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

[Velhart]

snip

Sorry, but there should be some content in the game that requires more effort and end game raids should be it. People should realize that and I don't think they are entitled to a near no-thought required fights to get it. People should be challenged, and the best solution to a midcore/hardcore set up is the way I explained it. If people want to be carried and want an experience like a story mode can wait till the echo buff is implemented and gear can carry you through mechanics.

Right now, the only actual hard content in this game is Alex(Savage), and that is it. Pretty sad.

[Mikhaill]

That's because that is *not* the point, at all. But, if you're bored, playing something else for a while would seem to be a logical suggestion. If you have more time to play than I do, thats great, go enjoy yourself, but likeI said, if you are bored, play something else a while. Coming to the general forum and demanding a disproportionate development effort be made to satisfy raiders deserves a respone from non raiders wondeting why even more should devoted to sections of the game that only a small fraction ofpeople willsee.

I hate to be that guy, and I rarely point out peoples LS, but you don't have a 60
and know nothing about what's wrong with end-game right now. Spoilers! It's the same crap you dealt with in 2.0.
I was told "End-game is where it begins!" Yeah the ride up to it was fun, actually getting there isn't.
No one dislikes the game here, we're just upset that we're stuck in the same limbo as 2.0.
But I can see, we've all been saying the same things to you and you go right back and picking and pointing
out posts. Of course you won't talk about end-game, you aren't even there. Why are you even talking to us if that's what this topic's about?

[TruebladeNuke]

In reply to replies, I'll admit I'm simply the odd duck out on this. Even though I understand why people want to criticize and all that, I still question as to why they spend more time complaining about the game rather than praising it every now and then to let the developers know that yes, they actually did enjoy the game despite not liking certain parts. (As I said before, I've never liked mixed messages) Yes, I know, since every person is different, there's going to be a lot of conflict amongst the fans and that it happens quite frequently. (Hence the TV Tropes "Unpleasable Fanbase" and "Broken Base", along with other examples from there)

I once wrote in a different forum under a thread title called "Unpopular Opinions" in which everyone there spoke out what they felt was something that the entire rest of the population would disagree with them on. In there, I wrote up about why developers and artists will never appeal to everyone period and why listening to the fanbase isn't always a good idea. But I won't bother re-posting that here.

Alright. Think I've said all I've wanted to say for this thread. Mind you, just because I hardly ever complain myself about aspects of the game, doesn't mean I don't have my own complaints about the games I play. I've just come to accept the fact that every game I play will never be 100% perfect. (Perhaps to a fault)

[Colorful]

snip

Which is why I suggested implementing 3 difficulties, you have something for every group of people. I'd personally love for Alexander with the difficulty slightly above RavEX to be implemented, but I know plenty of people who are content with just seeing the story. I don't understand the mentality that people like yourself seem to have, why restrict people from seeing content? It has no effect on you, not from what I can tell anyway.

[Evtrai]

Which is why I suggested implementing 3 difficulties, you have something for every group of people. I'd personally love for Alexander with the difficulty slightly above RavEX to be implemented, but I know plenty of people who are content with just seeing the story. I don't understand the mentality that people like yourself seem to have, why restrict people from seeing content? It has no effect on you, not from what I can tell anyway.

Your Miqo'te is such a cutie pie.

[Kosmos992k]

I hate to be that guy, and I rarely point out peoples LS, but you don't have a 60
and know nothing about what's wrong with end-game right now.

Then don't be that guy.

I've played end game content before in other games and this one. The truth is, it's not enjoyable to me, its stressfuly and full of people with pissy attitudes. I've lost count of the friends I have seen chewed up and spat out by the end-game in this game. If you enjoy running and rerunning the same subset of content to obtain the best gear, go for it. But don't expect sympathy after you beat it and get bored.

