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

[Soralis]

i can see what you are talking about but honestly, the repetition of 2.0 is not a problem for me, as you can see i am playing the game since 2011 and i am loving it, so many things i need to do, and explore. starting from lore and the story which are the best from any mmo i played last 15 years, to the small things like triple triad and chocobo racing, to leveling my own choco and crafting. i don't know i am loving the game still, but i do agree that i want something different and new in 4.0 added to already good formula

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

snip

All that content that you are still doing is stuff long time players have already done. The old content gets completely obsolete really fast, I mean look at Ravana Ex, people don't farm that anymore and it came like what about one month+ ago?, it's rare you'll see a party going on and when it does, people rage quit after one failed attempt. So you can't expect people to do content that's obsolete now that rarely anyone does anymore. I'd love to do pony farms for the sake of variety and such but those parties never fill up. Barely anyone in FC is interested. I want to farm the hell out of Moogle Ex for whiskers but no one is interested and I am limited to where if I go undersize, I don't get item drops, only chest. So what else is there to do for long time players who've already been there, done that? Is there REALLY enough content for most long time people who've already done what you yet have to do?

This is end game:
Eso farming, through instanced dungeons... and alex normal (and those who like PvP, I guess. I would love to get into it but last I tried the queue times were very long)
Alexander Savage.

There, that's it. I'd love for content to be relevant wayyyy longer than it does, then we'd have a bit more variety and things to do ingame but we don't even have that. Outdating content so fast is a double edged sword.

Like someone said in another thread, the point of an MMO is to keep you hooked so you keep paying your subscription, more steady money for the company. Not unsubscribing until the next patch comes out... just because that's a trend that's been the norm because of how "modern" MMOs are doesn't necessarily mean it's good, at all. People shouldn't be restricted on how much they play, specially in a sub based MMO, which brings me to the next point, remember 1.0's fatigue system and how everyone outraged because of limitation? This is exactly what we have right now, in form of Eso caps and loot caps per week (surprised people don't relate both only because it's not experience points). At least FFXI the content reset every 2-3 days and not every week. Why are people having to pay a subscription when the game itself is restricting how much they play per week? They are paying certain amount of cents everyday yet they can't even play everyday because there is nothing else worth to do and the little they can do is already timegated!

Then there's the limited armoury system. I have to stick to one job only because, caps. I love variety and I love playing more than one class but I can only bring one to Alex because, gear. We can't mix it up, we can't come up with experimentation, because, restrictions. Restrictions everywhere.

I wouldn't say the whole game is bad, but the end game is defenitely lackluster imo.

[Zeonx]

Well lets see.

Locked extreme's to PF
New lands
three jobs
level cap
New hunts
Alexander]
Knights of the round
I am not counting tomes because armor and that should not be part of a expansion, can't play the game without it.

and Future updates.

All finished with in a week or two to a person who just rushes content.

Should take breaks wait for new stuff to be added if you don't have much to do.

[Evtrai]

You're forgetting that you've had a very long time where you admittedly enjoyed the game, and you're blaming SE for having nothing to do when perhaps you need to ask yourself, 'should i maybe do something else until the next expansion comes out'?

You can't say a game is bad, because you have exhausted all the content that you want to do. There is still a lot of people (myself included) who enjoy the game, and you seem intent to label us all as blind defenders, for disagreeing with you. As people have pointed out there are lots of things you could do in game if you chose to.

Honestly, just sounds like you maybe need to move on or take a break for a while. There is enough content here for most people, but it's never really struck me as a super hardcore game or anything.

I never said that I din't enjoy the game before, but for the fact that it's an expansion hence my topic title "what does heavensward bring to the game as an expansion?", it's lackluster, let me put it in this analogy, you go to this place where they make fantastic vanilla icecream and this is the only flavor to make, I liked the vanilla ice cream a lot, but after a while I got tired of just tasting the vanilla icecream, then the company to keep people interested in their product they say: we'll have a new product soon, please look forward to it, you get excited you liked the vanilla ice cream but to your surprise all they do is add sprinkles on the same vanilla ice cream, it's the same vanilla ice cream, but it now has sprinkles on it, that's basically what the heavensward expansion is.

[DawnSolaria]

I never said that I din't enjoy the game before, but for the fact that it's an expansion hence my topic title "what does heavensward bring to the game as an expansion?", it's lackluster, let me put it in this analogy, you go to this place where they make fantastic vanilla icecream and this is the only flavor to make, I liked the vanilla ice cream a lot, but after a while I got tired of just tasting the vanilla icecream, then the company to keep people interested in their product they say: we'll have a new product soon, please look forward to it, you get excited you liked the vanilla ice cream but to your surprise all they do is add sprinkles on the same vanilla ice cream, it's the same vanilla ice cream, but it now has sprinkles on it, that's basically what the heavensward expansion is.

But thats what an expansion is, more content and sometime extra feature on an established core game. WoW released so many expansions and every one is pretty much the same deal. Sure they may have added mastery or odd stats like multistrike, but those end up just an extra variable in the simcraft and tbh isnt anything special. Its probably unwise to expect a new game with every single expansion.

I also have to disagree with the poster that said additional skills made classes more clunky. SMN got many times more interesting, some bard loved and some hated WM. Complexity is only clunky when you are not used to it.

