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

[Chewy2nd]

The game changes more with the smaller patches than the big expansions, 3.1 is bringing us something new, with the whole airship system, which could be very interesting.

[Delily]

If you look at the history of most MMOs, the largest drop in subs usually happens when the devs decide to radically alter gameplay. I'm sure they will start experimenting with different forms of content, but don't expect the core game to change.

[Saziel]

It's not that it's too much like ARR, it's the illusion that we got any new content.

450 tomes/week for gear, again.
8 man, 4 turns end-game raid, again.
Weekly Alex, instead of weekly towers, to get fill-in gear, again.
Linear faceroll dungeons throughout the story, again.
EX primals that are beaten on the first day, again.
New hunts, same thing, again.
New maps, same concept, again.
Temple leves, same concept (maybe not even worth it), again.
FC airship is pretty much like ventures, again.

The only thing I feel that changed is gathering/crafting (with a lot still being the same "wait for node to pop", but with shorter windows), and I can't really say it changed for better, though.

What changed in your daily playtime from before and after HW? Nothing.

Exactly how I feel.

[AsakuraVN]

If any of you would actually read the Live letters, you'd know that the main content of HW isn't even out yet, 3.0 is just the base. There're still tons of things needed to be fixed, pushing out new contents now only make people complaint even more...

[AlexionSkylark]

But the question is, WHAT exactly you wanted to change? It seems like you didn't like 2.x and wanted to play a different game altogether. Every MMO is about its storylines, and runningg dungeons/raids. You wanted that to change? Again, you wanted another game.

I'll take WoW as an example since I played it from Vanilla do Pandaria.

Burning Crusade - added new zones, quests, dungeons, raids, 2 races (along with their starting zones) and gems (plus the tradeskill that makes gems).
Wrath of the Lich King - more zones, quests, dungeons, raids, a new class, and a tradeskill
Cataclysm: a revamp of the old ones, quests, dungeons, raids, reforging and a tweaked talent system, plus some changes in a bunch of class mechanics, and (AT THE END) easy-mode versions of raids.
Mists of Pandaria: more zones, quests, dungeons, raids, a new talent system, a new race (along with its starting zone), and time attack mode for dungeons.

The core gameplay remained the SAME all through those expansions: level to cap, grind gear (either on dungeons, daily quests, LFR or a combination of those, depending on the expansion), go do raids, then heroic raids, then you're through. Granted, a small minority of ppl ever got to complete heroic raids, so most ppl always had something to do. Other than that, what changed from expansion to expansion? some tweakings on difficulty-levels and size of raids?

Maybe the only thing that would qualify as so game-changing as you want would be the Garrison features on Warlords of Draenor. Which lots of ppl complain about, I hear (My WoW account is frozen ever since FFXIV 2.0 launch, didn't play WoD. Other than that, I can even say Heavensward added more content to this game than I saw on most X.0 versions of WoW. The new maps are HUGE, the storyline is just as long as the ARR one...

Sure, 3.0 has fewer light party dungeons than 2.0 (8 against 14) and fewer primals (2 against 3). But guess what? 2.0 rehashed a LOT of old 1.0 content, while 3.0 content is brand new built from scratch. That has a lot of value. Sounds to me that the complainers are ppl who didn't enjoy the game and wanted it to be turned into something else... Expansions are that. They EXPAND the game. This is not, nor it was meant to be, "A realm re-reborn".

[Chewy2nd]

If any of you would actually read the Live letters, you'd know that the main content of HW isn't even out yet, 3.0 is just the base. There're still tons of things needed to be fixed, pushing out new contents now only make people complaint even more...

Pretty much this, ARR felt pretty barebones when it first came out, so much so that I left until patch 2.2. I'm pretty sure they plan on adding dozens of little changes along the way, and IMO, that is the best way to do it, rather than change a ton of stuff at once, alienating all the players.

To those complaining about the Airships just being another form of ventures, we will actually be able to board the airships in 3.1 and go exploring in them.

[Natashio]

If any of you would actually read the Live letters, you'd know that the main content of HW isn't even out yet, 3.0 is just the base. There're still tons of things needed to be fixed, pushing out new contents now only make people complaint even more...

Everybody knows that. It's not the point. The point is that developers could of brought in new or old school ways of content, but they decided to continue the same run the treadmill content that we had been running the treadmill for the pass 2 years.

Everything gets obsoleted every 2 plus months. Do I see any reason to cap esoterics every week.. No I don't, cause I know that gear will be obsolete and dropped as dungeon token exchange a la i90 artifact armor.
Sure they need to fix things, no doubt. They also need to stop taking content and making it worthless faster than what I can get to experience it.

[DukeBurden]

The problem with Heavensward is that NOTHING is new. It's literally the same garbage formula from 2.0. The same exact patch patterns, the same exact gear progression. It's literally a PATCH that you paid for. Expansions should be innovative, not more of the same crap "now with flying! : D" I want you to think long and hard and actually tell me what's different about Heavensward.... you already know what you'll be getting 6 months from now. That's boring.

[AlexionSkylark]

and what expansion from what MMO is not just a big patch with more content than regular patches??
What EXACTLY did you want? for the game to steer away from grinding dungeons? that's the core mechanic of every MMO, they change that, might as well do another game

[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 :/