Which expansion did they get right, and why?

To be honest, the original title was going to be "what did Heavensward do right and why?" but I thought that might be a little too subjective for the topic I had in mind. It came to me as I was running through some dailies, and realised as burnt out as I am on the current content cycle, I always feel a pang of nostalgia and relief when I run HW duties, which got me wondering why I still look back on it so fondly.

I can't speak for every player, but I think it's somewhat fair to say HW is possibly the most beloved expansion overall - ShB steals the spotlight as perhaps the most conventionally popular due to its bombastic ending, but HW is commonly cited as being the most consistently enjoyable throughout, and many vets even now miss those days in particular, through to early SB.

So what was it that made HW feel so much better? Was it the writing? The content? The battle design? Job identity? Going that extra mile implementing new features - a new, fully developed race, three new jobs, a shortened patch schedule, the addition of as of then never before seen content? The story? Or does it perhaps simply benefit from being the very first expansion and immune from the repetitive formula fatigue that plagues us now?

And if you disagree, which time in the game's history did you think was the best, and why?

We are conned into HW being the best because of the flight added? ;) They also killed Lord Haurchefant Greystone, Ysayle (Iceheart) & Papalymo. Many players cried buckets.

I would say IMO its a tie/toss-up between HW and ShB. Both had great storylines and gameplay. Though they did take away some stuff that I like with HW, (Old Diadem, though I didn't do hardly much with it). But loved the story and other options/perks. Same with ShB also great and etc. SB and EW were good as well in their way of course. DT is all right but it's none of the previous x-pacs. Why were they good?, because their storyline drew you in was emotional and really made you close to the characters.

It's not an expansion they got right, but specific aspects.

Heavensward was only good on the surface. By that I mean, job complexity (but a lot of it was useless jank and bloat). Stat choice (but an illusion of choice because most stats sucked like Parry, or were required like Accuracy). Not as much homogenization (but then you had Paladin's struggling to mitigate Alexander). Materia diversity (but it was a trap, because your alternative choices were Piety, Elemental stats, main stats that did not benefit your job, and lack of clarity on if stat cap reached). Cross-class being something we could have fun with (but it was abandoned and poorly implemented, only supporting class skills not job skills without their traits that make them useful).

So SE fixed the issues under the surface by removing them all and not replacing them with something better, leaving what many would say feels overly simplistic.

The story of Heavensward was what made it great, of course. It felt like an adventure and there was a lot of lore that had been teased and speculated on. They had talked about Sharlayans a lot, for example, so the Hinterlands had me excited until I saw it was rubble and "they all abandoned it". It wasn't really until Shadowbringers and Endwalker that we had some expansion stories that gave Heavensward's story competition. The issue now of course is most of the lore has been explained so the mystery isn't there as much.

What Heavensward did have right, was the holy trinity. As a tank, I needed the healer. As a healer, I needed to heal. If I tried to pull some enemies without a healer or without a tank, they would kill me. Vulns made you very vulnerable. This wasn't always easy to accept, but it felt right, so I accepted it had to be this way. So to have got to a point where we no longer need to rely on eachother doesn't seem right. Dungeons still feel like teamwork, but only insofar as our damage contribution, whereas, the struggle of mitigating and healing was part of the teamwork back then. Where you could finish a pull and respect the healer - not like now, where you don't need the healer.

I could go into what other expansions did right or wrong, but none of them did everything right. A lot of Quality of Life was added over the years, so the game would be a complete nightmare if you actually went back to Heavensward. There were annoyances and frustrations we put up with and probably the people who did had the time to do so. Despite that, it's a drop in the ocean of the amount of quality of life issues that there are overall which take many years to be looked at.

HW when the game wasn't yet trying to pass for an action game with little substance behind.

But honestly hard to say otherwise. HW certainly had... utter failures, like Diadem, even though it had actually great itemization gearing ideas.

It's Shadowbringers though. HW ages really poorly when you play it on an alt, unlike ShB, which remains engaging until you're dealing with the damn train. Fuck that train. ShB's strong point really, really isn't just its ending. It's its inherent narrative consistency because it contains good usage of all the plot threads Ishikawa started at some point, lol.

