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

[Souljacker]

Yeah WoD released with 8 dungeons and only those 8 for the entire life of the expansion. In MoP we were stuck with the same 9 dungeons at release (3 of which were Heroic versions of Vanilla content) for the life of the expansion.

On the other hand those 2 dungeons we have now are just the first in a long succession of dungeons to be added throughout the life of 3.0. It sucks for the moment, and Neverreap can burn in a fiery pit for eternity, but I'd much rather have dungeons added gradually than be stuck with the same 8-9 dungeons for over a year...

Is there a better alternative? Most likely, but strictly comparing to WoW I'd much much rather have what we have here in XIV.

Well, that's because WoW focuses on raid content releases after the initial dungeons because those dungeons are obsolete at that point. I'm not saying WoW is > FFXIV, just that their last xpac launched with more content and somehow managed to give players their own personal instanced CITY and this game can't even give us a mog house. When you compare specific things, WoW is better, but overall I agree FFXIV is better. It's a pretty clear case of Simpson's Paradox.

That doesn't mean XIV gets a free pass on two dungeons at launch (especially when the framework was already there, they just needed to tune for expert mode on the leveling ones).

Oh and, I don't have to edit a post because it's "too long" on Blizzard's forums. Sheesh this gets annoying.

[aurace1095]

From many of the posts it seems people are more wanting Abyssea than Dynamis. Dynamis didn't really change anything for it's game, just expanded on it. Abyssea changed the game. Many players left when it launched it changed things that much. Understandably so, I might add, for many of the same reasons as SWG.

I can't speak for others, but I know what I want is just content variety. Wouldn't you agree that doing Dynamis is completely different from Limbus, or Salvage? And the same going from sky to sea. There was a huge variety of content to do, even if you only look at the first expansion - they added sky, Dynamis, new BCNMs, HNMs, all sorts of endgame content. I'm not saying things like HNMs need, or even should, be added to XIV, but I don't think a little content variety would hurt. Right now we have 2 dungeons that are essentially the same thing, Alex normal, which I know my static finished farming within a month of it releasing, then Alex savage, which has other issues that have already been brought up. I'd just like more to do than one of two dungeons daily, then practice the same fight a few times a week.

[Evtrai]

From many of the posts it seems people are more wanting Abyssea than Dynamis. Dynamis didn't really change anything for it's game, just expanded on it. Abyssea changed the game. Many players left when it launched it changed things that much. Understandably so, I might add, for many of the same reasons as SWG.

You speak like one of the reasons FFXI din't witherer away wasn't the fact that the game wasn't staring to age well due engine, it prived itself from growth the moment that they din't upgrade anything software wise, at least WoW upgraded their engine, but FFXI din't but that doesn't mean WoW redid the game, I for one, wasn't bored of FFXI, but I felt liked I needed to play something more modern, with modern visuals less clunky dated menus, etc.

You are forgetting different facts just alone from those examples, AF2 had unique effects on it's gear that they had the ability to significantly CHANGE your gameplay, so just the expectation, EVEN if it was repetitive (it wasn't for me anyways) you always were hopeful for a drop that would change how you play and improve over the build of your character.

Let's look alone at this piece: Homam Corazza DEF:49 HP+28 MP+28 Accuracy+15 Enhances Triple Attack Effect

The constantly running (you just acumulated tokens and brought this) at least gave you something rewarding that DID improve your gameplay and builds on your character.

FFXIV is just building over stacking stats, it's the whole point, for example, if I'm looking at it on a way that I want to improve my character build, I will use SMN as an example:

Summoner's body from esoteric is best in slot, the legs are also best in slot, and the weapon is best from tomes is also best in slot, so if I just run A3S and get the items to turn increase ilvl of the gear I could pretty much say I'm done gearing summoner with BiS, I have no reason to clear A4S again other than for just clearing it I'm only stacking the best stats afterall not building a playstyle or build. That's the huge issue with FFXIV, it quickly dumps their content and in Heavensward it's worse, because there's not even 2 months past release and they already trashed a lot of their in expansion content making it effectively pointless. And this, is supposed to keep you interested on the game until next raid Feb-March 2016

[Souljacker]

1. Instanced housing should not be the standard, that is only your opinion. As someone who owns the house close to fc and friend I would rather keep it this way....
Game has flaws, this I do not disagree. But a lot of people are just complaining for the sake of complaining. I mean do you honestly think HW has brought absolutely NOTHING into the game?

