Post-Honeymoon SHB thoughts?

So now that what I consider the honeymoon phase is over, what are your honest thoughts about shadowbringers? Yes I know I could’ve waited till 5.1 but I personally feel like this is the best time to ask.

I... uh...
Is it bad I'm rooting for the Ascians now? As long as I can keep my collection of buddies, let natural selection decide the rest?

Want to play through the story again. Sad ng+ won't include 5.0 at the beginning.

Dungeons were all fun. Raids are fun. Exs were good. Currently leveling my crafters slowly, while easing up other combat jobs.

Aside the story being amazing and WAY better than SB.

At the moment, the endgame is the same as SB. Ex primals, leveling, tome grinding and savage.
Same ol' ffxiv but that's why I still play.

Have to see how things change in 5.1 though. With the new gameplay thing, hope its not a train wreck like how eureka was on the start.

I am in this dilemma. I only log in 1 time or 2 times a week now.... and I blame Fire Emblem for that. But I am really that I can feel like I log in, do raids, ex trials, or whatever during that time and still feel like I am progressing my character. I just wish I can have an app to send my retainers on ventures while I am at work.

Story was super amazing and wish I can experience it again in NG+
Music was absolutely phenomenal.
GNB my favorite class so far.

I am over all super happy with it. I keep in touch with my FC in discord so I don't appear to be just someone who randomly logs on. But unlike Warcraft I do not have this absolute feeling that I need to keep up with the current times and I like that.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Want to play through the story again. Sad ng+ won't include 5.0 at the beginning.

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My feelings exactly.

Overall feels like a rehash of past expansions with different colored monsters and tomes. Same formula. Story is better, but the gameplay seems to be just another endless cycle of grinding.

In terms of story, dungeons, soundtrack, and trials/raids at this point I have to say overall I'm relatively pleased with what we've gotten so far this expansion. This is honestly starting to shape up to be one of the best FF games we've had in a while in those regards imo. As far as gameplay goes, some jobs definitely need some tweaks, some more considerable than others. I'm hoping 5.08 and 5.1 will take the appropriate steps towards these though, but only time will tell.

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Originally Posted by Windsun33

Overall feels like a rehash of past expansions with different colored monsters and tomes. Same formula. Story is better, but the gameplay seems to be just another endless cycle of grinding.

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I felt there was less grinding than usual, but I'm not sure how you can develop a game story, while using a leveling system, without some form of grinding though..? It sounds like it'll be eternally cursed simply for being a hybrid game like this, but overall, I felt the story was well worth any grinding I had to do, but it definitely felt more minimal than usual.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Want to play through the story again. Sad ng+ won't include 5.0 at the beginning.

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awww. Seems I've missed a lot of info from that last live letter. I was really looking forward to re-running the story.

I'm quite happy with ShB right now... even if I'm overly eager to see more MSQ. I am still leveling jobs, doing side quests I left unfinished, and leveling my trust npcs.

While there's always going to be little things to nitpick about, it's really a novel feeling not having much, if anything, of consequence to complain about in an MMO...

As far as looking back on the story, I liked the characters, but I was not pleased with the direction that they took the story (I expected to "harness darkness" or something). However, I fully concede that my opinion on that front is in the minority.

What am I doing in game? Back to the ol' grind your weeklies. Level other jobs. Yawn. Oh, what a surprise, it seems that I'm playing Fire Emblem more than this right now.

Pretty solid expansion but certainly feels rushed in some parts (Viera and Ronso, ground collision: you can't land in most of the places above the ground).

I loved the shift in the story's tone and content. I think it feels a lot more like an old school Final Fantasy game with more interesting villains.

That said, I've run the dungeons, leveled a few jobs, first few floors of Savage, done some gathering, and I'm going on break for a few patches to try out a certain other MMO. I'm bored.

Great until 80. After that it's stale.

