Since we got an expansion announcement coming. The preasure to repeat Shadowbringers.

Not sure about you guys but for me Shadowbringers ranks in my Top 3 all time with experience going all the way back to 2000. One constant mistake I see MMO devs do and especially Blizzard is forget what made an expansion popular and do a poor attempt at a repeat.

The most recent example is trying to retcon Lich King lore so they can LITERALLY drag Arthas out of the grave.

What made Shadowbringers special was the 7 year payoff! An evolving storyline with character building and story resolution and not being scared to go dark. So tell the Square Enix suits to back off if this next expansion is "not as popular" or whatever.

Stick to a vision and do not deviate because some depers want another Shadowbringers every expansion. It is easy to ignore it now and I saw Blizzard do it during Wrath. They had systems that worked and were popular but needed minor increases in difficulty and they obviously went to far with multiple things.

People clearly like what you are doing now. Just focus on content and fixing minor gripes.

The writers for WoW admitted they've been making up the story as they go along, unlike XIV that already had its story planned out past the conclusion of 6.x even before ShB dropped.

Regardless, I'm still a touch concerned the finale of the current story arc isn't going live up to the expectations.

The story will be great if Alphinaud, Tataru, Lyse, Ryne, and Nanamo Ul Namo take a one way trip to the Guillotine.

:)

I'm more concerned with what the dungeon, job and boss design will be. Shadowbringers has a really awesome story, but I was pretty disappointed by what it did to most jobs and dungeon design. ARR had a really meh story until 2 major patches away from Heavensward and I find its areas, dungeon and job design vastly more interesting. Not so much the boss design, that honor goes to HW, and every other expansion does boss fights better than ARR anyway.

So even if the finale of this current saga doesn't meet my expectations at least it's just a MSQ issue, which is something that I only go through once per character.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

I'm more concerned with what the dungeon, job and boss design will be. Shadowbringers has a really awesome story, but I was pretty disappointed by what it did to most jobs and dungeon design.

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I felt this way as well until a few weeks ago when I decided to take a step back and look at what all they changed with 5.0's initial release.

Taking into account the total abolition of TP, the simplification of MP, the rebalancing of stats, damage and healing algorithims among crafting, gathering and many other reworks... I realized that one would be hard-pressed to not call the sweeping changes done in Shadowbringers a hard reboot of gameplay direction, balancing and job design on a universal scale.

Further, the more I've contemplated why they've done so, I feel it was done in an effort to facilitate the ease of balancing when they add more to the jobs in 6.0 and beyond. The guages in 4.0 were a "test" to see if they could reinvent the wheel, 5.0 was them digging their heels in with the new direction and functions as a new "base" for the game to build upon, more or less.

So I see level 80 the same way I see level 50, it's just a starting point for what they have planned and I feel we shouldn't be so quick to judge; or worry, until we see exactly what it is that have planned for the jobs in 6.0. My only hope is that they do the same as what they did in 5.0 and not just isolate the newer skills to the 80+ levels, as the lower leveled additions to the jobs that received them gave us new things to play with out the gate and felt really fresh.

For me shadowbringers has been the worst expansion so far, the story and the ascians part was really great but the whole warrior of darkness thing end being just a question of semantics to make silly jokes like "we are the bad guys now right?" Was really poor for me, would have been a lot better if they call us the shadowbringers instead of the choosen ones to wield the power of darkness to fight the light, zenos still being around don't help either but that's just me.

The other thing I don't like about the expansion is combat content and how badly they did with tanks and healers with all the simplification and reduction of the roles and jobs identities to the minimum expression like DRK, AST and SCH, the reduction of combat content in terms of quantity, durability and difficulty has been a total step back and being forced to play DPS to have a minimum of fun outside of my savage progression it's not fun at all.

Other questions like how bad the development of viera and rofhtgar has been are in my mind too, so idk if the combat changes are just a step for a transition to big changes but I consider they did really poorly for tanks and healers, so I hope they do a lot better for 6.0, SHB have some nice stuff but have the most amount of flaws for me.

shadowbringer just had a good story and art direction
but thats pretty much it
I would take another SB or HW over ShB

I don't know how to say it than not to expect lightning to hit the same spot twice.

