For anyone wondering this is what the new events look like

[Jaall]

Why don't you just stick to older content then? "And unlike you, I am being honest albeit very critical on my view about this expansion." um... since when was I lying about MY view on the expansion. I like this expansion, as hard as it may be to believe, at the end of the day it's extra content, SE didn't have to make it but they did so anything's better than nothing. The changes to enmity etc could be argued because nobody has a choice in that but as far as the expansion goes you didn't HAVE to buy it, but still chose to without seeing how it was in the first place therefore the blames on you. From what I have heard the majority actually like the expansion and from what you can see, Reives are very popular. Why can't you accept that not everyone thinks like you and that although SE "could have done better", they have done something rather than leaving FFXI to die like I would have expected at this point in its lifetime. It doesn't appeal to everyone, nothing appeals to everyone but really, you probably should have waited before buying if you're that easy to give up on new content or at least done your research to find out that the main content is, as you put it "just hitting roots".

[Luvbunny]

I am sticking to the older content for now since SoA is not yet worth playing till end of this year. Btw, it is NOT extra content. You actually have to pay $30-40 for this! Remember that. And no, I do not have to buy it for the PC version, which I am waiting till the price drop to $10 - probably soon. But you do have to buy the Xbox version ASAP or you will have to pay for inflated price. My expectation was somewhat low, I know they cannot and will not be able to top ToAU - Abyssea edition ever again. So the golden age ends there. Right now they need money very badly since FF14 is not exactly printing money yet. And yes we know they could have done better, and we are paying to play a beta SoA since most of the content won't be released until summer of 2013 (probably early fall 2013). Granted not everything is about action, some people love just to explore the corridors and find out new mobs and new areas and just testing different jobs combination. Between the launch fiasco, the problem with exp for mages and support jobs, the enmity imbalance, the defense craptacular spectacular - this is just not very good, maybe in 2003 you can forgive all of these, but not in 2013. Not when they have a full 10 years experience of what is working and what is not working.

[Jaall]

You still don't HAVE to buy anything, it's still your choice and prices might not go sky high. I can't believe you're so against this when it's only you to blame for buying it! It's not terrible, it's no ToAU but in the first few days of ToAU being released it wasn't amazing either, changes happen after the expansions released and you say it yourself maybe it'll get better. So just wait rather than spouting your absolute nonsense everywhere putting everyone down for actually liking the game and accepting that SE still have done SOMETHING, rather than NOTHING which is what everyone was expecting. If you don't like the expansion you had your say on that and I think everyone on this forum now knows you don't like it so please, for your own sake, just give it a rest already! We know what to expect because the majority of us have it, and we like it. We like bashing roots, we like jungle environments with corridors, we like scouting missions, there are things to be improved but we accept that it's been out for less than a week, and there's lots of time for improvement. You had a point at the start but now you just seem like a crying child trying to put other people off buying it, all because you don't like it.

[Caketime]

ToAU sucked, why is it being used as a measuring bar for this new release? Comparing the two out of the box is like night and day, different systems and pacing are what set the two apart the most. In the older expansions we had concepts like Besieged that were cool on paper but all these years later it's still horrendously laggy and we had to wait hours or days even for them to attack the city. Now we have multiple battles in several zones over the course of an hour with respawning enemies and something resembling strategy. Shock, horror!

SoA is awesome. Deal with it.

[Luvbunny]

Now we have multiple battles in several zones over the course of an hour with respawning enemies and something resembling strategy. Shock, horror! SoA is awesome. Deal with it.

And what strategy is this? Gather all the mobs around a PLD while your whm (or dual box) cure bomb you, let the 3 melee hit the root while the rest of the melee kill fast respawn mob (hopefully - and not zerg the root). Sleeping the adds is also an alternative. Granted there are a few great ideas on SoA - fast travel is one of them, and so far many of the quest are very casual friendly (42 quests total so far). It's not all gloom and doom, if this is not an actual expansion, I would not be too hard on it. But knowing it is a full blown expansion, yeah it's a let down. Maybe in a year after 3-4 updates, it will be much better than its current state. ToAU and Abyssea is game changing. SoA should be way better than this, and SE should put more investment back to FFXI. They are doing a maintenance today, maybe a quick fix will resolve some of the glaring problems we've been having.