HW wasn't perfect, but it set up a good base to evolve upon until the dev team decided to tear it all down in SB because suddenly every job requires gauges.

I would have liked to see them build upon the cross-class system, because while some abilities were less than useful on the class that learns it, other jobs could gain benefit from it. Like how Feint was useless for DRG but MCH and BRD could find a niche use for it, or Surecast being not very useful for BLM but the healers could use it because raidwides can interrupt precasting heals, or Fracture being not that great on WAR but fantastic on MNK, etc.

I think the only thing that greatly disappointed me in HW was the original launch Diadem, no one liked grinding dino island.

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

It's Shadowbringers though. HW ages really poorly when you play it on an alt, unlike ShB, which remains engaging until you're dealing with the damn train. Fuck that train. ShB's strong point really, really isn't just its ending. It's its inherent narrative consistency because it contains good usage of all the plot threads Ishikawa started at some point, lol.

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I've found the opposite, I've replayed Heavensward multiple times and always find myself enjoying it, whereas I expected to like ShB but found subsequent playthroughs kind of tedious. I feel like HW's character and scenario writing is a lot stronger which is what makes it fun to go back through, while ShB has insane atmosphere and mood setting but is a step behind in that regard, so it loses some of the impact after playing it for the first time. The sin eaters storyline really was great, but the characters themselves just feel a little bland outside of Emet and Vauthry. Especially considering they're living in a world that's nigh-apocalyptic, everyone just feels remarkably well-adjusted (?) and I miss the personal conflicts that drove the story in the game's earlier years.

I can see what you mean. I think the parts where we were hanging out with Alohinaud, Estinien and Ysale were great. I think ShB's characters' "chill"ness in part does stem from the Exarch being there for like 100 years doing damage control. I also just remembered how much I hated Werlyt so I think I'm gonna say that 5.0 is great but the trial series sucks. Sadly, the waifufication of G'raha Tia in the period past 5.3 didn't help. But I felt that way about all characters that have obvious crushes on the WoL...

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

I can see what you mean. I think the parts where we were hanging out with Alohinaud, Estinien and Ysale were great. I think ShB's characters' "chill"ness in part does stem from the Exarch being there for like 100 years doing damage control. I also just remembered how much I hated Werlyt so I think I'm gonna say that 5.0 is great but the trial series sucks. Sadly, the waifufication of G'raha Tia in the period past 5.3 didn't help. But I felt that way about all characters that have obvious crushes on the WoL...

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To this day I don't think we've had a party I've enjoyed half as much as Ysayle and Estinien, lol. And it's also where a lot of the Scion fatigue comes from - it's very hard to be enthused about character dynamics that boil down to polite academic debates over tea and dinner parties. I miss when characters used to clash and fight and bicker, you know?

I think as well the Crystarium was also meant to be a message about the good in humanity and our finding hope in the darkness etc. etc. (especially as a counterweight to Eulmore's self-indulgence), which is fair enough, it just... fell kind of flat. And even amongst Eulmore's citizenry, there wasn't much conflict either before or after we ousted their leadership, and it's the lack of depth to the characters that just don't give it quite the same weight or intrigue HW had, even though other parts of the storyline were really good. I did like Lyna, though.

Werlyt was dreadful. To the point I just pretend it didn't exist, lol.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Hmm, I started playing through ARR during post-Endwalker, and did HW/STB/SHB during current Dawntrail, so I can't exactly speak on how all of them were back at launch from the perspective of them being "new and exciting" with regards to their changes and additions...

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...wow, that's an unpopular opinion if ever I saw one! DG and SoS at the bottom of the list is certainly a first. Were there any story beats or characters you did find yourself connecting with/ enjoying? Seeing that you like tribes and sidequests does match with you placing ARR second though, lol. I guess you're a fan of worldbuilding?

Uhhh...

On release I am inclined to say that Stormblood was the best. It felt rewarding to do whatever it was that you wanted to do.

I liked HW also, it required effort, it too felt rewarding, e.g., crafting first set of Ironworks gear. Neo Aetherstones bred an absurd amount of life into doing Coils unsync... But granted, some of it was because some systems were a little clunky,

Shadowbringers, Endwalker and Dawntrail have all felt like expansions where they've just been giving tokenisms to players for things they ripped away from said players... Rewarding manual crafts, and a reason to actually learn the crafting system? Expert recipes, and even then, they don't feel core, and nor do they hold a candle to systems like WWYW.

