What does Heavensward actually bring to the table as an expansion?

[Souljacker]

Well, it could certainly work a lot better. It's not successful because they have a super great formula. It's successful because it's either this or Garrisons, and pretty much everyone said a big old FU to Garrisons a months after release. Right now SE is using a formula created by another company, and they are riding the experience of a brand new expansion and the fatigue of another game's missteps. It doesn't hurt that it's probably the most beautiful MMO on the market, but make no mistake - Blizzard knows they are in trouble and need a big win. The competition isn't over. SE can't just hum along with this content model and expect to be successful forever, especially if core FF fans are already tired of fighting the same Primal\dungeons on different tiers ad naseum.

[Rafaelhades]

Because they don't release an entirely new game every patch. I'm actually interested to hear of an MMO that feels like an entirely new MMO every expansion, or even every patch.

"Midcore" content is going to feel like the same slog if you view it as such. Anything that doesn't provide that cake at the end of the fishing pole will not take off because no one will do them. So it turns into another gear grind. But why grind that gear when Savage provides you with the best? See: Alex NM.


"Implement unique sidegrades!" Sidegrades are not sidegrades when they're mandatory and the only way to make said sidegrades worth the effort of getting is if they're job-altering. "Job-altering" will eventually mean "must have." Unless they implement a way to imbue pieces of gear with special properties. But then, certain properties will be mandatory. PFs will have "Must have X ability +1 gear plz" and people will get kicked when that bard has "Bloodletter +1" instead of "Foe's Requiem +1" or that BLM has "Thundercloud +10%" instead of "Firestarter +10%." Things will be mathed out and BiS will still prevail. All at the cost of dev time, which means we would get the 2yr dev cycle Blizzard has.

MMOs have always been about the gear grind. They could expand on Treasure Hunts and do pop NMs (which they can still do) but somewhere down the line, people will complain about those as well. Anything they implement, people will find something wrong with it and complain. And unless SE completely halts other game projects and focus primarily on XIV, they will not have the manpower or the money to please everyone everyday for as long as this game exists.

[Risvertasashi]

This brings me to another question, why are they recently saying "Over 4-5 million registered accounts" what's the actual subcribing numbers? registered accounts means squat, where's the subcription numbers? for all we know it could be 2 million inactive subcribers our of those registered accounts, are they dwindling in sub 2 million?

No one knows. Probably somewhere in the high "hundred thousand" range to the low million range. MMOs have high turn over.

[Shiki_Lockhart]

I agree with you OP. I also feel they need to change the formula a bit. It is getting to repetitive and you can perfectly stop playing for 1 year and get back and catch up in a matter of days... the only thing you miss is the seasonal events or if you keep subscribing to help them and only do them and each main story quests and new content and wait again.

The only problem I see here is that they are afraid to try change and not get good results and people leave. But people are going to leave anyway, either is by getting tired of repeating same thing and toss away the old gear or by no liking the new direction the game is going. It will be not easy task for them find a good new content that wont feel repetition and that will keep players happy.

You see many games trying new stuff right? What they get? Fail products. Even if they try to innovate people will go back to old stuff >_<

[Rafaelhades]

This brings me to another question, why are they recently saying "Over 4-5 million registered accounts" what's the actual subcribing numbers? registered accounts means squat, where's the subcription numbers? for all we know it could be 2 million inactive subcribers our of those registered accounts, are they dwindling in sub 2 million?

Those metrics have never really been important outside of the "WoW-killer, chest-tumping, we're the best mentality" the genre seems to have. 500k is the magic number for profit for sub MMOs. XI has survived for a decade on 500-600k. SWTOR started strong and couldn't sustain. Turning F2P helped it stay afloat. Same with LoTR, Wildstar and Aion. Wildstar was the golden child of MMOs and it bit the dirt as well. XIV is doing something right, whether it be pandering to FF fans, casuals or what have you. Sub numbers are just fluff.

[Elazu]

Fully agree with the Alexander part. Adding normal mode was a huge mistake.

[Evtrai]

Because they don't release an entirely new game every patch. I'm actually interested to hear of an MMO that feels like an entirely new MMO every expansion, or even every patch.

"Midcore" content is going to feel like the same slog if you view it as such. Anything that doesn't provide that cake at the end of the fishing pole will not take off because no one will do them. So it turns into another gear grind. But why grind that gear when Savage provides you with the best? See: Alex NM.


"Implement unique sidegrades!" Sidegrades are not sidegrades when they're mandatory and the only way to make said sidegrades worth the effort of getting is if they're job-altering. "Job-altering" will eventually mean "must have." Unless they implement a way to imbue pieces of gear with special properties. But then, certain properties will be mandatory. PFs will have "Must have X ability +1 gear plz" and people will get kicked when that bard has "Bloodletter +1" instead of "Foe's Requiem +1" or that BLM has "Thundercloud +10%" instead of "Firestarter +10%." Things will be mathed out and BiS will still prevail. All at the cost of dev time, which means we would get the 2yr dev cycle Blizzard has.

MMOs have always been about the gear grind. They could expand on Treasure Hunts and do pop NMs (which they can still do) but somewhere down the line, people will complain about those as well. Anything they implement, people will find something wrong with it and complain. And unless SE completely halts other game projects and focus primarily on XIV, they will not have the manpower or the money to please everyone everyday for as long as this game exists.

