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

[RaijinSupreme]

I don't understand why people feel the need to tell others that they're gonna unsub like its a threat or something.

If you were really gonna unsub, you would just unsub.

[Bacent]

I don't understand why people feel the need to tell others that they're gonna unsub like its a threat or something.

If you were really gonna unsub, you would just unsub.

That's like telling people 'I'm gonna quit social media!' but still stay around.

Otherwise, looking forward to all the DPS making my queue times to level my tanks/healers first a piece of cake~

[Yamimarik]

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

Actually none of this is true lol.

ACN/SMN/SCH came out with the official release of 2.0 ARR. They just were not in any of the Beta phases until open beta phase 4.

NIN came out in patch 2.4

[Feidam]

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

The ARC/SMN/ScH was in at launch for 2.0. Been playing SMN as my main since the relaunch. As far as the complaining about the two classes I don't get it. Ranged magic and melee dps players did not get a class in HW. So for those that prefer those play styles now they got a new classes with stormblood.

[Iromi]

I think the formula needs to change is all...FFXIV patches are just different skins, same stuff. When they announced HW and all the interviews, it seemed like it was going to really change up the formula finally...then when it launched it just felt like a big patch, no new systems and no open world content. That being said..I have 0 hype for Stormblood. I'll still play it, just not hyped or expecting anything incredible.

[Ririta]

They killed off the most interesting characters and brought back the boring Scions. Van Hydrus, Ilberd, the Warrior of Darkness, gone... meanwhile boring characters like Lyse and Yugiri will get focused on.
Not only that, but we stop Shinryu for no good reason. It would send Garlemald to shit, and instead of laughing while watching imperial suffering, we save Garlemald and give them Omega... ???

And then there's that part where we kill the Griffin's Loyalists... and ten minutes later we're yelling at the Griffin to stop being insensitive to his people's suffering. Some times I wonder if they even put 5 minutes of thinking into this.

So yeah, to me the story has been a disappointment.

BUT... the Ala Mhigo story line will finally be concluded so I want to be playing when that happens, been waiting for that since 2.0. After, I don't know what I'll do. Maybe it'll be the clue to stop forever, beg Square Enix for Dragon Quest X, or just stop playing MMORPGs. It's weird how it works. FFXIV was such an amazing experience when it launched, but now I see it as a broken game and I keep looking for that part of ARR that I loved but it's simply gone - often due to player requests.

[Dualgunner]

Not only that, but we stop Shinryu for no good reason. It would send Garlemald to shit, and instead of laughing while watching imperial suffering, we save Garlemald and give them Omega... ???

Short term military victory over long term "We're letting Shinryu drain the life out of Hydaelyn and get even stronger over time making him an even bigger threat when he's done with Garlemald and turns his eye back on Eorzea" also discounting the idea he very easily could have just flown back over to Eorzea and annihilated us first.

The latter I see as more likely since Eorzea has way more aether and any primal worth their salt wants aether above all else.

And then there's that part where we kill the Griffin's Loyalists... and ten minutes later we're yelling at the Griffin to stop being insensitive to his people's suffering. Some times I wonder if they even put 5 minutes of thinking into this.

Loyalists who only died because they opposed us (and Garlemald) at Griffin's behest. Are we supposed to just let them whack away at the tank while we try and talk Griffin down? That's some...sloppy thinking.

So yeah, to me the story has been a disappointment.

From the lens of everything after the Dragonsong War ended being a buildup to 4.0 as opposed to an ending to 3.0 (like the 2.5x series was to 2) then the story is pretty good in my book. I share your disappointment in characters like WoD being thrown away, but Hydrus was fine bowing out as he did IMO. This post was mostly just me pointing some flaws I saw in your criticisms of the major plotpoints of 3.5x.

[Enur]

Even as a player of one years time i will say i am growing tired of the same dungeons over and over again. When i leveled, each dungeon introduced a gimmick be it remembering the scales in qarn or collecting keys in haukke (or aurum vales "gold" vapors. All hate aside id love the dungeon was it not for the colourscheme)
In all HW dungeons it has been pretty straightforward. 3 bosses in a corridor with trashmobs in between. Its so damn mechanical that when youve done one you might as well have done them all. Only the bosses were better, the overall dungeon design suffered. Now i did not play before HW launched but it is clear that this trend started in the 2.x patches and i will be sad to see it in SB

HW had many flaws, biggest of which is the 2 big failed contents. LoV and Diadem.

LoV is... interesting. It is to my knowledge (feel free to correct me) an aprils first joke brought to life. Clearly large efforts were made to create an intricate system with an entire arena and gold saucer section. This might have been its downfall though. It was a completely different gamestyle that could not be done on the fly. You could not do it while in a queue nor do a quick match on the spot unlike Triple Triad, the arguably most popular GS introduction. No you have to travel to a dark empty area and queue up and hope others had done the same- with the leaderboards and such i could expect SE to have prepared LoV to be a success.

Diadem was just a mobgrind. Diadem 2 is a timed mobgrind. Both of these has been discussed in great detail by people with more experience (ill admit to not having done a whole lot of either version)

With half of the "side content" failing in HW i fear SE will take the lesson that only the core patches work, you cant keep releasing the same thing over and over again reskinning it each time. People will grow tired and leave which is bad for the mmo subscription model. I want SE to keep trying to push new ways to play the game. PotD and Aquapolis was such things. The random reward is something SE seems to have taken to heart introducing it in the new diadem perhaps thinking that was the key to success.

As for SB, my hype is lukewarm at best. I will buy the expansion. Play the MSQ. Then see from there whether it can capture my attention for a few months until 4.1

[ADVSS]

As for SB, my hype is lukewarm at best. I will buy the expansion. Play the MSQ. Then see from there whether it can capture my attention for a few months until 4.1

Yeah speaking of HW, 3.1 took how long to come out after initial release? Ive gotten used to seeing more of the same which I think has my hype train bummed out for SB, but it wasnt that delay per se that did me in, I think a lot of it just burned out in decisions made throughout HW, wasnt a fan of the tank changes, wasnt really impressed how they "fixed" Astro, I worry even more about these new classes, and very little to no information on the system changes, reminds me JUST like what happened with the tank changes in 3.2 which means, i guess we'll see what they did in the 4.0 patch notes at this rate...

[Remus]

Of course the hype would be low for this expansion. Everything they have said so far has been part of HW so nothing to get excited about. The only new thing they have mentioned is Eureka and they haven't even shown it really yet.

Now that the first expansion has went by some people are not going to just buy stormblood straight away. They will wait and see how it ends up because people thought HW will change up a bit (Yoshi-p even said this himself) but it didn't. So if they see nothing changes wouldn't surprise me you will see less players than during HW.