So what you are saying is that you like that you get to enjoy content and others don't? That shows a pretty toxic attitude that is sadly nurtured by this game. You're right I believe every game should have instanced housing because FFXI had it, it set the standard, and everyone should have EQUAL access to ANY content that is in the game we are all paying the SAME subscription for. Why are you so special that only you should get access to a house and not someone else paying to play the same game but maybe didn't get online right at server reset when new wards dropped? Or heaven forbid, started playing the game after everyone had already bought all the houses?

There's no debating with that kind of selfish attitude.

Second part, again you are just making things up. I never said it brought nothing. I said it brought nothing overwhelming that really makes me excited each and every day to log on, and that's the theme of this whole thread. That it's underwhelming given what we've come to expect from Yoship.

[Obysuca]

I see, so, what exactly would you have added that would meet your requirement for "difference"? It's an MMORPG in a fantasy setting. In an expansion you add trials and dungeons, you add new jobs, you add new zones, new modes of travel/play. All these things they did and more. With patch 3.1 the are bringing a new 24-man raid, dungeons and more. I don't honestly see a problem unless you simply hate new content.

There'd be a difference if it wasn't the same junk we've gotten every update for the last 2 years. There's been no difference whatsoever. Besides the scenery, tell me. What's so different about CT from void ark? Or Neverreap/Fractal from any of the other expert dungeons besides scenery and very few different boss mechanics? Nothing. They're all single paths, no branching paths, no boss options. Just a straight path with trash, boss, trash, boss, trash, boss. Sure, flying was different, but there's 0 use for it. There was no new mode of play, again, it's just the same rehash of what we've gotten. The new jobs play almost identical to pld, whm and brd with very, very minor differences.

Like I said, 2.0 at cap had 2 dungeons, some primals and coil. Know what 3.0 has? 2 dungeons, some primals and alex. I really don't get how you don't see a difference. I feel like you must be blindly following Yoshi, thinking he can do no wrong, or maybe this is your first mmo, idk. But 2.0 is exactly the same as 3.0, different scenery, same content, nothing new, nothing build upon, just replaced.

Thing is, none of the things in HW actually expanded on anything, they just replaced the same exact stuff. Alex replaced coil, void ark is replacing CT, neverreap/fractal replaced the last 2 expert dungeons. "They are bringing a new 24 man raid"? Not really. It'll just be LotA, which will then be replaced by the new "ST". Other mmos actually add new content in expansions, rather than completely replace everything, making 80% of the game useless, as XIV is right now. Coil? Ex primals? CT? Any of the 15-20 lvl 50 dungeons? No one touches those unless they get one of the 50 dungeons in roulette. So yes, HW added nothing new, it actually removed a lot of the content we had and gave us less. Take XI for example with it's expansions, it added a new type of endgame that was different from the others that were out and know what? It build upon that and even continued to build upon the other endgame, so it kept everything relevant, resulting in everyone having more options of what to do and not getting bored with being stuck with 2 expert dungeons which then get replaced by 2 more like XIV does.

The content is just a rehash of what we've already had and they're only adding the bare minimum every single update. 2 dungeons, 1 raid. Then it's replaced by 2 dungeons and 1 24 man raid, which is then replaced by 2 dungeons and 1 raid. There's 0 variety and nothing new.
HW was just an update with the same (if not less) content than we normally get every 3 months or so. They could have added more ways to get eso, rather than force us to just do 2 dungeons over and over and over. Doing alex and ex primals are in no way, a reasonable way to cap eso. Sure, you can do only those, but you're only getting 5-10 eso a run, when a single expert gets you about 30-40.
New zones? Ask yourself, does anyone even actually go to them anymore except for a daily hunt mob? Not really. A/S rank hunts practically died out weeks ago.

They could have easily added more options to get eso that were actually on par with doing expert, so you could have more than one obvious choice of which to do. It could have been "Should I do X for some eso? or should I do expert? Or perhaps Y?" because right now and every single update, it's been "I guess I'll do 1 expert a day and cap by Saturday".

Like I said in another topic, they could have gone from 2 expert dungeons, 1 raid (4 bosses in a straight line) and 1-2 ex primals to something more like 2 expert dungeons, alex, 1-2 ex primals, another type of endgame (savage doesn't count since it's almost the same as normal alex, but harder), a different type of raid from alex and the 2nd type. They could have easily gave all those raids i200 gear, but with varying stats, so you could have more options than them releasing content that's a lower ilvl than the current tome gear.

