4.1 - The emptiest patch yet.

[Decoy_Wolff]

This patch has the only content I care about.

Shirogane.

Housing: Shirogane (Ultimate)

[Rufalus]

The point I am driving at is, HW and SB bring nothing truly new to the game, its more of the same.

Throughout patch series they add many new things, some of it wildly different from any past content. Most of it gets dismissed by this community as not significant enough or bad (diadem, aquapolis, verminion, Feast, WT) while a lot of the feedback is people asking for more of the old stuff "we want more variety in our roulettes" or just complaining without expressing they want. PotD is a rare example of a new content type with generally favorable feedback.

WoTG was themed around war and had the campaign system introduced. Where the new zones were controlled by the beastmen or allied forces. Each zone had a fort to attack or defend to gain control of the area.

Ok so this is something. Personally I've always wanted more to be done with field zones. Slide the ratio of instanced to non-instanced endgame activities back a bit to the open world. Something with meat though, not just occasional hunt mark pops.
Maybe what people want is a revolutionised patch structure, where some major patches don't service any existing content types at all and the entire patch is composed of a brand new type of content? No trials, no raid, no dungeons, no main scenario, etc? Would we be willing to wait twice as long for updates to those things if a large amount of experimental content was wedged in-between? Of course the risk is simultaneously upsetting people who like the old patch structure and people who want something new but didn't like what was offered, "another diadem" debacle.

[Zumi]

There is so much to do in FFXIV especially leveling content all my jobs are not even close to being 70 yet and probably won't be for a long time. This next patch actually adds a lot of interesting things to do, more housing, 24 man raid, new dungeon, squadron dungeons, shinryu ex and ultaimte bahamut, and a new pvp map.

[rjspencer4]

Thordan EX took me the entire patch to clear. so I'll be plenty busy with Royal Menagerie EX

[MyaValentine]

I'm late to the discussion, but oh well.

I'm starting to believe that people here just seem to be completely ignorant of what is actually coming or atleast choose to be for the sake of victimizing themself and cry out loud "the sky is falling"

- A completely new moba style pvp mode, that isn't just different way to kill eachother but a fully fleshout map with mechanincs asplayer controlled mech and variations of mechs specialized for different situations, tower defense, 24 vs 24. " oh but I don't pvp so this aint new"

- A completely new DESPERATELY needed and required by the hardcore community raid mode, that extends the live of the hardcore community adding a new flavor to the raiding scene and longetivity value to not only the community but the raid scene itself as it's required to clear savage to access ultimate and there's thousands of people still in in V3. And hardcore raiders have a reason to resub for odd numbered patches. "oh but I don't raid so this aint new"

- A completely new SOLO CONTENT to go with NPC into dungeons to lvl upgrade and progress with them ALSO A HIGHLY REQUESTED FEATURED by many of those who wante to do more solo content in the game, followed by rewards emotes that many has also been asking for ages something new that never had before. "oh but I don't like squadron so this aint new"

- How about a new MAP MODE to do with your friends at your own pace and enjoyment to satisfy your gambling bug and further expand the quapolis mode that a lot of people seem to enjoy. "oh but I don't have enough friends so this aint' new"

-Ok, how about an entire new residential area, no only that we remodeled them to allow swimming on each and everyone one of the distric we also updatedto goblets with a really nice roman style bath to increase the aesthetic of the place and allow swimming. "I don't craft so I can afford a house, I purposely choose to be on a overpopulated server so there's no way I can afford to get any of the more than 600 aviable houses and swimimg is useless this is not new"

-Hmmm... we are making this small little nice new feature to play your own music manually for those of you who wants to have fun and interact with the community. "do I look like a social person, NOT NEW"

-Welp how about a completely new zone completely dedicated for your relic weapon (and possibly relic armor) a new ambitious project that we have never done before but due to the scope and size of this new feature we can't have it in time for 4.15 but we it will be ready a couple of month after it for 4.2 "wtf sq you make less and less every expansion, you don't make anything new and now I have to WAIT? wait for something that isn't a reused feature to mindlessly grind old content but something new? f@$%^ this! lamest patch EVER where's my 2 boring dungeons."

also keeping in mind that as any other patch:

-we are getting lots of quality of life changes also some really good UI changes
-Job balances
-Unique gear from dungeons
-dungeons
-probably the most promising 24 man raid written by none other than Yasumi Matsuno as guess creator and it's respective gear.
-An mazing trial (probably my soon to be all favorite)
-hildibran
-beast tribes
-main story
-hairstyles
-mounts
-emotes
-minions

I swear this thread is gold. Anyone who can come up with a straight face saying that this patch is empty and that they are not doing anything new nor the are doing as much calling people white knight is a living example of an spoiled little......

[Bambam]

I think what he was driving at is that there is a lacking of content that is considered foundational. Yes there is an ultimate fight, but its still 8 people in a circled instance vs. the enemy. While its still the first patch in this expansion, the question is going to be how much content are they adding which can be built upon like PoTD did in HW. Honestly, don't know....its a skeleton patch. Hits most of the marks in what we have come to expect, but it would be nice to see something new introduced.

