So I'm not seeing how this is them changing things up from 2.0/3.0

[Talraen]

1. No intention of adding new character customization options in the future.
2. Maps the same size as Heavensward with the same amount of areas.
3. Hunts returning in the same mindless zerg fashion.
4. No new graphical options.
5. More tomestones and they'll have the same weekly limitations.

We're getting an underwater feature, but so far it seems as if this is the same "safe" expansion Heavensward was. What's really here that's going to shake things up for the players? All the vibes I'm getting at the moment is that this is another Heavensward, which is confusing as the budget is a lot higher.

Well, they never indicated they were changing 1, 3, or 5. 4 isn't really true, they are tweaking the graphics along with the new minimum specs, as I understand it. I don't know why 2 is surprising.

I'm perfectly OK with "another Heavensward." New story, new zones, cool new jobs, new stuff I'm still having fun doing two years later? Sign me up! The only thing I didn't like about Heavensward was how they made crafting suck, and by uncapping the high-end scrips and not introducing new systems it seems they're going to avoid that pitfall.

Higher budget doesn't necessarily mean more content. It could and should mean better content, better planning, and less issues. And it also clearly means more marketing (see also: Wrestlemania).

[LittleChickenNugget]

It's not that we expect a new game, but there are just certain things you can really only do so much of before it gets tiresome to some. To a large portion of the community, the game is getting stale and I'm hearing less and less people getting excited for the game. People who WERE excited are becoming more disappointed the more they find out about SB. That's not good. Yes, plenty, -plenty- of people will still play and that's fantastic! But if a company keeps losing more and more customers, eventually it'll be a trickle where a grand river once flowed.

There are basic things that would add to the game, aside from character customization.
Easier crafting - such as pulling from retain inventories without having to dig around.
More open and expressive dungeons. While I don't play WoW much at -all-, it's dungeons were huge and fun. Even GW2 had incredibly fun dungeons to run.
More raids like the Coils were. Making something have a seemingly endless pool of life does not make it HARDER, it just makes it more tedious (imo).
Add flying to older zones now, we're coming up on a new xpax and you have you have to be level 50 to even unlock flying, so new players -aren't- going to ruin the original maps for themselves. They still have to travel by chocobo.
More interaction with the environment. Eorzea is BEAUTIFUL but it's a lot of wasted space. Have FATEs actually impact areas temporarily depending on fails / successes. Add random treasure chests around the world to encourage exploration. Add random NPCs that get in trouble and need help from mobs and they'll give you something cheap - food or potions - just for helping them out.

[KokonoeAiyoko]

I've said several times that if people are expecting a huge departure from the way things are, they're not likely to be satisfied.

Lol what? People are wanting something besides rehashed content, we're not asking the world here. Perhaps 2.0 and 3.0 have confused people what should be expected, especially so when they themselves mention they weren't going to play it as safe this time around.

[Lelila38]

We've had the same discussion when Heavensward came out and the answer is still the same: It's an expansion, not a new game.
Sure, some new angles to certain content would be very nice (looking at you, one-way-rush-through-dungeons), but I wouldn't expect them to change things up completely.

[Yeol]

I'm pretty happy. Don't fix what isn't broken.

^ This.

I'm happy that we are getting more inventory space and housing cap is doubled!
Server upgrade and open areas. Haven't people been asking for these?

Don't expect everything you asked for to come at all once. And please stop spreading hate and negative thoughts. There are people that get easily affect by them.

We've had the same discussion when Heavensward came out and the answer is still the same: It's an expansion, not a new game.

Bolded part.

[Gemina]

Lol what? People are wanting something besides rehashed content, we're not asking the world here. Perhaps 2.0 and 3.0 have confused people what should be expected, especially so when they themselves mention they weren't going to play it as safe this time around.

When you want something different than "rehashed" content, you're basically asking for a new game. So yeah, that kind of demand weighs far heavier on the devs than you are acknowledging.

There is nothing wrong with using a formula that is working. It creates a foundation of which to build off of. It's crazy to me that people are griping about SBs content when they have yet to set one foot in it.

Since I subbed, HW has been praised time and time again. And now that we are getting close to SB launch, suddenly it's become hackneyed?

[Doki]

The level 70 gear you get from the box is just something to hold you over until you get the tomestone set over the following weeks of capped grinding and will help with level 70 instances having a set in stone gear minimum. They are going to be left behind quickly.

[HyoMinPark]

Really, the only "disappointment" I have is just no new character creation options other than what they have said about hairstyles (two new ones at launch, new ones every patch, and variations via the aesthetician), but that's more so because I was really hoping for the addition of tattoos or something to add a bit more uniqueness to my character. (Plus, in her original story from outside of FFXIV, she has a tattoo on the back of her neck, so it would just be even more amazing if I could have had something similar to that in FFXIV.)

Maybe some day. ;_;

Other than that, I'm perfectly fine and still just as hyped for Stormblood, if not more so after playing with the Benchmark all afternoon.

[Shougun]

Would be interesting to see suggestions on what systems they could add, I've already seen a few people do so.