I have no problem with there being good, long lasting end-game content, I've previoussly said that I think Savage should have been more different from normal (same story content as normal though). I get that many raiders feel that there is not enough content worthy of their skills. Guess what, many other players consider that ARR locked too much content behind stupidly difficult (or rather, pointlessly punishing) content that later had to be nerfed - consequently pissing off raiders. I'll not go through the entire argument over putting story behind such gates, except to say it's an annoying way to do things and annoys far more players than it pleases.

What gets on my nerves though is topic like this where poster after poster whines and complains that the game as a whole is no good because there is insufficient raiding/end game content for their liking. The game as a whole has tons of content for players of all levels, but if you restrict your view to content suited to specific groups such as raiders or top tier crafters, there is less to see.

Of course there is, because SE knows from their player data that small minorities of players engage such content. So they make a little bit for each subset, and a lot for the majority. If more people played end game, there would be more end-game. But as long as end-game is really only accessible to those who spend most of their play time farming tokens or gear to gear up, or running the raids with their statics, the difficulty of forming or joining a static, and the discipline of gear farming will prevent many very capable, skilled, players from joining in. I see the current end-game structure as a positive thing in the longterm because it gives many more players a chance to experience the end-game(albeit a 'lite' version). Without engaging more players in the end-game, future development effort wouLd be harder to justify.

Had Alex Savage been sufficiently different in terms of battle/boss content such that it wasn't simply a carbon copy of Alex normal, I suspect raiders woukd be happier with it. Were there a bonus fight at the end, not included in normal, I'd bet people would be happier still. I'm not arguing against changes to improve matters, but I do argue against the idea that much more dev time is needed for end-game exclusive content, because that would take away from the rest of the game and penalize everyone. I agree that with improvements end-game would be better, but it's not an all or nothing thing.

Finally, I can't stand the whining about having nothing to do except logging in, capping tomes, running a raid that uson farm and logging out. I can't stand it because it's litterally untrue. There is plenty to do, but in truth this having nothing to do us a personal situation created by the player restricting their selection of things to do. This kind of whining also creates a false impression that the game lacks content, when in fact it does not, though it has limited end-game content.

When I replied To the OP it seemed that the discussion was broader than end-game, the title of the thread certainly is. The topic has drifted to a far more end-game centric discussion than it was at the outset. Many people have replied to me in that context, failing to realize, or care, that I am replying to the broader discussion. It's pointless of me to reply further in this topic, because minds are closed and opinions set in stone, so I won't reply further.

In conclusion, this discussion could have had a far more constructive course, but as long as people adopt a position that is inflexible and summed up by the thought that any concession is equivalent to capitulation to the opposing view, nothing will be gained.

[Alipoprocks]

2. Caps on spending tomes rather than earning them. This game encourages you to have alternate jobs up until it comes to gearing, then it's one job or else. This really sucks if you need to swap jobs for savage (PLD to DRK for example or even cross roles, which is not uncommon as people try to optimize their teams). If I want to farm esoterics so I can gear my SCH in addition to my SMN, I don't see why I am prevented. However, I understand not wanting us to have full esoteric'd SMN on week 1, thus cap spending per job at 450 per week.
3. Add earning esoterics to things in the open world like fates, mix it up in what we're doing
4. . . . . and alternate ways to obtain different gear sets

Yes, yes, yes, please. Love the spending cap per job idea. Would love to see SE encourage people to play different jobs instead of hindering it. I mean yeah, we can level jobs to 60 right now but really can only do the two dungeons and Alex easy with them.

[Nalien]

Alexander really is disappointing compared to Coil... First impressions of the story version were good, but it was so damned easy. Fun, but easy (which meant the fun wore off quickly...), the real version however... Next time SE, don't start with a pure DPS check... My first time in the Binding Coil was nothing special, but ADS actually being more than just "Can you DPS enough before it overwhelms you?" was nice. Silencing High Voltage was by no means the most challenging mechanic in the world, but it was the first point in A Realm Reborn where you had to go in with some actual planning. One person could not Silence every High Voltage, you had to set up two people and decide who Silences first. Again, by no means was that challenging, but it is worlds better than Fausts' simple DPS check... This game is already too reliant on DPS checks, having a massive one as the first impression for the real Alexander just ruined my opinion of the raid. Add to that the underwhelming story (compared to Coil, at least) and lack of rewards (since I have no real interest in playing the "I do this raid for gear so I can do this raid!" game), and Alexander just sucks IMO...

