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

[TruebladeNuke]

Pretty much this and any game in general. I'm personally not bored with the game yet but I can see where the other side is coming from. For me, I just look forward to the new stuff we'll get (story, relic, fixes, etc). Mayhaps everyone needs to take a break from the forums for a while.

*Shudders upon remembering some of the other forums and discussions on other games after reading the bolded*

Anyway, agreed again. Personally, I just wish people would stop posting like they're trying to strangle each others necks while we're all waiting for new content to come out, but I know there's nothing I can do about that. Taking a break from the forum is indeed a good suggestion though.

[Imoen]

relative opinion.

You keep throwing this around "narrow focus"...

I don't get it, so because fun is different for different people.... and vertical progression is very much geared at end game and obtaining loot.... and because you absolutely enjoy every single pixel, script, activity in this game and never get sick of it ... that means others have a "narrow focus" and they need to get over it? What the hell? So you are easily amused so everyone else is "whining" ? oh and btw, in vertical progression, end game is "the game" after MSQ, everything else is just fluff, some of it nice fluff other portions are useless fluff and the worst of all-- some of it is boring (edit) and or paid fluff.

Just because some people don't like crafting and would rather punch themselves in their own privates rather than kneel, staring at a glowy ball all day, just so they can repair their equip - they have a "narrow focus"?

Or maybe they like gathering but can't stomach doing it all the time - they have a "narrow focus"?

That they don't see the point in leveling all the battle jobs just to keep busy because they will only ever realistically be able to actually play 1- MAYBE 2 in endgame content beyond EXR because of the lockouts on gear, not to mention the commitment to optimizing rotations so they aren't yelled at every run etc.., they have a "narrow focus"?

Because some people don't find fun in gathering digital minions and mounts they have a "narrow focus"?

Because not everyone is a social bug, or maybe have been manipulated by many new players to "help them" and they quit the game - so they don't want to put the effort into it anymore right now for fear of being disappointed by another lost friend.... they have a "narrow focus"?

For real?

[SpookyGhost]

Late reply is late but:

This is actually a personal issue I myself have with gaming communities. Indeed, as you mentioned, they claim that they like the game, but then they only complain about it. I've never liked mixed messages.

It's healthy to be critical of things you like, especially when you pay monthly for it. Everyone here (aside from Kosmos) is specifically talking about endgame - the rest of the game is fine, it has it's flaws but they're minor and easily glossed over. Endgame is a specifically large portion of the game where you'll spend 99% of your time until the next expansion, and it's massively silly to just accept the plethora of horrible decisions that have been made since 2.0 simply because the MSQ was fine. It's like accepting the later half of Bravely Default just because you liked the first 4 chapters, except you're paying proportionally less for that game than this one.

[Ryel]

Why do I need to have done any end game for my opinions about everything else in the game to matter? You're telling me that the person who plays a minority of the game and complains about end game has a more valid opinion about the game in general, than someone who plays a far wider range of content? Next you'll be calling me entitled... :rolls eyes:

You don't but it does show that you have a limited perspective when viewing the whole picture.

You're making the point to argue against players who have a wider view of the state of the game as a whole because they've taken a step into every piece of content it has to offer. Just because someone actively raids doesn't mean they also don't take time to craft or gather, take part in events in the gold saucer, do hunts and treasure maps or level alternate classes, It's actually more often the case that the players who do raid also tend to do most other things in the game else as well to some degree.

This topic is a great illustration of the gaping chasm that exists between raiders and *everyone* else.

Actually this topic is a great illustration of the misunderstanding a large amount of the playerbase has in regards to the time and play-style commitments that come with doing "endgame" content. There are many comments in this thread that assume that getting to and participating in end game is this huge mountainous ordeal of time invested, or that the players who do those activities had to have blitzed their way through other content to do so, something that isn't true outside of world first progression.

The fact of the matter is that a large number of players who have made their way through the majority of the game's content have done so on casual schedules and probably spend less hours online than many of the players who haven't even stepped foot into Alexander (normal), yet they also still garden, craft, etc like i said above.