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

It's Shadowbringers though. HW ages really poorly when you play it on an alt, unlike ShB, which remains engaging until you're dealing with the damn train. Fuck that train. ShB's strong point really, really isn't just its ending. It's its inherent narrative consistency because it contains good usage of all the plot threads Ishikawa started at some point, lol.

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While I enjoyed HW, and it was my favorite until I got to ShB, I agree with your opinion on ShB… it really felt like everything was coming together, all those threads being woven into one tapestry. And it’s even more amazing when you realize they didn’t even plan out every detail in advance! They just made things fit!

It’s also why I enjoyed EW, even though it gets a lot of negative feedback… to me, EW was just ShB part 2, and tied up the story arc in a way I found very satisfying.

I don’t hate DT… but it’s not really thrilling me. I find a lot of the side stories stronger than the MSQ, although I feel it’s improving. We just really need to set up the next big arc, to get a sense that things are going somewhere. I get that maybe they felt ShB/EW was really “dark” or “heavy,” and they were trying for a more lighthearted expansion. But I want the story to get back to that level of emotionally powerful again. I want the story to punch me in the gut and make me cry. lol DT, especially towards the end and the patches, actually touches on exploring some deeper themes (what constitutes life, AI and the benefits/harm of technology, etc.), but not with the depth and emotional power of ShB/EW.

Story wise? Likely shadowbringers. Personal preference though, I also liked HW and parts of EW.

Gameplay wise? I'd say also shadowbringers but they made a lot of the trends that plauge the game to this day, Ideally we'd find ourselfs between something like Stormblood and Shadowbringers, but having its own interesting unique direction that isn't the same old bland game design we've been getting for a good while now.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

I've found the opposite, I've replayed Heavensward multiple times and always find myself enjoying it, whereas I expected to like ShB but found subsequent playthroughs kind of tedious. I feel like HW's character and scenario writing is a lot stronger which is what makes it fun to go back through, while ShB has insane atmosphere and mood setting but is a step behind in that regard, so it loses some of the impact after playing it for the first time. The sin eaters storyline really was great, but the characters themselves just feel a little bland outside of Emet and Vauthry. Especially considering they're living in a world that's nigh-apocalyptic, everyone just feels remarkably well-adjusted (?) and I miss the personal conflicts that drove the story in the game's earlier years.

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The mindset of the locals makes sense when you consider that some viis would be the only ones that had ever known a different state of affairs. The apocalypse drawing closer and being completely inescapable had been a fact for several generations.

Shadowbringers offers solid, dedicated story with exactly defined goals taking place in a specific, well detailed region. Though there is plenty of slog and filler, it is overall better than other expansions.

Stormblood feels like the last expansion where they bothered doing creative things with instance and fight design (like the minigame phases in the Four Lords trials, or things like St Mocianne's Hard dungeon having extra/optional mechanics like rinsing off mobs, or that one mob that can transform other enemies if you get them in its AOE cast). It's also where we got Eureka, the Ivalice raids, and in general a pretty wide host of interesting and creative content.

Shadowbringers... narrative wise, they got it "too" right I think, to the point each expansion we've gotten after it has just been rehashing the core concept of ShB and trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle it was. Felt like EW was rushed and unsatisfying? Not a fan of how DT turned into "oops yet another apocalyptic event involving yet another shard and also our 3rd final dungeon with the villain narrating us through a flashback"? You can thank Shadowbringers for that!

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Originally Posted by Jaltaer

Stormblood feels like the last expansion where they bothered doing creative things with instance and fight design (like the minigame phases in the Four Lords trials, or things like St Mocianne's Hard dungeon having extra/optional mechanics like rinsing off mobs, or that one mob that can transform other enemies if you get them in its AOE cast). It's also where we got Eureka, the Ivalice raids, and in general a pretty wide host of interesting and creative content.

Shadowbringers... narrative wise, they got it "too" right I think, to the point each expansion we've gotten after it has just been rehashing the core concept of ShB and trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle it was. Felt like EW was rushed and unsatisfying? Not a fan of how DT turned into "oops yet another apocalyptic event involving yet another shard and also our 3rd final dungeon with the villain narrating us through a flashback"? You can thank Shadowbringers for that!

