We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[Bahati]

Without nitpicking numbers and the patch cycle being identical, Stormblood regressed in fun factor for me rather than being an improvement from the previous expansion. I need SE to stop with the Timed Action Maneuvers mechanic. The amount of times in this expansion we are immobilized while we mash the button they put up for no reason during a cutscene mid-fight is obnoxious. Trying to play a fight while hovering my mouse over an action button is not fun gameplay either.

I struggle to find any new feature that was introduced in Stormblood that was not already in Heavensward either exactly the same with a new skin or some earlier failed prototype that has been adjusted. I don't count SE's flagship feature for Stormblood, the ever controversial Eureka, as I consider it a failed re-attempt at Diadem.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

The amount of times in this expansion we are immobilized while we mash the button they put up for no reason during a cutscene mid-fight is obnoxious.

So, 1 trial and 2 raid fights is an obnoxious amount? In fights where the boss is so scripted that after a couple of runs, you already know by memory where to use the Duty Action?
Susano's "parry the sword" sequence is even easier, you can use any key on your keyboard or mouse and it only happened once in the expansion, twice in the whole game (Cruise Chaser being the other only instance).

Trying to play a fight while hovering my mouse over an action button is not fun gameplay either.

And it is bindable to a hotkey, so you don't even need to hover your mouse on it while waiting...

[Reynhart]

I struggle to find any new feature that was introduced in Stormblood that was not already in Heavensward either exactly the same with a new skin or some earlier failed prototype that has been adjusted.

For me, Stormblood has one thing better than Heavensward : ilvl distribution.
What pissed me a lot in HW is how farming tomestones was mandatory if you wanted to have access to the content at launch (Neverreap and Fractal only dropping i160 when Gordias required 170)
At least in Stormblood, the level 70 dungeons dropped i300 where Deltascape only required i295.