I've not argued against adding content. What I have taken issue with is people who whine about being burned out because the farmed the crap out of the easy mode raid before trying the hard version, or people whining about having nothing to do when they admit their focus is narrow, or claim there is nothing new when in fact they are only talking about raid content...etc... As for taking my own advice, I wouldn't have suggested it if I was unwilling to do as I say. Believe it or not, some people enjoy helping others and just running stuff for fun,and not because its hard enough to nake you want to hurt yourself. There is enough open ended content in this game such that even if I never set foot in an un-nerfed raid, I will always have something to do.

There are some players that only do raid / endgame content sure, but that doesn't make their observations any less accurate when they continue to compare the worth of content presented, many of those observations are pointing out things like content becoming obsolete and barren.

If anything their arguments are even more important if they are avoiding a large amount of the game's content because they find it uninteresting, the game should be encouraging players to want to take part in a bit of everything. A theme park that people go to and go on only one ride wont have a long life as a theme park.

Can you still call CT content that the game offers if you are unable to queue for and enter it because nobody else is doing it?

There's a thread on that very issue here:

CT is dead please fix.

The truth is there isn't as much open ended content in this game as you would like to claim, rewards like tomes have set weekly reward limits (Esoterics) and in some cases the items that they provide are no longer useful (Poetics), any content with sufficient rewards has hard lockouts (Alexander), others are completely invalidated by ilvl climb (Primals), some are restricted in a way that prevents free play (PvP GC restriction but they said they'll fix it), and a large amount doesn't bother encouraging you to do it more than once (majority of dungeons), some content is even designed in a way that a large number of people can't even experience it (Housing, anything connected to housing, Hunts during prime rewards), and for others the investment of effort required isn't always met with equal rewards (Relic quest, impacts of crafting and gathering).

The above leads to a formula that essentially encourages burnout at every avenue unless you use the game like a glorified chat room, except the part where i forgot to mention the 8 person limit on the majority of content that prevents you from playing with a large group of your friends, something many players are hoping the airship content promised is going to rectify.

It seems this is becoming more common a complaint on these very forums when threads like these continue to appear:

Final Fantasy 14 is starting to lose appeal because...

Also, how can you blame players for farming and getting burned out on Alexander (normal) before entering savage when:

A) Normal is required for Savage entry and is weekly locked, thus encouraging players to cap on drops or lose out on them completely.
B) Normal came out weeks before Savage leaving players with little else to do.
C) Due to the story mode (see: faceroll easy) nature of Alexander (normal) many players were disappointed with Savage when they were met with similar fights with very few mechanic changes until A3+.

The experience and awe that usually came alongside raid content was essentially stripped away with the normal version being released first, making the Savage version about nothing but gear (and bragging rights) essentially, this isn't to say that they shouldn't have released a story version but they probably would have been better off if they had released one after the implementation of a harder baseline version like they had with the original coils, or just added echo to the baseline version and kept the Savage mode as is (which is probably what most were expecting).

So while you're entitled to your opinions and your views matter just as much as others, your personal perspective is much smaller than that of those who have tried everything the game has to offer in some capacity. Just because you have declined to participate in some of the more "endgame" oriented content doesn't mean that there is a wealth of it elsewhere in the game, especially if a large amount of that content doesn't vary in great degree, or offer enough incentives from the other options presented.

[Gardes]

You don't but it does show that you have a limited perspective when viewing the whole picture.

You're making the point to argue against players who have a wider view of the state of the game as a whole because they've taken a step into every piece of content it has to offer. Just because someone actively raids doesn't mean they also don't take time to craft or gather, take part in events in the gold saucer, do hunts and treasure maps or level alternate classes, It's actually more often the case that the players who do raid also tend to do most other things in the game else as well to some degree.

+rest of the post

Good god. You pretty much nailed it. I raided from 1 month after launch all the way to the end of fcob with 1 month break somewhere in there. Each week I raid 2-3 times usually taking 2-3 hours each. I picked up crafting and gathering because I wanted to make food and potions for combat use. I also used them to make furnitures in my private room, all of them gathered and handcrafted by myself save for the purchasables from npc and gifts from people. I made glamours for myself, I made prisms for my FC. I did gold saucer: gates, cactpot, casual triple triad and choco racing. I did hunts, I did treasure maps, I leveled everything from 1-50 before HW, I did all the beastmen quests, etc. None of them rushed. Most of them was done as they came up.

