Happy Heavensward: the things we love!

I would like to thank Square-Enix, the FF XIV development team and Naoki Yoshida for the hard work and sacrifice they have put in to bring Heavensward to players. This expansion sets the precedent for what we can expect from the future of this game and I am very impressed by both the quality and quantity of the content it provides. That they were able to produce an expansion of this size while still providing significant updates to A Realm Reborn is a remarkable feat indeed.

Please use this thread to offer your thanks to the development team and share your favorite moments so far from the expansion.

My favorite things:
Field zones are the best thing in my opinion. Long have people asked for larger zones and it has been delivered, with flying no less. Each of the major flight zones has a unique personality and beautiful sights to behold. They also fulfill another popular request to make the game feel more 'fantasy', with wildlife and architecture that feels very alien/other-worldly.

New job skills/spells are fantastic, really add to the enjoyment of each job and fix some shortcomings they once had. I am enjoying the added complexity to dragoon and look forward to testing all the other jobs myself.

Duty Finder update and other QoL changes. Having the flexibility to return to old instances unsynced and without a full party is just a lot of fun and goes some way to increase replayability. Once I hit lv60 I shall like to replay some of that lv50 content without restrictions to see what is possible.

Amazing storyline which covers some very significant events and answers or expands upon many subjects that have long been shrouded in mystery. Also loving the evolution of the hero characters, their interactions with each other and further detailing of their history.

Your turn!

I would say the gear models. YOSHI! whoever is modeling the gear for 3.0, give him a raise! Do whatever it takes to keep him!!! The dungeon trash gear in 3.0 looks better than the tome/raid gear in 2.0 IMO. Good job!

Besides the huge zones, the new jobs, the new dungeons, I think the story takes the cake here. It's so amazing that people are actually watching them. It's really engaging. I must admit, however, that the Game of Thrones influence is strong in this one. >_> The MSQ now is truly a MAINSTORY. They left the small errands for the sidequests.

Everything.

Loving Machinist. Cant wait for my CE and PO items!

I barely went to the new areas yet but I could stay in Foundation for hours and listen to the music! I love the new race, and healing class.

The music and sound direction is impeccable. Soken went all out this time. And whoever worked on the map design needs a raise ASAP.

I mean, those things shine out to me, but I love everything so far. The only thing I was truly disappointed with was I couldn't jump off the top of Anyx Trine all the way to the ground. Oh well, I'll live.

Loving Machinist Job.

It is great but could just some adjustments with the turret stance Guass Barrel.

I love the field zones as well.. It really gives adventurous voyage while searching every nook and cranny for aether currents.. I do believe others would disagree with me tho..

The boss fight also feels more alive with voice acting during the battle, while i nod on the mechanic is kinda like modified version from previous fight..

About the story itself, while i'm not reading every part of them, i do inspect the main plot every now and then so i can grasp what's going on.. The story itself is descent imo or better than post defender of eorzea, still hasnt strayed too far from its "game logic"

love the story so much <3
love the fact we have to go searching for aether currents b4 can fly in the maps.. shows just how beautiful each zone is

would add more but would be spoiling :P havent really come across anything i dont like yet :3 except no aoe chains for bards but thats only a minor thing and after a month wont bother me at all :3

I agree 100%.

I was reading an article yesterday from an MMO vet on one of those MMO sites for a review in progress where based on what he has seen so far, he believes Heavensward could be the best expansion ever released in the history of MMOs. This might sound far fetched, but I don't think it is. I agree with him. I have played MMOs since the EQ1 days and have probably played every major MMO under the sun and have experienced countless expansions and I can say with 0 hesitation that nothing touches HW. It is the largest MMO expansion, the quality is very high, and the amount of improvements over ARR is incredible. I sometimes find myself in disbelief with how they could pull off such a feat while also creating content for the big updates they do every 3 months. They must have sorcerers or other magic folk working for them.

I love the new dungeons. The voice over for The Vault bosses when they use their moves is pretty neat. Gives out that JRPG vibe when you set your voice over to Japanese.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AskaRay

The music and sound direction is impeccable. Soken went all out this time.

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You misspelled Nobuo Uematsu. 8D

Music is great.

Story is amazing.

NPC character developments are pretty good (but I am only in churning mists) especially estinien's dialogues (lol what a snide bastard)

If i had the chance to meet yoshi and thank him and his team personally i would. Monk is absolutely fantastic, even more so than before.
The new skills work so well with monk(although tanks can't seem to handle it :P)

The story is phenomenal, i tried my hardest to skip it..but i couldn't and i think the new voice actors and cutscenes help out with that.

Tons more cutscenes than 2.0, such a great aspect and really absorbs and invests you into the story.

DRK is pretty fun, i am enjoying it so far. It's a shame that they teased AF so much though only to delay it for a month D:

The art direction and the new locations are absolutely breathtaking. I hope we can make more use of flying around them in the future, so we can better appreciate what the team has made.

The music is also pretty amazing.

EXP is a little scarce but that's ok because the story is pushing me to get to the next level to see what's going on.

All in all, i in NO WAY regret pre-ordering the expansion. It exceeded all the expectations i had going in and pushed through the bar of hype i had set for myself and what i had seen.

A great job indeed and if any of the reps over at SE read this. I thank you for all your hard work on providing us with quality content.

PS : please make the Au Ra horns separate from the face :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kit-Kat

You misspelled Nobuo Uematsu. 8D

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WEll.....no wonder I'm impressed then :O

Either way I need this OST like yesterday.

The music. Specifically the dungeon boss themes and more specifically the chorus when choir kicks in with the brass. I think SE finally figured out how to stop speedruns and/or dungeon grinding. Just add great music.

I love drk and the auri race. I also love what se did to smn. The storyline is awesome even though it seems abit to easy. Ravana being a breeze beat it the first time I fought it. The environment is beautiful. Keep up the gj se. This is what we've been asking for all along. Only thing I didn't like is the fact that you need 4 or more people to create fc airships and that said people have to be fc members. My fc only has 2 people in it so it makes making fc airships out of the question. Hope you will change that part.

I'm digging the responsiveness of the Egis. It almost feels like executing a Rage of Halone combo.

I love armor crush, flying, the visuals, the Ravana musics, the new main storyline, the new ninja storyline and the more or less improved voice acting.

The final Trial, best fight ever... made me jump on my chair lol so epic!!

Thank you for this amazing expansion~!

In the wake of so many negative threads on the English forums I decided to bump up my happy thread!

It's crazy that people can be overall disappointed because of one or two minor inconveniences, while overlooking the hundreds of things that are wonderful.

A massive scale game that tries to accomplish so many things is not going to be perfect in every aspect, but the good far outweighs the bad, it's why we play.

I am still enjoying Heavensward every day, and on that note it's time for me to get back in, got some preparation that needs doing for patch 3.05. ;-)

The fact that people are complaining about such minor things is somewhat of a good sign. It means there's nothing major for them to complain about. All in all, this expansion has been a huge success. All of the reviews from gaming sites rate it above an 8.

Gamespot 9/10
IGN 8.6/10
Destructoid 9/10
Metacritic 8.6/10(Among all of the review averages.)

The story was by far the most impressive asset of this expansion.
The story in ARR was pretty meh to me for the most of it, but playing through HW there were moments when I just stopped to say, "woah".