I don't expect this upcoming expansion to top Shadowbringers. That's going to be a tough act to folow.

I just want it to be better than Stormblood.

Right now I think Shadowbringers will be remembered for the art (I'm including music here of course) and the story. Content hasn't been the greatest or the most innovative, some events get cancelled (Halloween and Little Ladies for example) and Mogstation keeps getting expensive stuff while we get hats which not everyone can wear or housing items, Hrothgar and Viera are in the same state as they were at launch.

I mean, I really liked ShB and fear the next expansion might be worse but, in perspective, content could have been a lot better. I understand the situation we have been through during the last year, but this content issue has been an ongoing situation since ARR and it's become stale.

We still have 1/4 of shb in front of us.
Don't expect the new add on within the next 6 month.

There is content waiting for us.
I still have hopes in bozjan and the BA like dungeon (BA is something I still do regularly)
There is a potential next ultimate.
Another trail and more story.
Blu mage will get more stuff to do and ishgard will be finished.
I expect more qol changes and maybe a first step to bring datacenter closer together.
Small changes will happen that opens the way for new stuff in the next expansion.

I'm actually more concerned to see if this is an actual expansion announcement or just another patch number. It should obviously be the former, but we know how things go, and a lot just assume the 'usual'.

Honestly I'm more concerned about job balance than I am about story at this point. Mostly because the tone they set for every job come 6.0 will be what you'll expect the job to play like for the next 2 years or so, whereas story loses most of its impact a few days after playing through everything

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Originally Posted by Duskane

shadowbringer just had a good story and art direction
but thats pretty much it
I would take another SB or HW over ShB

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100% agree.
Just comparing ShB with HW which had an equally great story and less overall resources, but many more dungeons and content in general, it makes me think Shadowbringers isn't that great of an expansion in itself. The story doesn't make up for the lack of content.

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Originally Posted by Mansion

100% agree.
Just comparing ShB with HW which had an equally great story and less overall resources, but many more dungeons and content in general, it makes me think Shadowbringers isn't that great of an expansion in itself. The story doesn't make up for the lack of content.

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Shadowbringers was basically carried by it's launch. The story blew everyone away, especially with such a great villain. But if we take the story out of the equation and only look at the other content then I'd argue even Stormblood was at the very least equal to Shadowbringers.

People are here complaining about ShB's lack of content, meanwhile I am just enjoying my fishing boat.
IMO, there is just one thing missing in ShB's content compared to previous expansions : replay value. (Bozja being done in a few days, no deep dungeon)
I think it's not as bad as people make it to be and is pretty much on par with previous expansions (aside from the dungeons, which I am still wondering why they had to cut resources on that...hopefully the 5.5 live letter answers this question...).
It's just unfortunate that there was no longevity to Bozja at all...

I think the music is actually the biggest pressure of all.

Soken outdid himself with at least two songs off of Shadowbringers, even if the general battle music was a bit much for my estimation.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Not sure about you guys but for me Shadowbringers ranks in my Top 3 all time with experience going all the way back to 2000. One constant mistake I see MMO devs do and especially Blizzard is forget what made an expansion popular and do a poor attempt at a repeat.

The most recent example is trying to retcon Lich King lore so they can LITERALLY drag Arthas out of the grave.

What made Shadowbringers special was the 7 year payoff! An evolving storyline with character building and story resolution and not being scared to go dark. So tell the Square Enix suits to back off if this next expansion is "not as popular" or whatever.

Stick to a vision and do not deviate because some depers want another Shadowbringers every expansion. It is easy to ignore it now and I saw Blizzard do it during Wrath. They had systems that worked and were popular but needed minor increases in difficulty and they obviously went to far with multiple things.

People clearly like what you are doing now. Just focus on content and fixing minor gripes.

