[Stormblood Budget] Where all the money's gone ?

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Originally Posted by CuteWhisper

We don't even know everything about this expansion yet.

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Too be honest I think we do. It wouldn't surprise me everything they showed at Fanfest and Eureka is what comes in the expansion. They have a live letter coming up and its most likely going to be a repeat of information we know, a video of a new zone and then Q&A. Then the Live Letter in May will be the battle changes and finally expansion time in June.

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Originally Posted by CuteWhisper

We don't even know everything about this expansion yet.

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Yet most of the things they mentioned is something we already had. New things, new server for NA and inventory space is gonna be higher.

It is an expansion of the current game. The budget mainly goes to adding new areas, jobs, dungeons, quests, trials and raids. Any changes are a side-dish and not the main focus.

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Originally Posted by matteoxyz

It is an expansion of the current game. The budget mainly goes to adding new areas, jobs, dungeons, quests, trials and raids. Any changes are a side-dish and not the main focus.

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I hate to say this, but I will have to. FFXI had expension, many of them actually. In fact they had their first 1 right after 1 year release. The gear formula was pretty much the same, but how to obtain the gear, the raids got different and some were easier, some harder. I wasn't completely the same. 24 man raids we seen and the mechanics are pretty much same and the very very same focus on the content, we would want something different at some point. Diadem just ended up being a fate instance instead. The game needs something thats new for those who cares, which there is many of, those who don't care, can just stick with the old stuff I guess.

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Originally Posted by akaneakki

The game needs something thats new for those who cares, which there is many of, those who don't care, can just stick with the old stuff I guess.

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To be fair here: We did get new stuff - Aquapolis, PotD, the first Diadem...
And yes, no one liked the first Diadem (myself included), but I feel its still worth mentioning that they tried to come up with something new. To bad it sucked, but its not as if they werent trying to release new content while still keeping the stuff they know works.

A budget increase doesn't necessarily mean a commensurate increase in amount of content. That's not how budgets work. More money means more planning and more polish as much as more content. And judging by Wrestlemania, I'd say a lot of money for Heavensward is going into marketing, which is an important (and expensive) part of a game's budget.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

The thing is that unlike another big MMO that uses their beta tests as way to generate hype and interest in an expansion (read: WoW with Warlords of Draenor and Legion), we have no idea of what is coming with Stormblood. Like at all.

At least by the time WoD and Legion launched I had an idea of what Blizzard had done with the classes, the very basics of changes to existing systems, and yes, what the first 15 minutes of one of the new zones looked like. So you can't even make a call based on what you see, because there's nothing to see aside from what SE decides to show, and the only way you'll know whether you got a dud or not is by buying the expansion. So players are stuck in a situation where they have to fork over money to see whether the game is going in a direction they like before deciding to continue their sub or moving on. Simply put, players who are skeptical are in a somewhat shitty situation.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

We're in the internet age >.>

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I still believe his point stands strong, at least I agree with him. The amount of info/hype* control I have from WoW compared to FFXIV at their same points in the timeline is staggeringly different lol. Blizzard has been at this for a while longer so I guess its not weird to expect them to do well (their background experience and size does well for them), but the hype around SB doesn't feel that strong (I am making /no/ assessment on SB and what it has, because its hard to even make one even though we are only months away). *Playing FFXIV over WoW, I mean how they control/deliver their hype (might help that we're on the English to English side with them).

Edit: Although I want to add that if you don't trust a product to be good you shouldn't pre-order it, and you should absolutely remember when you get burned from a company (certain companies I will never pre-order from). But if CDProjekt makes something, sure thing lol. So I agree with you on that point you were making, of course don't just buy stuff if you feel like it isn't worth it :) - was not disagreeing with that idea haha

I think I had more hype for Legion than SB and I don't even want to buy Legion, I want to buy SB lol. I'm not suggesting it's easy to do.. just that I feel like we're only half loaded onto the hype train and it's supposed to approach the final destination soon. And again, not actually saying SB will be good or bad - need more info. I think part of the problem is they plan for content inside their patches but maybe don't talk about it, Blizzard will mention things to come farther in the future to hype it even though it's going to be like 2 months after release (so what is "in SB expansion purchase" is more than just the first patch and you're sort of dishing out extra for a season pass.. but Blizzard often will preview their "season pass" a little).

