This was nearly three years in the making, as I first entered Anemos all the way back in 2021. The goal seemed relatively simple at first: get those cute glowy outfits and that really cool mount I had seen around a couple of times, and maybe complete a couple Stormblood Relics weapon along the way. I had a lot of fun completing Bozja Relics so I assumed it couldn’t be that much different, right? Thanks in part to questionable advice from people around me at the time and a lack of any useful information I could properly understand, my excitement for Eureka slowly fizzled out. 

For a relatively new player to the game at the time, I was more than a little overwhelmed. I had barely grasped the basics of the game and didn’t even know what a rotation was but now, all of a sudden I was forced into this old-school experience of questing without an in-game journal and learning enemy aggro types. I doubt I’d surprise anyone by saying that my progress stagnated in Pagos after the release of Endwalker.

It wasn’t until the absolute disappointment that was the Endwalker ‘Relic grind’ (I think it’s an insult to the other Relics to even call it that) became fully apparent that I began to think about Eureka again. Two years of playing had made me understand a lot more about the game and I had not much else to be doing in-game, despite my desire to play. So one week I just committed to finishing off Pagos and speeding through Pyros. I gradually levelled in Hydatos with the odd evening mob grinding session (for some reason, I wasn’t in the mood to go to the Sprite island for yet more Reflect L farming). Then suddenly, about a week ago, I hit Elemental Level 60.

Hearing how punishing Baldesion Arsenal is, I always had it in my head that even just attempting it was a ways off. “One day, I’ll try to get Demi-Ozma” was one of those wishful statement to me, not too dissimilar to a level 25 sprout saying they’re planning on clearing every Ultimate in the game. Which is why I immediately signed up for the first scheduled run available.

Don’t get me wrong, I was absolutely terrified. Some bad experiences with certain raiding statics when I was much newer to the game have made me particularly anxious about making mistakes in High-End content. Even with all the “older and wiser” yada yada, it’s the one thing that still stops me from doing Savage in Party Finder. Despite that, I knew that BA was something I actually wanted to try, even if it meant slipping up and ruining everything for everyone on my first attempt.

Eureka is a very special piece of content in FFXIV. By design, it’s never going to be something that everyone will enjoy and, contrary to what the developers seem to be thinking with Endwalker’s endgame content, that’s okay. It’s the goofy exploits and complex systems that make Eureka so well-loved by those who do like it. Arguing about pineapple on pizza in /shout while everyone waits for Penny to spawn (only to realise someone forgot to update the NM Tracker) is a far more fond memory than the majority of experiences I’ve had in PF recently. Chatting to Eureka addicts while spawning NMs and hearing them speak so highly of the BA experience was what pushed me over the edge to sign up.

So anyway, sweating and shivering with anxiety, I joined my first BA run last night (a Newbie Run by the kind people of Eurekan Academy) and I cleared! 

If you’re another BA hopeful, I’ll leave a link to video of the full clear from start to finish (complete with callouts and timestamps) to help give an idea of what to expect:

If they were an Uber, I’d rate them 10 stars! I’d definitely recommend their runs to anyone with a character on EU data centre.

Seeing Demi-Ozma finally in my Mount List is probably the closest I’m ever going to get to feeling like I ‘completed’ Final Fantasy XIV. It really did feel like I’ve ‘finished’ (like that’s even possible for an MMO) and actually achieved something for once, rather than just see my stats go up ever-so-slightly as I roll a 9 on yet another fire-bird whistle. It’s a feeling I think I’ve only just realised how much I missed from games I’ve been playing in recent years. Instead of moaning about the routinisation of Extreme and Savage, maybe I should be seeking out more exciting things…

[Originally posted on my old wordpress.com blog in February 2024.]