This isn't the problem, you could look at their own gaming history and examine FFXI, their patches were relevant, variety on content and you could back to them and not feel like you were actually sick of it shortly after because the content was DIFFERENT, it wasn't the same reharshed content type every update and it was relevant still as time went on, you could go back to it and do it, the lock outs weren't jarrying and having multiple jobs was rewarding unlike in FFXIV where it's pointless. The only reason FFXI died down is because their engine and dated feel, and their mindset of not abandoning PS2. This is however with mind, that I played until just before the add ons. There's no sandboxy content like Savage from XI for example, sky, sea, dynamis, just on rails, not asking for a carbon copy of anything, just that they have where to grab from.

[Kaurie]

Personally I am peeved, as I remember reading an interview stating that 2.0 was to set the basics and 3.0 was when they were going to spice things up. This was in regards to gear and traits, as I understood it.

I was expecting 2ndary stats to be more meaningful, gear to have 'fun' stats on them, multiple variations of gear within each tier, and customizable traits/skills.

I either completely misunderstood what I read, they changed their mind or I've gone crazy and this interview never happened (dream?).


In addition to this, I do feel that the 2 new expert dungeons were thrown rather lazily together. There doesn't seem to be much going on and they feel very linear.

[Kosmos992k]

I think your criticisms are off base and parrot things you've read on this forum or reddit.

At the end of the day, in my opinion, the biggest problem that this game suffers from is player behavior. I'm not talking about trolling or abusing others, I'm talking about the content locust mentality that has people playing 8 hour shifts and ticking things of their to do list as they go. Farm this, cap that, etc.

When the expansion came out these were the people capping their characters at 60 within days and complaining about a lack of content at 60 thereafter. If players focus solely on completing things as quickly as possible and avoiding anything that slows them down, then of course the game is boring. My god, if they were to go for a 1200 mile road trip, players with that mentality would hit the interstate and drive in shifts to their destination getting there in 18 hours flat. About halfway there, they'd complain about the boring drive, and by the time they get to the destination, they'd be tired, burned out and cranky. Sound familiar?

Many others would take the same road trip in multiple legs with an overnight stop with each leg of the journey, they might plan on visiting places of interest on the way, and even get side tracked and visit other places they didn't originally plan on. By the time they get to the destination, a week might have passed, but they are fresh, happy and not bored because they saw the sights, stayed in different places, ate different things and experienced the journey. They have things to talk about and stories to tell, and probably a couple hundred pictures to share.

Imagine those two groups starting off at the same time and meeting up after their journey. The ones who drove straight through on the interstate would probably be pissed off with the others for making them wait for so long, and be itching to get home (again by the fastest route possible). The other group would have their stories to tell and pictures to share, but a very unreceptive audience.

I feel like we are at that point with FFXIV. There is a relatively large group of players who play the game in such a focused manner that they complete the content much faster than intended, and get bored and annoyed, or disillusioned. They complain about the game, about having nothing to do, or about everything being the same, cookie cutter content, or copied from WoW.

Since I'm still mid way on the journey and enjoying the ride, I really can't say I understand or agree with the criticisms being leveled at the game or SE. There is so much to do I can't do it all, and I've been playing since ARR Beta phase 3.

You mentioned hard mode dungeons as recycled, I don't think that's really fair. If they were simply recycled it would be the same dungeon with boosted versions of he same trash and Bosses in the same map, but the hard mode dungeons are not that at all, so I find your criticism completely off base. You call the relic quests an abomination, but why? That is what the community asked for. An alternate way to obtain a high ilvl weapon that is upgradeable and can be earned through long term play rather than clearing turns in the Coil so that players who lack the skill or time availability to complete coil, had an upgrade path for their weapon. If that isn't a grindy way of obtaining something, I don't know what is, and that is what people asked for.

In the end, the problem you are talking about, OP, is self inflicted.

What I can't quite get my head around is that people approach the game like it's supposed to provide them with completely new content every time they log in, but don't want to do anything for it. It's an MMORPG, some of the novelty in content is playing with others and reacting to how they handle things. There is no way that the developers can keep up with player appetite for content, nor their ability to consume it. But, if people login to cap tomes and do their dailies, and that's all, they have no room for complaint. You're not making use of the framework that is in place, nor are you making use of all the rides in the theme park. Instead you're using a very restricted subset of the theme park, and complaining that more isn't done for you.

Fully agree with the Alexander part. Adding normal mode was a huge mistake.

How is it a huge mistake? This was something that was asked for by the majority of the community with many raiders saying that they were OK with a story mode version as long as the harder version had unique drops . The problem with having only the super hard version of things is that it disenfranchises many players - as Coil *did*. I lost count of how many threads asked for or demanded a normal mode version of coil, and in the end people settled for asking for the future raids to have a story mode version for non-raiders to complete.

How is Alexander Normal a huge mistake when it is precisely what was requested by the community?

Perhaps you're just pissed off because you feel that you *have* to farm the snot out of it for gear that you can use to take on Savage mode, only to find that savage mode is (as expected) the same content with a harder level of difficulty and better drops. You honestly expected it would be otherwise?

[Lemuria]

"Implement unique sidegrades!" Sidegrades are not sidegrades when they're mandatory and the only way to make said sidegrades worth the effort of getting is if they're job-altering. "Job-altering" will eventually mean "must have."

Sorry, I have to vehemently disagree with this. Right now ALL we have are mandatory upgrades. How is that any different? It's no longer a case of picking out one benefit over another, it's just "Is this a higher ilvl than my last piece?".

You may prove correct in assuming that some people will choose one bonus over another, but I'll say this much for having unique benefits - it's a lot less boring. And right now, vanilla is about the only flavour this game has offered when it comes to equipment. It's already gotten stupid with item level 200 being bandied around, and who knows where it will end. Are we all going to end up with item level 999 when 5.0 arrives?