Practically everyone? Good grief, I'd love to see the census stats on that because in my experience it's far from practically everyone who has a fully upgraded relic, and those that do are quite happy and proud of it. I think your reality bubble must be populated with a compeltely different kind of people than the ones I meet every day.

Read what I said. I said within the first month of 2.0, meaning the original relic. That person never said zeta, never said nexus, never said novus. They said relic and judging by their join date of being only a month, they obviously haven't gotten zeta yet. Learn to read before you assume crap. So yes, practically everyone had a relic, you know, the base i90 one. Let's talk about zeta then. How many people actually had one before it got nerfed to the ground? Not many and the main reason wasn't how grindy it was (part of it), the main reason was that you could spend some tomes to get a better weapon for 1/10th the effort.

[Gilraen]

I can't argue against more content. I just don't think the game has to change to have more content, and clearly neither do the developers. And we're getting more content, it's just not all at once, and I have to concede the thinking behind that. What good is alot of content all at once if you're STILL going to have the same complaints, just delayed by a week or two? There will never be enough content for some people and for others too much content will wind up just another gate preventing access to future content down the road. You have to find that middle ground and while no answer is perfect, Heavensward does a decent enough job.

Append: And see, even you aurace prefer to ignore Abyssea. We don't need another Abyssea, not by a long shot.

[aurace1095]

I can't argue against more content. I just don't think the game has to change to have more content, and clearly neither do the developers. And we're getting more content, it's just not all at once, and I have to concede the thinking behind that. What good is alot of content all at once if you're STILL going to have the same complaints, just delayed by a week or two? There will never be enough content for some people and for others too much content will wind up just another gate preventing access to future content down the road. You have to find that middle ground and while no answer is perfect, Heavensward does a decent enough job.

Append: And see, even you aurace prefer to ignore Abyssea. We don't need another Abyssea, not by a long shot.

I actually came back to the game around the end of Abyssea and greatly enjoyed it (I had stopped playing around the middle of WoTG). I'm not choosing to ignore it, I just feel like it isn't relevant to what is being asked for right now. Like I said, the game already had a very recent major change, in the transition from 1.0 to 2.0.
While we are getting more content in upcoming patches, with the possible (very hopeful) exception of the upcoming airship exploration, it's all still more of the same.
Another huge thing XI had going for it was that the content they released stayed relevant for an extremely long time - even content from the first expansion was relevant for nearly a decade, and is again now through the ilvl upgrade systems. On the other hand, with Heavensward, we already have "endgame" content from launch that's outdated (what's the point of ever touching Bismark or Ravana Ex again?), and the first major post-expansion patch hasn't even hit yet.

[Vickii]

snip.

Are you really complaining about content having the same structure (i.e 4 person dungeons, 8 person trials, 24 person raids) as previous raids? Can you not see the difference between every raid and dungeon? I'm sorry but this is kinda a ridiculous complaint. If you don't enjoy the base core of the game, then it probably isn't the game for you.

Also people would hate it if they varied this up too much. Look at wow, going from 40 person to 25 person to 10 person, back to 25. Far more people/guilds quit the game or complained than ever complained about the structure in the first place. People don't like change. More content is a viable argument, but you just seem intent to dislike everything.

[KingOfAbyss]

No offense, but this game is not targeted at hard core raiders, nor will it ever be targeted at that specific community. It's targeted at a broad range of players. You need to consider those other points of view when forming your criticisms. In all honesty unless a game focuses almost exclusively on raiders, I don't see how it can ever satisfy raiders because there will always be compromises made for non-raiders. FFXIV focuses on the broader base of what is commonly called casual players, it's inevitable that thre will be compromises made in the game that raiders see and feel are problems. That is simply the nature of the beast.

Please do tell us why then all that we see in PF or /sh: (Sastasha Normal*) Must know your job/role, must be Uber, have iLvl180 for an iLvl170 run or 5 melded materia gear even on your shield as BLM, 1 fail and you are kicked.

*Kidding with Sastasha normal and shield for BLM here, but this ain't a joke with the real stuff.

It's pretty much 95% of the game right now, at least on NA servers.

That's Casual Gamers for you?

[Kosmos992k]

There'd be a difference if it wasn't the same junk we've gotten every update for the last 2 years. There's been no difference whatsoever. Besides the scenery, tell me. What's so different about CT from void ark? Or Neverreap/Fractal from any of the other expert dungeons besides scenery and very few different boss mechanics? Nothing.