I'm not even asking for innovative content at hw launch (which is too late now). I wanted a remix. Endgame leves, endgame treasure maps, endgame job specific daily quests, end game anything else but JUST endgame dungeons, 24 man raid, 8 man raid all over again. I want to clarify that stuff like leve and treasure maps are doable at lvl 60 but they're not rewarding for combat classes like ex roulette and alexander are. At best they just provide materials for an economy that are largely made up of glamour, craft leveling itself (which I fear airship content is just going to be). I want stuff like the stuff I mentioned to reward people with combat class progression (just like dungeon tomes and 24 man raids) and they DO NOT to be have savage alex hardcore.

As a midcore player, I'm fine with there only being one hardest content (the 8 man raids that my group always only fully clear towards the end of the next release). I want something to do on days I'm not raiding with my group that doesn't involve logging in, saying hi to my fc, ask who wants to go to ex dr with me and then get MAYBE one player to join up (usually others have done their exdr to get it out of the way) and then that's it. Everybody tries to find something to do because there's only so much ravana clears we can do as an fc before we just have to move on. Usually that used to involve me just crafting and gathering for my group's raid supply.

There's leveling and end game. I don't have a problem with leveling. There are way more venues for leveling than endgame content and there are multiple classes to level up. As far as I'm concerned this is WAY more varied than the endgame where every single combat class does the same thing: roulettes, alexander and the upcoming 24 man raid and the throwaway hunts and not all your combat classes that you capped at 60 even get to benefit from doing these.

[Seryl199]

If you dislike the game so much, why do you play? Seriously, your post demonstrates nothing more than you have a very narrow focus, and empasizes the self inflicted nature of the problem.

You know, base on the replies I see, I honestly have to ask, why don't all of you go play something else? SE will *never* change the game to match your expectations, so rather than hanging around and being oointlessly negative and bitter, why not play something more suited to your...needs?

I am playing something else, I've hardly touched the game for the past month and then some. When I first started FF14 I never thought I'd play for more than a couple months, never mind 2 years! I played from 2.0 beta through now, and while there were ups and downs along the way to 2.55, I loved the game, by and large. It was one of the last games I bought on PS3, and one of the only games on my PS4 for quite some time. Now that the game is faltering for new ideas and failing to incentivize its old ones, and with a slew of games that have come out and will be coming out, there's less grounding me in Eorzea against the lure of greater thrills from other games.

FF14 hasn't changed, it still offers good story, good content, largely well balanced classes, a beautiful world and all that, but again, it hasn't changed. If their model retains enough subs for the game to remain successful, then yeah, the game will probably never change. Some players will get tired of the same game and quit, while some newbies will join at the bottom and start fresh, and the game perpetuates itself for as long as possible.

If that's all the game has to offer, I bear no ill will towards the players that still enjoy it, not at all. It's not a model that would satisfy me, I'll drop my sub and move on. I've enjoyed my time in Eorzea, I can happily take that time with me as an overwhelmingly positive experience. We don't need to be coaxed or convinced to do it. Suggesting that we do so accomplishes little, the players that have reached that level of dissatisfaction are long gone. If we're still here, it's because we recognize that the game is built on a strong foundation. It's very capable of being a good game, only it's stuck in a rut of same-ness. No one's asking for another ARR, most players are happy with the core of the game as it is. We're only asking for something a little fresher, rather than the very same conventions applied in the very same way.

[DracotheDragon]

SNIP

ok starting with the reply to me, at what point did i say i, myself, didn't like this game.
all i did was use your list and added the Adverage views on reddit the forums and in games seen as the general view

also playing another game, *looks at MGSV* i have, and it is exciting to have something other then a monotonous grind for a while, though i still play FFXIV a lot.

after reading a bunch of your posts, you genuinely have no clue what is being said or why, you mention narrow view before shoving your head into your own world where your view is the only correct view, thus you have the narrow view you claim to dislike, plus you have said you do not do end game content, and that is what everyone has been giving feedback on, that is like a vegan telling the chief he is cooking meat wrong, it is extremely asinine to beleave that just because you don't do the end game content everyone who is providing feedback dose not care, what to know what someone who dosnt care would do, they wouldn't say anything and go to another game.

but no, your going to stay in your own fantasy different to everyone else where you actively do no wish to do end game content leaving yourself in a position where you telling us we are wrong is in itself wrong, if you have no clue what end game is like then you don't truly have the right to say.

now please either do some endgame content and learn why we are providing the feedback or kindly leave your own feedback on the things YOU have done and YOU like without assuming that everyone in the game has the same view as yourself.