I knew so much about the new WoW expansions at this point in the timeline. To add though, I think Blizzard has a stronger history of broken promises in their hype sessions too haha - so I give SE that. Yoshida has been pretty honest imo <3, with some mistakes yes, but fewer than the ones I can recall from Blizzard - like a significant difference (In one presentation from Blizzard they've already said more things that they will but didn't do lol).

It probably sucks being compared to other MMOs though (well any game company vs another lol), especially ones like Blizzard with fat cat pockets and a big base that allows them to earn more over a larger group (don't need as high profit on a specific person), or teams with multiplayer experience (like when Yoshida says something is not possible due to memory*, it seems like that is something a western multiplayer experienced MMO had for a while already.. makes it hard to swallow the answer). *Dye, and things like housing (many of the major western MMO do not have a housing issues anywhere like Balmung does - unless its meant to be a feature like build in actual zones and fight over territory, also many have much larger memory limits even when SE doubles the space for our housing WildStar will /still/ have more space in literally every way (inside, outside, storage, area to put those objects, and everyone gets the area to work with too). We are getting server/inventory changes though, so its not like nothing is being done.

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Originally Posted by akaneakki

The game needs something thats new for those who cares, which there is many of, those who don't care, can just stick with the old stuff I guess.

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I care about getting RDM, SAM, underwater content of any kind, a new deep dungeon (because I hate the current one), a new version of Diadem that people might actually want to run, a new raid that makes me want to play the game it's based off of, new stories, new background lore, new systems, new leveling (especially with almost everything at 60), new skills and new possibilities for jobs currently available.

This is new content, and I care because it's better than getting nothing.

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Originally Posted by akaneakki

I hate to say this, but I will have to. FFXI had expension, many of them actually. In fact they had their first 1 right after 1 year release. The gear formula was pretty much the same, but how to obtain the gear, the raids got different and some were easier, some harder. I wasn't completely the same. 24 man raids we seen and the mechanics are pretty much same and the very very same focus on the content, we would want something different at some point. Diadem just ended up being a fate instance instead. The game needs something thats new for those who cares, which there is many of, those who don't care, can just stick with the old stuff I guess.

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The difference is that in FFXI, many casual players never touched any of that stuff. People were plenty happy to just level in open world content by fighting one or two mob types for hours, and never do anything else because it was too hard to get a party for content. And leveling never changed any more than FFXIV's core mechanics are changing. If they fundamentally change the way the game is played, they risk killing it.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I still believe his point stands strong, at least I agree with him.

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The thing is: I never disagreed that there is a large difference in the information available in advance. What I'm disagreeing with is that from this follows that you have to buy the expansion in order to judge it. I never even argued about hype.

That's really all I'm saying there. People are not stuck in a situation where they have to fork over money to see if the game is heading into a direction they like, people are stuck in a situation where they have to wait for post-release information to see if the game is heading into a direction they like. That's quite a difference.
Like, if you don't like the game right now and consider quitting if Stormblood doesn't live up to your expectations, what's the big deal in cancelling your sub right now, waiting until the expansion release, then deciding whether to move on or re-sub? Why is it so important to do that decision right now? If you're not subscribed, you're not losing any money in the process.

Sure, it would be nice to be able to do that decision right now, but I think that's an inconvenience more than anything.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

To be fair here: We did get new stuff - Aquapolis, PotD, the first Diadem...
And yes, no one liked the first Diadem (myself included), but I feel its still worth mentioning that they tried to come up with something new. To bad it sucked, but its not as if they werent trying to release new content while still keeping the stuff they know works.

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Diadem was fun at first but its a full zerg fest with no objectives, so it turned into a huge fest with fates. PoDt is fun however and it was a big hit for many, since it had a benefit for everything, glamour, leveling, objectives etc, its all good.

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

I care about getting RDM, SAM, underwater content of any kind, a new deep dungeon (because I hate the current one), a new version of Diadem that people might actually want to run, a new raid that makes me want to play the game it's based off of, new stories, new background lore, new systems, new leveling (especially with almost everything at 60), new skills and new possibilities for jobs currently available.

This is new content, and I care because it's better than getting nothing.