Favorite expansion so far. Glad I've stuck with the game all these years and will definitely continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Best things about Shadowbringers:
The storyline
The music
The characters / Trusts
The amazingly designed new areas
New glamours (I love the tomestone armour for ranged lol)
The expert dungeons were fun initially
Eden has lots of really interesting ways to draw upon old content to make new content
LA-HEE! Need I say more?

Worst things about Shadowbringers:

How utility jobs got the shaft - and then some (Bard/Astrologian/Ninja/etc)
Endgame gets real boring real fast, and there still isn’t much point in doing any of it once you’ve reached your weekly caps
Same applies to Eden, it’s fun to begin with but can become boring quite quick, especially as a healer
Healers have an obscene amount of healing downtime but the developers flat out refuse to add anything other than pure DPS to fill it. They then removed a variety of pure DPS skills. So healers have less to heal, but also less to do when not healing
They deleted a ton of Bard support abilities but didn’t put any other support stuff in to compensate.


Overall I’d give Shadowbringers a 9/10. I absolutely loved the actual game, but then when it comes to actual combat mechanics, i find myself disappointed in how heavy handed they were with the way they removed a ton of abilities and effects from utility classes but didn’t try and replaced with more properly balanced ones.


Edit: gotta give a shout out to my main man Great Serpent of Ronka. Scree!

I liked it more than HW, which I liked more than SB. Found dancer to be really fun and it's pretty much what I main now. As for the story? It was good, as was the main antagonist. I'm a bit lukewarm on the 8-man raid... it's ok.

I'm looking forward to 5.1 for one reason and one reason only: the Nier-themed raid. Up until now, the raids have at least tangentially related to FF, so I'm reaaaaally curious as to how they fit this outlandish raid into FFXIV. It's quite likely that they'll just have us hop across dimensions or something but who knows.

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Originally Posted by Windsun33

Overall feels like a rehash of past expansions with different colored monsters and tomes. Same formula. Story is better, but the gameplay seems to be just another endless cycle of grinding.

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Been saying this for awhile now /cosign

The final story dungeon is IMO the best one they've ever done (I'm stacking this up against 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, and 4.5) and I'm gonna be pretty bummed once it's removed from the expert roulette. I say this as someone that doesn't particularly care that much about 5.0's main villain.

Uhh. I'll come back with more thoughts as/if I think them up.

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Originally Posted by Windsun33

Overall feels like a rehash of past expansions with different colored monsters and tomes. Same formula. Story is better, but the gameplay seems to be just another endless cycle of grinding.

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See... I actually LIKE the fact that there's a formula that SE generally sticks to. I LIKE the consistency of knowing what to expect in general. Unlike some MMO's that feel the need to reinvent the wheel EVERY. DARN. EXPANSION. and either abandon or change for the sake of change, things that were perfectly fine as they were, I am happy that when a new FFXIV expansion comes out, I know there will be tome gear that my non-savage raiding butt can eventually get, that there will be lots of story for me to engage in, basic raid content with weekly rewards, etc.

Heck, I was sorely disappointed that SE made the change in Stormblood to lock the relic behind Eureka instead of it being a long chain of quest content like previous relics. I am hoping (though realistically expecting disappointment) that the next relic will not be locked behind Eureka 2.0 style content because I absolutely detested Eureka and the lack of that content (because if I hate it that much it may as well not exist) caused me to unsub for stretches at a time in Stormblood because there was "less content" for me to do, that I wanted to do, that felt worth doing.

Overall? It was pretty good. Some rehashes here and there but hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The story was overall great, the presentation, the dungeons, all of it was great. The trust system was invaluable to me as I job swapped mid story due to reasons. So it allowed me to safely grind up and get gear to finish out the story. I won't go into my full thoughts on the story, as it contains an apparently...very unpopular opinion. But, overall I loved it, even with the grating parts.

Solid story.
Jobs that improved improved a lot. Jobs that got hurt, got smacked way too hard...

New tank is like finally adding chocolate to peanut butter.

New DPS is like... well it’s a lot of fun, maybe the funnest DPS in the lost, but I fear it’s undertuned. Yet I disagree with consensus. I like the low DPS, I want the buffs to get a buff.