I think they released the two version in the wrong order, though obviously they had to release casual-Alex first because Heavensward had virtually no endgame content, but hopefully they can correct this for the second arm and core. Having the story-mode first has just cheapened the real version, IMO. When I was first doing A1, I was looking at it and thinking "I bet they do this for the Savage version!", and sure enough, they did. That instantly made A1S much easier and more routine, which just added to its long list of problems. You know what I'd rather see? Slap the Savage mode in first and have a system in place that monitors each servers completion of it. Moment a group on the server clears it, BAM! That server now has access to the story-mode version. Rather than clearing the story-mode and having the Wandering Minstrel unlock the real version, have the Wandering Minstrel unlock the story-mode when someone clears the real version. Perhaps even directly reference the Free Company that cleared it in the quest, so rather than the Wandering Minstrel recounting something the player has already done, he is recounting something the top raiders have already done so everyone else can enjoy the content. That would be far more interesting IMO.

Alexander aside, Ravana and Bismark suck. Ravana was OK until Esoterics were introduced, but now they're both redundant trash. Did anyone at SE even plan their release? You know what would have been really good here? Another Primal Focus quest. Seriously, how did you not put this in? It wouldn't be a massive piece of content, but it would at least have made Ravana and Bismark relevant for a while longer, if we had a quest to clear them each week for either a i190 weapon, or i200. That's far from perfect, but at least it's something. The fights themselves were a blast compared to Ifrit and co, but they had zero staying power... Bismark especially; Cleared once to unlock Ravana then forgotten... Poor whale...

Speaking of Esoterics... I'm so glad they've kept tomestones exactly the same as they were since 2.0! So glad... Yes, that was sarcasm... Bad enough you only offer two dungeons to farm these damn things in, but it's still a simple "tomestones for gear" system? I'm sure lazy people would hate this, but can't you just add an extra step in already? Bad enough artifact gear is coming from tomestones now, rather than a unique questlines... Couldn't you have just added a semi-repeatable quest like the Relic Reborn one, in which we obtain this gear in an interesting manner? I know we need to stagger how quickly we can obtain this gear, since it's actually relevant gear this time, but Rowena's Tokens (Esoterics) would fix that. The gear would still cost tomestones with that, but rather than it just being click and collect, we now get some interesting content thrown on. An expansion of the tomestone system, as it were...

Oh right, A Relic Reborn... Omitting that from Heavenswards release was a big mistake (an expansion you've had years to work on has less content than your initial launch, what is this?), and now it might not even be in 3.1? Jesus Christ... Bad enough you looked at 2.0, where you had to delay Crystal Tower for balance reasons, and for some reason decided all the complaining that went on then should mean Void Ark should be in 3.1, but we don't even get Relics? A Relic Reborn was the highlight of the entire Relic process in 2.x, every step after that sucked in comparison. I really hope there is a reason the Heavensward Relics are delayed until 3.11. Please at least make the whole thing amazing this time, not just the first step...

What else is there... Just Treasure Maps and Hunts left? Treasure Maps are OK. I'm still annoyed that they aren't more readily available to do because of that 18h lock out, but they're good. Hunts... Don't get me started on Hunts... I've ranted on these plenty in the past, so I wont repeat myself much, basically these should be more like Final Fantasy XIs Zeni Notorious Monsters and less like FATE bosses... They should be force popped and tuned around a group of people doing them, rather than the entire server. Let us work up the Ranks, by first doing the Mark Bills to get some points, to then buy some pop items, to pop A Ranks and gain new pop items for S Ranks, for example. If Hunts were like that, I'd have loved that you locked the Law upgrade items behind them. More boring FATE bosses, minus the FATE, for the server to mindless zerg down though? Snore.

