There was far less content in Heavensward than in Endwalker

And yet, people remember it fondly.

Why is that?

The simple answer is that a lot of Heavensward's content was fresh, something that players have not seen before. It felt like something brand new.

PotD felt fresh to players. We have never seen something like that before. Whereas Eureka Orthos feels like a reskin of PotD and HoH with close to zero new ideas.

The major reason why Endwalker feels bad for many players isn't actually the volume of the content. It's the volume of excitement. There is very little exciting new content in Endwalker, and the few new things they put in Endwalker have been very uninspiring, like the horrendously shallow Island Sanctuary and Variant dungeons being only three routes that are padded to become twelve with next to no difference in gameplay (unless you count pushing a tree or not pushing a tree as a meaningful difference in gameplay).

It's also the fact that the systems have overstayed their welcome. We've been on the same gear treadmill for nearly 8 years now. Same use for tomestones. Even something as mundane as crafting recipes have become so predictable that one can farm half of what they need with confidence before the patch is even live.

And the regular content that we're receiving no longer has the charm. Every dungeon and non-Ultimate raid today are reusing the same mechanics again and again: stack, spread, dodge left, dodge right, in, out, pyretic, move around, look away, etc.

Even if Dawntrail releases field content, the same criticisms will remain because people are sick of the formula. We desperately need a shake-up and far, far more innovation.

FF14 in Endwalker is not an atrocious game, but it is just boring. Unexciting. Samey. Rehashed.

Never get tired of seeing Heavensward brought up in this context. Early HW AST was nearly unplayable. Diadem flopped, got redone, and flopped again. Feast 2.0 did nothing to revive PVP. HW raiding almost killed the raid scene outright. All of it added up to make 3.4-3.5 kinda sleepy community-wise.

I would really, really think twice before holding HW up as a paragon - it's very easy to turn it into a golden age fallacy.

I really liked the HW story which is why I probably look upon HW so favorably. I can't say the same for EW, however.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sindele

Never get tired of seeing Heavensward brought up in this context. Early HW AST was nearly unplayable. Diadem flopped, got redone, and flopped again. Feast 2.0 did nothing to revive PVP. HW raiding almost killed the raid scene outright. All of it added up to make 3.4-3.5 kinda sleepy community-wise.

I would really, really think twice before holding HW up as a paragon - it's very easy to turn it into a golden age fallacy.

---

At the same time, it also had some of the best content and design we've seen in the game - A8S, DRK, MCH, PotD, GPose.

It also created the first treasure dungeon, the first custom delivery, the first field content, the first Savage raids...

It's a controversial expansion, with a lot of good and a lot of bad, but it at least did a lot of the things for the first time that we now take for granted.

But EW doesn't have a lot of good. The bad of EW is also not bad like HW's bad, it's bad in the sense that it's just boring. What is there in EW that was done for the first time? Island Sanctuary is a glorified Doman Reconstruction with a clunky UI. Variant is a regular dungeon with multiple routes. Criterion is three short Savage bosses smashed into a corridor. Even these things that EW has made for the first time is just a rehash of previous ideas.

Wondrous Tails was not the joke it is now. It actually caused you to open party finder, join a party and tackle extremes together. It was a social experience you went through up to 9 times each week and you got rewards such as minions for doing it. Yes, we unsynced them even then, but you couldn't solo even ARR extremes then. We could argue that Unreals do that now, but it's just the one and it's more serious because it's almost synced to Minimum IL.

Almost nobody had all jobs leveled so leveling them gradually by partying with your FC, doing roulettes or FATE farming was a thing (in fact, it wasn't until the Amaro came out that I started to see a majority of people put more effort into getting all the jobs up fast). But now anyone who has played since ARR, Heavensward or even Stormblood has had a humongous amount of time to level them all so it's no longer much of a content.

I agree about PoTD being good then because it was fresh. It didn't seem that the ones after were necessarily a problem. It's just that when people got what they asked for, it felt too much like copy and paste. The good news is they said the one in Dawntrail will be different, so it seems they have acknowledged this issue.