New Bunny race has the best “human model” in the game and the most detailed face so win.

New cat race... all I can say is that I wish it had a female option because playing a grizzled mangy cat is a thing for me since I made a Charr Warrior in Guild Wars 2 in memory of a one-eyed cat my mother had when I was a teenager. So... as a male locked race I haven’t even looked and that makes me sympathize with players who wanted bunny-dudes.

New dungeons, trials, and raids are great.

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Concern: I though SB was pretty solid and cohesive at this point. I also thought that about ARR at this point.

Imagine if the patch cycle from here sends us to a half developed version of Garlemald or Damascia (of whatever the name of Fran’s home was)... or both... then we’re right back to the flaws of SB... and all the Zenos cutscenes hint that this is what we will get...

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Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy

See... I actually LIKE the fact that there's a formula that SE generally sticks to. I LIKE the consistency of knowing what to expect in general. Unlike some MMO's that feel the need to reinvent the wheel EVERY. DARN. EXPANSION. and either abandon or change for the sake of change, things that were perfectly fine as they were, I am happy that when a new FFXIV comes out, I know there will be tome gear that my non-savage raiding butt can eventually get, that there will be lots of story for me to engage in, basic raid content with weekly rewards, etc.

Heck, I was sorely disappointed that SE made the change in Stormblood to lock the relic behind Eureka instead of it being a long chain of quest content like previous relics. I am hoping (though realistically expecting disappointment) that the next relic will not be locked behind Eureka 2.0 style content because I absolutely detested Eureka and the lack of that content (because if I hate it that much it may as well not exist) caused me to unsub for stretches at a time in Stormblood because there was "less content" for me to do, that I wanted to do, that felt worth doing.

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Not liking Eureka has nothing to do with predictability. They could have 3 expansions in a row with relics locked behind Eureka so it wouldn't be unpredictable anymore. Would you like it then? Even you say you are expecting something like that to happen in ShB and are not happy about it. Maybe, that's exactly what other people feel after years of doing the same stuff over and over again. It's a matter of what will get them more money. The same formula with small risks or great changes to the game? I understand both points of views.

Dissapointed on glamour and pvp.
Hoped for more hairstyles, some more unique stuff to glamour on, races are limited like blue mage is. Gunbreaker even tho i like the gameplay, they completely messed its looks, weapon sizes and sounds... On the glamour side, they reused a ton of models and just recolored it, i dont mind it, but at least change them a little.
PVP is same thing again, i hoped for more skills to use, not LESS, at least balance is a bit better, but again they gave us no reason to play it anyway.

I like what they did with tanks in this expansion, and like new GNB too, but nothing really "wow" that i would call it.
I cant understand what were they thinking by nerfing healers so much.
No idea what they did to DPS so i wont say anything about it.

I dont like some music in this expansion, i dont get a sense behind using "artificial language" to "sign" these songs, one song is about ebola, another is about tiny balls or something, a lot of tracks are good tho.

Story was cool, long and exciting, but emotions and communication between npcs was bland and flavourless, just like it was in stormblood, there is something i was not liking in it, sometimes they gave us so much unnecessary text to read/listen to. Give it more life, less talking about "technical stuff", it may be good for lore reasons but honestly why talk about magic interractions that nobody know what it is all about without knowing a whole ff lore?

I like they made fates a little more valuable and worth to do, but it wasnt for too long.

While the graphics were fine for the most part, there are really terrible and ultra low resolution textures, i was able to see individual pixels on some of these textures, are we in 2010 year still or what?
Maps design is nice, it have a nice atmosphere in them, but however not everywhere, in kholusia when you look at the lower half of the map from high ground it looks like a wasteland.
Overall some parts are really well done, and other seems like SE didnt wanted to put more money into. It had a chance to be a really polished expansion in every bit, "we will fix it later" mentality is what broke it for me. Definitely not a "wow killer" expansion, they played it safe and tried to save money in places where they should not cut at all.

