I'm not liking the Automata fan service; I'd much prefer Yoko-Saitou put their twist on the actual XIV world -- give them some dark nearly-Steampunk setting to work from at the fringes of the Empire (some place so dangerous due to its population of frequent twisted individuals that even they can't hope to police it) to make awesome instead.
Each raid tier has gotten less and less grounded in the surrounding game, and already SB seems to me not to have had any sort of final boss so much as a final encounter in side-story content. I don't want to see that again with Shadowbringers.
I'm glad we're not rushing straight into the Empire, with all other ideas stripped and streamlined out, but there should still be a sense of urgency and contingency to make the story cohesive.
