureka (and I was an FFXI guy back in the day!).
Thank you for your service, Dan, even more than usual.
It's me! I'm in the background for a lot of this episode thanks to being a little slow at reading a lot of the dialogue (it's hard to focus on text while there's a big voice chat in the background >.>)
I've been looking forward to these episodes. Helping out with Eureka was a lot of fun, and there was a LOT of shenanigans that sadly won't show up in the episodes as it occurred during the big levelling voice chat. It's also not immediately made obvious thanks to Dan's editing, but this episode was recorded over the span of five weeks – We more or less managed to pace it out so that each area took 2 weeks, but Pagos took a bit longer so the story quests were delayed until the following week. Dan's done a great job of smoothing over the gaps there, and I'm excited to see some of the nonsense from Pyros!
And for those who were there: yes I did get my fruit gummy, eventually.
Ah, Eureka. A warning to those looking to tackle it as content for yourself (and get the very good orb at the end): bring a good podcast. In fact, bring several dozen hours' worth. There's fun to be had when you wrap your head around it, but… it's definitely a lengthy grind.
And on the design of Pagos. Those wanting to make the eureka relics will have to engage with the dreaded Eurekan Kettle. This fills more or less passively as you defeat enemies, and will have to be emptied several times to get the materials needed.
To empty it, you have to sneak past a dragon to get to one of the cliff drops, and drop off carefully. And I do mean carefully, because it will put you next to… another sleeping dragon.
Did I mention that the dragons are above the zone's level cap?
Welcome to beautiful Pagos; best watch your step…
Playfriends, remember how in the first episode of this entire series Dan asked if doing a story based playthrough of an ongoing MMO that had been running (at that time) for 8 years was a bad idea? Dan is cranking that concept idea to 11. This is your spoiler free lore comment.
Hoo boy. Today's episode is the start of the MOST grindy content in all of FFXIV. More than Relic Weapons. More than getting all the fish in the game. There are many veterans of this game who have cleared Savage and Ultimate raids who have no completed the storyline that Dan is attempting. But those players didn't have something that Dan does: The Dantalus Theater Company and Playfriends.
While Durmin starts the plot going for this effort, let's cover how this works. As Dan says, The Forbidden Land of Eureka is a throwback to FFXI. Not in story, but in mechanics. Eureka is about as close as you can get to playing FFXI in FFXIV. Experience and levels in Eureka are not shared with the rest of the game: it is called Elemental Level (and EXP). In normal content, FFXIV awards experience to all players who engage an enemy, adjusted to each player's level. This means that, as long as you land a hit, you'll get EXP. This promotes cooperation, as random players can help you deal with enemies in the field. Things work differently in Eureka. EXP is divided among those who attack an enemy. So trying to "help" a stranger kill standard monsters can be taking that EXP from them. What's more, if you're partied with a high level player, attacking low level enemies will net you a pittance of EXP, because the high level player would receive that same pittance. Thus, higher elemental level friends will have a hard time boosting you through this content. The best they might be able to do is stand nearby and heal you without being in your party. Instead, the most reasonable methods of leveling is with others at approximately same level.
But just killing monsters isn't the only way to gain elemental EXP. There are FATEs on the island, which give significant elemental EXP and some loot boxes. The pros in Eureka also take advantage of the Challenge Log! The Challenge Log is unlocked in the main game back in ARR (you've unlocked it, right? You didn't breeze past that quest with a + ?), and completing various challenges each week gives you a myriad of rewards, usually in the form of EXP, gil, or chocobo EXP. Here in Eureka, it gives Elemental EXP. The Eureka Challenges are usually defeating a certain number of an elemental type, or a specific subtype of enemy, like elementals or ashkin (undead that spawn at night). Making it a point to grab this extra Elemental EXP on top of the FATE rewards helps with the grind.