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Yes but we had 3 new jobs in HW. just 2 in new one. The things you mentioned is already here and it will obviously extend to next expansion, however the word expand has a meaning to it, you don't only extend to current jobs and system but also want to expand the system as well, as in content and differences, people do mention things that they took a risk on, which is good, however its too much of the same.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

The thing is: I never disagreed that there is a large difference in the information available in advance. What I'm disagreeing with is that from this follows that you have to buy the expansion in order to judge it. I never even argued about hype.

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I didn't mean to say you disagreed but that it was like "even though we can just wait and see if it's great or terrible, they still messed up~" :D

But yeah I agreed with what you said to him, but felt like we shouldn't even have to be thinking about that. It's really bad hype that people are even thinking "is my purchase going to be worth it?", hype is supposed to make you illogical and impulsive lol.

Your points were good (+1), sorry I was confusing - made a bit of an edit but it could have been front loaded better to show what I meant in replying to you!

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Originally Posted by akaneakki

Yes but we had 3 new jobs in HW. just 2 in new one. The things you mentioned is already here and it will obviously extend to next expansion, however the word expand has a meaning to it, you don't only extend to current jobs and system but also want to expand the system as well, as in content and differences, people do mention things that they took a risk on, which is good, however its too much of the same.

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Although we had three jobs in Heavensward, at least two of them were close to useless. Astrologians weren't strong enough healers overall and Nocturnal Stance back then was next to pointless, while Machinist was found to be the absolute worst dps at that time due to the RNG component in their core combo and a more complicated rotation compared to what they have today. With two jobs, even though no fine details have been released on them, I'll gladly take solace knowing quality is taking precedence over quantity.

Even though we know that we'll get new versions of things already implemented at a rudimentary level, they're still going to be new. The next deep dungeon will look nothing like PotD, the next version of Diadem won't be the same load of floating landmasses, and I'm pretty sure Ivalice won't look like some demon-infested dump. Sure, they might feel the same to the typical pessimist, but when a game like WoW starts borrowing ideas from it (i.e. more cutscene-based storytelling, elaboration of crafting and gathering professions), it doesn't look like there's all that much that needs fixing.

Like I said, it's better than getting nothing. If you don't like it, then why are you still here?

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Originally Posted by akaneakki

Yes but we had 3 new jobs in HW. just 2 in new one. The things you mentioned is already here and it will obviously extend to next expansion, however the word expand has a meaning to it, you don't only extend to current jobs and system but also want to expand the system as well, as in content and differences, people do mention things that they took a risk on, which is good, however its too much of the same.

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Remember when they changed the system in XI and everyone hated it and now no one says its the same game anymore and they don't want to go back to it? Change for the sake of change is a bad thing.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Remember when they changed the system in XI and everyone hated it and now no one says its the same game anymore and they don't want to go back to it? Change for the sake of change is a bad thing.

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This is an extremely important point, particularly regarding FFXI. I mean, people are constantly pining for the days of horizontal progression where they could do the same raids forever, and everyone got mad as soon as the game forced an actual change. Abyssea was the first time FFXI fundamentally changed how everyone leveled up, and many people hated it, yet that's basically what some are asking for here.

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Originally Posted by Vanitas

Can we wait for Stormblood to actually come out before making these "educated" guesses? Hmm?

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No.
Some of us are worried and are voicing our concerns.
SE really hasn't done much to really excite or assure us that we aren't just going to continue doing the same grinds we saw in ARR and HW or actually add meaningful content in-terms-of-gameplay.
The Letter from the Producer is the perfect time for them to assure us, so we will have to wait and see...

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Originally Posted by Vidu

To be fair here: We did get new stuff - Aquapolis, PotD, the first Diadem...
And yes, no one liked the first Diadem (myself included), but I feel its still worth mentioning that they tried to come up with something new. To bad it sucked, but its not as if they werent trying to release new content while still keeping the stuff they know works.

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Did they though? Diadem was and currently is FATE grinding (even if the past version didn't actually use FATEs, it was extremely similar, being easily equated to boss FATEs) , PotD is pretty much the same as any old dungeon except with its own gear and leveing system, while Aquapolis is just fighting trash mobs in an arena to unlock RNG-doors.
We should NOT ignore public opinion on these things. Just saying that the devs at least tried to add new things but continuously failing or give use lukewarm content shouldn't be commended, it isn't at all productive, especially with a game we have to pay a monthly subscription on.

Yet another reason why PTRs are so, so valuable...