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In my honest opinion, while shadowbringer's story was 10/10, the rest was really lacking.
BLU is already talked about enough but it is heavily limited, the nuber of dungeons was limited, the number of weapons for hte new jobs was limited, the new races were incredibly limited and genderlocked, the hats they could wear are incredibly limited. Overall, while the story and art are a asolid 10/10, I would much rather see ourselves in a Hevansward situation where they push past this limitations and gave us full jobs (3), finished races with both their genders being able to wear all gear (except race-locked ofc) and, imo, a much better raiding and end game expirience overall.

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Originally Posted by Ranhansha

Right now I think Shadowbringers will be remembered for the art (I'm including music here of course) and the story. Content hasn't been the greatest or the most innovative, some events get cancelled (Halloween and Little Ladies for example) and Mogstation keeps getting expensive stuff while we get hats which not everyone can wear or housing items, Hrothgar and Viera are in the same state as they were at launch.

I mean, I really liked ShB and fear the next expansion might be worse but, in perspective, content could have been a lot better. I understand the situation we have been through during the last year, but this content issue has been an ongoing situation since ARR and it's become stale.

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I don't know if I'm in a minority but outside of dungeons and side stories that form part of the narrative, I don't really see everything newly released to be part of Shadowbringers just because that's the current expansion at the time. Shadowbringers was a story expansion that added new plot, zones and dungeons. Other things that get added are independent add-ons that have no relation to the Shadowbringers content.

Seasonal events and things like ocean fishing are not part of the expansion - they are essentially new ARR content. The Firmament is a direct sequel to Heavensward. Mog Station is it's own thing disconnected from what the rest of the game is doing. New races and jobs have no direct link to ShB beyond the need to own the expansion.

I just can't see any of these things as part of Shadowbringers. They're simply part of FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't know if I'm in a minority but outside of dungeons and side stories that form part of the narrative, I don't really see everything newly released to be part of Shadowbringers just because that's the current expansion at the time. Shadowbringers was a story expansion that added new plot, zones and dungeons. Other things that get added are independent add-ons that have no relation to the Shadowbringers content.

Seasonal events and things like ocean fishing are not part of the expansion - they are essentially new ARR content. The Firmament is a direct sequel to Heavensward. Mog Station is it's own thing disconnected from what the rest of the game is doing. New races and jobs have no direct link to ShB beyond the need to own the expansion.

I just can't see any of these things as part of Shadowbringers. They're simply part of FFXIV.

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It's not lack of "new" content as much as lack of increments to the contents other expansions managed better. For instance aside from the first two extra dungeons, every patch only adds MSQ dungeons for light parties, making it the expansion with the least amount of regular dungeons. And they're not even particularly great in the design department aside from looking pretty.
We got no deep dungeon equivalent/replacement despite their speech about it way back then. Bozja is arguably worse than 2/3 of Eureka so far, and I'd say less rewarding even. Normal Raids are still a series of trials, doesn't matter what they call them, they're practically trials, where you fight a single boss, which IMO is a lot less interesting and distinct from trials compared to how Alexander was done.

I think what people who satisfy themselves with fishing, glamour dressing and housing forget that for a lot of people the first thing they look forward to in jRPGs after the story and lore is the combat content, and this is, after all, like many repeat online as defense against certain kinds of criticism "a Final Fantasy game first, MMORPG second". What do you do at least 80% of the time in jRPGs and, by extension, Final Fantasy games? Run around, fight things and watch cutscenes.
So, naturally, a lot of people expect consistent delivery of PvE content to do, dungeons being the bread and butter and savage being the icing for even more dedicated PvE players. ShB, however, is significantly lighter in PvE content compared to past expansions.
But I guess we're supposed to be happy they threw yet another alternate difficulty of ARR trials at us.

You're not supposed to dislike the kind of content you like, if you care less for the pve and more for the themepark stuff, that's fine. All it matters is that you're having fun with it. But don't talk like there's anything strange or wrong about people criticizing Shadowbringers' lack of core offerings.