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Pretty much this.
People always gush about Shadowbringer's story but I consider it patient zero for the rot that has settled in this game.
As you said it is the reason for every MSQ following a similar template, but it's also the start of the incredibly stagnant job and fight design.

Funnily enough when people say "Stormblood story bad" they always tend to ignore the patch story from 4.2 onward. Building up Garlemald as more than just vague bad guy empire and giving us a glimpse of the political intrigue and factions within it...which was then completely sidelined in ShB and thoroughly destroyed by Endwalker, along with any remaining old story threads.

wuk lamat aside, dawntrail ist the best for me
90% of each expansion is copy/paste anyway, but 7.0 has the best dungeons and fights imo. The maps are also pretty. The moonbase stuff is much better than the island or diadem aswell. Chaotic and quantum are also nice steps that they took

I feel like people often look back at Heavensward with rose-tinted glasses.

It's still my second favorite expansion for many of the reasons people have already mentioned and the elf camping trip arc to get answers from Hraesvelgr was among one of the high points for the entire game. But then there was other stuff people tend to leave out of their nostalgic memories like having to go back to deal with Ul'dah junk, the waaaaaay too long moogle quests that interrupted the main story, the multiple versions of HW Diadem, BRD and MCH being forced to sit still as casters, MCH having a really un-fun RNG rotation and DPS much more reliant on ping, certain Alexander raids were so frustrating that it permanently damaged friendships, Wiping City of Mhach feeling like purgatory upon release since there were so many mechanics that a single person could mess up that could wipe the alliance.

Shadowbringers is looked at fondly IMO for a bunch of reasons. It tightened up the story really well so we weren't split between distinct arcs that broke the flow of the plot. The "cute mascot break" that HW, SB, and EW did here felt more natural and integrated into the plot by having them connected to Urianger and a Lightwarden while the "cute mascots" themselves still presented an element danger. The Scions are finally all present at the same time again with equal screentime and they each received character growth and attention from the writers. The WoL went from a silent hanger-on to more important NPCs who were actually doing the important things to suddenly being the main protagonist who is driving the plot.

Shadowbringers felt like its own game in itself while Heavensward just felt like just another (good) expansion.

My brother who has played way more Final Fantasy games than I have but hates MMOs even picked up FFXIV just to play ARR through Shadowbringers and then quit after he finished it but said the Shadowbringers piece is his top 5 of FF stories.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Pretty much this.
People always gush about Shadowbringer's story but I consider it patient zero for the rot that has settled in this game.
As you said it is the reason for every MSQ following a similar template, but it's also the start of the incredibly stagnant job and fight design.

Funnily enough when people say "Stormblood story bad" they always tend to ignore the patch story from 4.2 onward. Building up Garlemald as more than just vague bad guy empire and giving us a glimpse of the political intrigue and factions within it...which was then completely sidelined in ShB and thoroughly destroyed by Endwalker, along with any remaining old lore.

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Yeah, as much as I love Shadowbringers they can't just do it again to get the same effect (not to mention they also had outside factors for those sales). I'm also convinced I enjoyed the jobs at the time because it still had traces of what made them good rather than any of the simplifications they've done being actually good. Bozja was fantastic and they missed pretty much every mark on what made it good with Occult Crescent too.

I think they don't have any idea what specifically was good about that expansion and have been blindly tracing its outlines since.

Shadowbringers has the best MSQ by far. HOWEVER, I think Stormblood I feel is when they got the expansion “right”. The story wasn’t perfect and really didn’t get that great until the .x patches, but we had a great amount and variety of content that we just haven’t had since.

• Beast Tribes (or “Allied Societies”) were starting to be viable leveling options, had pretty good rewards and still gave us glam. We also still had the allied quest with a nice reward.
  
• We had a deep dungeon AND [I]four[I] exploratory zones in Eureka.
  
• Treasure Maps and their loot were at their peak (both in the volume of available drops and raw Gil), and thief maps gave us another reason to go underwater.
  
• We still got hard mode dungeons, and two dungeons per patch.
  
