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

[Jetstream_Fox]

You have to remember that the expansion itself isn't over.
Yeah the mechanical things such as flying mounts, new job abilities and stuff are pretty set in their ways. But content, stuff to do, things to see, faces to punch, that's not over with yet.

It's true yes they're not done bring stuff out, but my point was to shed light on the mass issues the game had before 3.0 and currently has. The expansion didn't exactly fix anything and made things more of a mess, in order to bring new content to the table, the old content needs to be 100% prefect, with things like housing, companies and even crafting and gathering being so neglected or having ideas built on them when the foundation of the original idea isn't full proof the game is setting up for failure.

The expansion gave us a new story, but how they released it was a problem in it's own right, it's locked away behind months of content, anyone new wanting to try it is condemned to deal with SE and their ideology that old content isn't worth doing. As the game progresses more players will be left behind, not because of their own playstyle, but because the way everything is handled on the game.

If XIV can even survive the release of Phantom Pain, Until Dawn, Halo 5 and Fallout 4 then this game might be able to rebuild itself, but if it doesn't and many players leave for all the new games because the devs at SE didn't want to fully fix many aspects of the game, then HW might be the last expansion this game gets.

[Gardes]

Man, at this point I think even abyssea tier content is better than what we have...and I barely scratched it (checked it out while waiting for 2.0). It's even open world! I know people hated it because it rendered their years of play useless but that doesn't apply here (we render ours moot here every few months) and I saw lots of people doing endgame abyssea content while I was leveling there, then hunting for papers for my max level gear and joining a couple parties for low tier boss monster hunting. I mean, I see people doing many things there, most of them I don't know what for and not related to my own progression but surely for theirs...it seemed like what I was doing was just part of the bigger picture and it wasn't even that hard (if that's what you're concerned about). Meanwhile in XIV, even ignoring savage alex, what I can do as a COMBAT ADVENTURER* with just one class can be grasped with one hand and that's all there is.

*I can't claim how many of this type of player there are but as a combat adventurer, I am not against crafting and gathering (I was a 3 star crafter at the end of non DF FCOB and was creating food and potions for my FCOB group) but I see them as SUPPLEMENTAL to my adventures. NOT the focus. Telling me to level crafting and gathering for the sake of 'finding something' to do isn't going to convince me when at best you can only make food and potions and vit melds that 'lose' their urgency as each week goes by (save for the tanks). Even the game affirms this. Removed DOH and DOL from being creatable from the get go, having msqs being combat only when it wasn't, having all the trailers and promotions being action oriented.

EDIT: I would like to elaborate some more on abyssea, for the people who has never seen it. It was basically copy pasted zones from the game's existing zones except they changed the tone of the areas (they became bleak, it was a dying alternate dimension world iirc) and what's inside it and changed some pathways. There were many mobs in them and many boss monsters peppered around the area. Players go in there to grind on mobs to level for xp or merits. Some of these mobs drops items, items used to spawn certain bosses (some of them have even more specific spawn conditions) that drops items/gear. There are also some npcs that will reward you for killing certain mobs so some players do these to for the reward and the exp from the mobs. Most of these items that drop from bosses and rewards are spread out so not all classes need to the same type of npc/mobs/bosses so they might need to ask for their friends' help even if they don't actually need it for their main class.

..You can be travelling across the zone and see a party fighting a boss along the way, wonder what they're doing it for (cause you have never needed to with the classes you're playing as or at least not yet), watch them get annihilated so you offer a prayer and then walk away cause you're not a healer, arrive to your leveling alliance, see another small party fighting a boss next to your alliance fighting mobs, watch them get destroyed too, see your alliance wanting to kill the boss because they don't like the boss being so near them and then they get wrecked too, you included, because you thought, 18 near cap players vs 1 lvl cap boss? What could go wrong?

[Natashio]

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/areas.html?farea=82.

The 2014 video gamers can't handle this place.

[FaizeD]

The vast horizontal progression from XI will never translate well into this game because the whole armoury system sucks. Crit, det, acc, speed - there's only so many combinations you can draw from this small pool before gear just because redundant glamour junk. Why would you have four of the max ilvl body pieces when a. you can't change gear in combat and b. the weight on WD/main stat is so high that outside of acc caps and speed thresholds, the benefits from secondary stats are miniscule? At the very least they account for minor fluctuations in DPS if all other elements remain constant, but they do not completely change the way you play your job like gear sets did in XI.

This is what people mean when they say that all gear in this game is functionally the same. It's all "stack this one stat". A dynamic approach would be to have say a WAR body piece that removed the pacification effect from Berserk, or doubled the amount of wrath stacks you gain. Or a WHM staff that made esuna AoE. Something along those lines.

[Daralii]

This is what people mean when they say that all gear in this game is functionally the same. It's all "stack this one stat". A dynamic approach would be to have say a WAR body piece that removed the pacification effect from Berserk, or doubled the amount of wrath stacks you gain. Or a WHM staff that made esuna AoE. Something along those lines.

The potential risks of a system like that are that it's hard to balance and, potentially, you remove the soft gear reset every patch, and the hard gear reset every expansion. To prevent the latter they'd have to add a new piece for every job each patch that adds the same passive, and at that point it's similar to hitting the accuracy/speed threshold.

[Taei]

Not really anything to do in terms of endgame other than Savage which is hardcore static content. My FC is bored to shits atm and people are dropping like flies. I've seen people come and go before but this time feels different, I don't feel like there's the same feeling of hope for improvement.

[FreeLancer4]

The 2014 video gamers can't handle this place.

They couldn't handle not having every spell or ability gifted to them let alone getting to that place. The hand-outs in this game are unreal in comparison.

[Iromi]

Not really anything to do in terms of endgame other than Savage which is hardcore static content. My FC is bored to shits atm and people are dropping like flies. I've seen people come and go before but this time feels different, I don't feel like there's the same feeling of hope for improvement.

My fc and I share the same sentiments. I don't think a lot of them are bothering coming back anymore :/ If they don't change this game up and add open world PvE and variety content I think I'm gonna throw in the towel too :s

[Magis]

They couldn't handle not having every spell or ability gifted to them let alone getting to that place. The hand-outs in this game are unreal in comparison.

One memory I have from FFXI was grinding with a RDM and WHM (I was BLM) in Horutoto Ruins to get the bone or w.e needed for Aspir which was only awarded from a quest (or auction house). Met the couple after shouting who also wanted the item. Was fun and made some friends that day. Also that door before where the skeletons were that made a BLM, WHM, and RDM stand on the three circles was awesome and kinda blew my mind at the time lol.

[Souljacker]

Because you enjoy things a certain way, you want to change it so that you enjoy it but some other people dont, how is this any less selfish?

Well, because my way doesn't come at the expense of everyone else. You are arguing that the current housing system is perfect and fine the way it is despite many people not being able to even own houses. That's pretty much the definition of a selfish attitude - "I got mine, everything's fine, screw everyone else".

If the servers can't handle enough wards for everyone to have a house, it's time to take another look at the system. It's just not fair that you have access to content that I and others don't, all because you managed to scoop up a house right after a reset or are on a dead server. How you can even call me selfish when I'm asking for everyone to have equal access to something is just baffling.