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

No.
Some of us are worried and are voicing our concerns.
SE really hasn't done much to really excite or assure us that we aren't just going to continue doing the same grinds we saw in ARR and HW or actually add meaningful content in-terms-of-gameplay.
The Letter from the Producer is the perfect time for them to assure us, so we will have to wait and see...

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It's a bit too late to voice your concerns, the content is finished, and if it's going to disappoint you, it's going to disappoint you. And based on things like...

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

PotD is pretty much the same as any old dungeon except with its own gear and leveing system

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...my guess is you're going to be disappointed. I'm willing to bet if Stormblood was going to represent a massive paradigm shift in the game, they've have said so by now.

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

No.
We should NOT ignore public opinion on these things. Just saying that the devs at least tried to add new things but continuously failing or give use lukewarm content shouldn't be commended, it isn't at all productive, especially with a game we have to pay a monthly subscription on.

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I merely said that its unfair to ignore those tries - by just sitting there and screaming "We have never gotten anything new!" you're denying them the credit for at least trying. Am I happy that the content wasnt great? Ofc not.
But I am happy that they are trying new things and coming up with (more or less) new ideas to incorporate into the game. Because if they dont try, nothing new will ever happen. So at least be so fair to acknowledge them trying.

You dont like the new things they've tried, you dont want more of the old stuff... what do you even want? Them to come up with a totally revolutnary idea (without changing the entire game)? Yeah, you most likely will be disapointed - because you're asking and expecting to much, even with your monthly pay. If you want something completly new - play a new game. And maybe, after one or two months of playing that... you come back to FFXIV and find that it isnt that horrible after all.

And I'm saying that as a person whos extremly bored by the game right now and considered unsubbing last week. If you cant enjoy the game right now and everything just seems to suck for you: Try another game, give this one a break...

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

Like I said, it's better than getting nothing. If you don't like it, then why are you still here?

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I still like the game, don't get me wrong, but spicing up would be nice. It feels like a complete linear setup they are putting us through. Saying I should leave because I disagree with how the next expansion is going to be, well I'm not saying all of it but some, doesnt make me hate the game? Look at the other threads in here, people mentioned something from FFXI, yells at them saying ''dont make this another ff11 v2''. Ever occured to you FF14 have a lot of elements of the older FF games? Besides BLM isn't BLM anymore and SMN have trolls as pet?

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Remember when they changed the system in XI and everyone hated it and now no one says its the same game anymore and they don't want to go back to it? Change for the sake of change is a bad thing.

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I agree but did anyone and myself mention make the game completely different? Look at the game, it has soo much from other FF games, does it make it look bad? Far from it, I like some of the concepts like gold saucer etc. however when me or others want ideas from the previous games, which could work, because you never know, everyone goes hard on that person, forgetting this game is purely made and fanbased for older FF fans as well.

Saying the game wil be worse because ideas from older FF games is ''weird'' considering FF14 copied a whole bunch of older FF games. I think people tend to forget that :) Anyways about FF11 I agree I didn't like the changes that much, however me or others NEVER mentioned a whole overhaul,we are asking for new things that would make the game more interessting. There are floating amazing ideas everywhere, but when someone sees them, they have to be so extremely negative. Suddenly a topic of 200 pages about some glamour didn't appear on mogstation happens, and yet people call me or others complainers... Hah :/

I have to agree with OP. I am not impressed with the information we have got so far.
And one job less, no new race or new character creation options makes me really wonder where all the mog station $$$ goes to.

Also... the "new content types" we have seen in HW are very poor. Diadem is a joke and the pet battle system: Well, I was actually interested in it and excited when they had mentioned it, but what they delivered was just a big "why" and a huge waste of dev time (in my opinion). I will never understand why they just didnt copy pokemon like other mmos, instead of reinventing the wheel with it.
POTD is just boring, I do not feel excited doing that content. Only reached to 50, perhaps its less boring to 100.
Aquapolis was okay, I liked that it felt like an adventure. So that would be the only new content type I actually liked.
So with that I am not expecting anything good for any "new content types" time they might try to do.

I like the boss battles this game has and wish they would give us raids with more than just "one room one boss" design. Similar to the 24 raids but for 8 people. From interviews I have read it doesnt seem like they plan to do it though.

I still hope they add 1-3 more classes to play >.>
only 2 is really low..
We are on old Japan like content in Stormblood! That age had LOTS of martial arts with weapons!