IMO where ShB was striking gold was in the pacing in general with context of the 5.0 MSQ. I mean yes the story was great, and the main antagonist was great and also wasn't Zenos lol, but I feel it wasn't just the story (even thought that's a key part of it). It was the whole pacing and flow, it was very akin to an actual single player RPG- it felt natural and not attempting to add any chaff because it needed to nor did it have glaring holes that felt like "did you honestly feel this was done?".

I've been thinking about this in a sense of FF games but also in general, especially as I like to touch upon questions others pose over and over lol, but I think there is a decent majority of MMO /rpg/ players who while they greatly enjoy playing with friends also really want that just standard good ol' single player-like experience and the gain of social noise. There are obviously those very social out going people (and your irl / in game persona are different) but I think the analogy of comparing life structure to an mmo RPG structure works for quite a bit of stuff. Many people want the social noise of pleasant people but that doesn't mean they want every single person in the game to friend request them and want to play with them every day, like if you go to a bar- some people would be happy to have a few approach, some not at all, etc.

Anyway getting back to ShB, it reminded me of some of the times I had in WoW (minus the story lol), where I was wandering this interesting place on my own and then occasionally I'd get into a social situation (while the entire time there is or was a chance at social noise but just kind of noise in the back ground). In WoW I've some very fond memories of going out and solo'ing stuff I shouldn't have with my pet and a stupid amount of kiting, doing most things alone (including some open world elite quests), but then coming back to town like a hunter (lol.. cause I was...) and feeling just right with everything. Naturally there were occasions of forming a group to do some grand quest every now and then. With ShB they introduced trusts which even further facilitates this sort of concept..

From reading the forums pretty closely, watching which features become popular or which games / expansions do well, at this point and probably to the chagrin to some players who think "mmos are for playing with others, not by yourself - if you like those features don't play this game".. I think that there is actually a very size-able desire to have the best of an sRPG mixed with the general reality of real life and how people want social interactions to work there. Meaning some people like the noise, some people are outgoing (decent portion of people, but not everyone), and some just want some alone space (like if you got a nature hike and you don't want the trail to look like Disneyland on New Years). I think ShB 5.0 did that very well, giving players options in many scenarios and just how you flowed in and out of situations (not just on the social but the story flow itself). Consistently features that bring players the ability to control their own social experience do very well as a whole meanwhile features that force awkward means of interaction are often just for a very specific group of players (especially I think for perhaps the western community, it seems a little bit less true for Japan for example; although, that may just be the get it done nature overriding other urges.. since I know there is the stereotype of learning one strategy even if another might be slightly better because it's better people got it done than argue over and fail to complete a content). Like for some people forming parties is fun, waiting in a lobby basically, but many, and to myself it's now an awful experience I generally want to avoid at all costs (PF gets almost no attention from me unless it's for Hunts that are in the area, which case it's pretty much an instant fill queue). Yet watching people and features I know I'm not entirely "insane and playing the wrong genre" since obviously every single major mmo that does well pretty much has the feature not to sit around begging for groups anymore (a relic feature for standard content that some people still greatly enjoy, and of course can help facilitate better control of quality for much harder content which is a more important non-relic feature). It's true some of these features do take away from that classic "get a group, bond, or die" concepts (Party Finder for example has damaged the level play you can expect and design to, people tend to get a bit lazy lol).. but that's where I am trying to point out that I think more and more and not just a few weirdos like myself but a decent group that want "sRPG quality" with "social noise" the absolutely massive "grand scale" of an MMO and the opportunity to make and play with friends (but not necessarily a requirement to enjoy many features, given patience at least- like in most MMOs they let you go back and solo old content, and a few people like myself, were originally excited blue mage might be this solo king job designed, rather it's a PF exclusive job that dies rather quickly after each patch /salt lol). Naturally like the real life example there are social butterflies that would die if they weren't in some form of social contact, so it's not to say there should be no balance (there definitely needs to be, at least a balance of options and time scale) but just to point out .. I think what made ShB 5.0 so well beloved was a sRPG like nature bonded to the ability to enjoy said content in environments of social noise (and with friends / random if you so chose, but some people picked "with an enhanced story / sRPG experience" with trusts a feature that honestly has done fairly well in use by reading people's comments). I also think that nature is what makes FFXIV a good game to play in spurts.

