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

[magnanimousCynic]

I have one thing to say

Lord of Verminion.

[Dyvid]

"Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it." This expansion is nothing more than Mist of Pandaria, FF style. They need to be more creative and more willing to take risk. Also getting off the teat of instant content wouldn't hurt.

The only plus FFXIV has going for it is a healthy development schedule. Other than that, it basically the same as other MMO's on the market and the genre is in decline....

[Beckett]

Maps the same size as Heavensward with the same amount of areas.

This is my biggest disappointment from the Live Letter. Everything else was expected, but I was really hoping they would learn from Heavensward and not fill Stormblood with the same huge, uninteresting areas, and instead focus on more smaller, different looking areas.

Maybe the large areas will be better broken up into distinct locales within the zone. At the very least, having parts of the zones be under water should break up the monotony.

[Belhi]

"Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it." This expansion is nothing more than Mist of Pandaria, FF style. They need to be more creative and more willing to take risk. Also getting off the teat of instant content wouldn't hurt.

The only plus FFXIV has going for it is a healthy development schedule. Other than that, it basically the same as other MMO's on the market and the genre is in decline....

The last time they took more than one risk in a patch we got Diadem and LoV and both fell flat leading to most players having very little to do till 3.2 came out. It very much hurt the game I suspect. I would prefer they take sensible risks rather than overhaul everything and have the whole thing fail.

This is my biggest disappointment from the Live Letter. Everything else was expected, but I was really hoping they would learn from Heavensward and not fill Stormblood with the same huge, uninteresting areas, and instead focus on more smaller, different looking areas.

Maybe the large areas will be better broken up into distinct locales within the zone. At the very least, having parts of the zones be under water should break up the monotony.

We haven't seen all the zones in great deal, only a few screen shots, but at least the zone with Rhalgr's Reach attached will transition from the forests at the edge of the Black Shroud to the Wastes of Ala Mhigo so we will get at least a little variation within zones.

[SecretCrowds]

Here we go again. We had the numerous threads similar to this one during the wait for HW too. I expect it is going to be a repeated cycle and this argument will resurface each time before an expansion and last till 2 months after the expansion releases.

People were complaining how SE was sticking to the same formula and that they were disappointed because "expansions are supposed to change the game fundamentally" before HW too. I can never fathom where this idea came from. Why do some people expect expansions to change how an MMO is fundamentally? If they wanted the basics of the game to be changed, why are they even playing in the first place.

Don't get me wrong. FF14 is definitely not perfect. However, we can't deny that SE has made changes to improve (whether they worked or not) and is still trying to do so. Heck, why are people even complaining in this thread that SE is giving a gear of your class at the end of a dungeon. Isn't that part of trying to improve and change the flaws of the game, where people ran dungeons several times and the "rng" that people always complain about is causing them not to get any gear drops?

Just because that changes you personally want is not being implemented by SE doesn't mean that the game hasn't been changing.

[Khanscott]

Triple Triad is fun, I really need to get back into that and update my collection before SB. That said, pretty much every other thing S-E tried came out half baked for the most part in terms of murderkilling stuff in new and wonderful ways. In all honesty as others have stated, people don't know what they want. However, I know what I want. I want dungeons set up akin to those in 1.xx. Mazes that required exploration and could be handled in different ways. Better yet, add spots where you could gather in them if you were able to go in solo and your sneaking would depend on how the mobs aggro you. Obviously make the stuff worthwhile somehow. In this manner, you can essentially use the same instances for different content. If they were to go this route, I'd be more than happy to settle with 2 dungeons per patch cycle... which burn me way more than the side content currently. At least I have no issues keeping our FCs 4 airships occupied doing useful things.

[St0rmchild]

I'm gonna be a jerk here and just say that the top and bottom tiers should be split in this game. Let the super casuals have their game, and let the hardcore raiders have theirs. The drama in this game comes from those groups mixing.

Effectively you're saying "either be a real raider or don't even bother with improving your gameplay coz you're a casual" - meaning you don't even want any level of challenge below the raid level -- thereby creating that glass ceiling that keeps the baddies bad, by removing their reasons and incentives to improve, and "protecting" the small group of 'real raiders' from the possibility of having to deal with new people.

The bigger you make that gap between the bottom and top groups, the fewer people will be able to cross it.

[Riardon]

I don't think SB will bad or anything. It's just that some things concern me and Yoshi&Co raised the bar with this game with 3.0 and I expected more effort on new features.
It's good they worked to solve the inventory problem and they are addressing the housing nightmare by adding new houses in a new area.
But there are some things that left me underwhelmed as far as new features go.
No new race
No more character customization options (like more heads or facial hair)
No new graphical improvements (no AA options except from the blurry mess that FXAA is, no higher res textures option or post-processing effects)
No new tank or healer jobs
Areas are the same size as HW which is not a bad thing but mounts will be moving faster now so the maps will feel kinda smaller now.
We don't know yet about the number of the new dungeons.

[RaijinSupreme]

Where is the message that they said they would be "changing things up" ?

[Allyrion]

This is my biggest disappointment from the Live Letter. Everything else was expected, but I was really hoping they would learn from Heavensward and not fill Stormblood with the same huge, uninteresting areas, and instead focus on more smaller, different looking areas.

Maybe the large areas will be better broken up into distinct locales within the zone. At the very least, having parts of the zones be under water should break up the monotony.

Variation will be good if they have it, but I hope they never go back to smaller zones. I felt utterly claustrophobic in ARR because of the small areas and some of the corridor/labyrinth map designs from 1.0.

HW has been amazing map wise. And to be honest, while the areas in ARR were different, most were grouped into either The Shroud, La Noscea or Thanalans aesthetic. Every map in HW was vastly different from the others.

Within-map variation would be nice too, of course. However it shouldn't be overlooked that on a macro level, HW brought much different themed lanscape as all of ARR.

I was actually hoping for bigger maps. Especially since they're increasing mount speed.