Went into the Omega/Shinryu fight.

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Originally Posted by akaneakki

I still like the game, don't get me wrong, but spicing up would be nice. It feels like a complete linear setup they are putting us through. Saying I should leave because I disagree with how the next expansion is going to be, well I'm not saying all of it but some, doesnt make me hate the game? Look at the other threads in here, people mentioned something from FFXI, yells at them saying ''dont make this another ff11 v2''. Ever occured to you FF14 have a lot of elements of the older FF games? Besides BLM isn't BLM anymore and SMN have trolls as pet?

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I like BLM because it's BLM in FFXIV, not because it's some outdated relic from a system that doesn't work in a reasonable MMORPG setting. I like SMN because it's NOT the SMN of FFXI, and although there could be some more desirable systems for it, I like because I know it still more or less works in FFXIV.

I'll give another example. I actually hated the thought of having SAM in the game with a burning passion. I felt it was an uninspired, uninteresting and utterly unimpressive concept because the people that kept demanding it wanted that idiotic armored shogun look. When I saw the announcement video for SAM though, I had a change of heart. I actually liked seeing SAM because it WASN'T that armored shogun of FFXI, but rather something new. Something different.

Yes, there are ideas from past FF games, but there seems to have been almost painstaking measure taken not to let those take center stage on a mechanical level. Proof of that would be in knowing the concept of "Final Fantasy Syndrome".

Does it make you hate the game for disagreeing with implementation of dungeon and raid layouts used for years now? Of course not, even though it's not really a broke system and doesn't really NEED fixing. Does it make you hate the game for casting judgments on content we haven't seen 100% of though? That's why I ask why you're still here.

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

Although we had three jobs in Heavensward, at least two of them were close to useless. Astrologians weren't strong enough healers overall and Nocturnal Stance back then was next to pointless, while Machinist was found to be the absolute worst dps at that time due to the RNG component in their core combo and a more complicated rotation compared to what they have today. With two jobs, even though no fine details have been released on them, I'll gladly take solace knowing quality is taking precedence over quantity.

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Of those two jobs, one was designed to chase a pie in the sky (AST) and the other looks slapped together (MCH). That speaks more of their approach to design rather than time/resource constraints, because if I had been present when they decided to make a weaker healer with RNG buffs to compensate for the lack of healing power, the first thing to come out of my mouth would be "scrap it and go back to the drawing board; that's a shit idea". Moreso if they actually mentioned the job would be a love child of WHM and SCH.

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The next deep dungeon will look nothing like PotD, the next version of Diadem won't be the same load of floating landmasses

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This defeats the purpose of making such a big deal about potD and Diadem, since both were introduced as content that would be built on over time. It's one thing to say "x expansion will make additions to Diadem/PotD", and another to say "X expansion will have its own version of Diadem/PotD". With the latter you're getting more of the same, but with a different coat of paint.

Mind you, I've taken issue with both since they were implemented, since they're nothing but content built on a gimmick (PotD) or under the guise of trying to be different (Diadem).

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Sure, they might feel the same to the typical pessimist, but when a game like WoW starts borrowing ideas from it (i.e. more cutscene-based storytelling, elaboration of crafting and gathering professions), it doesn't look like there's all that much that needs fixing.

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Borrowing elements of presentation (cutscenes) and returning some of the value to professions (which was taken away with WoD and was one of the things that expansion was panned for) is not much of an argument. If you'd mentioned the biggest thing they borrowed from FFXIV (relics), you might have an actual point. Though then I would add WoW did it better since at least to get the artifacts you have to do heroic things instead of doing animus books or farm FATEs to placate a washed out drunk and his ex-wife.

And trust me, there's plenty that needs/should be fixed, looked at, revised, or redesigned in this game.

