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

[Ryel]

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 think you're slightly missing the point.

nobody is arguing we aren't getting more content, they're saying we aren't getting different content.

Alexander follows the same content formula as Coil. Actually i take that back... The Binding Coil of Bahamut more closely had the markings and framework of a classic raid than Alexander does, and i don't mean in content difficulty.

Remember this?

BCoB Turn 1:

1 Miniboss (ADS), 2 Gatekeepers (golems), a bunch of trash and some chests followed by a boss fight?

Full video below (Cut scene spoilers obv):

BCoB Full Video

Compared to...

Alexander (Gordias) The Fist of the Father:

Steam, Faust, Oppressor

Full Video below (Content spoilers):

Alexander (Normal) Floor 1

Why does it feel like we've gone backwards in regards to raid design and layout? Alexander looks okay but it's story and design both lack the oomph that we got on our first step into the BCoB since they essentially cut out all the extra bells and whistles and just gave us 1 miniboss and 1 final boss.

The point however is that going from ARR to HW endgame shouldnt be following the same format, if we're going to have raids as the highest form of endgame then they need to be approached and feel very different from what we were given previously. Even if Alex normal was as difficult as BCoB was on release it shouldnt be presented in a similar (yet watered down) format.

If XI had an ilvl system from the start and new content replaced what came before on each expansion release, Limbus still didn't feel like Dynamis and Salvage still didn't feel like Limbus. while they all presented similar goals the roads to those ends were very different in execution and they didn't have to turn the design of the game on it's head each time new content came out to do so.

[Vickii]

There is no prestige, there might have been within the first month of 2.0 or so, but after that, practically everyone had one. Everyone and their mother got a relic. It's nothing special. It has about the same amount of prestige as going out and buying an i115 white weapon from a npc.

My thought of 'prestige' and your thought of 'prestige' are different.

Not to be mean, but you are one of those high end players who looks down your nose at people and complains about everything all the time. Prestige to you is something you and only you and your friends get to have.

There's a lot of people who just have fun and enjoy the game. To them, having the weapon and showing it to friends (who may have seen it a million times, but still are happy to see you have it) is fun.

This is not FFXI or World of Warcraft. The day of the hardcore no life gamer is kinda over. At least in this game. I think some people in this thread should probably accept that.

[aurace1095]

My thought of 'prestige' and your thought of 'prestige' are different.

Not to be mean, but you are one of those high end players who looks down your nose at people and complains about everything all the time. Prestige to you is something you and only you and your friends get to have.

There's a lot of people who just have fun and enjoy the game. To them, having the weapon and showing it to friends (who may have seen it a million times, but still are happy to see you have it) is fun.

This is not FFXI or World of Warcraft. The day of the hardcore no life gamer is kinda over. At least in this game. I think some people in this thread should probably accept that.

So you're saying because someone wants to put in some effort to get a good piece of gear, they're looking down on everyone else? Since when does absolutely everything have to be available to everyone, regardless of the effort put in? To some people, "just having fun and enjoying the game" is putting in the effort to get a good piece of gear - the gear is like a badge that shows "I did this!". I don't think it's "looking down your nose at people" to enjoy having that accomplishment. Prestige isn't something "you and only you and your friends get to have" - it's something that someone who puts in the effort is able to have. Look at it from a real world perspective - only the people who put in the effort gets an A in school, right? Someone who doesn't pay attention / do any work isn't going to get a good grade, nor should they. Obysuca is saying they enjoy putting in the extra effort and would like something to show from it, that's all.

[KingOfAbyss]

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?

Err.. Seems you didn't read well my post. First the sarcasm was for a more general theme, not pointing towards you ^^

I am one of those you call Casual Gamer. I used to be able to play 30-40 hours per week, went down to none, after a bit 3 hours per week, and now about 10 hours maximum per week.

It is a teamwork game, not a single-player game. I don't know about you, but even inside instances, where I do type more than your average (and yes, PS4 without a USB Keyboard seems still common) People will only rage when you'll wipe, blaming me (the Tank) or anyone besides them. Otherwise it's silent as heaven..

So.. the belitting that you talk about, is ME receiving it, not giving it lololol

It's so much easier to make friends, being in a good FC, make a group of 4-8-24 and then: Gbye DF.

The daily roulettes are the exception, SE forcing us to play nice with others.. (do they play nice? Some of them yes, that's why i'll still join any group that won't force you to be 110% up to your rotation, etc.. we are humans, we make mistakes, we have a timer, and in no case I've not been able to complete the task within, except when I was progressing within a Raiding group.)

I am trying to make my GF to enjoy the game. She's playing WHM as her main, and I'm doing Dungeons and Trials as soon as she unlocks them. We of course have instant queue, but we still encounter some iLvl200 that wants their roulette done in 5 mins so they can do other stuff. Let me tell you, my GF is good, but learning her skills as we go. if the rest of the party is annoying, what type of experience does that gives her about the game as a whole? Not really high.

I might even sell my house in order to join my old FC (which I admit, I miss WoU) so that she'll have an entirely different view of what a community should be. (and then so long PF, no more bullcrap from anyone)

I don't want to end up that she'll give it up, and then I'll follow, losing all the hard work since 2.0 (some people since 1.0) its a great game, I have great hopes for 4.0 so I'll still wait for it to come. But it's the players that can make or break the feeling of a good game.

Edit to help you: TL;DR My response to your post was to show you that FFXIV ain't towards us Casual Gamers; you seriously need a reality check or take off your rose-colored glasses.