I mentioned "FF" in the beginning since FF games are clearly more story oriented and so the journey has a lot more opportunity to shine (and where other expansions had good moments of course I think the pacing on ShB was most akin to what you'd expect from a good normal sRPG game with the added benefit you now get to play that FF game with your friends and in a social environment that isn't too oppressive). Most MMOs that are 'big' are following this model, some more than others, but you can point out in GW2, WoW, and others where a lot of features are designed, intentionally, and allow scale to play in such a fashion but ShB just happened to marry those things together particularly well). I make the point out of this since occasionally I see people confused on this idea of why people play a social game if they don't want to be inundated with social events all the time.. "what's the value of playing this game if you spend most of it doing your own thing?" and I just feel after seeing all these events as a whole that social noise (and opportunity to turn that noise into a social event, without a super strict requirement on everything) is actually a well desired feature. That and it was just bouncing around my head and then with this thread talking about what made ShB great I think it had some relation to that (all that said you could easily lose balance and opportunity, so it's not just go down one hill and slippery slope it.. just thoughts outloud :p).

Would also like to say I did intentionally bring up and narrow on the 5.0 part of it, since people have brought up concerns there after (some I share or some I understand even if I don't 'share' them), but I think largely the 5.0 'launch' period was one of the better periods in mmo time in that everyone seemed to be in a perfect flow and all types of players were in agreement that it was a great time.

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Originally Posted by Curisu

We still have 1/4 of shb in front of us.
Don't expect the new add on within the next 6 month.

There is content waiting for us.
I still have hopes in bozjan and the BA like dungeon (BA is something I still do regularly)
There is a potential next ultimate.
Another trail and more story.
Blu mage will get more stuff to do and ishgard will be finished.
I expect more qol changes and maybe a first step to bring datacenter closer together.
Small changes will happen that opens the way for new stuff in the next expansion.

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Your math is a bit off there. We have 1/5th of the expansion left and X.5 patches are usually some of the more lax, lacking portions of the expansion.
If we go by the current schedule we have, 6.0 will likely drop in mid-to-late August or early September. That said, however, this showcase isn't for 5.5. So people really need to drop the idea we'll be getting 5.5 news revealed here when there's a PLL for 5.5's reveal planned to happen literally four and a half hours after this.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't know if I'm in a minority but outside of dungeons and side stories that form part of the narrative, I don't really see everything newly released to be part of Shadowbringers just because that's the current expansion at the time. Shadowbringers was a story expansion that added new plot, zones and dungeons. Other things that get added are independent add-ons that have no relation to the Shadowbringers content.

Seasonal events and things like ocean fishing are not part of the expansion - they are essentially new ARR content. The Firmament is a direct sequel to Heavensward. Mog Station is it's own thing disconnected from what the rest of the game is doing. New races and jobs have no direct link to ShB beyond the need to own the expansion.

I just can't see any of these things as part of Shadowbringers. They're simply part of FFXIV.

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Is "the products and content delivered during the time Shadowbringers is being produced and developed" a more accurate way to refer to what I'm talking about? Do we really have to get this specific though?

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Originally Posted by zeylos

In my honest opinion, while shadowbringer's story was 10/10, the rest was really lacking.
BLU is already talked about enough but it is heavily limited, the nuber of dungeons was limited, the number of weapons for hte new jobs was limited, the new races were incredibly limited and genderlocked, the hats they could wear are incredibly limited. Overall, while the story and art are a asolid 10/10, I would much rather see ourselves in a Hevansward situation where they push past this limitations and gave us full jobs (3), finished races with both their genders being able to wear all gear (except race-locked ofc) and, imo, a much better raiding and end game expirience overall.

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I know this is not possible and I have read they worked under a lot of pressure, but, I don't know if it's just my impression, they seem to keep taking stuff from the game and ShB got hit pretty hard. Cancelled events, no Hildy quests, No PotD, shorter Eureka, delays... So I get where this feeling is coming from and why some people are worried about the quality of the next expansion.

