FF14 HW Excitement/Patch 2.5X VS SB Excitement/Patch 3.5X!

[TheRealMadruck]

Before I start....this threads only purpose is to voice a opinion. White Knights, Fanboys and Girls.....please do not waste you time here with you anecdotes of how FF14 may not be the game for me or with insults, please go be a troll and waste your breath and life somewhere else!

For over the past 4 years, I have been a off again on again player in which I have experienced the period before the storm(no pun intended) in regards to both HW and now SB pre-patches. Over the past 3 months, beside the revelations that were revealed to the story....I find patch 2.5/HW to still be the better patch/expansion than this one for 3 major reasons that I will list and discuss below.

1. Excitement for New Classes: With HW, when we finally got details that we would have 3 new jobs in regards to Drk, AST, and MCH......I was quite excited that there was new ways of challenging content while SE still maintaining the ever important concept of game balance. But with SB, we finally got revealed that the only classes to expect are RDM and SAM......both great additions from my own FF11 memories of those jobs but they both being DPS! Now, I already know what critics will already say...o...your beating a dead horse, or players that already play tanks, dps or heals will more than likely not change roles(I find this excuse really untrue and factual wrong). In FF11, I played Drk as my main class as I still do today. But when I discovered Drk in patch 2.4(my main at the time was MNK, which is a DPS class) was going to be a tank job that was always needed.....it was a double whammy for me to try a new role. But do not get me wrong, in FF11 for example I played SAM, BST, MNK, DNC, and DRK as my main with trying a little of everything. Which brings me back to patch 2.5, during that time....we knew of 2 key facts, Class balance would be maintained...not hindered and that those that love one specific role had a additional option in the same role to try something new within it. But with SB, those feelings and options are not there this time around. Now we are faced with a possibility(notate the part I say possibility, not guarantee) that que times may become even more longer for those that love the DPS roles and that those like myself that enjoy doing one of each role(realistically you can't since the weekly cap on loot you can attain and the # of tomestones you can acquire per week force you to only do one job on one toon in regards to gearing) are now stuck with no new potential play style changes based solely of being with the same jobs for healing and tank roles for at least 2 more years that we already have!

2. Rinse and Repeats is SE's new content mantra: This comment will find in my opinion the most trolls and insulters coming unto this thread to do such acts. According to several interviews by Yoshi P, the development cycle for SB is going to be the exact same as it was in both ARR and HW with no new concepts on expanding the way FF14 is played beside a few tweaks i.e. swimming. As soon as I mention this point, this is the part the White Knights and Fanboys or girls lunge to insult...just because a actual player of 4 years voices a opinion of considering SE's performance to be poor for not trying anything dramatically new does not mean I do not enjoy the game. WoW, ESO, GW2 and many others try to implement new content beyond what was done before(please do not waste your breath stating that this game may not be for me or go play those games....I as you do have a right to voice opinions as I assure you will about this post!)with failures occurring at times but respected for breaking what people call breaking the mold! In HW, we got flying(this one prospect was a huge part of HW's appeal)....we got larger zones...we got several new concepts of design(including 3 new jobs for each role not 2 for only DPS).....but with SB, we got maybe a 1/4th of the same in comparison.

3. Class Diversity: Lastly, I want to say this...for those that are offended by players like myself that compare FF14 to other MMOs we have played, there is a reason why we play FF14 and not those games. I also hear all the time players on the defensive say with WoW as a example....O but WoW only comes out with 1 new class every expansion if they do introduce a new class/job or they do not at all. Let me explain a fact for you, WoW's classes have 3 specs/roles built into each class alot of the times. For example, the recent Demon Hunter in Legion has 2 specs.....lets say that class/spec in FF14 standards is DRK from HW is a Tank spec, with the latter one being a dps spec similar to a melee class in FF14. For the most part, WoW's classes have 3 specs within each class with some being utterly different from one another. Shaman's for example have a healing spec which you can consider a healing class/role on FF14 standards, and 2 other DPS specs...one ranged and one melee. So if you actual considered each spec as it own class/role since they are most of the time being utterly different from one another...it has 24 DPS specs/classes/roles alone! That is not even including healing roles or tanks!

So, in closing....I am excited for SB for only one reason....the storyline. But mark my words....I and numerous others will soon unsub a few months after the initial release for 2 major reasons....lack of diversity of content once we have completed the story until the new patch comes out and/or horrible que times for DPS roled players for lack of tanks/healers(this one is a huge maybe but I feel will happen based on past MMO experiences). I hope I am wrong....but I know I am right about one thing, SB will be a success or failure based upon SE's willingness to push into new boundaries and not always playing it safe!

[Sil3ntxR3qui3m]

While I agree they should try and do new things to the game since what has worked for 2.0 and 3.0 is getting stale, I can also see why they won't. Yoshi seems to mention more and more that he doesn't want to try new things (like Ozma EX, for example) because the fanbase complains no matter what. It's too hard or it's too easy.

With the new jobs, it doesn't really matter to me. I really wanted DNC but I figure it's probably going to come in for a later expansion, or they may surprise us all and just stick it in mid-Stormblood. I played FFXI when it first came out; RDM and SAM weren't that appealing to me, so for that reason I don't care much about them. I liked how they added something new in 3.0 (AST) and it would be cool to see if they could do something like that again in the future. There's not really a way to fix the queues that I can think of other than just having more tanks and healers, but those jobs are hard to a lot of people. I don't tank because I don't like letting people down and people seem to blame the tank most for it. When you mess up as a tank, it shows and is easier to pinpoint.

