stormblood and how you feel for it

[madolyn]

In essence, the expansion is just more of the same stuff we've been doing for 3-4 years just in a new setting... Dungeons / raids with a new skin, queueing from town or house, and two new jobs. No real new systems to alter the gameplay that we know of yet. Think people are misinterpreting the "battle overhaul" as being a complete rework too. TBH I do want to play red mage as it is my favorite FF job but I currently feel like it is too late for me. As a 1.0 player, everything has gotten extremely stale for me. I'm not really a huge fan of the Far East aesthetic but meh. Went from a lot of hype 4 months ago to considering just unsubbing now.

[Rokke]

Likes:
- Othard in general
- The fact that Othard looks kinda big
- Yugiri being a main character
- Swimming looks pretty
- Inventory space will be nice
- Housing inventory increase will be nifty
- BRD rework that was hinted at

Dislikes:
- No new races
- No new customization to offset the lack of a new race
- No previews for updated skills/gameplay
- Queue times gonna be rough
- SAM gameplay footage was kinda humdrum looking
- Transferable housing will make housing even more competitive on large servers

I'm still excited, yeah, but some revelations of this last fanfest were buzzkills.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

In essence, the expansion is just more of the same stuff we've been doing for 3-4 years just in a new setting... Dungeons / raids with a new skin, queueing from town or house, and two new jobs. No real new systems to alter the gameplay that we know of yet. Think people are misinterpreting the "battle overhaul" as being a complete rework too. TBH I do want to play red mage as it is my favorite FF job but I currently feel like it is too late for me. As a 1.0 player, everything has gotten extremely stale for me. I'm not really a huge fan of the Far East aesthetic but meh. Went from a lot of hype 4 months ago to considering just unsubbing now.

As a 1.0 player, I'm extremely excited for 4.0.

I keep seeing people say "Its the same old thing again" Except they have mentioned things we dont currently have, like whatever Eureka ends up being (I heard it has freeroaming claimable NM's, thats what everyone wanted right?!). People complain before its even out.

What do you want thats different?

[Yasuhiro]

Fan Fest for HW was exciting but churned out a mediocre expansion
Fan Fest for SB was mediocre so I'm hoping that the expansion turns out great

But as someone who doesn't really do MMO's and only playing for the FF experience I don't really know what makes a good expansion or not so I don't know what I want.

[Claymore65]

After watching the Keynote, I'll admit, I'm a little bit disappointed by the expansion. The Othard reveal was extremely cool, but it does leave me a tad worried the story will feel unfocused. Keeping the focus on Ala Mihgo would have allowed them to delve deeply into the politics of the region, but now they need to split screentime between two different war efforts. The story might be stretched a bit too thin. That said, it might still be really cool. Othard could potentially be really exciting, depending on how it's handled.

That said, I have a nagging feeling this expansion will end up being "Heavensward but less". On the surface, there seems to be less new content. There's no new race. There's two less Jobs (counting Ninja), and they're irrelevant to Healer/Tank mains. The total amount of Zones seems to be about the same, even if they are split between two regions (they listed 2-3 zones in Othard and 2-3 zones in Ala Mihgo, which is comparable to the 4-5 zones in Heavensward). There's no huge gameplay feature that seems new and exciting, aside from possibly Eureka, even then we know nothing about that. The "Battle System Revamp" could be good, but like Eureka (and Omega and Return to Ivalice) we know absolutely nothing about it. It could be rebuilding classes from the ground up, or it could be simple potency increases and the removal of some unused abilities. There will be new skills, but we also got 5 new abilities in Heavensward. I hope the changes are significant, since apparently they're big enough healers/tanks can't get a new job. From a gameplay perspective, there isn't anything revealed so far that has me going "I need to play that". I was hoping the Keynote would reveal some other huge feature near the end, but sadly it wasn't there.

