Is Stormblood an expansion or a Major update?

[Lexia]

It depends how people look at it, there's a line of thought that thinks an expansion is just 3.0 and 3.1 to 3.5 are free content updates, while another thinks that 3.1 to 3.5 are part of the expansion (and paid for with the purchase of the expansion), but with a staggered release.

People who follow the first line of thought aren't wrong that 3.0 by itself can barely be called a full game, so the second one makes the most sense for me.

I would consider it more of the first group, and that the $14.99 a month is what pays for the patches. Now I don't play any of the f2p games but I would imagine you don't get new patches every 3 months in f2p games like you do here in XIV.