• We got Blue Mage, and despite being released late in the cycle, it gave people reason to be out in the overworked again, for a while.
  
• Also felt like we got way way way more emotes in that expansion. Especially at launch.
  
• This was just before they started to really stretch out the patch cycle.

Without a doubt, Heavensward.

Many little things were imperfect, but, at this time, Square Enix were giving things for all kind of players. The casual had dungeons or raid on an easy version, but, could still die and had to do some mecanics.

Extreme and Savage raids were for players who wanted a good challenge.

The big plus :
-Difficulty. In everything, even casual stuff, we could die. We need a stress in a game to be fun, not necessary Dark Soul kind of stress, and HW was still far from that, but it was not a braindead game.
-Difficuly on crafting and gatherer : Old players remember that we needed to farm some redscrip to buy talisman, that was enabling special nodes for a limited time. We needed to gather those to get special mats to craft the raid tier, or the crafting/gathering stuff. Also, each crafter had it's own crafted gear that way, same for gatherer. Those thing were harder to script in a bot, so, there was a lot less of unskilled crafter that uses stuff like plugins or bots to solve the crafting. The recipe were also really hard to HQ, especially without all HQ mats.
-Trinity : Healer were needed and had to heal, tanks needed an healer, and DPS had to dps to pass the dps check.
-Job complexity : They were fun. Think of the Dark Knight where you had to manage your mana to tank. No mana = bye bye tank. Machinist was also way more fun. Scholar had dots, cleric stance and many more attack spells. Summoner had a really nice rotation to play. Since ShB, playing a healer feels the same, and they are not really needed anymore. Their dps rotation is basicly spamming a button. They are now so boring to play, and have an heal kit way too strong for what the game challenge.
-Seasonal events were fun. Lots of mini game to farm to get your reward.
-Relic weapons. Probably one of the best set to do, yes, you need to work for it. Not just farm 1500 memoquartz and voila.

I'll stop here, that's my big plus that the game had back them. There is some low side, like for example this is the first expansion where sightseeing became.... boring. it was fun to do in ARR, and then, I really don't get why they keep doing it with this formula.

Thanks for starting the thread! Here's what I feel like each expansion got right (I started playing at the tail end of ShB and finished my MSQ shortly before EW would come out, so consider all of this from that lens):

ARR:

• Interesting mech design: It was not rare to see random dungeon bosses with mechanics unique to them (or to be the first ones to have such mechanics). We're talking having to slice the zombie goobue's belly open when it eats someone--and being able to pass the prey tether to a party member--to prevent them from dying, add management in the Wanderer's Palace and some pretty spicy mechs in Pharos Sirius. They don't have the bite they used to nowadays, but I remember wiping when I was a sprout in ShB and thinking damn, this place got hands lol I am sad this is no longer the case.
• The world felt alive and detailed despite its limitations
• They were not afraid to treat dark topics, but they didn't make the whole story about it. An example is sex trafficking (Sastasha), but they don't push it down your throat either. It's there if you're willing to look for it and it's easy to ignore if you don't want to see it. It really fleshes out how Eorzea is not a fairytale fantasy place, it has a lot of dark things under the surface which are fun to explore.

HW:

• They pick up unsolved mysteries and go deeper, connecting dots and giving us new threads to look forward to. Ishgard is rich in interesting lore considering their history goes back over a thousand years and the truth was hidden all this time.
• High-stakes, but still grounded: It's not world-ending, but when we have to run from Ul'dah after being accused of regicide, everyone gets split up and you just don't know what to do with yourself, it's heavy. You sigh in relief when you find shelter with Haurchefant and Ishgard, and again when you start seeing Scions reunite with the group or show signs of life. This was still the time where we were powerful, but not to the levels where we never have to worry about ourselves or our friends. Death was not inescapable or meaningless back then, and losing an important ally was groundbreaking.
• Leaning more heavily into classic fantasy aesthetics: The gothic-inspired architecture of Ishgard is wonderful. We have knights, dragons, a huge (castle-like) cathedral built over the abyss, it's just wonderful for me who really enjoys this kind of aesthetic.
• Dragons, Ysayle and the introduction of Au Ra. That's it, that's all. 10/10 no notes.