The relics created social interaction with FATE farming and light farming. You'd need a full party to farm A1S or A9S for it, so you could find some moments to chat about things. But now we just dump tomestones.

You could hang out at Idyllshire with your mount and interact.

I think beside having more excitement due to being new, it was also just doing a better job of creating social interaction in these ways. You all felt like you were progressing together doing these things and could interact together. Now it's more like you're soloing it and keeping to yourself (Island Sanctuary, Variant, tomestone dumping for relics).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noumenon

Every dungeon and non-Ultimate raid today are reusing the same mechanics again and again: stack, spread, dodge left, dodge right, in, out, pyretic, move around, look away, etc.

---

I think they want to re-use old mechanics but in different ways, whilst also adding new ones gradually over the game's life.

But I have a question: can you think of a lot of different mechanic ideas yourself that could not be described as "stack, spread, dodge, in, out, pyretic, move around, look away"?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Wondrous Tails was not the joke it is now. It actually caused you to open party finder, join a party and tackle extremes together. It was a social experience you went through up to 9 times each week and you got rewards such as minions for doing it. Yes, we unsynced them even then, but you couldn't solo even ARR extremes then. We could argue that Unreals do that now, but it's just the one and it's more serious because it's almost synced to Minimum IL.

Almost nobody had all jobs leveled so leveling them gradually by partying with your FC, doing roulettes or FATE farming was a thing (in fact, it wasn't until the Amaro came out that I started to see a majority of people put more effort into getting all the jobs up fast). But now anyone who has played since ARR, Heavensward or even Stormblood has had a humongous amount of time to level them all so it's no longer much of a content.

I agree about PoTD being good then because it was fresh. It didn't seem that the ones after were necessarily a problem. It's just that when people got what they asked for, it felt too much like copy and paste. The good news is they said the one in Dawntrail will be different, so it seems they have acknowledged this issue.

The relics created social interaction with FATE farming and light farming. You'd need a full party to farm A1S or A9S for it, so you could find some moments to chat about things. But now we just dump tomestones.

You could hang out at Idyllshire with your mount and interact.

I think beside having more excitement due to being new, it was also just doing a better job of creating social interaction in these ways. You all felt like you were progressing together doing these things and could interact together. Now it's more like you're soloing it and keeping to yourself (Island Sanctuary, Variant, tomestone dumping for relics).

I think they want to re-use old mechanics but in different ways, whilst also adding new ones gradually over the game's life.

But I have a question: can you think of a lot of different mechanic ideas yourself that could not be described as "stack, spread, dodge, in, out, pyretic, move around, look away"?

---

Actually yes:

Ridorana's Construct 7 prime number mechanic. (You can even extend it to make a Sudoku-like mechanic)
Staggering CCs so that different orbs resolve their raidwide damage at different times (A6S, A8S, and arguably E8S)
Mini maze mechanic but done in a more engaging way than just get to the endpoint (O3N)
Dragging adds under AoEs to resolve mechanics (like Xelphatol but at a Savage level), think of a volcano eruption that you exploit to kill ice sprites.
etc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noumenon

Actually yes:

Ridorana's Construct 7 prime number mechanic. (You can even extend it to make a Sudoku-like mechanic)
Staggering CCs so that different orbs resolve their raidwide damage at different times (A6S, A8S, and arguably E8S)
Mini maze mechanic but done in a more engaging way than just get to the endpoint (O3N)
Dragging adds under AoEs to resolve mechanics (like Xelphatol but at a Savage level), think of a volcano eruption that you exploit to kill ice sprites.
etc.