[Jaall]

ToAU and Abyssea is game changing. SoA should be way better than this, and SE should put more investment back to FFXI. They are doing a maintenance today, maybe a quick fix will resolve some of the glaring problems we've been having.

So answer me this, how long has ToAU been out? ToAU, like all other expansions, wasn't game changing right out of the box like you're expecting this to be. Abyssea was fairly game changing from day 1 but that was the aim of it but remember only 1 part was released at a time with a fairly long wait between all 3. This expansion was never designed to be "game changing", the update was designed to bring FFXI back to its roots (pun intended) but not a whole new game like Abyssea made it.

[Luvbunny]

Nope, there was not long wait in Abyssea content, first part released in Summer 2010, Second part around Fall 2010, and lastly the third one in Dec 2010. Pretty much in the same pace as 3 normal regular big updates, that cost $10 each if you buy it when it first came out. ToAU was game changing. It gives you besieged (still laggy after all these years). New ways of getting to camp (a lot faster than your usual 30 mnts trek to Ugly Range camp with mobs that puts doom on your tank). The squishy bird camp that was all the rage up to 2010 (till Abyssea put a stop to that). Assaults (which was new). Those are the right off the box content. More came after that, from the big alliance style of Einherjar - Salvage to small group Nyzul Isle. And the failure that is Pankration and Colosseum battle. Nothing much come out of WoTG - at least nothing good that is popular other than Campaign in its heyday. Abyssea is still not dead - and it spawned Voidwatch (2011-2012) and Meeble (2012), along with the neo revival of Dynamis, Salvage, Nyzul, Limbus and Einherjar (3 of those are from ToAU). And like you said, maybe it is too early to judge the beta expansion that is SoA. Perhaps a year is needed to at least see a good 30% of the expansion content.

[hiko]

I am sticking to the older content for now since SoA is not yet worth playing till end of this year.

you already know that skirmish and naukal fight sucks?

the more people do reives/coaliton mission the faster it unlock
it's just like sayin that core FFXI wasn't worth playing because you didnt like XPPTs

yes low rank coalition mission might be boring, but the more poeple do 'em, the faster will get higher rank ones

[Jaall]

Whatever you say Luv, you're just making yourself seem more and more impatient and just downright silly tbh. No expansion has ever been perfect in it's first week of release like you expect of this, and like Hiko has said, Reives are only a tiny part of things to come. You seriously need to give this a chance and by not giving it any sort of a chance and loudly voicing your absolute hate on something which is reminiscent of every other FFXI release, being that it gets expanded upon every new update, after only 5-6 days of it being released is incredibly stupid in my opinion. If you don't like it, honestly just don't play it, but enough of all this hate already. I honestly feel very sorry for you. You can say all you like about previous expansions but not one of them was perfect from the start and every expansion is different for a reason. If you want every expansion to be game changing then maybe you're just overall not happy with FFXI and should move on to a different game. I personally look to an expansion to expand upon the great things FFXI already provides, and I feel SoA does that perfectly and can't wait to see what clearing more reives, and skirmishes add to that.

[Luvbunny]

the more people do reives/coaliton mission the faster it unlock. it's just like sayin that core FFXI wasn't worth playing because you didnt like XPPTs. yes low rank coalition mission might be boring, but the more poeple do 'em, the faster will get higher rank ones

God bless the early adopters who make things better for everyone else hopefully. At least there are a few of collect and gathering, inspects ??? type of mission for others who may not feel like whacking roots. I certainly hope they are not inspired by FF14 and WoTG when creating SoA since those are not the brightest moment of FFXI. Sadly if you look at it in the bigger picture, these reeks WoTG (campaign ops and voting methods) and FF14 (all those jungle outpost and levee quest). Again, in a year, SoA could be a totally different expansion - so yeah, not a bad idea to wait after 3-4 updates.