Quote Originally Posted by MomomiMomi View Post
I've long felt that Yoshi-P's vision for the game is letting it stagnate. I know, everyone loves him, so I'll probably get some hate for this. He saved FF14, etc.. But then he did nothing with it. His vision for the game is one-dimensional.

I've been saying the same things since HW that a lot of people are saying here now. Everyone said "it's just the first expansion, give it time." Well, here we are in SB, and we're still playing ARR.
I'm right there with you. I was also making the same arguments back during HW, and that was before Diadem was even out and still presented some glimmer of hope. But you put it into words better than I could, "He did nothing with it". Its been 5 years and the game has gotten the fluff and spectacle of fights down, but the actual substance is missing without a shred of new systems in sight.

Its a shame this game is made from the same company that brought us XI. That team, for all their faults, creatively pushed what their engine could do. ToAU was centered around a mercenary theme, letting us do Assaults and Beseiged. Then later giving us Nyzul Isles, Salvage, and Einherjar. WoTG was themed around war and had the entire campaign system in place; everything from fighting battles to control areas from the enemy, to doing little dailies back in the city to help the effort. And this is not even touching other expansions or content like monstrosity.

Yes, not all of it hit; but for the life of me I can't think of anything that flopped as hard or was met with as much ire as Diadem and Eureka.

Meanwhile SB is all centered around the allied forces entering into open conflict with the empire. Outside the story this amounts to....nothing. No new system of liberating towns and bases on the front lines. No leve like system to support the war effort and bolster NPC defenses of said towns. We got exactly the same content we have always had. The same linear hallway dungeons. The same zergfest FATEs. The same timed dance routine bosses. And now this, an open world mob grind fest so you can grind levels so that you can maybe more efficiently grind the gear that follows the same ilvl routine we've had all along.