SB:

• Boss design became more epic. Susano's sword mechanic, Tsukuyomi's shifting arena, Suzaku's transformation, Seiryu's waves throwing you all over the place, holding onto Shinryu's scales as he takes you far away into a new arena. It's just really cool and you're still interacting with the fight, it's not just a cutscene!
• Hien's EN voice acting was very fun lol and Lyse's funny comments too, though she tested my patience sometimes!
• Au Ra lore, finally!!!
• They pulled at my heartstrings a few times this expansion: Tsuyu, Papalymo, Werlyt (that was horrible, seriously. Do it again.)

ShB:

• Okay, dark elements making a comeback in full force, I see you! I love it when the story is a bit dark, so naturally I liked this expansion's MSQ. Lore bombs everywhere.
• The concept of Light and Darkness not being this clear good vs. evil thing was really, really interesting and well done imo. It's the kind of thing where you only have one chance to get it right and they knocked it out of the park!
• The world is vibrant and beautiful, but isn't afraid to show its broken state. I think the excuse of most of the First being obliterated by the Flood of Light was perfect to keep the whole shard to just 6 areas. I feel like any other habitable shard should be treated like the ARR map and be given more areas.
• Introduction of Shared Fates, it's fun to do with friends as a mindless grind https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...es/biggrin.png
• Introduction of Amaurot, the ancients, and a huge can of worms that would make the community go insane for a long while (Emet-Selch) lol
• Ryne is precious and we must protect her at all costs. Thancred needs therapy. He always did, but I didn't have an issue with it up until he thought it was a good idea to be mean to the kid in front of me.

EW:

• The grand finale. Grabs all the threads we had lying around and wraps them into a neat bow. If you want to leave here and pretend the game is over, this is the perfect spot for it. Honestly, it doesn't need much more than that to be a successful expansion. I just wish they didn't rush it as hard as they did.
• I did not expect dragons or void lore, but I enjoyed it!
• Loporrits!! I am weak to cute fluffy things. They're so cute and make silly comments. Love the little guys Q_Q
• I feel like some of the most iconic areas in the game are packed into this expansion. Sharlayan was great and gave us so much interesting lore. It was my favorite.
• They finally killed Zenos. I'm so glad lol please don't come back. We've had enough.

DT:

• The sights are amazing. Northern Urqopacha is one of my favorite areas and I feel like they really nailed the vibe they were going for.
• The return to more fast-paced combat from EW was nice to me. Most job changes I really liked. It's not perfect by any means, but it's an upgrade from EW, so I'll take it.
• Mamool Ja lore was very interesting--and horrifying--to me. Especially considering the Mamool Ja boss in Wanderer's.
• Glams are better than ever! Plenty of details, shiny metals, double dyes! There's room for improvement as always, but seeing sneak peeks in LLs is always a treat.
• This is where I would put the housing update, if we already had it! LOL just a little longer... please tell me we're getting it soon... Q_Q

Stormblood & Dawntrail if we're talking strictly encounters.

Shadowbringers was great because it did not have a part one or part two split like in SB, EW or DT, but rather, a single cohesive story from start to finish in another world with both new an familiar characters. It gave the devs a nearly clean slate to tell a new story without having to worry about Etherys.

This is what I want in 8.0, a fresh, new story that is cohesive without two different stories in one expansion. Also, make the WoL the center of the story again.

If they really want to be brave, make us the antagonist until 8.5 and then have opinions change about us, if at all. We saved your shard, most of your lives, even if you don’t like that we did it (maybe they wanted to die?).

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

I feel like people often look back at Heavensward with rose-tinted glasses.

It's still my second favorite expansion for many of the reasons people have already mentioned and the elf camping trip arc to get answers from Hraesvelgr was among one of the high points for the entire game. But then there was other stuff people tend to leave out of their nostalgic memories like having to go back to deal with Ul'dah junk, the waaaaaay too long moogle quests that interrupted the main story, the multiple versions of HW Diadem, BRD and MCH being forced to sit still as casters, MCH having a really un-fun RNG rotation and DPS much more reliant on ping, certain Alexander raids were so frustrating that it permanently damaged friendships, Wiping City of Mhach feeling like purgatory upon release since there were so many mechanics that a single person could mess up that could wipe the alliance.

