Expansion is only temporarily enjoyable. Fails to fix all main flaws.

[Crayge]

You can be a sheep or you can be a tiger. Obviously you'll get more of the former, but does not mean the latter don't exist and shouldn't have options to walk their own path.

So I only have the choices of being a sheep or a tiger? What if I want to be a bear? Or some kind of lemur? I feel so creatively stifled by your lack of choices...

[Lucidbro]

You can be a sheep or you can be a tiger. Obviously you'll get more of the former, but does not mean the latter don't exist and shouldn't have options to walk their own path.

Yes, and for the people that only look up builds on the internet without attempting to create them themselves nothing will change, what you have right now is only 1 "build/way to play" anyway, so if these people think there is only 1 viable build, in practice nothing will change for them, they'll be playing that mainstream build, whereas it leaves room for other more inquisitive players to test and adjust theirs. There are only upsides.

[Kona_Nightwind]

Show me a game that delivers what you want. I'm going to guess there isn't one, because you'd be playing it. MMO players complain just to complain. This is the best dev team of any MMO I've played. The amount of content they put out is amazing. The only problem is the lack of pvp, which for me is a good thing because I don't have the time.

[Kekeri]

then someone finds that perfect build

It depends on how things are designed, as I suggested. Not an MMO, but take Warframe. Different frames have qualitatively different effects, and some are more effective at some "roles" than others. However, there are various ways to build a frame from an efficacy standpoint, and there are gear builds that make you play differently - separate entirely from how you build out your frame.

FF XIV starts with an illusion of flexibility (cross-class skills, etc.), and then you lose it all. Jobs pare down cross-class skills to nothing but required skills. Gear becomes ultra-linear (general caster gear vs. Fending/Slaying). Gear/level just directly mods stats upwards. It's not a system made for variety, but systems with variety ARE possible.

The system demands the "perfect build" now, because the only thing the game is designed for is a character fitting a fixed mold they plan the mechanics around.

[ScarecrowJames]

I loved the story and some things they fixed according to feedback but you are right. They brought absolutely nothing new which is in my opinion a huge problem after almost 2 years.. we should be definitely moving forward.. not staying on the same place with a bit different textures and mobs..

Sadly I didn't love the story. There were some good moments but sometimes I was beginning to fall asleep. Maybe If my character had a voice or something even if it didn't change the story but made me feel like my character has a personality. I found my self ended skipping cut scenes especially the boring Fantasy dialogue. Of course with great Voice Actors They could have carried me along the story but they fail to, while Joker and Scarecrow carried me all the way to the end of Arkham Knight despite The easy and boring Tank-mobile combat.

Sometimes I wonder why I even play Final Fantasy XIV then I remember..its Final Fantasy..its the same reason as to why I played Final Fantasy XIII. Not to mention most other mmos either look to cartoony or to sexualized or way to Fictional Korean inspired Gear because...they are mostly Korean mmos.

[Mature]

I'm really pleased with the expansion , no issues at all . I'm enjoying myself.

[Ferocious]

Show me a game that delivers what you want. I'm going to guess there isn't one, because you'd be playing it. MMO players complain just to complain. This is the best dev team of any MMO I've played. The amount of content they put out is amazing. The only problem is the lack of pvp, which for me is a good thing because I don't have the time.

Sure, plenty of examples. Rift (before it went F2P) was everything I described in OP. Amazing character build system, multiple paths to obtain gear, challenging content and expansion launched with three raids. It was a WoW clone like FFXIV, but felt more like its true successor than FFXIV does. Too bad, they ditched the game and made it trash after F2P. Guild Wars 1 is another perfect example of what I described. It had countless character builds that were unique, some of the best expansions ever and content that was perfectly balanced for both casuals/hardcores. For a recent release, Wildstar had everything going for it too and had the followers to make it big, but they screwed up big time with balance issues, defects and awful campaign.

Now you may think FFXIV is still alive because it does something better, but in fact it's mostly popular because of its FF franchise name. Therefore, it also attracts many casuals that prefer questing and crafting over raiding. That's fine, but the issue is with the content balance. Currently only 5% of it is catered towards hardcores. A little more won't hurt to have.

Your first 3 cons are the intentional design direction of the game.

Is that a nice way of saying intentional lazy development?

May as well criticize CoD for not having a diplomacy minigame, or Witcher3 for not having spaceships. Diplomacy can be fun, and spaceships can be fun, but everything has its time and place.

Your examples are comparing apples and oranges. Everything I mentioned indeed has its time and place with FFXIV. I didn't suggest anything out of the ordinary. It is things that improve on its existing features. That's what expansions do. They aren't just more content. They're supposed to improve, bring new features and listen to user feedback to iron out previous flaws. But unfortunately as I have said, it's only more of the same. It feels like one of their content patches except with level cap increased.

[Kallera]

I'd say all of the things I remember finding wrong in 2.0 have been addressed in some manner or another in 3.0.

And simply making really hard/harder/harderest content even harder isn't quite the answer when the problem is the majority of the audience is unable or unwilling to take part in it in the first place.

When the stats show that they have the right toning of difficulty and more players are getting involved, then that's a good cause to branch out raids.

[Balipu]

It might be a bit premature to judge the expansion as we don't even have all the content yet. Savage Alexander and the new pvp area won't even come till two weeks from now.
I didn't really had much problem with 2.0 so not much needed fixing for me.
Zones are bigger and look better, mobs are tougher, graphics are better, voice acting is better, soundtrack is better, story is better and we can fly.
As for something very different: ARR had stuff like housing, marriage, and the whole freakin Gold Saucer as patch content. I'm pretty sure the 3.x cycle will deliver things you never tought possible.
Me? I just want Hildibrand back. And vampires.

[Kona_Nightwind]

Opinions and made up numbers.

So what you are saying is there isn't one, all the games you describe crashed and burned or had very small player bases. Sound like a good business plan, SE should get right on it.

The franchise name is not carrying the game, just go see FFXIV pre 2.0. FYI casuals pay the bills not hardcore players. That 5% of content is for 5% of the player base. I also can make up numbers to support my opinion. I love the internet.