---

We could also use more fights that utilize the actual arena (P2 and P10 come to my mind off the bat as more recent examples)

Side note: Math bot unironically is my favorite fight in Ridorana and one of my favorite Critical Engagements in Bozja, it's a lot of fun lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noumenon

Ridorana's Construct 7 prime number mechanic. (You can even extend it to make a Sudoku-like mechanic)
Staggering CCs so that different orbs resolve their raidwide damage at different times (A6S, A8S, and arguably E8S)
Mini maze mechanic but done in a more engaging way than just get to the endpoint (O3N)
Dragging adds under AoEs to resolve mechanics (like Xelphatol but at a Savage level), think of a volcano eruption that you exploit to kill ice sprites.
etc.

---

I see, good ideas.

I feel this explains it better than just saying to make something other than "in, out, stack, spread". I think this would be good feedback (if they actually would read the English forums :D).

Heres why I personally like every expansion expect endwalker.

First Heavensward was about a dragon war, and you felt that feeling from the second you entered heavensward you could see the effect the dragons had, the war the emotions the fear and the loneliness of being on your own, it felt good and the buildings style also felt amazing you first walked in and started your quest through it, it felt like you were living in a dragon war between that and dealing with the braves it just made you feel like that every second.

stormblood: literally you could feel the pain the flames of war the very second you walked into the zone it was and visibly felt like a battle field, we had wild nature the AU'ra it was amazing playing through the story and what little jokes we had were done perfectly like the little sun joke still lives with me forever.

Shadowbringers: Although I personally didn't like this one all that much, it made you feel like this was bad the suffering and the migraines it gave you made you want to butcher t he lightwardens, we had twist and turns and the story telling made you feel what it was aiming for.

Now endwalker: This is why I dislike endwalker, First it starts off like oh we go to sharlyan and we just there after the big fight with father and the forum that just magically allows us to go there just because (legit plot nonsense) at the very start, then we go through and we take down a tower, then again and again and again we are fed bs jokes between estaina being bad with money, and the scions eating hamburgers .. laugh and giggling joking around every single second, and by the time the "Final day" starts its not even full day we hardly lose anyone when the end of the world is going on, we get one garland suicide and a few nobody background charac ters being eaten .... Then at the very end we asspull revive the scions AGAIN (like legit)

Then the story self destroyed itself with Meteion I agree with her, but if Hydlyan told Emet-selch and his friend what happen after time reset then they could have delt with hermes and sent out a gaint fox or something that uses dynamic to kill her, It left a massive plot hole. So not only was the story horrible the amount of things we were given only lasted about 2-3 hours then you have to wait 4 months for a patch to get on for 2-3 hours..

sorry but no other expansion was as bad story telling and content wise.. that made you feel like meha

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

But I have a question: can you think of a lot of different mechanic ideas yourself that could not be described as "stack, spread, dodge, in, out, pyretic, move around, look away"?

---

More puzzle mechanics like the math robot, using our position to mark the solution to some mental problem, doesn't have to involve math.

Rotating some mirrors to make a projectile bounce to a target, avoiding the path of things we don't want to hit.

Killing adds with various different properties in certain positions. Some adds absorb materials, some repel them.

Generally increase the usage of duty actions or mounts like the gobwalker to give players additional actions that they can't usually use, for example to expose a weak point.

My issues with Endwalker IMO are primarily 2 things.

1. We didn't get an exploratory zone and quest line like Eureka/Bozja.
2. The MSQ especially the launch portion of it felt like they were condensing 2 or more full expansion cycles of content into 1 expansion to rush to a story end ASAP.

While there are a number of other things I disliked or had issue with in regards to Endwalker those 2 points are definitely the most prominent.

I’m willing to forgive HW for two things

-good job design for the most part making content more interesting
-it’s the first time they tried a lot of things and almost all of them stuck (diadem being the big exception)

EW has bland job design and just rehashes what we have had for 3 expansions and gives less of it than the last two expansions

The main difference between HW and EW is that HW has content that's more repeatable, even though they have less content in general. PotD had quite a lot of rewards tied to it, people would repeatedly do that just for the varied items they get from the sacks. As for Diadem, trash it all you want, yes it was bad, but it also was repeatable, the emergency missions giving RNG loot means people have the option to repeat it if they want the shiny BiS weapon.

