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

[Saggo]

When you're running a business and only have so much money and manpower, it kind of is. When a manager sees that his team can either accomplish one "hard" thing or three "easy" things and one "challenging" thing, the decision-making process becomes fairly simple.

Not really how it works. This isn't some indie studio. They're given a company directed vision and all work effort boils investment into that vision. If that one hard thing offers more for the company vision than a dozen others, that's what they'll be told to do. The kicker is that not all difficult tasks are resource intensive and not all resource intensive tasks are difficult. The complexity, difficulty, or "hardness" of a task may inform the resource investment of a decision, but ultimately what advances the company goals is what's decided.

They only thing we can ask as a player base is if our interests fit in their vision. Some player telling others that their interests shouldn't be in that vision because it's hard is a disservice to every party involved. So no, I don't see "hard" as a free pass.

[SendohJin]

As far as "More Variety" we have it. It's just not relevant to the Endgame Grind. Look forward to the possibility of Dusk Vigil, Sohm Al, The Aery, The Vault, The Great Gubal Library and The Aetherochemical Research Facility hard modes in the future.

that is not more variety, replacing expert dungeons with other expert dungeons is not more variety.

Dungeons, Trials, Hunts, Fates, Treasure Maps, Beastmen Dailies - those are variety (from each other). when they add Vanu and Gnath beastmen quest to replace the Ixal quest that nobody does now, that's not adding variety, that's updating the existing system to remain relevant.

[Astral145]

And this is the problem with vertical progression. Old content such as 2.0 - 2.55 is already outdated. Sure you can still que up for it but all you will get is useless mats and glamour or an old pony that was suppose to fly in HW (don't get me started on the pony flying mount bs). Basically all we got for HW was the same old 2.0 grind (which is terrible by the way) and new maps. Sure the new maps look amazing but nothing else. No open world dungeons or bosses. Just easy Hunts that are toxic for the community and fates. Sure you have side quests but that's just good for leveling up (not really because the exp is terrible). The only other thing open world is good for is gathering mats for crafts. At the moment Crafts and Gathering is in a sad place. I loved crafting in ARR but you couldn't pay me enough to touch 3.0 crafting.

All in all I give HW a 4 out of 10. There is no excuse for devs to give us this kind of crap especially since we paid at least $40 for this expansion that's almost a new game. So yea I was expecting something new and exciting not the same old 2.0 mind numbing grind. yes mmo's are a huge grind fest but who said it has to be mind numbingly boring?

[Hyrist]

that is not more variety, replacing expert dungeons with other expert dungeons is not more variety.

Dungeons, Trials, Hunts, Fates, Treasure Maps, Beastmen Dailies - those are variety (from each other). when they add Vanu and Gnath beastmen quest to replace the Ixal quest that nobody does now, that's not adding variety, that's updating the existing system to remain relevant.

I was addressing someone else's direct comment about the lack of dungeons used for endgame, not the lack of modes.

As far as adding additional systems to endgame, what would you drop? Or we have to accept an even longer turn around time, each time, before we get something new, or updated? Everything you'd request to add would also have to be maintained, updated, and improved upon as time goes on. This cycle would also continue to expand each time we add something new, unless we drop something. Unlike a Horizontal endgame where they can let content sit for years without and update and it would still be valid content, in vertical progression workload inflation is a very real problem. This is the curse with a Vertical Progression MMO.

Granted, this is all academical discussion at this point. I'm sure they'll be updating systems and adding new ones at time goes on. But the reason we don't have wider than we have, to me, is patently obvious by the amount of content we got by the expansion itself - which is why I never encourage rushing. Me - I'm taking it easy, farming Esoterics, then when I'm on game aside from that, I'm typically leveling something up, rather than pushing endgame. The luster still hasn't fallen off the 'leveling' part of the expansion for me yet, but I'm taking it slow.

