The one consistent critic on Heavensward is "too much like ARR"? srsly?

[Obysuca]

Well OF COURSE IT IS, it's not a new game, it's the same game with added content.

The problem is, we were kind of expecting a variety of content or something different, not "2 dungeons to spam for 4-5 months", log on, do expert/cap, do alex, log off until Tuesday. You can tell that formula was already stale within 6 months of release, just by looking at the amount of people who had quit by then. If people were already quitting and taking long breaks (which isn't the goal of a mmo, the goal is to keep people playing every month) because of that, you can see why we were hoping it'd be more than 2.0 with dragons.

I don't know if this is your first mmo or not, but usually expansions for a mmo add something new and different alongside the current content, not just an almost exact copy of everything over the last year and a half. Congratulations, SE tricked all of us into paying 50.00 - 120.00 for the exact same content we get for "free" every 3-5 months. I can tell you, if 4.0 is more of 2.0, they'll start bleeding subs fast.

That's precisely the point. An expansion makes the game bigger, nothing else.

But... besides the zones, it didn't make it bigger. We have the exact same amount of content as we did in 2.0, especially since SE outdates stuff faster than its out for, there's pretty much no point in going back and doing coil or CT. That's another problem with how they're doing things, by 4.0, we'll have a massive amount of the game that's just dead and void of people doing the content (coil, hm primals, CT etc). If you think the whole "we can't add more inventory because the servers would crash" is bad now, wait until a massive portion of the game is outdated, empty and useless. All that data just sitting there, for nothing.

[SecretCrowds]

I can tell you, if 4.0 is more of 2.0, they'll start bleeding subs fast.

Really? Didn't the opposite happen to WoW? They bled subs after changing stuff.

[Dorfentyme]

But... besides the zones, it didn't make it bigger. We have the exact same amount of content as we did in 2.0, especially since SE outdates stuff faster than its out for, there's pretty much no point in going back and doing coil or CT. That's another problem with how they're doing things, by 4.0, we'll have a massive amount of the game that's just dead and void of people doing the content (coil, hm primals, CT etc). If you think the whole "we can't add more inventory because the servers would crash" is bad now, wait until a massive portion of the game is outdated, empty and useless. All that data just sitting there, for nothing.

We actually got less in 3.0. The endgame content may be roughly the same, but we actually got a lot less content with Heavensward than we did in 2.0. 2.0 had 16 dungeons. 3.0 has 8. No hunting log(the 53/56/59 hunts are just the same thing as the hunt system introduced later in the game, not exactly a hunting log to help with leveling, no new leves(they REALLY could have done some great tweaks here, but no, copy paste), 2 primals instead of 3. I could go on, but I think I made my point.

Having said all that, I'm enjoying Heavensward a lot, but I am completely bummed that we have to sit here and grind the same 2 dungeons repeatedly for the next few months to get our AF gear.

[Obysuca]

We actually got less in 3.0.

True, I was more going for the "what to do at lvl cap" stuff lol But yeah, we did get less. You can also look at it with them adding eso, that we have even less content than we did 2 weeks ago, since most(not everyone, but a good portion) people will just skip alex/law and jump to eso after farming expert :/

[Chewy2nd]

I think people forget that alongside Heavensward's development we were getting dozens of patches and updates, massive content patches. Heavensward is basically a much bigger content patch that adds a boatload more content to the game. It's crazy that they even found the development time to create Heavensward. I mean, in the final patches leading up to Heavensward we got

1. 3 new dungeons
2. 4 new trials
3. 8-12 hours worth of story content
4. A new casual raid
5. A new zone (Gold Saucer)
6. Two new expansive minigames with their own side systems
7. 'GATE' events

and we got all that just six months prior to getting

1. 8 new dungeons
2. 3 new trials (two with extreme modes)
3. A raid with two tiers
4. 15-20 hours worth of storyline content
5. 5 new zones
6. A whole new city with two zones
7. Massive crafting and gathering overhauls
8. 10 extra levels with new actions
9. THREE new jobs
10. A hell of a lot more


But, nope, nothing is ever perfect, Square Enix must work even harder than they are already doing it seems, or maybe they should just put out two crappy low effort patches like other MMOs, cause people will complain either way.

[DukeBurden]

I think people forget that alongside Heavensward's development we were getting dozens of patches and updates, massive content patches. Heavensward is basically a much bigger content patch that adds a boatload more content to the game. It's crazy that they even found the development time to create Heavensward. I mean, in the final patches leading up to Heavenswards we got

No one here is denying the amount of work required to create this content. I think the biggest issue here is how much of this content is DIFFERENT? A small percentage of it. The dungeons, trials, and raids follow the same formula they've been getting released at. That's nothing new. Flying? Cool! New zones? Cool! New jobs? Cool! The rest? To be expected.

[Chewy2nd]

No one here is denying the amount of work required to create this content. I think the biggest issue here is how much of this content is DIFFERENT? A small percentage of it. The dungeons, trials, and raids follow the same formula they've been getting released at. That's nothing new. Flying? Cool! New zones? Cool! New jobs? Cool! The rest? To be expected.

Indeed, but the thing is, all this new stuff doesn't really leave much time for massive overhauls to the structure, perhaps we will see some changes in upcoming patches when they've had time to catch their breath. It's too early in the expansion to judge weather or not it will follow the same old structure.

[Kassiekane]

I think the biggest issue here is how much of this content is DIFFERENT?

[DukeBurden]

LMAO!! I actually laughed out loud at this! XD I agree, there's always the off chance it could be a horrible idea BUT!.... is that worse than doing the same thing from patch to patch?

[DukeBurden]

Also, I'd like to point out that we didn't get "two tiers" of endgame raid. It's still the difficulty of Coil when it first came out. The only difference in Heavensward is that they had to call it SAVAGE to discern the difference to players.

Alexander Gordias (Savage) = The Binding Coil of Bahamut
Alexander Gordias = Alexander Gordias (Story Mode) or (Easy Mode)

The only difference here is they decided to leave the EZMode naming out of it. If you look at the path of progression through Savage, you're expected to do Savage to get the upgrade items for Esoterics gear. This is no different from "weathered" gear. This only means that in a future patch, they'll release an easy, catch up method to obtain upgrade items so everyone can run around at the same iLvl essentially, making it 2.0 all over again.