Answer my question, don't simply repeat the same assertions without any evidence. How can you imply CT and Void Ark are the same, do you have some inside track on that content? Seriously, your complaint about no difference boils down to what exactly? A dungeon is a dungeon, there is a map, there are corridors, there are monsters to kill and items to find. What are you looking for that actually differs from what we have? You're demanding difference, but all you can say when asked to describe what you want is "this is the same as that, this is generically similar to that, it should be better". OK, then describe what you think would make it better.

Like I said, 2.0 at cap had 2 dungeons, some primals and coil. Know what 3.0 has? 2 dungeons, some primals and alex. I really don't get how you don't see a difference. I feel like you must be blindly following Yoshi, thinking he can do no wrong, or maybe this is your first mmo, idk. But 2.0 is exactly the same as 3.0, different scenery, same content, nothing new, nothing build upon, just replaced.

So, and I'll ask this really clearly so you can answer this time, what...did....you...expect...? You say that 3.0 is exactly the same as 2.0. Is it? really? So there are new dungeons and trials, and because there were dungeons and trials in 2.0 as well, they are identical? Stop repeating the same empty things and answer the question.

Thing is, none of the things in HW actually expanded on anything, they just replaced the same exact stuff. Alex replaced coil, void ark is replacing CT, neverreap/fractal replaced the last 2 expert dungeons. "They are bringing a new 24 man raid"? Not really. It'll just be LotA, which will then be replaced by the new "ST". Other mmos actually add new content in expansions, rather than completely replace everything, making 80% of the game useless, as XIV is right now. Coil? Ex primals? CT? Any of the 15-20 lvl 50 dungeons? No one touches those unless they get one of the 50 dungeons in roulette. So yes, HW added nothing new, it actually removed a lot of the content we had and gave us less.

Replaced? Unless I miss my guess, nothing was replaced, new things were added. Again, what did you expect and what would you do differently? Be specific please because I'm not getting much from you or others restating that things are the same or HW simply replaced ARR stuff.

Take XI for example with it's expansions, it added a new type of endgame that was different from the others that were out and know what? It build upon that and even continued to build upon the other endgame, so it kept everything relevant, resulting in everyone having more options of what to do and not getting bored with being stuck with 2 expert dungeons which then get replaced by 2 more like XIV does.

Never played XI, don't want to. Without repeating your comparison to XI, please tell us what it is that you expected or think is needed to make things different and justify the word expansion.

The content is just a rehash of what we've already had and they're only adding the bare minimum every single update. 2 dungeons, 1 raid. Then it's replaced by 2 dungeons and 1 24 man raid, which is then replaced by 2 dungeons and 1 raid. There's 0 variety and nothing new.

Oh shit, a new dungeon is just a rehash of what we already have? You're essentially saying that because an entirely new dungeon is a dungeon, it's nothing but a rehash of previous content, simply because that previous content was a 4-man dungeon? So really we have nothing new since the first dungeon, because all the 4 man dungeons are simply rehashes of the 1st 4 man dungeon? all the 8-man encounters are simply rehashes of the 1st one? All the 24-man encounters are rehashes of CT? So why bother, every new game is just a rehash of a previous game, they're both games right? I guess that's why every bipedal enemy is just a rehashed Hyur with a recolor, and every quadrapedal enemy is a rehashed Antelope with a palette switch, right? That is, logically speaking, what you are saying.

HW was just an update with the same (if not less) content than we normally get every 3 months or so.

Sure, because every patch adds new, and larger zones, a ne mode of movement, a new race, 3 new jobs, a new city state and a new main story to navigate

They could have added more ways to get eso, rather than **snip**They could have easily gave all those raids i200 gear, but with varying stats, so you could have more options than them releasing content that's a lower ilvl than the current tome gear.

In other words your complaint centers around raiding content?

Please do tell us why then all that we see in PF or /sh: (Sastasha Normal*) Must know your job/role, must be Uber, have iLvl180 for an iLvl170 run or 5 melded materia gear even on your shield as BLM, 1 fail and you are kicked.

*Kidding with Sastasha normal and shield for BLM here, but this ain't a joke with the real stuff.

It's pretty much 95% of the game right now, at least on NA servers.

That's Casual Gamers for you?

Sarcasm noted. And your point is? A HUGE number of players treat the game as if it were a single player game and won't use PF because they run into people like you who do nothing but belittle them for not being up to your standards. What do you expect?