People are really content getting the #5 combo every day, but some people like to get something different off the menu once in a blue moon.

[Voltyblast]

People keep bringing up WoW, but I think the more apt comparison would be FFXI. .

To be honest I think Wow can be easily compared for other reasons as well. I'm clearly a wow fan but it's because it does have some quality, even if it's "the worst mmorpg of all time". But that's beside the point.

Why is wow a worthy comparison beside both being p2p games? In WoW each expansion ACTUALLY did a lot of changes and not just minor tweaks or UI modifications: each class would get totally revamped skill sets, rotations, sometimes even new skill and lose older ones. As someone who played paladin since tbc, they changed so much in the years that they always feel like an entirely new class which isn't a bad thing (and literally the only reason why I bought Stormblood, but it wasn't enough)

But besides the class changes, new skills, new areas and other changes, think about what each expansion brought to us (some of the same features in one expansion also reappears in another, so I'll avoid naming it "twice")

TBC:
10-25 raids (down from 40)
Token system introduced
2 New races (Draenei and Blood elves)
Flying mounts
New Profession: Jewelcrafting.
With Jewelcrafting, armor slots for gems
Heroic Dungeons

WOTLK:
Introduction of Heroic Raids (with 10 man being normal and heroic being 25: it was changed later to have both 10 and 25 a normal and heroic version instead )
Massive PvP Region: Wintergrasp (with a raid boss inside for those who owned the area)
New class: Death Knight (with 3 specs, so it's technically 3 classes in one)
New Profession: Inscription
With Inscription, the introduction of Glyphs (aka, skill modifications
Barbershop
Phasing (I think at least it started here)

Cataclysm
Complete rework of the entire world (new quests, changed areas) and also being able to fly in Azeroth
2 New races (Goblin and Worgen)
New Class/Race Combo (human hunter, gnome priest, Troll Druid, Tauren Paladin, etc)
New Profession: Archaeology
Guild Levelling
Stats rework, with the introduction of the Mastery System (which is different for every spec)
Stat Reforging

MOP:
New Class (Monk, who can fulfill all 3 roles)
New Race (Pandaren)
Simplification of speccs (no more talent trees)
Introduction of Scenarios
Introduction of Challenge Mode (Aka Timed runs)
Pet Battle system (aka what LoV should've been!)
Cross realm areas
Black Market (aka RNG bidding)
Flex Raid (more to that in WoD)

WoD:
HD models for characters (A bit odd, but a nice thing)
Garrison System (It had potential on paper, it was just badly managed)
Cross-Realm Group Finder for all content
Introduction of Mythic Raiding and the changes to raid difficulties (TL;DR: Flex Raids are now easy mode, Heroic are Normal mode and Mythic is Heroic mode)
Proving Grounds for queue random heroics (not the best idea, but could've been expanded)

Legion
Artifact System (essentially relics, but better made and different for each specc. Oh and customizable too!)
New Class: Demon Hunter (with only 2 roles instead of 3)
Class Halls (mini garrisons, but not as intrusive)
Class Campaigns for each class
Wardrobe system (aka what FFXIV should strive for!)
Quests for each profession
Introduction of Mythic Dungeons with a scaling difficulty similar to Diablo 3 Great Rift system. It's challenge mode but with more loot.
Introduction of World Quests (essentially dailies, but they change every X hours and keep the world busy with different - and USEFUL - loot and AP)

As you can see, each Expansion at least tried to bring new stuff to the table and while a lot of the content was practically the same (new raids, new dungeons, new factions), they ALSO changed a lot of stuff and introduced new features to test them out. And I like these changes because even if I don't like them (and some I really didn't), I felt like I was playing an entirely new game! Just now I've replayed Frost Mage after a long pause since WOTLK and it plays NOTHING like before, same for druid or rogue (outlaw instead of combat) and many others.

In ffxiv, what really has changed? We NOW got those major job reworks we desperately needed - which is great, but did we really need to wait for an entire expansion for that? - but what else is different from ARR? Diadem? POTD? LoV?

SB promised to bring "new exciting content" at the cost of fewer dungeons, but so far all I'm seeing is the same old content with a new coat of paint: if they're going to do the same exact content patching like they did HW then I guess I'm drawing the line and move on.

If it was an f2p I could easily skip over this rambling, but I've played f2p with a tenth of the budget this game but with enough content to keep itself busy for enough time.

To sum my point: FFXIV barely seems to implement or change the game and instead brings more of the same. Meanwhile, other MMORPGs try to change and WoW is one big example of how each expansion, is quite literally an entirely new game.

[Gravton]

@Mya
That was a very long post, that over generalized the view point of the other side of the argument. Good job. (I say that with a straight face) I guess anyone you disagree with must be spoiled and entitled yes?

[bswpayton]

I'm starting to believe that people here just seem to be completely ignorant.

Super savage really isn't content tbh
Its literally something to watch streamers do for the most part

[Hayward]

Translation: There's not enough content for the 5%'ers that no one else will give a rat's behind about.

I'm not bothered by the amount of content between expansions. I've got a Switch and PS4 to fill in any gaps that present themselves. This whole thread is a large nothingburger combo.