Some relatively standalone personal thoughts (doesn't come crashing in and ruining pvp/pve balance or progression for example lol):

I think a chocobo hot and cold could be fun and relatively straight forward to add (compared to say "revamp housing" lol), and to easily reference it to a current active system in another MMO basically look at WoW's Archaeology - except FFXIV's would be 100x cuter.. cause Chocobos. Like in FFIX I would love to see it culminate into a Chocobo Paradise/Heaven visit lol. Combine this with the below chocobo raising and you might get your fourth gathering job although that isn't necessary for the idea (would be an interesting mix of different types of items - some could be based on that sort of Archaeology idea and others more natural gathering style like the other gatherers, and adding levels could allow for development to the hot cold game and a mini game in that maybe).

Glamour/item log another straight forward but highly useful one (although SE seems to have a lot of data issues). With the log you could encourage a big time recycle on your content, with a reward for doing it - and maybe lore bits on some items.

Bestiary log (classic RPG/FF thing), again SE might have memory issues, besides lore and EXP (cannibalize the other log that requires killing monsters into this one), could also be leading towards a coliseum / monster making / fighting system like FFX's arena (doesn't have to end at itself). May work with the monster master idea they had to turn Blue Mage into a solo non-dungeon job (please don't do that to Blue Mage, but go ahead and make the content lol).

Aesthetic growth- its come up in many forms like a tree, sphere grid, glyphs, unlock page, FFIX item learning, merit points, but a way to increase player customization through progress. I feel this would be good in general for FFXIV because this game's end game for a majority of players seems not to be raiding but just glamour/fashion. So being encouraged to learn how to change grit from red fractals to smokey shadows or so when you cast a spell as BLM you float instead might be fun (optional modifications to your character, like perhaps glowing eyes in combat, and probably be best to add some sort of limit so even if you have 100 things unlocked you can't use all 100 at once lol). Might be able to add other race's animations for somethings as an unlock, like unlocking the female dark knight idle pose as a male (or male for female), instead of a sword to the chest the casting animation for paladin is to just praise dat sun, etc, etc.


---

Personal desires that are really big and greedy:

Getting everyone a house and making it more baseline might be able to open up some interesting things, looking at Wild Star (not only game that does this though, it's just a good example of it doing well) where you can basically design your own pocket world and many things you collect can make your play experience more powerful (exp/rested buffs, building mines, training areas, mini games, gardens, raid portals, and more). As a leader of an entire country pretty much the WoL shouldn't have issue owning their own plot of land. Current housing system is like owning a house in down town, the land is so small, overpriced (if you're buying from players), and limited. An important thing to add is if everyone gets a place to call their own that then they can start adding really cool / seen as more mandatory to complete features to housing because there is no issue about "not enough houses, not fair to do". Can leave the neighborhood experience as an optional externally for people and when they use the door they enter their pocket world, although personally couldn't care less about the neighborhood experience since even on the largest server it seems mostly dead except for like one house lol.

Like for example FC needing to build a foundry or forge building, leading to them adding an airport hub in their floating airbase so they can then work on a very large physical ship that can be taken on raiding missions into Garlean territory. Where you act as a sort of pirate (basically take the FFXI pirate attacks, the besieged, except you're the pirates). Would push more gil around if more people buy and sell as more people can actually take part, also more money to SE because of the cash shop (those housing items in the CS). Although of course making it work in the first place would probably cost SE a bit...

I'm not so sure about a whole Garrison system for each player (WoW) but I do think adding that sort of thing for an entire Free Company that they can work together to build would be a really good idea, only having the workshop as a place to project together is pretty bad imo. Also consider looking at Guild Wars 2's Guild Halls which are /massive/ areas with upgrade-able buildings too. Being able to upgrade a larger space with more impactful visuals, as well as doing reputation building for your FC in a meaningful way over a long period of time would be very nice (imo).

True chocobo raising, like baby chick to adult, less npc doing it/cut scene only, with customization including variations of feathers as seen in all other FFs (fluffy chocobos of FFXIII). Definitely allowing them to be used in squadron allowed dungeon content. Good idea to include other features though like retainer missions on them, just so they become overall useful - perhaps raising for certain NPCs/GC for gil/token/reputations to encourage the system not to be a one off and done thing (You stock the immortal flames with strong war steeds sort of thing). With the everyone gets a house with actual land thing I could even have my own chocobo ranch *squeeeeeeee* (FF7~)

My moogle buddy, or at least a fuller companion system and a moogle as an option for one, and make one of them more useful housecarl type thing. Be able to flute him like FFIX for a shop I can slowly upgrade through quests/reputation with other npcs, ask him to take items from me to put into my vault, and other useful stuff like teaching them how to make sure my plants dont die (perhaps puts them in stasis, upgrades increasing how long). If I'm near my vault we can work together so they pull the items out of the vault for me automatically and "hands" them to me, so I can craft from my inventory and the vault ("two" person crafting in select areas, perhaps sometimes giving small buffs as a cute here take this moment, reduces lost items, nothing so powerful that it changes crafting balance so you must use them or fail - just helpful randomness). I miss my FFXI moogle. . . >.<;.

Back to reality.. I'll be really interested to hear more about the changes on may 20th, hope Paladin really.. shines :3.

[Felis]

The level 70 gear you get from the box is just something to hold you over until you get the tomestone set over the following weeks of capped grinding and will help with level 70 instances having a set in stone gear minimum. They are going to be left behind quickly.

This

see it as something like AF1 or ilevel 55 gear during 2.0, while first tome gear started with ilevel 70