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

[DukeBurden]

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

Oh, idk... how about some F!@#ing variety!? There's NO endgame content outside of whatever the current Ex primal is and whatever the current endgame raid is. NOTHING else! How about a little VARIETY in the stats. There are THREE stats in the game. Det, Crit and Speeds. How about some open world content that drops rare gear and materials worth gil. How about some OTHER endgame raids that drop gear with unique stats to empower your character? (ie Dynamis, Nyzul Isle, Assault, Salvage, Einherjar). How about VARIETY!?

[Kogasan]

Well, I'm not in the group of disappointed players but I think that this game have a huge problem: there's a total lack of mid-content, and if you play more than 1 hour a day outside raids you don't have nothing to do.


The only thing I can say to SE is that they keep missing to design some mid-content.
A lot of things balanced for casuals and beginners, something designed for hardcore gamers but nothing middle for the ones .

I agree with you se really does need to stop forgetting about the middle people. What I think they should have done was made a beginners Alex aka Alex normal, a Alex for people who thought Alex normal was to easy where they should have put the eso upgrade items, and a Alex savage where they put Alex savage gear.

[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.

[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.

[Gekipie]

ayyy no matter how much "new" or "different" content they will add or how fast they will do it, people will go absolutely nuts, and farm everything they can within the first week or two. Then it just becomes another boring content again, and players will be back on the forums/reddit, complaining how they have nothing to do, and they need new stuff. Let's face it, grind, no matter what kind, will still end up a grind, no matter how different. Gold Saucer was new and interesting, people couldn't even teleport in and out of the are for a good half a day. And now it's basically a ghost town. Everything is interesting when it's new and sparkly, but yea, grind is a grind is a grind is a grind, and that's what mmos are built around.

[Onikimaru]

If you want this game to start innovating and pushing the boundaries on what content we can expect start a protest against the ps3, what?, i'm being serious >.>

[Chewy2nd]

All being said, I do hope the developers do take note on what people are saying, it would be interesting for them to change things up a bit, I don't mind how the game is at the moment, but it would be nice to see the formula differ a bit by the time we reach 3.5. I like the sounds of what they are thinking of doing with the 24-man raid, in splitting the raid up into teams, rather than throwing us in a big round room.

[DukeBurden]

ayyy no matter how much "new" or "different" content they will add or how fast they will do it, people will go absolutely nuts, and farm everything they can within the first week or two. Then it just becomes another boring content again, and players will be back on the forums/reddit, complaining how they have nothing to do, and they need new stuff. Let's face it, grind, no matter what kind, will still end up a grind, no matter how different. Gold Saucer was new and interesting, people couldn't even teleport in and out of the are for a good half a day. And now it's basically a ghost town. Everything is interesting when it's new and sparkly, but yea, grind is a grind is a grind is a grind, and that's what mmos are built around.

Believe me, I know what's to be expected in an MMO. It's hard work, it's dedication, it's a second job almost. I don't mind grinding and staying busy at the endgame as long as there is endgame to play. I quit FFXI after 6yrs cause there was TOO MUCH to do and I was overwhelmed, I tapped out. FFXIV has me so bored by Wednesday after reset, I have to find other MMOs to play. I want to support FFXIV and hope to see it change SOMEHOW but it's been 2yrs and they took the safe route with Heavensward. That's a punch to the gut to people who were actually expecting something innovative.