Shadowbringers starting to feel like a budget expansion

[ern815]

The expansion itself felt very high quality.
The patches that followed it not.

This is what I actually felt too. The hype at the start for ShB is really big and all but with each patch it just doesn't seem to live up to the initial hype.
At least the Eden storyline is still very interesting.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Dungeons reduced to 1 was a major blow.

I still dont understand why this is such a big deal. Frankly I think the last 2 Dungeons we got have been good Quality, cant speak for anyone else but I dont get bored or lament getting either of the 2 newest dungeons in Expert Roulette. So I think cutting it back has been good in terms of Designing 1 New Good Dungeon instead of 2 Mediocre ones with 1 being less enjoyable then the other.

[DevilsDontFly]

The game has 74 dungeons already. I personally don't recall other MMOs that had anywhere near as many dungeons as this game does, saving WoW. And even WoW had a reduction in dungeons/instances after Wrath of the Lich King and onwards.
I don't mind having only 1 dungeon a patch and I've been having a blast with the expansion so far since I like to do a little bit of everything.

That being said I think expansions get a bit overhyped and I can see some people getting frustrated with content delivery, especially now that everything will be delayed due to COVID.

[LaylaTsarra]

Honestly I like dungeons but I'm not that bothered by it. Lately I've been capping my characters doing hunts. If i do one expert per character now it's a lot. Hunts are so win win when it comes to speed and the tomes/rewards you get from them are sweet.

A rank trains are a mad house these days with so many people doing them. I pretty much just do main, alliance and leveling when it comes to leveling roles not at 80 yet and I'll use trusts as well.

[yukiiyuki]

Here comes defend squad, they jumped out of the plane, did a hero landing and proudly telling everyone that a less content to do is a great idea.
One says that doing 1 dungeon instead of 2 somehow increased quality, but it's still wall to wall pull fiesta, so AI could handle it.
Other one used copypasta about 74 dungeons and that we should get less following by that logic, because somehow old content should be viable again for some reason.
And the last one comparing hunts to 4 man content.
They like avengers, but with red noses.

[TheForce]

Actually, yeah, that's exactly what i wanted. It's a ilvl 485 with room for 5 materia VIII, and we got one for free, while any other just requieres a minimal amount of effort (1000 poetics is a fucking joke). It's officially the lamest first step for a relic weapon ever. Eureka Pagos was way WAY better than this, because It gave us something to do

That's crazy. I guess your opinion is your opinion, but in mine, that's just excessive and unnecessary grind. 30 hours for a single weapon? Definitely not. Eureka was a failure (imo) and some of, if not the most boring/tedious content I've ever done (and I completely maxed out 2 Guardians on Destiny 2 Y1). Good grind should never just feel like mere busy work, that's simply poor game design. Although the way the devs handled relic weapons this time around was a tad easy, it's still a massive improvement over what they did for Eureka (imo). Before I knew Eureka was optional content, I nearly quit the game because of it. Terrible, terrible content, it makes the DFA grind back on Destiny 2 Y1 look like the funnest thing ever (it wasn't).

[TheForce]

Thats just people scared of the label "extreme". This current "ex trial" is easier than some of the normalmode raid bosses we have seen.

Nah, hard disagree. Mechanic-wise, Varis X is up there with Shinryu X and Seiryu X (synced/while relevant of course). The only thing "easy" about Varis X is his DPS check tbh. To say he's easier than some Normal raids is straight false.

And just a reminder, always judge a fight's difficulty on how easy it is to accomplish with random people who haven't mastered it yet, not how easy it is to accomplish with your decked out static that has studied the mechanics like it was a college course.

[Sheliss]

That's crazy. I guess your opinion is your opinion, but in mine, that's just excessive and unnecessary grind. 30 hours for a single weapon? Definitely not. Eureka was a failure (imo) and some of, if not the most boring/tedious content I've ever done (and I completely maxed out 2 Guardians on Destiny 2 Y1). Good grind should never just feel like mere busy work, that's simply poor game design. Although the way the devs handled relic weapons this time around was a tad easy, it's still a massive improvement over what they did for Eureka (imo). Before I knew Eureka was optional content, I nearly quit the game because of it. Terrible, terrible content, it makes the DFA grind back on Destiny 2 Y1 look like the funnest thing ever (it wasn't).

So a relic in an hour is better than a bunch of hours of interesting content? Despite the fact that in addition to weapons you received a bunch of other awards, mounts, emotions, pets, etc.

[LaylaTsarra]

That's crazy. I guess your opinion is your opinion, but in mine, that's just excessive and unnecessary grind. 30 hours for a single weapon? Definitely not. Eureka was a failure (imo) and some of, if not the most boring/tedious content I've ever done (and I completely maxed out 2 Guardians on Destiny 2 Y1). Good grind should never just feel like mere busy work, that's simply poor game design. Although the way the devs handled relic weapons this time around was a tad easy, it's still a massive improvement over what they did for Eureka (imo). Before I knew Eureka was optional content, I nearly quit the game because of it. Terrible, terrible content, it makes the DFA grind back on Destiny 2 Y1 look like the funnest thing ever (it wasn't).

It wasn't terrible content. It was actually pretty successful and it still well populated if you took the time to look. It may have not been your thing but plenty of people did it and like me many enjoyed the content. The one thing relics have in common is that people will complain about them regardless of the expansion or the particular patch in question.

This patch spent a lot of resources developing a story which many complained was not present in Eureka. One has to wait and see how the relic pans out and what is to come. I for one have been busy getting the relics for my alts and am not done yet. I do hope for a real grind and I'm confident one is coming. Can't wait for the complaint threads when that reality sets in. Already getting a lot of that for the Extreme trial and dyeable AF armor.

[Avidria]

Nah, hard disagree. Mechanic-wise, Varis X is up there with Shinryu X and Seiryu X (synced/while relevant of course). The only thing "easy" about Varis X is his DPS check tbh. To say he's easier than some Normal raids is straight false.

And just a reminder, always judge a fight's difficulty on how easy it is to accomplish with random people who haven't mastered it yet, not how easy it is to accomplish with your decked out static that has studied the mechanics like it was a college course.

I never did Shinryu or Seiryu ex (was taking a break from the game at the time they were current) so I'm not sure where they fall on the scale, but my measuring stick is always Thordan ex. Which took my actual static the better part of a night to actually get down and was absolutely, 100% harder than Memoria ex when new.

I went in with five friends and two randoms the first time, all of varying skill and only one of whom had actually cleared the fight before, and one of the randoms admitted up front that they learn mechanics slower than most (absolutely not a dig on them, appreciated the note and wish I could've helped them but I was totally new to it myself ; and we still managed to make phase 3 with people spending most of the fight wiping the floor with their faces.

I wouldn't call it the easiest fight on the planet, but it's definitely far from the hardest ex. Somebody called it a step up from Ruby ex somewhere and I think I agree with them. Phase 3 is the biggest cluster in the fight, most of the rest just takes practice to remember what each mechanic does and how to handle it. So perhaps challenging, but not hard - depending on the skill and interest levels of the person and their group, of course, but that's generally true of any endgame content.

... anyway, on topic, I can't remember if I posted in this thread already or not but my biggest disappointment with this expansion was and still is the decisions to limit Hrothgar and a Viera hairs and hats like they did with zero compensation in any form. "Uniqueness" doesn't make up for having like 30-40 fewer options in hairstyle and playing invisible hats roulette every time I get a new helmet, and if I didn't love literally everything else about this race then I just wouldn't touch it. I'm glad they agree this wasn't ideal, and I get they've got a bunch of their own limitations to work around, but that doesn't make it suck any less.