Here's a short list, in case you're curious:

- Bonus Stat Points: this needs to be repurposed or removed from the game. The points serve no purpose other than to be put into that job's main stat.
- Stats in general: We've all heard the stories of how Parry is useless or how Accuracy is a binary stat.
- Materia: this needs a redesign. The assimilation system has proven to be unsustainable since materia acquisition is so RNG the devs ended up having to add NPCs that gave you materia in exchange for currency. That's a huge red flag.
- Tank and healer gameplay: Either redesign all tanks and healers to focus on their roles, or remove the limitations so that both can seamlessly switch between damage and healing/damage mitigation. Especially in the case of tanks, whose stances serve little purpose when tank gameplay in raids involves not using them most of the time (if at all).
- Passive Utility being king: AKA, why WAR and DRG have guaranteed raid spots. Leading to,
- Active Utility being nearly nil: Thanks to Wanderer's Palace speedruns, all dungeon mobs are immune to sleep. In turn, this means encounter design is poorer for it because things like Sleep and Repose get no use (no dangerous adds in raids that need to be slept, no mind-controlled raid members that need to be controlled until the MC wears off). By the same token, you don't see much in the way of added CC/other utility that could prove useful in fights. At least stuns and BRD/MCH resource regen and debuffs see some use, I guess.
- Raid instances: These are corridors leading to a boss. I know Yoshida mentioned bigger instances and more bosses per raid would delay the update schedule, but would that be a bad thing?
- MCH: As I mentioned, this thing is a slew of mechanics thrown together. Ammo was a missed opportunity. The entire job pretty much hinges on turret debuffs and Wildfire.
- Other job-specific issues: This would cover things like BRD with WM, why the devs stick to a two-healer meta, why the devs gave nearly every job stack mechanics or buff timers instead of unique resources and systems, and so on.

Any and all of the above mentioned could be good selling points for an expansion if SE were to acknowledge the problems and say "we're fixing this with Stormblood". While you may mention the tired "next expansion will fix it" WoW meme, every one of the things above is big enough that would require an expansion to address. I certainly can't expect SE to deal with the materia systems crap design mid-expansion, for example.

OP's question seems something like "what a company does with its money?".
It surely funds next expansion, no doubt, but thinking all and everything needs goes there is quite naive thinking of how a company works.

The only reason this or that is not implemented, it is because it has been decided not to do it, or thinking about it later. So far, I didn't see any SE employee tell us things are not done because a missing budget. Hell, after the 1.0 debacle SE did put on XIV new budget and effort to redo game from scratch. And we all are happy of that.

We all have our own things we like it being implemented, but to make everyone happy is plain utopistic. If things are to be done, them will have to be good for the whole game.

Well, pretty much all of HW content has been crap as everyone knows. Diadem, PotD, Aquapolis, Miniongame, much of the PvP stuff is just useless filler content to keep you clocking time. A handful of good bosses (and only the Savage/Extreme versions, the rest is really just scrub content anyway) and a few cutscenes everyone skips anyway (dont think anyone in my guild knows the story lol. Its not like you have any influence on it anyways so who cares?).

2.0 had much better dungeons (AK original was great for its time, I really enjoyed seeing people work for that demon wall, and its always good when not everyone and their dog can complete any content), Twintania, Titan Ex, those were fights where you didnt just outgear it to hell from release, and rezzed the scrubs that died to avoidable mechanics to zerg down the boss.

But that stuff you cannot buy with budget. Budget buys pretty fancy graphics, voice-overs and more useless cutscenes in a raid game (whoever thought this would be a good idea?). You buy those things by allowing your content designers to create something that is not an easy-mode copycat version of the last patch.
SE is afraid of the dumb scrubs crying, as many (if not most) MMORPG companies become after a few years of time. Quickly, much budget and time is spent on mechanics that make content obsolete, speed people up, help them to succeed despite low skill, and generally spending money to ruin stuff you spent money on 6 months ago.

Dont you see how many people just skip most content? Only resub for a few days or weeks at the end of a content cycle to pick up everything in a quick farm run? But sure, lets put an even bigger Echo buff on the latest content so Joe McScrub and Skilless O'Standinflame can get dragged through it, because that is how you should spend developer time.

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

I like BLM because it's BLM in FFXIV

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I don't think you get it, when I said SMN, I didn't mean FFXI SMN, I mean SMN from the whole FF universe. They are supposed to be summon the primal itself not some plush toys. Which FF games before this one have summoned babies?
BLM doesn't feel BLM enough for me, idk about others, this isn't really the topic here but I'll make a last post about it. Anyways, BLM has 2 elements or 3, fire, thunder and ice. a BLM in older FF games not saying only fFFXI, was a BLM. They had thunder,ice, fire,water,stone etc. They simplified the classes.