Thats oll

I liked the story and all the new areas, music was good as well and the dungeons are nice. Some glamour options are good too.
I dislike the new races, they feel very unfinished and not at all what I imagined viera to be. Eden story was a bit lazy(?), it was too fast to unlock stuff and kinda weird how suddenly we can just fix everything with that thing, which they dont even explain what it is.
Excited for more story in the next patches!

Story was good, it got me interested in the lore. Admittedly I'm not that interest in the First, can't say any of the outfits, culture or architecture caught my eye apart from Amaurot. I actively avoid the gear treadmill so when I finish leveling up Gunbreaker I suspect my interest in the game is going to severely diminish.

For all the talk about becoming the Warrior of Darkness and that photo competition showing us embracing the darkness in 2 screenshots, the new gear sets don't reflect that at all. Since I don't see any gear sets that catch my eye, I'm not sure what's going to keep my interest apart from the story. That's my perspective at least. I'm not that interested in item lvls.

SHB has the best story telling I've ever seen in an MMO format. Unfortunately I realized I just don't care for the combat elements of the game and that's never going to change. FFXIV is a game I stop in to catch up on the story and collect some glamour, it's never really going to be my main MMO.

Story is the best it has ever been even if we were roundabout lied to about the whole warrior of darkness thing, for a major selling point that was a huge disappointment. But sadly once its done, its the same ol same ol. Tomes, mounts, and a new 8 man. Hunts, maps and yada yada. Nothing new to see or do, just the same thing with a different veneer.

What I would give for them to shake things up a little with some really well made content spanning multiple avenues that could get us out of this rut.

Shadowbringers is certainly an improvement over Stormblood in pretty much every regard, but that doesn't say much either; Stormblood was a low bar.

The story is by far one of the better ones in the series, but once it's over, it's... just over. I guess you could say it's relatively memorable... But I've watched/read stories that do timetravel/utopia-justifies-the-means/etc. tropes better, so it's not a huge selling-point for me. Not to say I'm not interested in what's coming next, but story has never been a centerpiece in MMOs for me.

I'm pleased that they left their apparent "comfort" zone with Hrothgar, but unfortunately the inclusion of the Elezen-Hyur hybrid with rabbit ears pasted on top of their heads "just because" still reeks of lazy pandering to me. Though customization-wise, they bungled both with Horthgar getting the shorter end of the stick because their limited hair choices are tied to Fantasias.

Content-wise, I am not surprised that so far this is essentially the third launch of Heavensward. Sure, nothing wrong with tomestone gear and weapons and Savage gear and weapons on a practical level, and the two starter EX trials so people get the hang of things, but the one-trick-ponying is getting fairly apparent. Thank goodness they say updates and changes are coming to crafting and gathering, because aside from the new quest turn-in formats they're still as boring underwhelming as ever. They re-tweaked PvP a bit and gave everyone a little more to work with, which is nice, but still fumble with potencies and designs on a basic level (Like, really? SCHs must stop healing to DPS just to get Aetherstacks, too bad though if no enemies are around to prepare).

I feel like this expansion was lacking in some new QoL areas, especially in customization, but I do appreciate the expanded Dresser to 400 slots; I managed to clean-out and lose 1 retainer (hears corporate SE groaning) and the small bonus to our plate limit. The free extras and crafting mats from those new inventory-free FATE tokens. And the small changes to crafting (DoL is still as dull as ever). Probably forgot a few more, but they're relatively forgettable.

Not too crazy about GNB or DNC (though I did level DNC because I love its weapon and like that it's a mobile ranged DPS). I also feel like their inclusion of DNC and its abilities is at odds with the identity of BRD, and it shows. I think you could argue they felt the need to strip BRD and AST of some things just to create a niche for DNC. Never been a tank person, so no comment on GNB aside from its aesthetics looking like a MCH in heavy armor.

Having said all that, I need to wait for 5.1 (when there supposedly is going to be a whole bunch of stuff releasing) before I can form a better opinion.

