Since we got an expansion announcement coming. The preasure to repeat Shadowbringers.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

We still have 1/4 of shb in front of us.
Don't expect the new add on within the next 6 month.

There is content waiting for us.
I still have hopes in bozjan and the BA like dungeon (BA is something I still do regularly)
There is a potential next ultimate.
Another trail and more story.
Blu mage will get more stuff to do and ishgard will be finished.
I expect more qol changes and maybe a first step to bring datacenter closer together.
Small changes will happen that opens the way for new stuff in the next expansion.

Your math is a bit off there. We have 1/5th of the expansion left and X.5 patches are usually some of the more lax, lacking portions of the expansion.
If we go by the current schedule we have, 6.0 will likely drop in mid-to-late August or early September. That said, however, this showcase isn't for 5.5. So people really need to drop the idea we'll be getting 5.5 news revealed here when there's a PLL for 5.5's reveal planned to happen literally four and a half hours after this.

[Ranhansha]

I don't know if I'm in a minority but outside of dungeons and side stories that form part of the narrative, I don't really see everything newly released to be part of Shadowbringers just because that's the current expansion at the time. Shadowbringers was a story expansion that added new plot, zones and dungeons. Other things that get added are independent add-ons that have no relation to the Shadowbringers content.

Seasonal events and things like ocean fishing are not part of the expansion - they are essentially new ARR content. The Firmament is a direct sequel to Heavensward. Mog Station is it's own thing disconnected from what the rest of the game is doing. New races and jobs have no direct link to ShB beyond the need to own the expansion.

I just can't see any of these things as part of Shadowbringers. They're simply part of FFXIV.

Is "the products and content delivered during the time Shadowbringers is being produced and developed" a more accurate way to refer to what I'm talking about? Do we really have to get this specific though?

In my honest opinion, while shadowbringer's story was 10/10, the rest was really lacking.
BLU is already talked about enough but it is heavily limited, the nuber of dungeons was limited, the number of weapons for hte new jobs was limited, the new races were incredibly limited and genderlocked, the hats they could wear are incredibly limited. Overall, while the story and art are a asolid 10/10, I would much rather see ourselves in a Hevansward situation where they push past this limitations and gave us full jobs (3), finished races with both their genders being able to wear all gear (except race-locked ofc) and, imo, a much better raiding and end game expirience overall.

I know this is not possible and I have read they worked under a lot of pressure, but, I don't know if it's just my impression, they seem to keep taking stuff from the game and ShB got hit pretty hard. Cancelled events, no Hildy quests, No PotD, shorter Eureka, delays... So I get where this feeling is coming from and why some people are worried about the quality of the next expansion.

I think the music is actually the biggest pressure of all.

Soken outdid himself with at least two songs off of Shadowbringers, even if the general battle music was a bit much for my estimation.

This is actually one of my greatest fears. What are those songs?

[Rymi64]

Most people don't realize is that the content that shb has been adding is stuff like NG+, ishgard restoration, overhauls to gathering, crafting, and everything that has to do with bozja, unreal trials. It's actually a lot of stuff it just might not be something you like or want to do.

People also forget majority of the things they take away or change (like how 8 man trials work) are because people complained about them. This is also why the dungeons we get are hallway simulators. People complained.

They could also be working on unspaghettifying the code of the game. With how much they seem to be focusing on old stuff this expansion I would not be surprised. And I have little doubts 6.0 will disappoint. They also always planned to do no deep dungeon this expac ( I personally think it's because they couldn't think of interesting things for a new Deep dungeon) and just plopped our leveling method in bozja. Which they also seem to be planning on adding another exploration zone in 5.5.

[Sathona]

The story will be great if Alphinaud, Tataru, Lyse, Ryne, and Nanamo Ul Namo take a one way trip to the Guillotine.

[Lauront]

The story will be great if Alphinaud, Tataru, Lyse, Ryne, and Nanamo Ul Namo take a one way trip to the Guillotine.

Now you've gotten me looking forward to it.

For me shadowbringers has been the worst expansion so far, the story and the ascians part was really great but the whole warrior of darkness thing end being just a question of semantics to make silly jokes like "we are the bad guys now right?" Was really poor for me, would have been a lot better if they call us the shadowbringers instead of the choosen ones to wield the power of darkness to fight the light, zenos still being around don't help either but that's just me.

The other thing I don't like about the expansion is combat content and how badly they did with tanks and healers with all the simplification and reduction of the roles and jobs identities to the minimum expression like DRK, AST and SCH, the reduction of combat content in terms of quantity, durability and difficulty has been a total step back and being forced to play DPS to have a minimum of fun outside of my savage progression it's not fun at all.

Other questions like how bad the development of viera and rofhtgar has been are in my mind too, so idk if the combat changes are just a step for a transition to big changes but I consider they did really poorly for tanks and healers, so I hope they do a lot better for 6.0, SHB have some nice stuff but have the most amount of flaws for me.

I've got similar sentiments towards it, especially the thing you mention about the title just being semantics.

shadowbringer just had a good story and art direction
but thats pretty much it
I would take another SB or HW over ShB

And for me at least, that's heavily weighted towards base 5.0. 5.3 had some good story elements to complement 5.0, but I'm still not really that pleased with how they handled Elidibus, and the other patches just bored me story-wise. Still, it wasn't the worst conceivable way they could've done it, so I'll just wait and see how they take the story forward from here.