But that's how you gain elemental EXP. Let's talk about how you LOSE elemental EXP. That's right, you can lose EXP and even levels in Eureka! While Eureka Anemos has some safeguards as you start out, those safety rails rapidly fall away. If you are defeated in Eureka, you'll lose EXP. If you're raised by another player in the field, that'll be the extent of your woes. But if you cannot get another player to raise you, and respawn back at the main camp, you'll then lose a massive quantity of EXP. Lose enough, and you de-level. While that doesn't affect your abilities or stats (as they're item level locked and normal level locked to 70), this can dramatically affect your progress through Eureka, as progress is gated by your elemental level. And if you're wondering what reason the devs have to inflict this perverse mechanic on you, this is how normal EXP worked in FFXI. In fact, there's a cutscene in a questline with Shantoto, the Black Mage, where if you answer her question incorrectly, she kills you. In the cutscene. You lose EXP. Welcome back to the bad old days. Durmin has 60 elemental levels to grind out.
The Elemental Damage System operates based on the symbology of the Magia board, which has two interlocked triangles. Fortunately, your actual spell attacks don't deal aspected elemental damage like some most other Final Fantasy games, it's all based on the Magia Board. For each element, there is another that takes additional damage from it, and one that takes less damage from it. As such, you can slot Magacite into the board along two legs of a triangle to give you more outgoing damage and less incoming damage from a specific target element. But what if you're engaging an enemy of a different element? The Magia Board can be rotated to make the new element the one that's weak to you! In fact, the system allows you to target an enemy and rotate your board to allow you to deal more damage. There are limited charges to rotate the board (the MA number on the board), which can be recharged back at the Magia melder.
Gerolt is here to build you special weapons and armor that is designed specially to handle the weirdness of Eureka. Protean crystals and other drops from enemies will help him augment Relic weapons and Armor to improve their stats in Eureka.
If this all sounds miserable and labyrinthian, there are those who endeavor to help! There is a specific NA discord that is run by aficionados of Eureka, and they have all the info you need about little details and organize runs through the final raid. It's the Aether Bozja/Baldesion Arsenal Discord (ABBA, for disco fans), and hosted on the Aether data center (although with regional datacenter travel, anyone in NA can join). Don't worry about that "Bozja" bit, Durmin will get to that eventually. Probably. It's a LOT less hostile than Eureka.
50:13 – I have to interrupt this lore to point out that Chao'tic Carrie is carrying the Black Mage staff "Heartless" from the Gold Saucer and it's real good for Kingdom Hearts glams.
58:45 – FORDOLA!? Okay, I'm fairly certain this isn't part of the play the DTC had cooked up. Pretty sure.
Let's talk references!
The name Eureka comes from FF3. The Forbidden Land, Eureka was an optional dungeon that dropped some of the best gear in the game. It is accessed via the bottom floor of the Crystal Tower, and many of the notable enemies in Eureka show up in FFXIV's Crystal Tower Alliance Raids.
Isle of Val, which is Eureka's former name back when it was "normal" and near Sharlyan, is based on FF5's Castle of Bal (both Bal and Val are written the same in Japanese). It's possible the name comes from the dynasty of it's current ruler, King Galuf Baldesion. The castle far predates Galuf, though. For FFXIV, the Isle of Val was a deserted island near Sharlyan which Galuf turned into a research station. His efforts there would eventually become the Students of Baldesion, and the island their headquarters. But it vanished back in ARR with Krile the only one who seemed to have survived the event. The Students of Baldesion is heavily diminished with their headquarters and bulk of their personnel gone, but they now operate out of an office in Sharlyan, proper. As the allusions go, we're going to be learning more about Galuf, Krile, and the Isle of Val as we go on.
Next time: More Eureka. I don't know what we're in for, Durmin has already outstripped my meager foray into Eureka.
…oh good, now the frigging FF3 Eureka music is stuck in my head.
Oh hey, the first Sharlyan we meet who's a condescending jerk ass. Yes the first. ARR Alphinaud doesn't count.
"Alright, Dan has to record a thing, everyone to the HIDING CORNER!"