[Evtrai]

But thats what an expansion is, more content and sometime extra feature on an established core game. WoW released so many expansions and every one is pretty much the same deal. Sure they may have added mastery or odd stats like multistrike, but those end up just an extra variable in the simcraft and tbh isnt anything special. Its probably unwise to expect a new game with every single expansion.

I also have to disagree with the poster that said additional skills made classes more clunky. SMN got many times more interesting, some bard loved and some hated WM. Complexity is only clunky when you are not used to it.

If you are gonna bring WoW, at least WoW has variety on their job system, talent trees, gear variety, different builds you can try, as far as I played which was the Lich King it did have more variety than what is palpable on FFXIV and at least WoW has an actual working PvP system or had that you can fill your time with when not end gaming or raiding, more variety on endgame was well and dificulty levels, I'm not sure right now but well, I will only comment on what I actually experienced, another example if you would, FFXI pretty much innovated in their content in each expansion, which actually made it feel like an expansion, not just a plain extention of what's already existent, Chains of Promathia was significantly different than Rise of Zilart, and Treasure of Aht Urhgan was even more different that CoP adding new systems to the game, so looking at the other games examples and Square Enix's OWN previous sample, Heavensward is lackluster and it's future is bleak, if they intend to continue with this clone stamp of content.

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

But thats what an expansion is, more content and sometime extra feature on an established core game. WoW released so many expansions and every one is pretty much the same deal. Sure they may have added mastery or odd stats like multistrike, but those end up just an extra variable in the simcraft and tbh isnt anything special. Its probably unwise to expect a new game with every single expansion.

Except to put an example on a game that in my opinion, did expansions right, was FFXI. Each of their expansion not only added more content, but that content DID NOT play exactly the same as the old content. They always spiced it up with different design in terms of dungeon mechanics. Like for example, Sky did not play the same as say, Limbus. Sea did not play the same as Dynamis. Nyzul did not play the same as all of these. Salvage played completely different from Sky, Sea, Limbus, etc and I could go on with the rest of the content from that game. They always released diverse content (and a lot of it) with each expansion which made players super excited about what new ideas they'd come up with. Hell, not even the add-ons/mini expansions played exactly the same way as the expansions. Like I said before, just because something is a trend because of one popular MMO, doesn't mean it's always good.

FFXI may have had a much smaller playerbase than WoW (FFXI wasn't that much advertised on the west, which was a very impacting reason on subscription numbers) but it did so many things better. In its humble existance, it created a powerful, long lasting (10+ years yikes) community. It brought a lot of fun and created tons of bonds between players across the seas. Can people honestly say the same about FFXIV. Honestly. Imo, it'll be long forgotten as time passes by, because it follows trendy games and we know how a trend ceases to exist after a while then something new comes around.

[DawnSolaria]

There is no choice of build in wow, there's a best spec for pve and one for PvP, anything else is sub optimal. I will agree that FFXIV PvP is lacking, but that is not a problem brought about by expansion, it also isn't something an expansion can fix. PvP problem lies in the core combat system. I personally have not played ffxi, but from my experience, "new combat system or feature" is often very quickly forgotten or not well received.

It also sounds like you detest the gamr very much. So my honest question is, why not play another game? Do you think you did not get what you paid for for the expansion? Another reason why content had to be made repetitive, the quest with cut scene that you just spent 5 min doing? Probably took hours if not days to develop. Developer need time and need to keep the players playing, this is where repetitive time gated content comes in.

[Vickii]

all they do is add sprinkles on the same vanilla ice cream, it's the same vanilla ice cream, but it now has sprinkles on it

There would be far more complaints if they told all the people who paid for and enjoyed the vanilla ice cream to look forward to their next thing, then replaced the vanilla ice cream with mint. Far more complaints.

An expansion is essentially more of the same. While you can argue that there isn't enough to do months after the expansion was released, it's a bit much to complain about it being too similar to the original game. All an expansion is intended to do is 'expand' the original game. Not drastically change it.

And as you mentioned, they did add in flying mounts and i hear the story is much improved. Plus there were class changes and changes to how certain things are obtained. So it's not like it was exactly the same.

[ValkyrieL]

Hi,

All my combat classes are 60
All my gathering classes are 60
All my crafting classes are 60
I beat Ravana EX
I'm also subscribed to WoW while also being subscribed to FFXIV, because both games are good enough to have my $26 a month (between the two).
Almost every night i play its nonstop laughing in voicechat.

What bothers me the most:
-450 cap every week. THEY COULDNT MAKE IT 500!?!?!?!? IT JUST HAD TO BE 450 DIDNT IT!?

-Buying scrips in bulk option 5 for 250. WHY 250!?!?!?!?!? WTFFF THATS SUCH A STRANGE NUMBER SERIOUSLY. WHEN YOU CAP SCRIPS FOR THE WEEK THAT MEANS YOU BUY 1 set of 5 AND 4 SETS OF singles. WHY DIDNT THEY MAKE a 4 for 200 OPTION!? THAT WAY I ONLY HAVE TO BUY 2 SETS of 4 AND 1 SET OF 50 WTF!!!!

This....like wdf, buy a stack than buy 4 individual ones.....