[Colt47]

All in all I give HW a 4 out of 10. There is no excuse for devs to give us this kind of crap especially since we paid at least $40 for this expansion that's almost a new game. So yea I was expecting something new and exciting not the same old 2.0 mind numbing grind. yes mmo's are a huge grind fest but who said it has to be mind numbingly boring?

If you think the leveling experience is boring, don't even touch end game.

[Arixtotle]

I keep seeing things about "outdated" content and I would just like to point out that it is only outdated from a vertical progression standpoint. People say they don't want vertical progression and yet keep the mindset from it. Lore wise nothing is outdated. Same for glamour wise. Then there's also minion and mount drops to consider as well a leveling alt jobs. No content in FFXIV is outdated.

[SakuraMidori]

I think people have just been spoiled by the patches we receive every < 3 months; if flying, larger zones, lv increase + new abilities, SM Alexander in just 3.0X alone is not enough then I don't know what is

This^^ i mean if ppl are still unhappy they are prob playing the wrong game. The fact this game is still pay to play after a year tells us it's doing well go look at all the others that try and die and then go free to play :P SE keep up the good work^^

[Colt47]

I keep seeing things about "outdated" content and I would just like to point out that it is only outdated from a vertical progression standpoint. People say they don't want vertical progression and yet keep the mindset from it. Lore wise nothing is outdated. Same for glamour wise. Then there's also minion and mount drops to consider as well a leveling alt jobs. No content in FFXIV is outdated.

The point is that the dungeons are static set pieces, and no matter what they do to add incentive to run these dungeons, they have a limited life expectancy. The game world would be more maintainable if they had a good mix of both static and procedural content to run around in, as the procedural dungeons and zones have advantages that the static set piece dungeons lack. Namely replay-ability and opportunities to use ones head to problem solve, such as finding the fastest route to an objective.

If they don't do something like the above the game is going to have severe diminishing returns come each expansion just like with World of Warcraft and other titles.

[Hyrist]

I keep seeing things about "outdated" content and I would just like to point out that it is only outdated from a vertical progression standpoint. People say they don't want vertical progression and yet keep the mindset from it. Lore wise nothing is outdated. Same for glamour wise. Then there's also minion and mount drops to consider as well a leveling alt jobs. No content in FFXIV is outdated.

To double on that. Roulette also provide Currency that is relevant to entry level endgame - which is valuable when you're trying to gear more than one or two jobs.

This is just an observation, but it does seem we get a lot of "End Game is the Only Game That Matters" attitudes around here - which is odd because this is actually a fairly casual friendly MMO, all things considered.

The point is that the dungeons are static set pieces, and no matter what they do to add incentive to run these dungeons, they have a limited life expectancy. The game world would be more maintainable if they had a good mix of both static and procedural content to run around in, as the procedural dungeons and zones have advantages that the static set piece dungeons lack. Namely replay-ability and opportunities to use ones head to problem solve, such as finding the fastest route to an objective.

If they don't do something like the above the game is going to have severe diminishing returns come each expansion just like with World of Warcraft and other titles.

Roulettes alone break that, so long as they keep flowing currency relevant. But they have added the Undersized Party system as well. There's still the mention of also having an NPC party to train through these dungeons as well, which adds more the the idea.

So it sounds like they do have some replay-ability ideas in the pipeline, but they believe they are not so far ahead of them right now to have them be a priority to implement.

And there's always Dungeon Extreme mode! (Joking! Really!)

[SakuraMidori]

The point is that the dungeons are static set pieces, and no matter what they do to add incentive to run these dungeons, they have a limited life expectancy. The game world would be more maintainable if they had a good mix of both static and procedural content to run around in, as the procedural dungeons and zones have advantages that the static set piece dungeons lack. Namely replay-ability and opportunities to use ones head to problem solve, such as finding the fastest route to an objective.

If they don't do something like the above the game is going to have severe diminishing returns come each expansion just like with World of Warcraft and other titles.

If it can last as long as wow i don't think SE will care lol