7.X ‘sounds’ more stacked then what Endwalker was

Just going off of what they spoke about in the keynote it looks like we have the following

- Usual MSQ, trials, dungeons, alliance, normal raid, Ultimate, blue mage update, pvp updates, gold saucer, relics, more Hildabrand.
- The new cosmic lifestyle content (sounds interesting and technically allows them to not be restricted by just an island)
- variant dungeons are continuing whether this means criterion as well but added bonus
- Still not sure on ‘new ways to play deep dungeons’ but even giving more reasons whether that’s tying them to relic or not.
- Field operation got announced now…. Which could tie to the relic once again
- New limited job which could be interesting as its now beast tamer.

Comparing to Endwalker it looks way more stacked this time and I’m not putting my hopes up I’m just comparing… even compared to shadowbringers this looks like a lot more. What does everyone here think :)

There's a lot there, we just have to hope the quality holds up.

I know most peoples complaints about v/c tend to be directed at criterion and its rewards, but if variants continue then I hope they give them more love. The system is cute for lack of better words. They need more actions, and more importantly, they need more dialogue. You play through variant 12 times for achievements and the mount, and the entire time you deal with the same set of dialogue four times over for each path mostly.

Everything else sounds nice for now though.

Waiting to see if they deliver with everything they are talking about. Definitely more stacked than EW if they pull it off.

It does seem like they are adding a lot more content.

My hope 'new ways for DD' means limited jobs. I still, REEEEEEEEEAALLLY, want to see advanced jobs (adding expansive content to a 'normal' job, because it would be fun) rather than limited, but I do have to admit going through DD on limited would be fun at least once (1 to 200). Exploratory content (Eureka, Bozja, etc), and potentially PvP, could also be quite fun.

Though for limited job- I also, really, hope they can make beastmaster interesting as my fear is they make it equal to or less interesting than WoW hunter beastmaster spec and yet we have to have it limited. It's like a "I want beastmaster" and the mom says "we have beastmaster at home" sort of vibe that I am fearing (BLU was a dream main job of mine and while it's "better" now I still ache for it, and I can imagine others getting that same feeling to the cost of "worse WoW hunter" would be a serious pain). I would even delay the job if they are not sure it's "cool" enough, as it just look, imo, bad to do anything else than try very hard to justify why it can't be an interesting normal job (as WoW for example has done for many classes, including Hunter).

I think what will paint or taint the image for the next expansion is what the combat changes are. If we become even more homogenous.. ooof lol. Yet if they can spice it up, while adding skills, that'll help a lot.

Honestly what I'm probably most excited about, funnily enough, is the cosmic lifestyle content lol. Sounds like they went bigger, and hopefully with feedback will have some more game-ified systems. For other things, like variant, dungeons, etc, more 'stuff' is nice, but it will be painted (pun, still, not intended) by the combat changes which we don't know... and I am not in a betting mood on whether they did better or worse for that. Given they didn't discuss it I am still certain they haven't really tried to add 'gameplay roleplay' to much at all, I have to imagine combat is going to be vaguely similar to now (which isn't awful, but means more content is more content happy but in a more ambivalent status quo type situation). I'll level the jobs of course, but neither job this time around really sparked my interest beyond wondering how they'll play (visual and thematic wise it's not my thing, but that's okay if others are finding it their thing).

Greatest hope: Better roleplay represented in gameplay
Greatest hype: Cosmic lifestyle content / exploring new zones
Greatest fear: Limited job is going to be a gimped WoW hunter, and I will continue to think they could (should) have just made interesting normal jobs with dynamic mechanics that prove they're not in a design rut.

6.X ‘was’
We got the following

- Usual MSQ, trials, dungeons, alliance, normal raid, Ultimate, blue mage update, pvp updates, gold saucer, relics, more Hildabrand.
- The new island sanctuary lifestyle content
- variant dungeons and criterion
- deep dungeon

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- Field operation got announced now…. Which could tie to the relic once again
- New limited job which could be interesting as its now beast tamer.

Comparing to Endwalker this was added, which besides the limited job we've seen before. I mean I'm not jumping in excitement..... but it's not terrible either. It will depend on how repeatable and fun the content is. I wouldn't called it stacked. And if they do remove criterion, which I hope they don't. Then we're just trading criterion savage for one of these. Meaning we only gain one item.

Alas, it will boil down to how fun the game is to actually play. Will it have danger? Will people feel a thrill doing the content? Or will be a snoozefest to play like all normal content in endwalker was? Only time will tell.