We're missing optional, repeatable grind in EW. It's not just that the formula is stale, it's that they gave us the bare minimum of engagement using the same formula, so some people would feel inclined to blame the formula.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

2. The MSQ especially the launch portion of it felt like they were condensing 2 or more full expansion cycles of content into 1 expansion to rush to a story end ASAP.

---

That describes basically my issue with Stormblood, which a whole slew of people seem to think of as a top rated expansion. Everything felt rushes in there for me.

Bethesda launched Skyrim unbeatable thanks to a bug in Esbern (among others).

Now they released a space exploration game with similar bugs using their archaic engine and people are having fun, making jokes, giving high scores/ratings and playing it, like they did with Skyrim. Bethesda took 21 official updates for Skyrim and they used community mods to re-re-re-release the game.

Meanwhile, CDPR was (rightly) massacred in the internet because of Cyberpunk2077 state on old gen consoles (PS4/X1). People gave a second attempt to shine after Edgerunners and the soon-to-be-released DLC.

Nostalgia is a weird drug


However, amount of content =/= quality of content. We know SE can do more, they just don't want to. V&C could be easily attached to relics farm, and many other lost opportunities were obvious. Objectively speaking.

I miss HW enochian

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Avatre

That describes basically my issue with Stormblood, which a whole slew of people seem to think of as a top rated expansion. Everything felt rushes in there for me.

---

Stormblood did feel rushed as well due to how the story split between 2 completely different areas. However It wasn't nearly as bad IMO as Endwalker which felt more like what Hollywood did with that Avatar the Last Airbender live action movie where they tried to cover the entire book of water arc with a single movie less than 2 hours long.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daddyslittlevampire

Then the story self destroyed itself with Meteion I agree with her, but if Hydlyan told Emet-selch and his friend what happen after time reset then they could have delt with hermes and sent out a gaint fox or something that uses dynamic to kill her, It left a massive plot hole. So not only was the story horrible the amount of things we were given only lasted about 2-3 hours then you have to wait 4 months for a patch to get on for 2-3 hours..

---

Yes, they really messed time travel thing up. There are so many errors in the story because of it. If you do not know, how to do time traveling right, then do not do it at all. ;)



Cheers

I'm probably not quite as anti-Endwalker as many on this forum although I will add that, whilst I enjoyed it for the most part, there were certainly segments I didn't think were particularly great. The already mentioned time-travel plot being one example. And it doubled-down on making us play as NPCs too, which I hate.

I will admit that my biggest disappointment was that the expansion didn't really live up to the, frankly awesome, cinematic. Endwalker launched just as I started playing and I didn't therefore reach that part of the game until March 2022 and held off watching the cinematic until that point. I recall being blown away by it (particularly the music), and having watched various reaction videos since, I can say with some confidence that plenty of others felt/reacted the same way. I thought it was amazing - the leitmotifs using the theme music from the previous expansions was perfect and I adore the final movement of the musical piece.

But whilst I enjoyed it (for the most part) the story itself didn't quite deliver on what the cinematic depicted.

HW is the first expansion with 3 new classes.
HW has dragons.
HW introduces flying.
HW theme song is unbelievable. MSQ had many of us crying buckets.
HW expansion will always rank no.1 in my heart.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FudoMyoo

HW is the first expansion with 3 new classes.
HW has dragons.
HW introduces flying.
HW theme song is the unbelievable. MSQ had many of us crying buckets.
HW expansion will always rank no.1 in my heart.

---

I mean technically ARR was the first expansion with 3 new jobs. But hw being the first expansion gives it a head start on any other.