So I see level 80 the same way I see level 50, it's just a starting point for what they have planned and I feel we shouldn't be so quick to judge; or worry, until we see exactly what it is that have planned for the jobs in 6.0. My only hope is that they do the same as what they did in 5.0 and not just isolate the newer skills to the 80+ levels, as the lower leveled additions to the jobs that received them gave us new things to play with out the gate and felt really fresh.

I'm still hoping they're planning to re-design some of the 70-80 stuff that could've been introduced at lower levels (e.g. Aspect Mastery for BLM) and actually shift them to lower levels, since in some cases they are dramatic improvements on existing abilities. Beyond that, I'm hoping for some new twists to the existing jobs I play.

The writers for WoW admitted they've been making up the story as they go along, unlike XIV that already had its story planned out past the conclusion of 6.x even before ShB dropped.

Regardless, I'm still a touch concerned the finale of the current story arc isn't going live up to the expectations.

They may have a grand overarching vision for where things are headed, but at a patch level they certainly do seem to leave their options open. For example, here. They mentioned similar things regarding their plans for the Exarch in one of the Japanese 5.4 interviews, if memory serves. But yeah, it's less ad hoc than what Blizzard does, which can include rather blatant retcons. At least they go to the effort of making things seem to have been intended all along.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

At least they go to the effort of making things seem to have been intended all along.

This is probably due to the fact that Yoshida, Ishikawa and Oda have all gone on record saying that before penning 5.0 and 5.X's story, they all three individually replayed the entire MSQ from ARR to 4.5. So that everything would be fresh on their minds when working on Shadowbringers. I'd say from the critical acclaims 5.0's base story received and the overall quality of the MSQ's narrative taking a massive leap this expansion, that the "things were planned all along" feeling is due to the fact they actually went back and refreshed themselves on their own work before continuing.

This also explains why so much foreshadowing towards Shadowbringers and 5.X has been discovered in the Steppe, as Ishikawa wrote the 5.0 MSQ, 5.3 and the entirety of the Azim Steppe—so it was all things she was very familiar with and could easily expand upon.

[HeyMcFly]

I'm more concerned on the overall content that will be released-
I've wanted mythic style dungeons in FFXIV for a long time- like being able to go back to old dungeons & once unlocked, you can go back with increased difficulty as a 4 man- I get HoH & PotD is somewhat like this but it's dated & the floors are really boring
Boiled down it just feels like the only challenging content is 8-man content & outside of that is crafting/gathering, housing or repeating story & all of that can feel shallow in some way (But not black desert shallow, just typical MMO shallow)

But apart from that; I'd like more focus on our WoL x male & female companion for open interpretation

I don't want another stormblood or another generic female character trope with a sad attempt at trying to make the player care about her (Lyse *cough*)

I'd like Yoshi-P to take a hard look at housing & how to better accommodate players who's endgame is housing

Make alternatives to getting high-end gear other than a DPS race in savage content

Address the issues with Viera & Hrothgar & show a potential timeline on the fixes they'll receive & if they'll ever get visual access to store bought or code earned head pieces- like Matoya's Hat or a hat with a Mog Station outfit as well as Mog Station hairstyles.

What is the future to Grand Companies? (I feel this was already addressed somewhere but I didn't find it)

Will Amaro mounts eventually become battle companions like the Chocobo?

Updated character creator to address the literal thousands of requests such as more racial/ unique hairstyles, curly hair, thick eyebrow options for all races rather than a few, beards & stubble for all male races, Hrothgar being able to change hair without using a fantasia, etc

I know I can compile more things but this is just an immediate concern

[Niyuka]

They really need to step up their game after the 5.x series. Shb release was great, but since then it hasnt been good at all. Stormblood, as of right now, was better with more content! And its certainly less loved at release. How they squandered so much goodwill and playerbase since 5.0 is a mystery to me.

The dungeons in particular are really, really underwhelming. Stormblood at least tried to give us more varied themes and locations .- in Shb only the levelling dungeons and 2 of the max level dungeons really feel like an actual, interesting location. Most of them are just arbitrarily locked hallways with little to no flair, the bosses feel randomly thrown in with little to no reason to be there, not to mention the locations half the time dont fit with the world we have seen outside.

The weapons quests I dont even need to mention. Bozja vs. Eureka is also a disappointment. No deep dungeon so SB and HW were infinitely better there. And while Titania and Hades are great, the weapons, Memoria Misera and the Warrior Light extremes are relatively weak fights, with just minor moments of good ideas (Emerald weapon 2nd stage has some decent elements to be fair). Its a true shame Stormblood is so superior in its 8-man content outside Savage.
Eden raids I think, however, are the best raid series they have done so far. While the rehash of old primals was a bit iffy, the fights and story are better than the 'scapes and less repetitive than Alexander as a whole. That is the ONE area where Shb really delivered outside of its release, and with the exception of E1S being a snoozefest and wasting a goodlooking boss too early, the rest was well done and balance-wise pretty solid.

I think both new classes are good and if it wasnt for the dumbing down of tanks, GNB could have offered a cool change. Unfortunately, SE seems to think most healer and tank players are lobotomized chimpanzees.

[Ranhansha]

Snip

According to this, you are a Pugilist Lv 80. Wear your stone before you go on an adventure!

[Tranquilmelody7]

I think SHB has the been the worst expansion by far, with HW being the best by far.

I really hope 6.0 isn't a repeat of the mess of job / encounter design that 5.0 and SE is willing to invest more resources into this game.