Quality vs Quantity for me.
There can be a bunch of content that is different, but if a lot of that is very niche and not appealing then theirs a good chance that a lot of that is lost to me, It's also possible we could be waiting longer for that content if they increase the amount of weeks it takes for a major patch.

Theirs also the case that right now one of the issues I have personally comes with Tank & Healer job design, to a lesser extent DPS, where they should feel different from each other, all tanks and healers feel the same, tanks are just very boring DPS who are a bit more defensive, Healers are casters with one damage button who throw out a heal every now and then, Fixing the dynamic between how a Job plays from one another and how a different category fits in the first place is important to not just mains of the "support roles" but to anyone who actually wants another way to play other then DPS. Fixing this to me would make the game actually fun to play in most content instead of depending on "hardcore" content to be the only real room for experimenting with combat design. (Also a side note improving job design also improves replay value to that said hardcore content).

I mean at the end of the day they can present a bunch of relic grinds, hard dungeons, explorer dungeons ect. But if the core gameplay of the jobs don't feel different/fun to me then that is the main reason why I'm not having as much fun, or that everything feels the same once done once, as much as I'm interested in better endgame content, I've really wanting FF14 to tackle the core gameplay as well, A big issue with how EW felt is because it felt like a more simplified version of Shadowbringers instead of it's own expansion. I don't want that, I want Dawn Trail to feel like it's own thing compared to EW.

I'm still looking forward to the Expansion despite my issues I think it's great that they are listening to some things that people want.

I agree...

Endwalker and Dawntrail
MSQ, trials, dungeons, alliance raids, normal raids, savage raids, ultimate, blue mage update, pvp series, gold saucer, hildibrand, tribal quests, hunts, treasure hunts, FATEs, deep dungeon, variant dungeons, criterion dungeons.

Dawntrail
Field Operation
New limited job
Lifestyle Content (obviously this was Island Sanctuary in Endwalker, but it seems like it might work more like how Ishgard Restoration did which was more social, which makes it 100x better).

Jobs definitely got nuked to the floor to the point that you just pick the easiest job to play because they lumped the difficulty on the fights rather than the job. GNB feels like it is just a more error prone version of paladin due to the rotational sliding and clipping, and PLD already had that going sometimes with their damage buff window. The DRK and WAR designs are technically better but DRK is just a more complicated warrior in execution. RPR is an easier machinist since they don't have two gauges to manage and thankfully aren't running around with having to balance out multiple OGCDs in the rotation. Summoner is now the easiest caster in the game while RDM is probably the worst of them. Yeah I mean I can see why people would not really look forward to new jobs if the new jobs are just more the same.

Let me put it this way, I used to play paladin a lot before the Shadowbringers rework, then the ShB rework came and I went warrior because it felt like the most unique tank. Then all tanks went to circle AOEs and that took away the one unique thing that warrior still sort of had going for it. Aesthetic differences just aren't enough and it even gets to the point that ROLEs are feeling the same in DPS. Why would anyone play a ranged DPS if they are just weaker and only useful for the group percentage buffs in content? They sort of force people to play different things because of buff windows, because they know if they didn't everyone would just play the same thing.

It sounds stacked, but in reality it feels more like it's just including all of the stuff that should've remained as persistent content to begin with.

i'm just glad we appear to have an expansion with a coherent identity insofar as its setting and the direction it's taking, as opposed to endwalker being more globetrotting and lacking that. the sense of location is one of the strongest aspects of most of the best expansions and dawntrail seems like it's set to be no exception.

Its possible they heard the backlash with how poorly received post msq endwalker has been.

That or they finally finished FFXVI development lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by totalimmortal

i'm just glad we appear to have an expansion with a coherent identity insofar as its setting and the direction it's taking, as opposed to endwalker being more globetrotting and lacking that. the sense of location is one of the strongest aspects of most of the best expansions and dawntrail seems like it's set to be no exception.

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Endwalker was more like the second half of shadowbringers that didn't make it into Shadowbringers. Probably more like the final third of it. The 6.0 content felt okay, just things got progressively worse as they pushed up difficulty on content going towards the end of the expansion. Also the hyper focus on ultimates and savage pushed more people into doing that content and it just takes too long to clear for most people. If folks can't fully unhook from the game they can't escape exhausting themselves. To be fair, this is a common mistake with MMO developers in general on judging what content is best for the game. They have to choose who the game is for and the higher the need for coordination and time, the smaller the community is going to be for it.

Looks like routine to me, except field operations, which might echo Bozja/Eureka. At this point I'm only really looking forward to them delivering on job changes (healers) and making the content actually interesting and repeatable.