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i apologies to everyone else for that rudeness but let me continue onto the main post,

with heavenward though it has brought much to the table i have to truly see what 3.1 will bring for the end game, but one thing i dislike and i know my friends dislike is the 2 dungeon roulettes, it always seems to be one of them (in most people's cases nevereep) and that surely makes the dungeons feel tedious when there is no extra virally in the mix when you only seem to get the same dungeon over and over, another thing is with Void ark i hope this bridges the gap between Alex normal which is extremely easy and Alex savage which even the devs have said is compared to SCoB savage and FCoB, currently unless you are someone who enjoys every last aspect in the game i truly feel that there isn't much to do, and what is put in has become tedious after only a short time, i hope we do get some more fun content in the future and soon, because i feel that 3.0 is now reaching the point where it needs the patch otherwise it will be like 2.5 and over stay it's welcome.

[Kaurie]

Late reply is late but:

This is actually a personal issue I myself have with gaming communities. Indeed, as you mentioned, they claim that they like the game, but then they only complain about it. I've never liked mixed messages.

Generally speaking, people will complain about things that they care about, and not about things they don't care about. Why they care varies, but in a context of a video game it's usually because they either like or have liked the game.

Also complaints about a game of this magnitude =/= dissatisfaction with every aspect of the game. Our posts are focused, so we discuss our constructive criticsms while leaving out unfocused material such aspects of the game we enjoy. We could write an essay discussing every piece of content that we both like and hate for each and every post, but no one would read it.

Personally, I enjoy MMO's for the social aspect of the game. Playing single player games feels rather lonely now. I've tried GW2, Wildstar, WoW, Tera and a few other F2P games. Each game has done some things right and some things wrong. FFXIV seems to get more right than wrong compared to all else. For example I like in FFXIV:
-Tab targeting
-Raids
-Mobility in combat
-Trinity system
-Graphics
-Glamours
-Available races/classes
-Story
-Traditional style questing
-One character for all
-Flying
-Beautiful landscapes

I don't like:
-Lack of official parsing support
-Lack of official voice chat support
-Lack of replayability of awesome content (such as story)
-Despite 1 character for all, I feel forced into one job as I cannot properly gear my alternate jobs for the content I enjoy most (raids)
-Lack of experience gained in 50 dungeons, this would add a LOT of variety in to what you can do to go from 50-60
-The current maps (not the landscape, the actual maps)
-Method of gathering and crafting (i like GW2 style gathering and Wildstar style crafting)

and so on.

[Goodberry]

Good, balanced post, I agree with practically all you said, both on the "like" and "dislike" side.

I'd add on "like":
- Day/night cycle, weather effects
- The Beast Tribes and how they talk
- Most of the music

On "dislike":
- Not being able to group with your chocobo when soloing dungeons, or having a minion out at the same time, etc.
- Too many (and slow) loading screens
- FATEs should be more meaningful and rewarding, at all levels (I am tired of going to a FATE and finding nobody there!)

And yes, the current maps are really lousy, and make the world look smaller than it actually is. Make them WoW-style. Map the whole of a zone, and make us discover where we can or can't go.

[Daralii]

Good, balanced post, I agree with practically all you said, both on the "like" and "dislike" side.

I'd add on "like":
- Day/night cycle, weather effects
- The Beast Tribes and how they talk
- Most of the music

On "dislike":
- Not being able to group with your chocobo when soloing dungeons, or having a minion out at the same time, etc.
- Too many (and slow) loading screens
- FATEs should be more meaningful and rewarding, at all levels (I am tired of going to a FATE and finding nobody there!)

And yes, the current maps are really lousy, and make the world look smaller than it actually is. Make them WoW-style. Map the whole of a zone, and make us discover where we can or can't go.

The loading screens are an unfortunate result of PS3 limitations. Even 1.0 had them between regions, they were just hidden in the form of walking through straight tunnels for a bit.