Story Presentation: Well narrated, brilliantly directed (very cinematic takes to have actual impact, my film addict was kinda pleased) and finally very well paced in general.
Story Narrative: A stupid multidimensional travel that is already done to ad nausseum and back, everything in this storyline i've seen in all other forms of media already, ShB was to me, a pretty long and not that interesting anime chapter of a not so interesting anime chapter. Something ill hold forever. Multiversal storylines are just BAD. Ex Machina all over all the time at will. Then again seems to be the trendy topic for our generation, hopefully it will be overcome in a few years. Everything well sour since Nanamo Ul Namo was retconned. Really. All these reflection and shard jumping and stuff is just bad. Hydaelyn was good enough.

Graphics: Bad, as usually, and aging terrible. At least for PC standars. Textures and Shaders are a mess. This should be number 1 top priority. In fact is affecting the very narrative by now, cause is really easy to break suspension of disbelief if you start noticing how block characters textures and shadows are in cutscenes, they actually hurting the directing effort on the narrative.

Enviroments and Designs: Beautiful as usual. Hindered by poor graphics.

Design Mechanics: Same old. Hey, do something diferent for once maybe? Oh right, the diadem happens. Wonder what does it feel for the team to not have a single good original idea since 2012 when they decided on making ARR. Everything has been constant copypasting of content, models and designs. And no, changing colors and names do not make things "new". Neither does rising "iLvLs". Tomestones are not "content".

Sound Design: Brilliant.
Music: Masterfull. Soken just keeps going beyond and beyond.

Gameplay (New-Player): Boring ass slow still. Really dragging and unnecesarily tutorialish in general.
Gameplay (Old-Player): Boring. 6 years of the same. Seriously. SPEED THE GAME UP. REWORK THE FIRST 50 LEVELS, UPDATE THE SKILL SYSTEM TO NOT BE LINKED TO LEVELS SO WE DON'T LOSE ALL OURS SKILLS IN A BORING 1 SKILL PRESS DUNGEON.
Gameplay General: Lacking a proper learning curve, leading to difficulty spikes that just segregate the playerbase. Early game needs more bite, end game needs a LOT more bite.

Class Design: Pretty good with such an strict trinity system.
Class Variety: Not too good, every class is looking pretty similar in function time and time, adding a repetitive slow combat, yeah, is aging.

Player Customization: Nonexistent outside cosmetics. Play right or play wrong, no custom builds.

Social Aspects: Just release a single player mode already. Literally no reason to have any social interaction at all.

Overall: Pretty amazing expansion, pretty good MMORPG. Once you stop holding it to dirt low MMORPG design standars. It just an awful non-reactive, boringly repetitive and poorly paced way too streamlined and way too slow of a gaming experience.
MMORPG: 8/10. Videogame: 6/10.

Hopefully one day they release a "single player" mode where you actually play an interesting storyline (like going into garlemald with Estinien and Gaius, im pretty sure that MSQ was AMAZING) instead of constantly being deviated from any significant development by some bad attempt at totally tiring and totally overdone "multiversal narratives".

So in general i give the game 7 ardbert axes with cool main theme sounding on the background out of 10. One day we would be part of something interesting. Meanwhile, we are just the shonen manga protagonist going into endless filler episodes cause no one has bothered to write the actual storyline for the conflict presented at the beginning of this story. I beat Garlemald must be really cool this time of the year, with high chances of black rose. Oh that was solved, off camera, cool.

I guess ill just go back to play XII and Tactics and Vagrant Story for a proper dark and intriguing storyline.

PS: Get over it. I should too. But i cant. Riding home, finding hope. For some stupid reason, i still have hope this game will one day have a proper storyline with a proper resolution. And again, Nanamo should be dead. Reflections shouldn't exist. All of Shadowbringers could have done by visiting Meracydia, New World, Thavnair, Ilsabard. Screw multiversal narratives, they are stupid. Emet-Selch is nothing but a cheap rip off of the Han-Rasen from Tengen Toppa. I already saw this storyline a few hundred times.