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Originally Posted by Wrestlefire769

I think the music is actually the biggest pressure of all.

Soken outdid himself with at least two songs off of Shadowbringers, even if the general battle music was a bit much for my estimation.

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This is actually one of my greatest fears. What are those songs?

Most people don't realize is that the content that shb has been adding is stuff like NG+, ishgard restoration, overhauls to gathering, crafting, and everything that has to do with bozja, unreal trials. It's actually a lot of stuff it just might not be something you like or want to do.

People also forget majority of the things they take away or change (like how 8 man trials work) are because people complained about them. This is also why the dungeons we get are hallway simulators. People complained.

They could also be working on unspaghettifying the code of the game. With how much they seem to be focusing on old stuff this expansion I would not be surprised. And I have little doubts 6.0 will disappoint. They also always planned to do no deep dungeon this expac ( I personally think it's because they couldn't think of interesting things for a new Deep dungeon) and just plopped our leveling method in bozja. Which they also seem to be planning on adding another exploration zone in 5.5.

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Originally Posted by Anienai

The story will be great if Alphinaud, Tataru, Lyse, Ryne, and Nanamo Ul Namo take a one way trip to the Guillotine.

:)

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https://media1.tenor.com/images/b8d9...temid=15067958

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Originally Posted by Anienai

The story will be great if Alphinaud, Tataru, Lyse, Ryne, and Nanamo Ul Namo take a one way trip to the Guillotine.

:)

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Now you've gotten me looking forward to it.

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Originally Posted by shao32

For me shadowbringers has been the worst expansion so far, the story and the ascians part was really great but the whole warrior of darkness thing end being just a question of semantics to make silly jokes like "we are the bad guys now right?" Was really poor for me, would have been a lot better if they call us the shadowbringers instead of the choosen ones to wield the power of darkness to fight the light, zenos still being around don't help either but that's just me.

The other thing I don't like about the expansion is combat content and how badly they did with tanks and healers with all the simplification and reduction of the roles and jobs identities to the minimum expression like DRK, AST and SCH, the reduction of combat content in terms of quantity, durability and difficulty has been a total step back and being forced to play DPS to have a minimum of fun outside of my savage progression it's not fun at all.

Other questions like how bad the development of viera and rofhtgar has been are in my mind too, so idk if the combat changes are just a step for a transition to big changes but I consider they did really poorly for tanks and healers, so I hope they do a lot better for 6.0, SHB have some nice stuff but have the most amount of flaws for me.

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I've got similar sentiments towards it, especially the thing you mention about the title just being semantics.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

shadowbringer just had a good story and art direction
but thats pretty much it
I would take another SB or HW over ShB

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And for me at least, that's heavily weighted towards base 5.0. 5.3 had some good story elements to complement 5.0, but I'm still not really that pleased with how they handled Elidibus, and the other patches just bored me story-wise. Still, it wasn't the worst conceivable way they could've done it, so I'll just wait and see how they take the story forward from here.

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

So I see level 80 the same way I see level 50, it's just a starting point for what they have planned and I feel we shouldn't be so quick to judge; or worry, until we see exactly what it is that have planned for the jobs in 6.0. My only hope is that they do the same as what they did in 5.0 and not just isolate the newer skills to the 80+ levels, as the lower leveled additions to the jobs that received them gave us new things to play with out the gate and felt really fresh.

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I'm still hoping they're planning to re-design some of the 70-80 stuff that could've been introduced at lower levels (e.g. Aspect Mastery for BLM) and actually shift them to lower levels, since in some cases they are dramatic improvements on existing abilities. Beyond that, I'm hoping for some new twists to the existing jobs I play.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The writers for WoW admitted they've been making up the story as they go along, unlike XIV that already had its story planned out past the conclusion of 6.x even before ShB dropped.

Regardless, I'm still a touch concerned the finale of the current story arc isn't going live up to the expectations.