I sort of expected to see Eureka, based on prior comments about needing some major time investment (and help) to film all the post Stormblood stuff…
but seeing it actually show up is still a shock. Absolute insanity to do the Restoration and Eureka like that.
Much appreciated. But please get some well earned rest.
Note: Not everyone showing up to help is part of Dantalus Theatre Company. Some of us are showing up from off world or off data center or otherwise not in the FC. (This is simply a pet peeve of mine, don't mind my harrumphing).
Dan you madlad.
I've done everything in the game pretty much and I haven't even touched Eureka. I got to the end of the first quest and noped right out of there.
I guess this will be the first (only?) part of this playthrough that will be completely new to me?
FFXIV can have a mild initial learning curve for series veterans, based on cognitive dissonance. If you've played basically any FF game before, you know that enemies have elemental weaknesses and strengths. You don't cast Fire spells on Bombs, for instance. The basic gameplay of XIV does away with these, which can increase the learning curve for Black Mage simply because you need to unlearn ingrained knowledge.
Eureka adds that back in, but in an even weirder way, because now you're still bombarding things with fire and ice, but it's doing wind damage.
This was a lot of fun to participate in with all the fellow PlayFriends involved! A massive achievement of coordination and planning went into this, and I'm glad to finally see the results in video form!
This needed a level-grinding montage set to some eighties power metal to really drive home how much of a grind this was.
58:42 – Oop. I almost forgot that particular derp was helping with that leg of the adventure. Still gives me a chuckle remembering when our coordinators practically plopped our Fordola cosplayer with our Meteor cosplayer (Hyal) into Durmin's group without realizing it. … also, so much panic-hiding the moment Durmin showed up while in recording mode!
Well worth the time spent. Looking forward to seeing the rest <3
It's fun to hear all this dialogue for Gerolt is changed if this is the first time meeting him.
He plays a major role in every expansions' Relic Weapon quest, so if you are doing your due dilligence as a player and completing all the blue quest markers (the ones that unlock new content), you're bound to run into him in the postgames of ARR and HW.
In ARR, you meet him in Hyrstmill, a small town in the North Shroud (the area just north of Gridania) that I dont think you ever visit in the MSQ. He's there being a drunken old bastard making kettles when we come knocking. We got there at the request of Rowena, looking to make use of his legendary blacksmithing skills to collect on old debts. Hijinks and much, much grinding ensues.
In Heavensward, you get swept up in the research of one Ardashir Balyk from Radz-at-Han, the main city on the island of Thavnair.
(Thavnair is an island south of the continent of Ilsabard (where Garlemald is) that is between the continents of Eorzea and Othard (where Doma, Dalmasca, the Azim Steppe, etc is). Though we don't see it, no doubt the Scions would have had a pit stop there on the way from Eorzea to Kugane. Also its basically FFXIV India despite being an island)
Anyway, the research is to try and create new, artificial life ("Anima") out of aether. Gerolt, who is also swept up in this, suggests making the new life in a weapon. An… Unhinged idea that is utlimately what you do. Hijinks and more griding ensue.
Oh I just started (and got very confused by) Eureka today. Maybe Dan can explain this grind in a way that makes sense
– between this & the Doman restoration i'm in need to ask the FF14 historians in chat, did the sales of this game dwindled or something? was there a price adjustment? because these 2 quests REALLY feel like a penny pinching strategy to get more playtime
– Magic abuse leading to catastrophic weather conditions… well i be darned Cid the Outlaw was right yet again, Is Durmin an Ultima?
– oh oh! I know Galuf! that's the guy who YEETs his amnesia away, I've watched the Animation of FF5 video
Now I really wish I'd paid attention and joined the discord. I would have LOVED to run BA with this crew.
'I'll never be in the same high esteem as the Kriles and Levieulurs of the world.'
Choose your next words carefully Ojika. For you are very small and i already wish to punt you.
Honestly, playing Eureka made me realize I NEVER want to play FFXI. No offense to it, but I did not like this mode AT ALL. It was boring at the best of times and frustrating at the worst.