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Originally Posted by Ranhansha

Not liking Eureka has nothing to do with predictability. They could have 3 expansions in a row with relics locked behind Eureka so it wouldn't be unpredictable anymore. Would you like it then? Even you say you are expecting something like that to happen in ShB and are not happy about it. Maybe, that's exactly what other people feel after years of doing the same stuff over and over again. It's a matter of what will get them more money. The same formula with small risks or great changes to the game? I understand both points of views.

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The difference between my disappointment and your example is that Eureka is still a "new" concept that wasn't injected into the formula until Stormblood. And that change to the formula is what I didn't like. What other people "feel after doing years of the same stuff over and over" is a disappointment in a lack of change to formula while my disappointment stems from a specific change to the formula in the previous expansion. Those are two different things.

I'm not saying that those people are wrong to feel the way they do. I merely wanted to express that I like the consistency of a formula that works and is stuck with and attempts to deviate from that formula (Eureka), end up hurting the game experience for me.

Same old same old with a much better story and solid world design. Best way I can describe it atm.

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Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy

The difference between my disappointment and your example is that Eureka is still a "new" concept that wasn't injected into the formula until Stormblood. And that change to the formula is what I didn't like. What other people "feel after doing years of the same stuff over and over" is a disappointment in a lack of change to formula while my disappointment stems from a specific change to the formula in the previous expansion. Those are two different things.

I'm not saying that those people are wrong to feel the way they do. I merely wanted to express that I like the consistency of a formula that works and is stuck with and attempts to deviate from that formula (Eureka), end up hurting the game experience for me.

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But that formula works for you, not for them. Could we say it is a successful way of doing things if people run it but they don't have fun? That happened with Eureka too. Most people didn't think it was fun at first, but got used to it and went through it for the rewards. Which, in my opinion, is what is going on with a lot of players who love this game and the current formula.
As I said, I think it depends on the money they make. If it's still profitable to them, they consider it is successful. If people started to flee from the game, devs would start making changes no doubt.

Great story, good music, good world design.

Bad dungeon gameplay, EX primals were solid, Raid is too simplistic, Savage barely better. Lack of challenge overall is a real problem, lack of any new game system AT ALL, while leaving past game systems behind without updates for years at a time.

Catering to the conservative playerbase with repeating the known and expected formula is also a bad design decision. WoW was at its most successful when it challenged the playerbase, and people expected more of that (end of BC, start of WotLK).

I think the panicky moves like fantasia to a 60 days sub, and the welcome back campaign already, show people are done with 5.0 and they are bleeding subs badly.

I loved Shadowbringers' story. Off the top of my head:

- The Scions feel more interesting this time around, but Thancred still feels pretty boring. Ryne also feels a bit too melodramatic.
- Too many fake-out deaths. Y'shtola living I can deal with, but Thancred using his forbidden anime technique multiple times, falling to the ground covered in blood while the camera pans to the sky and sad music plays, only to show up just fine again five minutes later was jarring.
- Zorn and Thorn being turned into waifus was unsettling. Vauthry felt like a good homage to Queen Brahne without just being a repeat of the character, though.
- I'm kind of disappointed Lyna and the Crystal Exarch don't stick around as Trusts after the first dungeon!
- The Crystal Exarch's identity felt really obvious for something they tried to hide the whole expac; I recall people figuring who he was back in Stormblood. You even get an option to ask about what happened to G'raha Tia early on if you've done the Crystal Tower Raid! They also laid it on really thick with the Crystal Tower battle theme against the Sin Eaters in the lead-up to Mt. Gulg. That aside, I didn't dislike the reveal. I was just surprised they held off on it so long.
- Everything from Mt. Gulg to the Dying Gasp was 15/10, aside from that bit of stalling with the Ondo that felt a bit like a pace-breaker.

Story was one of the best ones and Eden fights are fun.