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

Not to be mean, but you are one of those high end players who looks down your nose at people and complains about everything all the time. Prestige to you is something you and only you and your friends get to have.

There's a lot of people who just have fun and enjoy the game. To them, having the weapon and showing it to friends (who may have seen it a million times, but still are happy to see you have it) is fun.

This is not FFXI or World of Warcraft. The day of the hardcore no life gamer is kinda over. At least in this game. I think some people in this thread should probably accept that.

Because being hardcore means you have no life and always complain... okay (Oh you just had to do it didn't you. You just had to say that :P). Did you actually read my entire post quoting you? This is not about high end players looking down on people, this is about prolonging the game's life by having actual content to do that doesn't get outdated every 2 months. Add a long term goal like a relic, you get people hooked, more steady money for SE, how is this hard to grasp?

Just like you enjoy the game in a way, high end gamers enjoy the game in a different way. Last I heard this is Final Fantasy, not a Hello Kitty, Barbie or any dress up and corny MMO. We are supposed to fight against freaking cool super strong meanie monsters, we are supposed to go on adventure, not stay home without having much to do. Even Hunts are long forgotten (though I have to admit it is much more fun low man than 500 people on it). You are not the only type of player that exists in the game. You actually act like you were the one looking down at high end game players and not the other way around. There really should be a balance between the two sides of the spectrum. You can't just have one and right now the spectrum is more like 80% casual 20% hardcore. There is not enough content to keep you interested at end game because the content gets oudated so fast, just look at primals. No one wants to do them anymore, parties don't fill up, what else is there to do? Nothing! Read my first post on this thread and just about any posts from other people really, please, so you can actually understand what the problem is.

Edit: Also forgot to add, Not only the content gets outdated so fast that there's no variety in what to do in end game, but there's also no variety in the actual endgame raids that they release, hence why we mention content from FFXI and how they actually expanded on what they had spicing it up and giving the new content a different approach in how to complete it. I already said this on my first post and has been said by others, just important not to forget, too.

[Kosmos992k]

Err.. Seems you didn't read well my post.

Either that or it wasn't terribly clear...

[Obysuca]

stuff a new person has no idea about

Again, as many people have pointed out, you've only been on XIV for a month and don't have 2 years of experience as the rest of us, which is why you think theres a difference. You haven't even experienced a single update. Give it a year when you've experienced the same things we have and then come back and give an opinion because right now, your opinion holds as much weight as a lvl 1 giving assumptions about endgame.

I'll tell you exactly from experience, that alex is basically the same as coil, just different scenery and bosses (actually coil felt bigger, even though they're both single straight paths). The 2 dungeons out now are exactly the same as the last 2 dungeons. Void ark will just be another faceroll CT. Different scenery does not mean new content. New and varied content means something that feels different from the last content.
The thing is, thats what XIV does right now, goes from 8 man raids, to 24, then 8, then 24, each update cycle. What we're asking for is more options in EACH update, so we have the option of a new 8 man AND 24 man at the same time, so theres more variety thats relevant rather than a single raid with 4 bosses that gets thrown out in 3 months.

[Obysuca]

Replaced? Unless I miss my guess, nothing was replaced, new things were added.

Last time I'm going to say it because it really feels like you're not getting it and just blindly defending XIV. But yes, replaced. Everything pre 3.0 was replaced. Do people do coil? Do people do ex primals? Do people do any of the lvl 50 dungeons if they're not doing high lvl? Do people do CT? No. No they don't. You can even see this with other topics popping up about people trying to do pony farms and no one's joining. All of that content was replaced. If it wasn't replaced, like you're saying, then people would still be doing those, they'd still be relevant, the gear would be useful, but it's not. None of it is.

Just like the content we have now, will be replaced in 3.1, hardly anyone will touch Neverreap / Fractal or alex. Nothing new was added. You can't say new content was added when they throw out the content they just added to, you guessed it, replace what they just had in the update before. If they keep Neverreap and Fractal in expert, bump alex normal up to i200, while still adding in void ark and 2 new dungeons, then sure, "new" things were added, we'd have more variety, but that won't happen. The 2 dungeons/alex now will be trash in a few weeks/month. Judging by how CT always had lower ilvl than what was out, it'll most likely just be for glamour for your main or subpar gear for your other jobs. Look at Ravana and Bismarck ex, do you ever see pts for those anymore? I sure don't. People did it, got their stuff, never touched it again. Bismarck was obsolete on release, considering you could do a few hunts and have a better weapon than what dropped in Bismarck.

[Kosmos992k]

The 2 dungeons out now are exactly the same as the last 2 dungeons.

"Exactly the same"? Step for step? Mob for mob? Boss for boss? Mechanic for mechanic?

Really? I mean, really? Come on, you can do better than that. Obviously the 2 most recent dungeons are NOT exactly the same as the last two.

Last time I'm going to say it because it really feels like you're not getting it and just blindly defending XIV. But yes, replaced. Everything pre 3.0 was replaced. Do people do coil? Do people do ex primals? Do people do any of the lvl 50 dungeons if they're not doing high lvl? Do people do CT? No. No they don't. You can even see this with other topics popping up about people trying to do pony farms and no one's joining. All of that content was replaced. If it wasn't replaced, like you're saying, then people would still be doing those, they'd still be relevant, the gear would be useful, but it's not. None of it is. Just like the content we have now, will be replaced in 3.1, hardly anyone will touch Neverreap / Fractal or alex.

Your outlook and cynicism is quite stark, I hope I never have the displeasure of running into you in-game. Oh, and as usual, you repeat the same empty statements.

[Akiza]

A Better Summoner thats what Heavensward brought.