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They may have a grand overarching vision for where things are headed, but at a patch level they certainly do seem to leave their options open. For example, here. They mentioned similar things regarding their plans for the Exarch in one of the Japanese 5.4 interviews, if memory serves. But yeah, it's less ad hoc than what Blizzard does, which can include rather blatant retcons. At least they go to the effort of making things seem to have been intended all along.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

At least they go to the effort of making things seem to have been intended all along.

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This is probably due to the fact that Yoshida, Ishikawa and Oda have all gone on record saying that before penning 5.0 and 5.X's story, they all three individually replayed the entire MSQ from ARR to 4.5. So that everything would be fresh on their minds when working on Shadowbringers. I'd say from the critical acclaims 5.0's base story received and the overall quality of the MSQ's narrative taking a massive leap this expansion, that the "things were planned all along" feeling is due to the fact they actually went back and refreshed themselves on their own work before continuing.

This also explains why so much foreshadowing towards Shadowbringers and 5.X has been discovered in the Steppe, as Ishikawa wrote the 5.0 MSQ, 5.3 and the entirety of the Azim Steppe—so it was all things she was very familiar with and could easily expand upon.

I'm more concerned on the overall content that will be released-
I've wanted mythic style dungeons in FFXIV for a long time- like being able to go back to old dungeons & once unlocked, you can go back with increased difficulty as a 4 man- I get HoH & PotD is somewhat like this but it's dated & the floors are really boring
Boiled down it just feels like the only challenging content is 8-man content & outside of that is crafting/gathering, housing or repeating story & all of that can feel shallow in some way (But not black desert shallow, just typical MMO shallow)

But apart from that; I'd like more focus on our WoL x male & female companion for open interpretation

I don't want another stormblood or another generic female character trope with a sad attempt at trying to make the player care about her (Lyse *cough*)

I'd like Yoshi-P to take a hard look at housing & how to better accommodate players who's endgame is housing

Make alternatives to getting high-end gear other than a DPS race in savage content

Address the issues with Viera & Hrothgar & show a potential timeline on the fixes they'll receive & if they'll ever get visual access to store bought or code earned head pieces- like Matoya's Hat or a hat with a Mog Station outfit as well as Mog Station hairstyles.

What is the future to Grand Companies? (I feel this was already addressed somewhere but I didn't find it)

Will Amaro mounts eventually become battle companions like the Chocobo?

Updated character creator to address the literal thousands of requests such as more racial/ unique hairstyles, curly hair, thick eyebrow options for all races rather than a few, beards & stubble for all male races, Hrothgar being able to change hair without using a fantasia, etc

I know I can compile more things but this is just an immediate concern

They really need to step up their game after the 5.x series. Shb release was great, but since then it hasnt been good at all. Stormblood, as of right now, was better with more content! And its certainly less loved at release. How they squandered so much goodwill and playerbase since 5.0 is a mystery to me.

The dungeons in particular are really, really underwhelming. Stormblood at least tried to give us more varied themes and locations .- in Shb only the levelling dungeons and 2 of the max level dungeons really feel like an actual, interesting location. Most of them are just arbitrarily locked hallways with little to no flair, the bosses feel randomly thrown in with little to no reason to be there, not to mention the locations half the time dont fit with the world we have seen outside.

The weapons quests I dont even need to mention. Bozja vs. Eureka is also a disappointment. No deep dungeon so SB and HW were infinitely better there. And while Titania and Hades are great, the weapons, Memoria Misera and the Warrior Light extremes are relatively weak fights, with just minor moments of good ideas (Emerald weapon 2nd stage has some decent elements to be fair). Its a true shame Stormblood is so superior in its 8-man content outside Savage.
Eden raids I think, however, are the best raid series they have done so far. While the rehash of old primals was a bit iffy, the fights and story are better than the 'scapes and less repetitive than Alexander as a whole. That is the ONE area where Shb really delivered outside of its release, and with the exception of E1S being a snoozefest and wasting a goodlooking boss too early, the rest was well done and balance-wise pretty solid.

