Why is Heavensturn Always So Terrible?

[Preypacer]

I find almost all the events in FFXIV to be pretty lackluster.

It's sad to say, because events in FFXI were so much more elaborate and thought-out. You didn't finish them in 10 minutes, and that was it.

One event that stands out was where you had to team up with at least one player representing each race/gender (so, 7 unique players in total). Once teamed up, a NPC would reduce you both to level 1, and teleport you to a random high level (50+) area (Ifrit's Cauldron, Den of Rancor, etc), where you'd each be given permanent sneak, invis and deodorize (unless you canceled them or left the zone on foot). While there, you each had to wander around and look for a secret item, depicted as a ? on the ground. Then you had to find each other and exchange these items. At that point, you'd be ported back out of the dungeon and returned to your normal level, etc. Successfully doing so with one player of each race/gender would yield you some nice rewards (don't recall what they were now.. we're talking over 10 years ago, and my memory isn't that specific lol).

I'm pretty sure there was a time limit on it, too, so you couldn't just take forever. There was some urgency to it.

It was terrifying, even though you knew you were "safe" as long as you stayed invised/sneaked/deodorized... but it was also a lot of fun, and was a great way to get people to team up and talk and meet other players in-game. XI was big on introducing content to bring players together all around, not only for doing quests or xp'ing, etc. I'd met a few people during that event whom became and remained friends for the next 7+ years that I played.

I remember another event that wasn't seasonal, but was related to unlocking outpost warps on each server. Treants with a ton of HP were released into various zones, and players had to work together to whittle their HP down. Again, a fun way to bring people together to cooperate in a mutual goal.

There's others that I can't even recall exact details, but which were just as well thought out. I remember really looking forward to the events in XI, be it seasonal or otherwise. I was always eager to see what crazy, imaginative ideas SE had come up with this time. By comparison, XIV's events are just so uninspired and dull, for the most part - I did rather enjoy the summer event.

Would love to see them put the kind of imagination and time into XIV's events as they had in XI.

Ah well.. just one more thing to add to the list of areas I personally feel XIV could use a lot of love and attention.