HW came out in 2015 and was the first expansion so rocky ramshackle design was expected as they had no routine to go off of with uncharted territory and for the most part “expanded” the game

EW came out in 2021 and is the 4th expansion so the routine was impeccably established, tiresomely so. Less story bits than SHB, less content than SHB, lesser dungeons than SHB, lesser 24 mans than SHB, less dungeons overall than SB/HW and is debatably rivaled SB and SHB for best expansion rather than typically surpassing them due to experience and cleaner design

Honestly, it's more or less that people get tired of the same things after a while and want more. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but they could release something with identical content to SB today (something that people who hate EW say was the high point of the game) and there are people who would complain about it being low effort and not enough, etc.

The raid schedule has been mostly identical for the better part of a decade. 2 weeks isn't that much more time when people have raids on farm after 3-4 weeks anyway. So the change has been pretty insignificant, yet is played up like a huge change in content when it really hasn't been. For the hardcore.

For everyone else, though, especially the midcore, there's a lot less.

There was in HW, too, though. But most people honestly just forgot. Mr Happy points this out all the time and says that EW, for him, is a middling expansion. He rates them as SB/ShB (forget which is 1st and which 2nd, but those two) then EW, then ARR, then HW. HW had the story, but lacked most other things, and Happy says to this day it almost killed the game a second time.

Endwalker as no grind for veteran players and no midcore content to bring new/old player to Savage. Sure, they try news things such as sanctuary or variant/criterion , but no thought proccess to make it ''Fun'' or ''Rewarding'' for certain content they made.

This could be an an unpopular opinion but for me Heavenward was the "worst" expansion FF14 ever had. The HW today is one that has been fixed, patched up with most of the malcontent removed while retaining the only thing that made it good - the story. Especially if you're a new player who come in at the end or after the expansion, and just ... passing it by with glance, it's a fantastic one time stop on your journey. But it wasn't a fun expansion to live through:

- Crafting&Gathering: these days FF14 may be known for a more accessible experiment, the crafting&gathering in HW was so convoluted and grindy that it would make a Korean MMO blush in jealousy. It's not something most people even try then give up, but more like you took a look and decided "yeah this **** isn't worth my time". It was so bad that they had to repeatably neft the system almost every single major patch, and while some residue of the crafting system survived into later expansions (but made optional/irrelevant), by Shadowbringer everything introduced in 3.0 crafting except the Soul stone were removed. And you can still see some of the remnant in the gathering system still exists today, like how "regular" materials (like Mythrite ore) are semi-hidden, and how HW's material took the most raw to refine.

- Savage was so over tuned that it almost break the raiding community.

- Relic grind was identical to 2.0, abeit they did remove the most annoying part (books). Now I admit, it's better than what we have now in EW, but in the context of moving from 2.0 to 3.0 repeating the same grind, it wasn't something people excited about.

- And the classes ... oh boy, no matter how bad you think class balancing is at any other point of the game, they don't compare to the mess in 3.0, and I don't think there will ever be a bigger mess, some of the most prominent examples:

+ PLD was almost non-viable because it can't block magic. Requiring you either have invul or kitchen sink almost every mechanic. Remember how bad it was for PLD last tier because they can't block bleed? HW was like that, but worse, because you know ... there are far more magic attack then there are bleed.
+ AST didn't fair any better on the viable scale. I see another poster already mentioned it so I won't go into detail.
+ MCH was so unpopular that it had to spent the next 2 expansion reworking.
+ BRD received some stray shot from the MCH mess that see the major change it received in 3.0 completely reverted in 4.0.

- Diadem: one of the major piece and showcase content of Heavenward was pretty much DOA. The concept was so bad that even after being taken down, rework, the re-introduced Diadem 2.0 was also DOA ... again.

- They pushed the Nanamo vs Syndicate story line so far that the conclusion felt almost like a Recton and handwave.

- And just a reminder, especially for new people who came to the game recently: while the Firmanent is a very good piece content that is associated with Isghard, it was not HW's content. It was introduced in 5.1, almost five years after HW came out.



I honestly think had SE decided to be stubborn about the many bad designs in HW, they may have killed the game the second time. Or at least stagnant its growth for good while, similar to how Blizzard deal major damage to WoW when they decided to double down on the bad decision. I went hiatus from HW for over a year (which is the longest time I ever took a break from the game) after the first major patch, and only through some major coincidence and boredom that I decided to come back near the end of HW. Thanksfully, Stormblood got me hook, and while there are low and high point since, I'm fairly content with the game.

