FFXIV Myths of the Realm Euphrosyne Raid Is Exciting, but Confusing

With Final Fantasy XIV Patch 6.3, the Myths of the Realm series expanded. Alongside new narrative threads that explore the origin of Eorzea’s twelve major deities, a slew of new fights are available for players to enjoy. While relatively shorter by comparison to the Nier: Automata crossover raids, the Myths of the Realm tightens up the pace to create a well rounded experience. However, as FFXIV continues to change, primarily with the addition of new Job Classes and user interface adjustments, the Euphrosyne raid is perhaps one of the most visually confusing pieces of normal content yet.

Please keep in mind this feature will have spoilers for the FFXIV Myths of the Realm Euphrosyne raid. This includes screenshots.

I say normal, because ranked next to certain Extremes, Savages, and the daunting Ultimate tier of content, there isn’t quite the same level of visual overload. Having stepped back from FFXIV for a fairly long extended period of time, coming back to the game has been a mostly exciting experience. So I was fairly eager to jump into Euphrosyne, as the 24-man raids remained some of my favorite content to date. I had a blast with Void Ark when it rolled out during Heavensward, adored the Return to Ivalice raids in Stormblood, and a fair few of the NieR: Automata fights were memorable due to their mechanics and music. So I had fairly high hopes for Myths of the Realm.

I wasn’t disappointed, with the first series of raids proving to be interesting in their mechanics and positioning that was easy enough to pick up on almost immediately. There wasn’t any kind of visual confusion, with attacks and mechanics (like needing to position yourself on Rhalgr’s open fist) clearly telegraphed. So I was hoping that Euphrosyne would be just as accessible for someone who semi-frequently jumps into the game from time to time.

Euphrosyne is mostly this. FFXIV does this thing where it introduces you to markers and mechanics through older content. Recently, Square Enix changed large portion of A Realm Reborn to ease players into markers they’ll see in late-game content, which is honestly great. It’s perhaps one of the strongest things the developers did for the game, in terms of preparing them for harder content if they choose to tackle it. But Euphrosyne pairs new markers with a lot of visual stimulus to make what could be relatively easy FFXIV fights more difficult on the basis of poor visual telegraphs in several instances.

For example, the AoE attacks that Halone the Fury unleashes against the party require you to move from one part of the arena to the next based on where light blue circles or large chunks appear on the floor. In premise, this would be easy if the arena itself wasn’t already an ice blue. On top of that, if a lot of players are standing around her legs, it can be easy to miss if you’re concentrated on healing, reviving party members, or your rotation. You can, of course, turn a lot of visual effects off for your party members, which does help make the game more readable, but that doesn’t stop the deluge of text that constantly filters over the boss when damage as done. With the added melee and magic DPS markers at the end of damage it clutters up the screen even more.

This was a pretty consistent issue for me during all of the fights, as certain boss mechanics would cause the screen to flash, ushering new visual transitions, or the usual orange markers to indicate an AoE being hard to register on similar colored floors. I wasn’t going through the raids as a White Mage this time around, so my deaths felt mostly inconsequential as a Summoner. If my role was more important, then I think I would have been bothered by this more. But I can’t deny that my eyes weren’t exhausted after running Euphrosyne. The sheer visual stimulus from the raid, along with hard to read AoE markers or attacks, had me feeling both tired and frantic.

It’s interesting to me because Square Enix leaned into making FFXIV‘s earlier content more accessible to new players, making needed adjustments to older dungeons, and even rebalancing fights like the face off against Ultima as a learning moment. With Euphrosyne walking back on this, it’s a bit of a shame. Obviously, people will get used to the fight and be able to avoid the AoEs in question, as most of FFXIV content is memorizing patterns sort of like a dance. But for now, it’s interesting to see how overloaded this particular set of raids are by comparison. With each update, and expansion, players are expected to be more reactive, more attentive, and all the more focused. While rebalances have no doubt helped ease new players into content, better than A Realm Reborn could have given its original state and how vastly different the game is now, it makes me wonder what future content will be like and if the developers will aim to make large-scale fights like this even flashier.

If so, I hope there is a greater range of accessibility options for players. Either to further lessen effects, or set a specific color to AoE markers so they don’t get lost in the noise. The later probably wouldn’t be possible as it might skew things like “World First” races too severely for them to be massive events, but it’s an interesting thought, and maybe one the community has already suggested. Ultimately, Euphrosyne was a decently fun FFXIV raid. It wasn’t as memorable to me as The Orbonne Monastery (mostly due to the appearance of Thunder God Cid and Agrias), or The Weeping City of Mhach, but will keep me on my toes for the time being. Or at least until I run it a few more times in hope to get the piece of gear I need for my Gunbreaker.

Final Fantasy XIV is available for the PS4, PS5, and PC.