Shadowbringers starting to feel like a budget expansion

[Lersayil]

In Heavensward, 3.1 was also notorious for being like that too. People complaining about lack of content (people complaining about a Gold Saucer minigame) and the long wait. I'm not too surprised it happened again.

Personally, I wouldn't say I'm surprised, more confused, that let alone improve on a situation that regularly comes up, they somehow managed to exacerbate it each expansion.

Much like how they seem to have a long standing issue developing good content, that can tie down a large amount of people for extended time periods, without driving them mad in the grind at same time.

Makes me wonder if they see these as issues at all.

[Stanelis]

Ah yes let’s compare an expansion at patch x.25 with 2 expansion that’s have already finished, great idea.

If there is more content at the end of an expansion and if the release of an expansion means the players will be content starved until more than one year into the expansion ,then I think there is an issue with the release system.

[Alleo]

In some way, Melichoir is right. Still poor analogy but, right. However the main problem is the community itself. The community wants this and that. Half the community says yes, other half says no. And it keeps branching from there on what the community wants and what they agree on and disagree. SE has to take all this in and make decisions on what the community has said. And even though they try to do stuff, there will always be that part of the community who vehemently doesn't like it and will constantly whine while you have a other part of the community who says it's decent or not bad at all. All in all, you can't appease everybody, no mater what SE does.

Maybe it would be finally time for them to create surveys? Of course its not easy to read feedback with different languages and cultures..but other than posting our opinion on the forum there is nowhere else to do it..and since people are individuals there is no easy fix for it..but you can still create something that should at least be enjoyable by a larger part of the community..dont create the only big battle content in one expansion with a couple of new zones and the relic weapons behind it and then make it into something that only niche players will play..thats just throwing out money and time..Surveys could also give them the feedback if people only went into it because of rewards or if they truly enjoyed it..

They are also often trying to invent the wheel again..people wanted pet battles..we get LoV from that..I really doubt that the majority of people writing about it wanted something like that and oh surprise its death on arrival content..look at Diadem and the second version of it..they did not took in much of the feedback of the forum and it was even faster death than the first version..maybe they should listen more to us..because just reading the basics of a idea seemingly does not work out for them quite often..right now I am not even sure if I should be happy about the "farm/ranch" content that might be coming..knowing SE it will be far away from what people wanted..of course if they manage to surprise me in a good way I do give compliments too..

[yukiiyuki]

If SE doesn't step up on a game design standpoint I m not sure the game will remain as popular in the long run.

And this is sad part about it, as I said before, this was supposed to be our biggest expansion to the date, with a lot of improvements, new type of battle content, fixing old mistakes and making alot of QoL changes.
Not much people will stay in this game if they wont fix their midcore content, changing all raids to extremes type of content not helping either, you can't compare full designed raid with just a boss on a circle where you magically spawn out of nowhere, for newer players this feels very cheap. Millions of players wont back you up if there's nothing much to do for average MMO player and you need to sub only once per 3 months.
Last hope is that they reworking ARR to feel more fresh and up to the date, because if they'll just cut off some quests and add flying, that will bring even more questions where the funds go.

[Fynlar]

I'm not the biggest fan of X-2 either, though just because I dislike something it doesn't suddenly avoid being canon...

Yes it does. It worked for Star Wars too.

[Eldevern]

...

I understand your point, but people are not forced to rush as many do. I'm often frightened to see people hurry that much, as if there be some kind of world first reward when there is absolutly nothing of this kind... Back in ARR, people were progressing quick for a part of them but NEVER it has been this rush thing there is now for each extension.

[Sora_Oathkeeper]

I'm probably in a very small minority here and don't expect many to agree, but having played since 1.23+ players have been saying X expansion feels like a budget expansion since HW. Why? Because the content has become predictable and there's no real innovation to gameplay elements. They've forced them self into a corner because of how the gameplay is, which forces linearity throughout most of the game and doesn't enable any new ways of playing. We, the players are still going into X content to perform X rotation for the job we play.

Can anyone list something innovative that has changed the way we play? I can only think of Pyros, Hydatos/Baldesion Arsenal. But overall the gameplay was still FATE based, but it was nice to at least have logos actions for variety and made it feel a bit fresher. Outside of those instances though, there's not much innovation that hasn't already been there since ARR.

- Dungeons: still play the same, they're linear, offer almost 0 challenge at all. It really does feel like the least engaging kind of content at end game.