We also have to take release date into account. Patches are so far apart now.

2.4 28 oct 2014
2.5 20 Jan 2014 (2 months+)
2.55 31 Mar 2015 (2 months+)
3.0 19 Jun 2015 (2 months+)

6.4 23 May 2023
6.5 10 Oct 2023 (4 months+)
6.55 16 Jan 2024 (3 months+)
7.0 probably around 6 months

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raven2014

And the classes ... oh boy, no matter how bad you think class balancing is at any other point of the game, they don't compare to the mess in 3.0, and I don't think there will ever be a bigger mess

---

Honestly that mess was the last time I cared about leveling up my jobs.
Now I pretty much only play black mage because I know there's nothing for me elsewhere.

Finding out that I had to spam Broil during AoE as a scholar day 1 of Stormblood was an experience.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I’m willing to forgive HW for two things

-good job design for the most part making content more interesting
-it’s the first time they tried a lot of things and almost all of them stuck (diadem being the big exception)

EW has bland job design and just rehashes what we have had for 3 expansions and gives less of it than the last two expansions

---

Endwalker is trying new things too, like Island Sanctuary and V/C Dungeons. It's just that they're, um, bad.

In three years or so, if they put in the time to rework Island Sanctuary and the V/C rewards like they reworked Diadem, it might actually be a good expansion on the repeatable content front.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renathras

Honestly, it's more or less that people get tired of the same things after a while and want more. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but they could release something with identical content to SB today (something that people who hate EW say was the high point of the game) and there are people who would complain about it being low effort and not enough, etc.

---

Let's try it and see.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sindele

HW raiding almost killed the raid scene outright

---

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SwgOCJAbA78/maxresdefault.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DiaDeem

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SwgOCJAbA78/maxresdefault.jpg

---

It's funny because Gordias and Midas contained many very well-designed fights, nor was ilvl gating actually an issue (as evidenced by China clearing those raids week 1 at min ilvl).

The players simply were not prepared at the time. If they made three difficulty levels: Normal, Extreme, and Savage, you'd see far more enjoyment.

Innovation is precisely why in some respects I don't want to see another iteration of exploratory content... Whilst I know it can be innovated on, the probability of them actually doing just that is not so great. Content never usually goes beyond the scope, which is pretty unfortunate.

That being said, you're always going to get a greater excitement factor with the first iteration of a system, than what you will after the second or third reskin. Purely because of the novelty of it, and beyond a certain point, the foundation of the content doesn't have that same novelty, to be honest.

Also, depending on how you view content, I wouldn't necessarily say HW had more. It was just that the fewer 'content streams' that it did have required an obscene amount of investment, e.g., leveling crafters, and getting Penta-melded required far more effort then, than it does now. I wouldn't necessarily ascribe that to having more actual content. Otherwise, we could really jump the gun, and saying that grinding the Wive mount is potentially hundreds of hours of actual content, even if all you're doing is farming FATEs. Or similar to the case with Divine Provider... Just begs the question is it actually content, or is it playing the busybody game?

Edit: HW outside of the story I would only really see as being successful by virtue of basically setting the foundation for the game, nothing more, really.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sindele

Never get tired of seeing Heavensward brought up in this context. Early HW AST was nearly unplayable. Diadem flopped, got redone, and flopped again. Feast 2.0 did nothing to revive PVP. HW raiding almost killed the raid scene outright. All of it added up to make 3.4-3.5 kinda sleepy community-wise.

I would really, really think twice before holding HW up as a paragon - it's very easy to turn it into a golden age fallacy.

---

indeed. HW burned me out so hard i came back when 5.5 got released.

Personally, I feel like too many people are focused on content and not actual rewards. Most of the content ends up dying because the incentive is just not there.