As a complete side point though; Guildhests... What happened to Guildhests? This is like the unsung hero of A Realm Reborn which has just been forgotten about. If they had the same rewards as FATEs, I'd have grinding the heck out of them instead of FATEs. No new Guildhests for Heavensward though, that was a shame... I'm really pretty disappointed to see Guildhests forgotten about, they showed real potential that never really got realized. I'd have loved to have seen some form of endgame-centric Guildhests introduced... Same for Levequests, come to think of it... Those Temple Leves got me interested when I was reading the patch notes, instead they're just a quick burn for your allowance with no real reward (ten times the cost, for three times the reward of a regular one...), that was really disappointing...

Last thing I can think of would be old content... I love that you can do it with Undersized Parties now, and that is probably the best thing Heavensward has added (though annoyingly it isn't possible for Heavensward content). Shame you can't do it to EXP, but it was a great way to make the old content fun again. Second Coil might be a complete joke at Lv60, but doing it with a small party? That's an absolute blast. Still, I wish there was a way to get Esoterics from old content (variety in obtaining Esoterics being a huge issue with the game currently). Again, I really like Treasure Maps, so why not add those to old content? Cleared a Coil? Special Lv60 Allagan Map which can reward 10 Esoterics or something. That Crystal Tower weekly quest? Slap an Allagan Map as a reward for that... The Extreme Primals? Why not give Ifrit an Inferno Map to his drop table. Theme them around where they come from, maybe don't even make them Maps at all, make them instances (endgame Guildhest style content!). That is the kind of content I expect from an expansion. Stuff that doesn't just replace the old content, but expands upon it and keeps it slightly relevant.

All I feel we got with Heavensward was A Realm Reborn 2.0; Wanderer's Palace/Amdapor Keep (Nevereap/Fractal), Bismark and Ravana (Garuda and Titan), and Alexander (Coil). Never mind the quality of the content, there is out right less of it. One less Primal and no Relic weapons... Great job with the story, because that's the only thing which saves Heavensward right now in my eyes... Once I'd powered through that (and it's not like I rushed through it), Heavensward just got weaker and weaker... Seal Rock is perhaps the only thing keeping me around right now, congratulations on finally making PvP the main draw of the game, I guess? I know I'm in the minority when I say that I think PvP is a great addition to this game, but PvP in this game is still so damn flawed... Wont bother talking about that outside the PvP section though. Seal Rock is keeping me entertained until 3.1 can (hopefully) offer something. Guess Free Company Airships are as well, but I'm not going to kid myself; I'm in the vast minority of people who actually get to play with those.

Guess I didn't really say anything about the new Jobs... Astrologian is OK (though Cards and Nocturnal Sect needs changes I've mentioned in a different thread). Dark Knight is great. Machinist is a waste of space. I don't mean that because of how the Job performs, it's fine in that regard, I mean why add a new Job when its a 1:1 copy of an existing one? Bard and Machinist being so similar really is a problem IMO. I thin it would have been better to remove Wanderer's Minuet from Bard completely, in favor of more actual Songs, while Machinist instead takes up the Bow-Mage role, with the casting time being "reloading" the weapon, rather than something attached to Gauss Barrel. Would have meant Machinist could have been the TP using version of Black Mage, while having more weapon attachments to make it unique, instead of it just being Bard with a gun and turret...

[Evtrai]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...rent_state_is/

For people still in doubt that this problem discussed here is by a minority of players. Same topics being talked different community

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...rent_state_is/

For people still in doubt that this problem discussed here is by a minority of players. Same topics being talked different community

This topic has come up on the BG forums, as well. Not sure if it's allowed to "advertise" other FFXIV forums here or I would put the link. Easy as to go check Bluegartr general discussion sub forum.