Other than that I am leveling some jobs slowly by using trusts and after having all crafters and gatherers now at 80 I gather the necessary scrips to equip them.

Otherwise nothing much has changed and the true success of the expansion will depend on future content for me. How the Ishgard restauration will turn out and what other new content we will get.

So story is the best part right now but there has to be more to keep people subscribed than that because after all its still P2P MMO.

I loved everything.

Class design I'm a little mixed on. I think it's the right direction but needed more time to bake. Some of their ideas were really good. Some were questionable to say the least.

Hi, I'm WAR. I do a single target combo in an AoE pull because no one at SE thought this was dumb for some reason.

Or PLD, with my way-too-many-attack-buttons and my-better-instant-cast-Cure-II Clemency that allows me to solo bosses. Atonement also hurts my ears.

Speaking of hurting my ears, GNB is that way ---> (although, I kind of like the new GNB sounds more than the old ones? Please don't hurt me.)

I like how SCH got Energy Drain back. It completely revitalized the class for me. I love it.

I'm eagerly anticipating WAR changes.

That said, I still love playing these classes. Just they all have these things about them that make the gameplay feel a little sloppy.

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

Great story, good music, good world design.

Bad dungeon gameplay, EX primals were solid, Raid is too simplistic, Savage barely better. Lack of challenge overall is a real problem, lack of any new game system AT ALL, while leaving past game systems behind without updates for years at a time.

Catering to the conservative playerbase with repeating the known and expected formula is also a bad design decision. WoW was at its most successful when it challenged the playerbase, and people expected more of that (end of BC, start of WotLK).

I think the panicky moves like fantasia to a 60 days sub, and the welcome back campaign already, show people are done with 5.0 and they are bleeding subs badly.

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I wouldn't say it's a panicky move like offering a "limited time mount" for buying a 6-month sub after quarterly earnings report show huge loss of monthly activity. I think a month after an expansion release is too early to claim they're bleeding subs when their steam and twitch numbers are higher than they've ever been.

Personal anecdote: I was the only person on the personal discord I share with my friends that played Stormblood. I never push my friends to play FF:XIV because I know it doesn't appeal to everyone. We are all Vanilla WoW raiders and we all played WoW during Beta for Azeroth and quit two short months after. After the huge amount of hype ShB generated post-launch 6 of my friends have just started playing it again or for the first time. One of them only had to purchase ShB while three others have bought the complete editions after playing for 2 or 3 days. Just a few hours ago one more buddy and his roommate hopped on their inactive accounts because of the welcome back campaign. A less cynical person could look at the welcome back campaign as an interest bait rather than an emergency response.

Obviously no one has the numbers but Square Enix; however, based on 3rd party sources and my personal experience, I would say it's too early to cry bleeding subs.

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Originally Posted by JisKing98

So now that what I consider the honeymoon phase is over, what are your honest thoughts about shadowbringers? Yes I know I could’ve waited till 5.1 but I personally feel like this is the best time to ask.

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Depends

Story/Lore wise, I think ShB is the best expansion so far, way better than SB and even on top of HW. If give us more insight of both Zodiark and Hydaelyn, give us another point of view of Ascian. Slightly disappointing of how Varis line go.

Game mechanics, Dungeon and Trial are pretty much the same formula as previous expansion, it have good and bad. Trust system is a good design but should limit it availability to leveling dungeon only and not as effective as DF.

Music, was great but could we have a way to disable mount theme music? It is very annoying everything I mount and dismount the music change.

Job, very disappointing about healer change, not the lose of DPS skill, but the flood with powerful low CD oGCD heal. while do not give us anything other than dps during downtime, not a fan of new AST card effect which I use to main healer back in SB. Love the change to MCH and Tank especially the remove of DA spam on DRK. Some job could use more love like RDM and NIN.

Some scenery are refreshing like Il Mheg and Lakeland some are quite boring such as Rak'tika. Rak'tika being Viera focus like Azim Steppe for Au Ra are nice, but the up coming expansion I would like to see some of those love putting on old ARR race