Back on topic, as others stated here, so far the info we gotten is purely poor, there is no ''expanded'' things we yet to see before. Swimming will mostlikely be gimmicy as flying because what's the point of flying when there is nothing that we could interact it with? Back before HW was out, Yoshida said there would be airship fights with FC's, did it happen? No. There is bunch of concepts and great ideas they mentioned while back too, like Summons would roam free and people who killed it would have it's power for a week, did it happen? No

I will agree that, on the surface at least, there does seem to be less or equal new content available than Heavensward. I'm primarily comparing the websites of both expansions. To go into detail:

Heavensward: 1 new race
Stormblood: No New Race

Heavensward: 3 new Jobs
Stormblood: 2 new Jobs

Heavensward: 3 New Beast Tribes (though only two Announced on the Website)
Stormblood: 2 New Beast Tribes (although once again, there could be a third one)

Heavensward: Six new Zones to explore (Coerthas Western Highlands, the Sea of Clouds, the Dravanian Forelands, the Churning Mists, the Dravanian Hinterlands, Azys Lla)
Stormblood: Four (Listed!) new Zones to Explore (Gyr Abania, Azim Steppe, Yanxia, Ruby Sea) though once again, there will probably be some unannounced ones

Heavensward: 8 new 4-man Dungeons
Stormblood: Unknown

Heavensward: 1 new 8 man raid, 1 new 24-man Raid
Stormblood: 1 new 8 man raid, 1 new 24-man raid

Heavensward: Diadem/Company Workshops
Stormblood: Eureka

Heavensward: Flying
Stormblood: Swimming

That said, I'd hate to judge the new expansion too harshly before digging deeper into it. Despite us being almost exactly two months away from release (June 20th), there are still plenty of unknowns about the expansion. We only have a few glimpses at the upcoming Job ability changes, which could be potentially significant. The new abilities each Job are receiving may drastically change up the gameplay in ways we can't yet predict. There is a potential that secondary or primary stats will be altered, which could have a major impact on gearing. We still have very little details about Eureka, which could be the sort of "Open World" style content a lot of people are clamoring for. There may be some hidden features they're keeping under wraps, such as a difficulty levels for 4-man dungeons, or a large expansion to "Deep Dungeon" style content. Compared to most MMOs on the market, FFXIV does a great job with large content updates, so by the end of the patch cycle for Stormblood it may turn out incredible.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still irritated by the lack of new Tank/Healer jobs, and I have a large amount of concerns, such as the story ending up spread thin, or the Job changes either ruining jobs I already enjoy or being so inconsequential it's barely a feature. I still feel like, on the surface, Heavensward is offering more (especially since Flying will likely be more useful than swimming) to the players, but I think we should at least wait to learn more before passing all of our judgement. Criticism is perfectly appropriate, don't misunderstand me, but reserve some of it until we see the full picture.

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Originally Posted by akaneakki

Saying the game wil be worse because ideas from older FF games is ''weird'' considering FF14 copied a whole bunch of older FF games. I think people tend to forget that :) Anyways about FF11 I agree I didn't like the changes that much, however me or others NEVER mentioned a whole overhaul,we are asking for new things that would make the game more interessting. There are floating amazing ideas everywhere, but when someone sees them, they have to be so extremely negative.

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I feel like I'm missing these ideas. I've seen a lot of people say we should get rid of the tomestone system, for instance, but the suggestions for replacing it are either random drops (which, no), some half-baked and completely impractical system, or no suggestion at all. And many ideas, including several in this thread, are just "make the game harder." The simple fact is, if an MMO wants to make a lot of money, it has to stay accessible. That's the nature of the beast.

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Originally Posted by AstralKaos

And to add to it.

In typical SE fashion a large part of the budget will be blown in areas that are usually fine. Such as: Fancy looking story scenes, more voiced stuff, annoying in-battle lines (sloppy! I have the power!) and so on; basically all the flash and style at the detriment of other things. I'd honestly not be surprised if half of the budget went on CG trailers alone; absurd, not likely and not true, but this is how much SE values the aforementioned flash and style over meaningful - in some cases, much needed - content, additions or revisions.

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It's something I've noticed about SE in particular. They tend to put presentation over functionality. It's a serious problem they have. It might work for a cinematic single player RPG, but in a MMO? Heavens no. It's the reason why the housing in this game is awful, or the GC restrictions in PVP. It's putting lore and presentation over functional gameplay. What's the most important part of a video game?. In fact, now that I think about it, they actually structured the MSQ like a single player RPG back in 2.0. Remember Praetorium? I think SE has learned from that mistake however due to their more recent decisions. Freelancing was a fantastic idea for PVP and was a step in the right direction.

