To those of you that have actually gotten to play EW, what do you think so far?

I got to play for two fairly solid sessions on friday and saturday. The first was spent exploring Reaper and Sage in older areas and I really really enjoyed them. They both feel incredibly solid. The callback on the ship right at the beginning of MSQ was amazing as one who remembers the hype of the early days.

Day two I experimented with the SMN rework and absolutely fell in love with it. It's almost like a less mobile dancer more focused on blowing things up at every moment without pause. I see a lot of complaints about story which I can't back up just yet as I'm not far enough in, but I can say that one part of the game that I have always enjoyed is watching the scope of new towns being introduced, each EXP making the prior look smaller. (Not that the older towns aren't still a pleasure to look at either.) What really gets me is that both Sharlayan and Thavnair in general really look lived in with the addition of many more NPCs that while still walking on a set track, are set on much LONGER and complex cycles and it really stands out. Add to that the strong Role Play community on Balmung where people just setting their characters to walk rather than run and at multiple points I mistook NPCs for actual players. As far as world building and visual design I have not been this impressed since Final Fantasy XII outshined games from the next generation at the time using art design to make things look grandiose and bigger than they were. In this case, it's not even visual tricks, the areas just ARE that big.

The music? Do I even need to say it. Good lord it's all so good. So far I'm finding a much more balanced mix somewhere between classic FF and the rock from Shadowbringers and it's very welcome.

Once everything has cooled down from the launch issues, I feel like this exp will be looked back on fondly.

Almost the end of MSQ for me. Its great so far.

Forcing to run waiting for someone from some of the quests gets rather excessive though.

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Originally Posted by TheJarvisMan

I know the queue thing is a bummer (I haven't been able to play much this weekend because of it), but I haven't really seen many posts talking about their actual first impressions of the expansion. What do you guys think so far? No spoilers please. :)

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The story is a disappointment it's on the level is Stormblood.
The dungeons are really fun and have well made bosses. So over all a 7/10.

afterall the shb writting praise, i expect more, those ishikawa also do the writing on this patch? it's not a bad one but pretty... normal... nothing woah me.. again it's not bad... just i expect more

Battle content is the best ever made. All bosses are fun and I loved the dungeons. The last boss is my favorite. Black mage is super fun to play.

The actual story is super weak sadly. Pacing is all over the place, two important characters didn't get the attention they deserved, villain was the worst ever and Garlemald felt under-served.

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Originally Posted by TheJarvisMan

What do you guys think so far? No spoilers please. :)

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I unlocked the new classes and have found that I really like the design of both of them. I'm a bit worried that they will be "too popular" and I will be constantly facing the "we already have 7 reapers in the static, bring something else please" issue that I had for the first few months of Shadowbringers with Dancer... only lasting much longer because Reaper seems to be tuned for strong personal DPS which is always more popular than strong buffing.

Sage is also a lot of fun, but it's a little more complex and I suspect healers will balance out between the classes faster than melee DPS do. I'm only avoiding leveling Sage right now because soon as the 'early expac hype' dies down getting groups as a DPS will be slower than for a healer - so I can speed level sage later, but Reaper is the wise choice for doing the MSQ as DPS classes are always the slowest ones to level when they're not the one you use for that.

The last act of the ascian story and i am about to end it. Just trying to find time with the login queue congestion and irl stuff.
Mindblown and very warm around my heart. Thank you Square Enix and everyone from the community. It has been a long journey. I am glad i walked it with you.

Onto many more years!

+ I am not a big fan of story normally but it is blowing me away this time. So many threads being picked up and finished and so many cool instances. The dungeons are the same as always - trash - boss - trash - boss and so on. What surprised me was that they have added a bunch of new mechanics in basically all dungeons. It feels refreshing. I have only leveled AST to 88 (soon 89) and it feels quite fastpaced. The areas are beautiful and the moon is just breathtaking with its views and music. And the MUSIC is tied into the story so well! The areas all have nice music but it changes as the story progresses to reflect the feeling that is happening in the story. The characters are rich and you get involved so much from the start. I feel more immersed than ever tbh.

- The return of the reskins is sad tbh. There is very little "new" gear and most of it is just reskins from previous expansion or Stormblood. Vieras added hairstyles are just ???? Why? And seeing how some headpieces still float is just sad after viera being out for two years. Escortquests are too many and I am not a fan of the hiding quests that we get (but to each their own, I know some loved it). Some of the story is also a bit much, like one part where you have to look for a person and it takes forever before you actually get to find them. I am at a place right now where I just finished a 25 min cutscene only to after 2 short quests later again be met with "several cutscenes will be played" again. It took hours before I got to the first dungeon and I was itching for an hour before that to do something else than watch a movie.

But all in all: I love it. Great story so far, great fights, emotions everywhere, beautiful landscape, great music and the gear that is actually new is really nice.

Hey, i like EW so far. There are more lore drops than in ShB. The cutscenes are longer than in ShB and there is more of them. But the gameplay is less than in ShB. The leveling process is watching cutscenes. :) What i find a little bit boring are the escort quests. You escort a NPCs to a special zone and then when the NPC enters the zone you can finish the quest. The dungeons and the first trial are very similar to ShB dungeons. EW as a whole is darker compared to ShB.

I am not finished with EW yet but i would it rate it slightly above ShB.

Cheers

I started early access leveling Sage while my best friend leveled Reaper—and I am loving it! I am so pleased with it: from the style to the animations to the kit. There’s only some few “complaints” I have that I think of more as idle wishes. Like how I wish at least one of our AOEs was an oGCD to give us something to weave. But that’s about it for now. I’ll see how it is in Savage.

I’m in the level 88 quests for the MSQ, and there have been—many ups and downs. When the story gets rolling, it really gets rolling. But there have been some spots where I really feel the lull between events. And it creates a sense of a story dragging on for way longer than it should. Or “we need you to do these arbitrary things because we have to draw this story out for 10 levels and aren’t ready for the next big event yet”. There is one part around the end of the level 87 arc that is just…jarring in terms of tone shifting. At least it was for me.

That said, my favorite areas are the “86/87” quest area, and the “82/83” quest area. By far the highest points of the story thus far for me. Music is great, as always. I love the characters (minus Zenos—he’s still way too one dimensional for me to like him). There’s only one part of the story that I can say I dislike, but I’m not going to talk about it here. And the distaste for it is because of personal reasons, not because of bad writing or anything like that.

Dungeons are pretty good. I like the 81 and 83 dungeons. 87 one is good, too. 85 one is okay—not remarkable in terms of encounters. Aesthetics are on point, though.

However, it hasn’t managed to displace ShB as my favorite expansion in terms of story. But we’ll see what the rest has to offer me. Despite the high points for me.