I am honestly more interested in the Planet development system. Haven't even unlocked Bozja, so I don't have an opinion on the Field Ops. No hope for the MSQ, but I hope the trial is fun enough to bother with the plot(If I ain't dodging Climhazzard or a Seiken Stock Break, I'm rioting)
It really surprises me that my opinion on Bozja is a hot-take. Any positive mention of Bozja gets the seagulls that comprise the Eureka "community" squakin' like mad about how wrong you are, but Bozja is my aboslutely favorite thing they've ever done in FFXIV.
There's tons of social stuff and minigames added throughout the game's patch cycles, and there's the regular stuff they add every patch (roulette dungoen, alliance raids, trials, savage raids). Bozja however was a zone that let you just hop on FF with your buddies and just "play"
(with content being accessable regardless of group size barring DR/DRS) at whatever pace or whatever difficulty you wanted. Pardon the line formatting of the next paragraph, but it's impossible to read if I make it a giant text block.
Want to casually farm skirmishes (fates)? You can do that.
Want to just hit up the low-med difficulty critical engagements. Cool.
Want to start a trurbo farming train to rack in some decent dosh? Awesome.
Want to hit up the Lacis or Dalradia to try for the rare loot? You got it.
Got a large group online and want to hit up Delibrum or Delibrum Savage? I'm down.
Want to try learning the difficult solo-bosses? I'll be there cheering you on and will happily demo it for you to show you how it's done. Then you too can watch as people start learning your name as a bozja regular and cheering you on as you make progress over the weeks.
Want to just go people watching at a junction point or in base? A fine activity for when you're just chatting with friends.
This is something I felt was lacking during Endwalker after having it in Shadowbringers. An area where all of your friends can feel like they're making progress on one of their relic weapons regardless of what you're doing together helped a lot too. In addition, working on the field notes progresses you towards a 2-seater mount. Plus it's an area where you can just
play the game as an MMO. Even if you're not feeling social on a given day, there's still a general chat to laugh at and tons of players running around. It really made the zones feel "alive". I played around in Bozja so much that I only had something like 5 relic weapons left to complete before unsubbing. There is no better place to go when you're stuck in an "I unno. What do YOU wanna do" loop with your friends.
When the new field op comes out, unfortunately Bozja will almost certainly take a population hit, but it was a great time. That said, I have managed to 2-man almost everything in that zone at light level 25 barring Dalradia and Delibrum. The two man run of a Lacus I did with some rando in southern front at fuck-you-o-clock in the morning where we were both like "Can this be 2-manned? Fuck it, we both can see we have turbo dps elixirs going on a white mage and dark knight. Let's bust out a couple of mid-high tier actions and see if we can do this." is something I won't forget for a long time.
If the new zone can recapture some of that feeling, I will be very tempted to resub. There's no easier way to make me buy into (or back into in this case) a game than having my friends ask me to come play with them.
PS: For the record Eureka lovers, I don't hate Eureka. I just vastly prefer Bozja. Unless you're a Pagos gremlin or BA gatekeeper. My hate for them burns with the firey passion of 1000 blazing suns.