That said, I'll certainly still be getting the expansion, and I'll likely enjoy it. I just worry it'll feel more like "going through the motions" than getting hyped for new content. The Keynote was a bit disappointing to me. I really hope we'll get some new, exciting info in the coming months.

[Mirakumi]

From Key Notes:

Likes:
- More exploration!
- Underwater physics exploration!
- Lakshmi wifu
- Sam Glamour
- Yugiri appears. Wifus everywhere.
- Inventory space - the Glamour adventure expands!


Dislikes:
- No new races - while it is not needed it would have been nice to see.
- No third job reveal.

[Averax]

IDK, heavensward seemed cool until it turned out to be 2.X with a different coat of paint. If they keep sticking to the same formula i don't know how long i'll be able to maintain interest. I barely log in as it is.

[Reinha]

But as someone who doesn't really do MMO's and only playing for the FF experience I don't really know what makes a good expansion or not so I don't know what I want.

If I may chime in as someone who has seen a few MMO expansions from start to finish, for me it boils down to a few things.

- A story that makes me want to kill the bad guys. Not just the everyday "end of the world, kill it before it kills us" kind of thing, but a direct attack on my faction, faction/race leaders or comrades that requires revenge. For example the loss of our shield bearing buddy.

- Permanent game play changes or additions that add up to being mostly positive. For example Palace of the Dead, Aquapolis, functioning new jobs, flight and the unsync mechanism.

- Things that give a sense of accomplishment keeping me busy the entire expansion. This is subjective because people have very different tastes for rewards, reward acquisition, difficulty and the amount of repetition they can tolerate.

So nothing that would completely flip the game around but something new that keeps me motivated to play and busy. I have seen an expansion in another game where the story sucked hard, enemies were lame and I was totally unmotivated to do any kind of PvE. Most game play changes were negative and there were very few things to accomplish outside raids (which I wasn't interested in). I don't think Stormblood will be like that because these devs have a better vision for the game and are much more concerned about impressing their audience.

[madolyn]

As a 1.0 player, I'm extremely excited for 4.0.

I keep seeing people say "Its the same old thing again" Except they have mentioned things we dont currently have, like whatever Eureka ends up being (I heard it has freeroaming claimable NM's, thats what everyone wanted right?!). People complain before its even out.

What do you want thats different?

Eureka is speculation and rumors can sound good on paper until they are executed in game. Look at hunts...sounded awesome. When executed, it became 100 people burning down one mob in 10 seconds. I would like to see meaningful drops from dungeons instead of them being a way to cap tomes. horizontal character progression by way of meaningful stats on equipment where ilvl isn't king and where we don't start over every 6 months. Maybe a talent system to customize job builds. Gear sets with bonuses. More reasons to be out in the world so zones don't die as people queue DF from their houses. I can go on and on if you would like.

If you're excited then cool. I'm not trying to take your excitement away. But if you think we're not going to be doing the same things we are now but with a different skin then you're naive or you enjoy mediocrity. I've had a lot of fun in the game throughout the years but is it so wrong to want some change or something else?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Eureka is speculation and rumors can sound good on paper until they are executed in game. Look at hunts...sounded awesome. When executed, it became 100 people burning down one mob in 10 seconds. I would like to see meaningful drops from dungeons instead of them being a way to cap tomes. horizontal character progression by way of meaningful stats on equipment where ilvl isn't king and where we don't start over every 6 months. Maybe a talent system to customize job builds. Gear sets with bonuses. More reasons to be out in the world so zones don't die as people queue DF from their houses. I can go on and on if you would like.

If you're excited then cool. I'm not trying to take your excitement away. But if you think we're not going to be doing the same things we are now but with a different skin then you're naive or you enjoy mediocrity.

Some of us like things the way they are now :P horizontal progression is boring, thats why i quit GW2. Also, saying you are not trying to take away my excitement, but then saying I enjoy Mediocrity? lol. You must be one of those boring people that enjoys boring rng grinds for drops