I didn't play WoW and I don't even have that much experience from FFXI. I played 1.0 and the alpha and beta for 2.0. I think the story is what's keeping me around. I can't see myself playing any other game regardless of whether or not things will change like you and everyone else wants. My husband said it better than me: "I'm playing Stormblood for the story and that's all they really need to make it an expansion; the new jobs, swimming, etc. are just extras."

People seem to complain a lot and not give that many solutions. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places.

[Oriens]

@OP

At this point the storyline/MSQ isn't enough to draw me in anymore. I hope they plan to blow us away with their live letter or some PR plan before June. I've been with this game since 1.0, purchased nearly everything I needed to get every in-game item and even stay subbed when not an active player. I will miss raiding and the people I play with but this business model and their development cycle is not enough anymore. Currently sub and retainers are cancelled but GG they have 6 months prepaid, physical CE preorder cancelled.

[Vexander]

To address your points:

1) Won't argue that Stormblood will not be very fufilling for players of Tanks and Healers. That said, on the reverse side of the coin, those of us who play Spellcaster DPS and Melee DPS actually get a new class, which is awesome, since we haven't had any since 2.0 launched.

2) They'll add new content, they always do, its just not always a success. The Forbidden Land of Eureka comes to mind as something new.

3) Maybe SE doesn't release classes as often as Blizzard, but they are far better balanced and bug free due to thorough testing. I know not everyone will agree, but in my opinion at least, Quality > Quantity.

[Remedi]

3) Maybe SE doesn't release classes as often as Blizzard, but they are far better balanced and bug free due to thorough testing. I know not everyone will agree, but in my opinion at least, Quality > Quantity.

amen to that, at this point I genuinely believe blizzard devs to be completely inept at any kind of balance testing

[Vexander]

Something else I feel needs to be pointed out about the second point...

New is not always Better. Look at World of Warcraft. Its had so much, 'New,' content added to it that the game no longer remotely resembles anything of the Intellectual Property it was based off of. 'New,' brings about homogenization, or radical ideas that don't quite fit a setting. Look at all the, 'New,' stuff in WoW. Time Gates, AP Grinds, 'Illidan the Child of Light and Shadow' who can do no wrong, Holy Wind Chimes, etc... New can ruin a game. Square Enix puts a lot of careful thought into how it's developing content for FFXIV, and I appreciate that. We get new content, but its not bad content either. Its stable.

[Belhi]

Fundamentally we have so little info on things regarding class changes and such since they don't seem to be telling us about the changes till probably late May. There is a good reason for that. They would want to give themselves all the time available to refine the class changes and the moment they talk about details people will take that as set in stone. Neither of the new Jobs particularly interest me but there was never a guarantee that they would. The team has a limit to how many changes they can do at once. Maybe if they weren't doing an overhaul to the combat system they could have squeezed in three but even then there is no certainty the third job would have interested me either.

They also do attempt new content. It just doesn't always work out. Diadem for example was originally supposed to be something different and honestly didn't pan out. Deep Dungeons were too. One problem about attempting new content is it takes resources away from older styles of content development and a lot of people don't like that. When they went from releasing 3 dungeons per patch to releasing 2 a lot of people complained. However to have the resources available to try building things like Deep Dungeon and Diadem (new stuff) they had to take resources from somewhere else. I am pretty sure they will try new things. However I think they are right in not scraping what they have provided in the past to just focus on new things.

WoW doesn't always come out with a new class every expansion. They didn't bring out a race or class in Warlords of Dreanor. More over WoW has a substantially larger development team and takes year long breaks without any content releases prior to expansion releases. Comparing the two isn't exactly fair. WoW does have a lot more 'jobs' due to specs but it is also a lot older than FF14. Assuming FF14 releases 2 Jobs a expansion cycle it will be pretty close to being on par with WoW when it has been out as long. I would love more but there is a point of being realistic about the resources that Yoshi P's team has available. Its not like they don't release more because they don't want to. It is because they don't have the time, staff or finances to do everything they want to do so they have to compromise. Hence the thing with the third dungeon per patch.

Also please don't throw around words like White Knight and Fanboy/girl. People are entitled to different opinions to you and if you want people to respect yours you should at least attempt to respect other people's without resorting to what is basically name calling.

[Driavna]

3) Maybe SE doesn't release classes as often as Blizzard, but they are far better balanced and bug free due to thorough testing. I know not everyone will agree, but in my opinion at least, Quality > Quantity.

About your last point: AST, PAL, WHM and MNK. SE use a more simple approch about classes and we have similar problems to WoW. (Mandatory and "no no" classes).

Anyway, IMO, here a list of problem that the game is facing:

- Boring itemization

- Classes only had one way to be played during a whole expansion (I know some player like this)

- 4 man dungeons are in a very bad place at this moment

- Weekly Tomestones/Red Scrip cap

[Kazrah]

I think the biggest takeaway is that hype is lower this time around compared to pre-Heavensward because we know nowhere near as much as we do about Stormblood now compared to how much we knew about Heavensward two months before it launched (a.k.a. about two years ago from today). This leads to one of two things:

1) There will be a bigger reveal soon(tm), like next live letter or (most likely) the next public event....

2) They might be behind schedule. Yoshi had mentioned cutting it close to the deadline for Red Mage prior to its announcement, so it is possible that they might be under similar circumstances now with other features.

Either way, we have two months. Also....

That said, on the reverse side of the coin, those of us who play Spellcaster DPS and Melee DPS actually get a new class, which is awesome, since we haven't had any since 2.0 launched.

ARC/SMN came out a bit after 2.0, and ROG/NIN came out in 2.2 or 2.3 (I think....).

[Vexander]

ARC/SMN came out a bit after 2.0, and ROG/NIN came out in 2.2 or 2.3 (I think....).

Won't argue on Ninja, but either way, its still a pretty long time without a new class for those specific play styles.