Story and Gameplay segregation exists for a reason, ask literally any other major developer out there.

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Originally Posted by Derio

They also said longer cutscenes so that might be some of the budget especially considering more voice acting than HW

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ear me out, not saying it's useless but come one, we don't really need longer voiced cutescenes ! Once you've done them they become useless, we need things to actually do to not get bored :/

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Originally Posted by Celef

ear me out, not saying it's useless but come one, we don't really need longer voiced cutescenes ! Once you've done them they become useless, we need things to actually do to not get bored :/

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Problem here is people kept bugging them that there wasn't enough voice acting and it was 'cheap' of them not to put voice acting everywhere. Sadly they end up listening to such people.

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Originally Posted by Settiesama

Problem here is people kept bugging them that there wasn't enough voice acting and it was 'cheap' of them not to put voice acting everywhere. Sadly they end up listening to such people.

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Why is that sad? Guess what, a lot of people play modern Final Fantasy games, including this one, for that sort of thing. Presentation is kind of Final Fantasy's thing, and has been since FF7.

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Originally Posted by Talraen

Why is that sad? Guess what, a lot of people play modern Final Fantasy games, including this one, for that sort of thing. Presentation is kind of Final Fantasy's thing, and has been since FF7.

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Because it costs a ton getting all the voice actors. That money could easily be used elsewhere for gameplay which is the most important part. Some may not like me for mentioning the game, but XI had no voice acting at all, and had so much diverse content because of the saved money. Nothing was taken away, all the cut scenes were still brilliantly played out. Hell, before X, no FFs had voice acting and they were all so much better for it. We don't need more voice acting, we need the money used on gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Settiesama

Because it costs a ton getting all the voice actors. That money could easily be used elsewhere for gameplay which is the most important part. Some may not like me for mentioning the game, but XI had no voice acting at all, and had so much diverse content because of the saved money. Nothing was taken away, all the cut scenes were still brilliantly played out. Hell, before X, no FFs had voice acting and they were all so much better for it. We don't need more voice acting, we need the money used on gameplay.

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I think its more, they have trouble getting combat content creators. The combat team is only like, 3 or 4 people atm, and they've mentioned before its hard to find people to fill that role.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I think its more, they have trouble getting combat content creators. The combat team is only like, 3 or 4 people atm, and they've mentioned before its hard to find people to fill that role.

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And no amount of money will change that either unless there are people with the talent to fulfil that role as well.

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Originally Posted by Settiesama

Because it costs a ton getting all the voice actors. That money could easily be used elsewhere for gameplay which is the most important part. Some may not like me for mentioning the game, but XI had no voice acting at all, and had so much diverse content because of the saved money. Nothing was taken away, all the cut scenes were still brilliantly played out. Hell, before X, no FFs had voice acting and they were all so much better for it. We don't need more voice acting, we need the money used on gameplay.

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I have to disagree, on all counts. I've played all of the story content in XI, and basically nothing stands out as much as dozens of scenes I could name from XIV. Not necessarily because of the voice acting, but definitely because of the more cinematic presentation. And I don't think non-voice-acted FF games were better for it. (Well, unless you liked renaming characters.) There have been plenty of great voice-acted scenes in more recent FF games. I loved Reddas's big speech in FFXII, a number of scenes in the FFXIII trilogy, all kinds of little things. Don't get me wrong, I love scenes from the PS1 era and before as well, but voice acting has not been a drag on the Final Fantasy series. Do we need more of it? I don't know about that. But it's not a waste, either. Especially if we include lyrics for ridiculous boss themes in "voice acting." ;)

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Originally Posted by Claymore65

Heavensward: 3 New Beast Tribes (though only two Announced on the Website)
Stormblood: 2 New Beast Tribes (although once again, there could be a third one)

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HW had 2 new beast tribes.
Moogles existed during 1.0 and ARR already. Not really a new beast tribe. Only new were the daily quests to them.

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Originally Posted by Felis

HW had 2 new beast tribes.
Moogles existed during 1.0 and ARR already. Not really a new beast tribe. Only new were the daily quests to them.

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They weren't added until 3.2 or 3.3 either.