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The part I enjoyed the most about Heavensward was the stakes, and how the plot felt like it had consequences. Endwalkers and Dawntrail really feel like there were no consequences for anything that happened. No one in the other parts of the world seemed to care about the plot after the garleans were defeated.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

Shadowbringers was great because it did not have a part one or part two split like in SB, EW or DT, but rather, a single cohesive story from start to finish in another world with both new an familiar characters. It gave the devs a nearly clean slate to tell a new story without having to worry about Etherys.

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yes! The split in the plot I hate that. I think they do the split in the plot because the 4 Act story is a popular format in japan where act 1 and 2 are reflections of 3 and 4 - but I prefer a story that continues through the beginning and we don't get a moment that goes "and now time for something completely different'

the reason it hurts the stories in 14 is because it takes away time that could have been used to develop the relevant characters. Like Wuk Lamat and Lyse in DT and SB get sped run through their development which left a lot of players frustrated with the characters. compare to alphinaud who gets the pre-heavensward and all of heavensward to develop and learn from his mistakes.

I loved HW, SHB, EW. The story was engaging and emotional, we had great NPCs we cared about, fought along side or had to say goodbye to, the WOL was able to be the focus of the story but still allow other characters to tell their story, the plot although not perfect was really solid most of the time and it had most importantly momentum, some cutscenes really hit hard and blew me away, there were many overall WOW moments throughout the MSQ… in comparison DT had almost none of that.

Overall, I'd say Stormblood got it right. Job design had more varied playstyles, combat encounters were more creative, and while the MSQ wasn't as well received, it was still competent, with patch MSQ being a decent high point of the expansion in my mind.

If we're talking story, then Shadowbringers is the obvious choice for an expansion they got right, but that's where the job design started to stagnate, and encounters started slipping with it.

I think Stormblood since they started leaning into adding more quality to various aspects of the game, and things still felt varied to some degree. Of course there was the big downside with some of their job design choices, but the other aspects were generally great.

Anyone who says shb only cares about the story or doesnt actually play mmos

SB is the most holistically “good” expansion

ShB has a better story and sense of place but is held back by its oversimplification of the jobs and its streamlining of content design

HW “felt” more like an MMO but was held back by esoteric job design and a complete lack of side content

EW was honestly just bad, the story subbed ShB’s epic build or ARR/HW’s political intrigue for glorified hype moments and aura farming and side content reached a critical low

SB balances a good but not perfect story with a well designed set of patch stories that is arguably the only expansion where the patch quests retroactively made the main expansion story better, a wealth of side content that catered to almost every level of play and a good patch cadence with the best balance of HW clunky jobs and ShB “the job plays itself”

Story wise I'm thinking ShB > HW > StB > ARR/EW >>>> Post-EW >>>> DT. It's the only part where I can rate equally as they do not change, and I was already around before they decided to cull some quests out of ARR (still won't forgive them for culling post ARR Sylphland portion smh).

Job gameplay wise is harder because I'm a ShB baby and thus cannot have any firsthand experience from anything prior to that. Without accounting pre-ShB, I can only say ShB >>>> EW > DT. That being said, we have wayback machine and several sources that I can refer to compare, which I've came to conclude the following: StB >>>> HW > ShB >>>> EW > DT. If only we could have a blend of StB's job complexities and the unclunkiness of ShB gameplay, I'm 99.99% sold.

Content wise is also similar with job gameplay: StB > ShB > ARR/HW >>>> EW/DT. Admittedly this is biased because StB and ShB has both of my favorite contents which are Eureka and Save the Queen. I placed ARR and HW next because those were the times when they still bothered to try new things even though some ended up flopping hard like Diadem, or was poorly balanced like Gordias savage. EW is placed far behind because that's when they IMHO catered too much to single player experience in their goddamned MMO while also not understanding what a 'vacation' (lol Isle lmao) means on top of that. There was also the start of overreliance on body checks in most EX/Savage fights as well which was pretty much the turning point for me to almost never wanting to PF anymore for charities to fill out empty healer slots (it also coincides with peaking healer disappointment in general).

I could go on but that would mean flooding a forum section with my rambling so I'll stop here.