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

[Kayote]

As many things as Blizzard addresses, there are just as many that don't get addressed because "they disagree".

Welcome to real world. You can't please everyone.

Ok, and this thread is asking why people keep saying the game is "too much like ARR" ... I answered. I mean the thread is full of examples. I dont see how "Welcome to real world. You can't please everyone." has anything to do with the topic at hand. SE added stuff, but changed next to nothing. Thats what the critics are saying.

The expansion got great scores despite its critiques, so whats the deal? "Welcome to the real world" ... I guess you really "cant please everyone"

[Eekiki]

They also need to stop taking content and making it worthless faster than what I can get to experience it.

This is my primary and one of my only complaints about this game. Especially since the design made it impossible to get some of the Alexander gear before it was outdated by Esoteric and Alexander Savage gear.

[Kallera]

If people believe arr had flaws, then "more of the same" doesn't exactly address their problems with ffxiv.

What changes they did make, i appreciate, though.

[Seryl199]

I’m a mid-core player, and I feel that there’s very little content for me to enjoy. I do my daily roulettes and log off every day, unless an FC member needs help with anything. Raids can be fun, but I only like to do them with players I’m comfortable with, it's not my main focus of the game, and our FC members mostly haven’t geared for it. I don't want to level another class, because Astrologian has been a huge breath of life for me, but I'm leveling Paladin from 50 anyways because I have nothing better to do with my level 60 class.

I'm not wishing for anything outlandish, I can handle a capped tome grind, that's nothing new, worked for two years since I started in 2.0. But, two years down the road, capping my weekly tomestones is the only mid-core "content" for me to enjoy at level 60, which consists of very limited options to obtain, resulting in me banging out the dailies I need in less than an hour, then playing something else. I wish there was some kind of cumulative glamour grind to chip away at, like the tank mounts, or some tough solo content, or pretty much anything that isn't "gotta get gear." Getting upgrades is nice, but I don't plan on raiding for a while, so my slightly bigger numbers really don't affect the content I'm playing anyways. If SE keeps putting me back on the treadmill, eventually I'll get tired, and while I'll keep pushing on, I'll get more tired of it the more I'm forced back on. Maybe I'm just sick of vertical progression, but it's not enough to make me quit, knowing that more content will be added in the future. However, since 2.0, I've experienced 2 years of very straightforward vertical progression, and it's not really a satisfying goal to aim for. There are 2 gear sets to mix and match, with secondary stats that provide marginal stat increases, by percentages of a point at a time. There's no true variation between one "build" and another, and no real builds to work up to, except gear to BiS. I'm really looking forward to the relic quest to be a grindy time waster in the future, but until then, I feel that the game has failed to hook me with engaging content once the storyline ended.

[Gilraen]

Sigh... I still see alot of, "New version, nothing new" being thrown around. It's NOT a new version. 1.0 to 2.0 was a new version. This is an expansion. That is, more of the same under a different name. It expands on what came before, not replace it. New features are present, but they aren't game changing. And we should be glad for that. There's many a game that has changed in ways that are undeniably game-changing and did they ever suffer for it. The poster child of this is Star Wars Galaxies. I loved that game (mostly for the space sim part) but it's undeniable that the game's schizophrenic treatment killed it. And from what's been revealed of WoW here I'm surprised that's even got players anymore, practically the same mistakes Sony made with Galaxies. We don't need innovation for innovation's sake, that can turn toxic fast. We just need 'new' and we got alot of that.

[Felis]

2 primals instead of 3. I could go on, but I think I made my point.

2.0 had only 1 new primal, not 3.
Ifrit and Garuda were already in 1.x and except some small changes their battles are still the same.

[Balipu]

Somehow some players assumed that Heavensward would come with a big, game changing feature like flying, as well as flying. For me, this attitude doesn't make sense. However:......

The problem is, ARR had flaws. We were and kinda are willing to overlook them because of the generous ammounts of content in the patches, the visuals, the music and the story.
However, the problems were problems. Mainly with gear progression. And if gear progression is flawed in an mmo...well that's like a movement problem in a racing game.
And those problems weren't corrected in HW. When a large chunk of the playerbase mentioned these problems, anotrher chunk responded with: "It was the same way in 2.0 in case you forgot. Get used to it"
What kind of attitude is that? Let's not correct our mistakes cause we had them in the beginning. This is just wrong.

[Hyrist]

There's plenty of new. Flying mounts, Group crafting - Crafting and gathering in general has changed, (though it could be improved upon.) We got 3 new jobs and 1 new race.

And all of this isn't including the new zones, gear fights, dungeons -etc that is just being labeled as "more of the same."

Since when the hell is new content criticized as more of the same. That never stopped cult classic series like Zelda, Megaman, Castlevania and the like. Hell people are still clamoring for another classic Metroid title even though it would be 'more of the same'.

If we're following the same update pattern as before, we're looking at 3.2 or 3.3 before a new 'system' comes out if there is one. Remember any systems they 'add' would have to be updated at the same break-neck pace that we're getting content updates for everything else. And from what I keep hearing from WoW refugees, we're getting updates far, far quicker than most other places.

As far as 'flawed gear progression' we continue to see fine tuning in that regard - and I'm not opposed to the general pacing of progression. There's just a standing request for top-tier gear to be in more places than just the 8 man static raid.

[Kallera]

There's plenty of new. Flying mounts, Group crafting - Crafting and gathering in general has changed, (though it could be improved upon.) We got 3 new jobs and 1 new race.

And all of this isn't including the new zones, gear fights, dungeons -etc that is just being labeled as "more of the same."

Since when the hell is new content criticized as more of the same. That never stopped cult classic series like Zelda, Megaman, Castlevania and the like...

COUGHdynastywarriorsCOUGH

(To be fair, it didn't truly get bad until the cost cutting occured.)

[AlexionSkylark]

It seems like some people really hated a few aspects of ARR (e.g. the tome grind, GC restriction on PvP) and SOMEHOW they thought this would be adressed in an expansion.

Problem is, the endgame gear progression is the CENTRAL CORE MECHANIC of the game. If you change that, you have another game entirely. Seems to me those ppl hated ARR, really didn't like the game, but stuck by cuz whatever, and now are complaining about not seeing the game change (cuz they hated it).

This is like complaining about a FPS not being innovative because they didn't change the camera position relative to the character, or because they thought you could do something else other than running around shooting people. If you don't like to do dungeon crawling, gearing up and raids, YOU DON'T LIKE MMOs.