- HoH/PoTD: Again, very lackluster, it's good to be able to play jobs at higher levels than what you have, but outside of that? Just mobs that die too fast, okay for leveling, but is it actually engaging? Not in the slightest until you get to the higher floors where you actually need to engage in what items you have, traps and roaming mobs etc. It's a time investment to start to begin the content.

- FATES: still offer awful experience since they were nerfed to hell back in ARR, but again, they're a snooze fest and promote lazy playing. Odin was probably the only engaging FATE when it was more relevant. But again, they've only put in the bare minimum with FATEs now by adding in gemstones. Before that, there was never a reason to do a FATE unless they stick more relic drops behind them. But no one actually wanted to do that. The backlash from Atma drops was pretty bad and the dev team took it as a joke and re-added the exact same relic drop system in HW.

- Minigames: are very limited; we were supposed to get more Chocobo race courses back in HW when they announced flying. Still waiting for them to this day. Lords of Vermillion was an example of the devs not listening to what the players wanted. I remember vividly players asking for a minigame where we could use our minions and battle other minions (something akin to the dream eater battles in Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance), instead they developed this huge strategy game that has very little incentive to do it or even get into it.

- Maps: Outside of finding the damn thing there's still very little engagement in the battles or how the dungeons pan out. Go to a room, kill some mobs, pray to RNG gods that you progress.

- Ultimates/Savage: Probably the most engaging content we'll get outside of 24 mans (which are fun the first few times, but begin to feel monotonous), the only problem with either of these is the time investment, they offer engaging gameplay in the form of mechanics and knowing your job. Players that don't want to commit to raiding though and that seek engaging battle content will probably struggle to find anything remotely close to this (extremes maybe?)

These are just a few things; at the core of the game. Of course there's crafting and gathering but there's only so much I can do before I, personally get bored of that too and as this game is more heavily focused around battle content, it seems more easier to judge it on those aspects instead and becomes easier to see why players begin to feel like the game has been having budget expansion after budget expansion. Because the devs simply don't know how to make meaningful, engaging, long term content with a proper reward system that isn't a glamour and doesn't end up as a FATE styled system. The budget for SB was supposedly much higher than it was for HW and we still saw drawbacks there too. It doesn't matter how big the budget is at this point, until the devs actually release engaging content that require more than half a brain cell, with meaningful long term rewards then the game will always be in this strange place of mediocrity with potential for insane greatness that will never be realized unless they try to innovate past what they did for ARR.

I'd just like to point out that my opinions and thoughts are purely on gameplay elements of content. I love the story and think it's the best part of the game, I just wish the content could live up to the potential of the story.

[Reinha]

this patch feels like the selfie camera patch in world of warcraft warlords of draenor

The selfie camera patch was a major patch. This is a mini patch. 5.2X as a whole brought us main scenario quests, a raid, a dungeon, two trials, the beginning of the relic weapon quest line and also crafting and gathering content including relic tools, Ishgard restoration, ocean fishing and a beast tribe.

[Eldevern]

...

Of course there is some kind of routine, I'm not the last who somehow feel the need of something really new.

But...

Same game, extensions are predictables, devs are lazy.
Some changes and surprises, people lose their marks and somehow think if they have to learn everything again... they want to do it in a new game, not in the old one that suddenly changes...

That's why some people start to talk we need a whole new game and not just an overhaul. If we have lost the discovery feeling, the only way to get one again is a brand new game. And there's nothing on the market that's doesn't look as some bad WoW copypast (or worst, bad TESO/BDO copypast when it is not an ArcheAge... made worst).

[Kalise]

I understand your point, but people are not forced to rush as many do. I'm often frightened to see people hurry that much, as if there be some kind of world first reward when there is absolutly nothing of this kind... Back in ARR, people were progressing quick for a part of them but NEVER it has been this rush thing there is now for each extension.

Part of the "Rush" problem isn't so much that people are actively trying to "Rush" content, but that content drips in so slowly that people jump on whatever new thing that is released because they... Actually want to play the game.

Back in ARR, it was less noticeable, due to many people were exploring the entirety of ARR content which was quite a lot of stuff to do. Different classes to level (Especially for Cross-Class skills), a plethora of side quests, the post 2.0 fetch quests x10000000...

Now, aside from people who are explicitly rushing (I.e. Week 1 Savage raiders, whom have to skip NM cutscenes to get more time to spend progging Savage), it's simply, new content gets added meaning there's something to do. People then go do the 1-2 new things that has been added.

It doesn't help that literally every tier comes with a new set of catch-up gear, so you can quickly get enough ilevel to start doing the brand new content nearly immediately, especially with how the game likes to throw tomestones at you constantly. Meaning that gearing up after taking a break between content drops is negligable.