I think both new classes are good and if it wasnt for the dumbing down of tanks, GNB could have offered a cool change. Unfortunately, SE seems to think most healer and tank players are lobotomized chimpanzees.

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

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According to this, you are a Pugilist Lv 80. Wear your stone before you go on an adventure!

I think SHB has the been the worst expansion by far, with HW being the best by far.

I really hope 6.0 isn't a repeat of the mess of job / encounter design that 5.0 and SE is willing to invest more resources into this game.

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Originally Posted by Tranquilmelody7

I think SHB has the been the worst expansion by far, with HW being the best by far.

I really hope 6.0 isn't a repeat of the mess of job / encounter design that 5.0 and SE is willing to invest more resources into this game.

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This seems to be an area where I might not have been clear enough. Obviously there are class design choices that have homogenized and made some classes boring. My primary focus is MMO developers who sacrifice story development to throw out nostalgia or something shiny.

It is the MMO developers equivalent of click bait. System design issues can be addressed obviously but what I care about along with a lot of people is a narrative driven MMO that remembers their core mission.

What I do not want to see is in 3 expansions going back to the first but 100 years ago before the Crystal Exarch arrived to fight the Ascians in an alternate timeline. I hope you get my drift.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

This seems to be an area where I might not have been clear enough. Obviously there are class design choices that have homogenized and made some classes boring. My primary focus is MMO developers who sacrifice story development to throw out nostalgia or something shiny.

It is the MMO developers equivalent of click bait. System design issues can be addressed obviously but what I care about along with a lot of people is a narrative driven MMO that remembers their core mission.

What I do not want to see is in 3 expansions going back to the first but 100 years ago before the Crystal Exarch arrived to fight the Ascians in an alternate timeline. I hope you get my drift.

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I understand.
Executing a narrative is critical for a game with storytelling as one of it's core tenants, as it cannot be redone or undone.

Also your last paragraph sounds like a plotline from Kingdom Hearts, so I can definitely sympathize with not wanting that.

As far as the story goes, they've definitely set themselves an extraordinarily high standard, both in terms of maintaining and surpassing the storytelling which we've seen.

I'm not afraid of them falling shortly below the standard, but I am afraid of them absolutely botching it to Stormblood levels.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

This seems to be an area where I might not have been clear enough. Obviously there are class design choices that have homogenized and made some classes boring. My primary focus is MMO developers who sacrifice story development to throw out nostalgia or something shiny.

It is the MMO developers equivalent of click bait. System design issues can be addressed obviously but what I care about along with a lot of people is a narrative driven MMO that remembers their core mission.

What I do not want to see is in 3 expansions going back to the first but 100 years ago before the Crystal Exarch arrived to fight the Ascians in an alternate timeline. I hope you get my drift.

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FFXIV: Warlords of Draenor?

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Originally Posted by Ranhansha

FFXIV: Warlords of Draenor?

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Just no !!!!!! ( is that enough se ten characters??)

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The writers for WoW admitted they've been making up the story as they go along, unlike XIV that already had its story planned out past the conclusion of 6.x even before ShB dropped.

Regardless, I'm still a touch concerned the finale of the current story arc isn't going live up to the expectations.

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Before chris metzen left blizzard, the story was accurate. Sure Cata and pandaria had issues but it was ok. Then WOD hit and it went to shit. Not playing a game that shits it's lore.

Honestly i d take another HW or STB or ShB. ShB started out great but content kept getting cut. Sure hw had diadem but it was optional and it had plenty to do. Those dungeons were some of the best ff14 has to offer. I may have enjoyed STB less but it had dungeons deep dungeon, erueka, hunt trains etc. Now we come to ShB and while initially things are great. Then it takes it toll one dungeon per patch instead of 2. Bozja southern front only introduced at the tail end of 2020. It ends up being a gutted eureka, no tomestone capping here. (They prob knew it was going to turn out this way and had to make the relic work outside bozja) The list goes on to the point that i wish ShB would end alrdy. SE better be working on the expansion or something at this point to justify all the cut content.