I hope Square doesn't keep deeming certain content unnecessary

[KizuyaKatogami]

On a quick search this is the one I could find which only does a comparison between SB vs ShB.

* To that chart I would add that before we used to have a questline for each job, and now we only have a questline for each role, which is a very drastic reduction.
I remember a more popular one that compared all expansions, but right now couldn't find it. Will get back to this later.

The only thing that has consistently increased through time is cutscenes, with ARR only having 3 hours of voiced cutscenes, HW having 4 hours, SB having 6 hours, and ShB having 9! hours, and EW has been announced to have even more cutscenes. Forgive me for not being part of the "FFxiv story circlejerk", but I'm paying a videogame sub to play a videogame, not watch a movie.

Would like to also add. Despite there being more voice acting in the msq of ShB. We’re missing voice acting in both the alli raids and the weapons trials(SB had both voiced alli raids and the 3 fiends questline trials were fully voiced). Quite the downgrade.

[linayar]

In other words FFXIV did followers better but now they’re unsupported

Well, they're still usable for their level ranges.

Combat guildleves and guildhests are mostly for new players still levelling up. They will always be "new" contents to new players just starting.

I get that. But every time I make a new character, I'm sad that they're no longer for me. On the other hand, new players wouldn't miss them if they were removed. And I support making new experiences for leveling to replace them, ones that can hopefully be extended throughout the expansions.

Squadrons are a lot better than trusts; a fully leveled squadron all set to offense clears dungeons faster than most DF groups, so replacing it with trusts would gimp our ability to level 1-60.

I get that. Personally, I don't care about speed, and I value TRUST helping me with mechanics for the most part and being indepndent for the most part more. But as I said earlier, I wouln't mind a mix of the two systems.

The argument that ultimate was cut doesn't stem from how much work was put into it. The argument that ultimate has been "cut" is derived from the assertion that the content cycle's norm is 2 ultimates per expansion.

If we accept that each expansion has two ultimates, then unless endwalker has three ultimates (the one delayed from shadowbringers and the two assumedly slated for it), then an ultimate was cut. Maybe not dragonsong ultimate, but *an* ultimate.

In the framework of this argument, let's say endwalker has only two ultimates; one would be dragonsong ultimate, which is a Shadowbringers Ultimate, and the other would be an endwalker ultimate. This means that, unless 7.0 has 3 ultimates, including the second from endwalker, an ultimate was cut.

One can argue several points; the premise is flawed since we have a data set of two (storm blood and Shadowbringers) so we cannot form a pattern from that. This would be the more legitimate argument imo. One could also continually make the argument nothing was cut and everything was just delayed, which... Well, the devs can ride that "borrowing from the future" train forever to never admit that content was cut, we'll just have this same scuffle every two years about the subject.

The real answer is it's both cut and delayed depending on what "it" is.

An Ultimate was cut from Shadowbringers, not because Stormblood had set a precedent for having two Ultimates per expansion, but because they've announced plans for a second Ultimate for Shadowbringers. There is now no second Ultimate in Shadowbringers, therefore, an Ultimate was cut.

However, the specific Ultimate (Dragonsong War) that was supposed to be in Shadowbringers was delayed, because it will still appear, only this time in Endwalker, and at level 90 instead of 80.

So it (an Ultimate content) was cut from Shadowbringers because it (the Dragonsong War Ultimate) was delayed to patch 6.1 of Endwalker.

Regarding whether there should be three Ultimates in Endwalker, that's a different issue. There was no promise for two Ultimates in Endwalker (as far as I know) before they announced delaying Dragonsong War to Endwalker, which means it can't be said that an Ultimate was cut from Endwalker if there are only two instead of three. As these are major contents, there is a low possibility that they're thinking ahead beyond completing the next Ultimate and maybe planning for the one after that.

The next ultimate being originally planned for 5.5 but later delayed does imply that 2 per expac is the intended cycle norm.

Perhaps, but that doesn't mean specific Ultimates were planned yet for Endwalker. Ultimate was new content in Stormblood, and they tried it again with Shadowbringers only to have unexpected difficulties.

If the content is still in even if not expanded upon then there are going to be people, even if very few, who like it being there.
I for one like the concept of guildleves and wish there were more combat leves past 58. The issue I take with them is that they added QoL improvements over 1.X but also made them ultra trivial to complete and super unrewarding in Heavensward. The fact you lose allowances for accepting to join a duty was a really stupid oversight too, in addition to Heavensward's levemete being located only in Ishgard, making trips take a chunk of the little gil reward you get just to confirm completion of leves.

Honestly battlecraft leves would be a neat alternative for leveling with a party of select few friends when you're tired of duties and FATEs don't let you do it at your own pace. I'm really disappointed they just dropped them. But I also use them for alts ocasionally and would hate to see the ones that exist removed.

I don't disagree. It's just a personal wish based on my own feelings. I like things to be "cleared" if "unfinished." It's why I would create new main characters when my old characters started on something, but then I don't complete it.

It's why I love that FFXIV doesn't have too many things that are account-wide, as I can have a near reset every time I make a new character.

Removing content, even old, vestigial content is never good optics and I think the bottom line is that updating, cutting, or compensating is just more work for them whereas letting the content sit there forever is zero work.

I don't do ex trials or savage raids so that left me to do some of these other fringe bits of content like squadrons. I'm still a bit peeved that the effort I put into squadrons was just thrown to the wayside by a replacement that offers less control and optimization, and is just tortuously slow.

Nothing, however, bugs me as much as the lack of attention the Gold Saucer receives in general, and chocobo racing in particular. Chocobo racing and breeding was a pretty popular bit of side content for 7 but in XIV it gets totally neglected for years with no new tracks, no new rewards, and minimal improvements. Player engagement really comes down to incentives and it baffles me how readily S-E will abandon casual/fluff content they have in place to put something new out that they will soon abandon as well. I'm willing to bet Island Sanctuary ends up being one-off content that dies by the end of Endwalker, yet they go that route instead of working what they want to do with IS into a better housing system.

It may be easier for them to leave it in, which is why I'm not pushing for their removal, but expressing my preference for them to either be updated or removed rather than stay as is. But I won't be mad if they just stay as is.

I think the difference with the various Gold Saucer activities is that there is always a chance of them being updated. I do not ever see contents like combat guildleves and guildhests being updated, but I welcome the surprise.

[ElciaDeiLinus]

I imagine because they have so many different kinds of content that all get a bit of development time, they also have a good idea of who spends time on them. I'd imagine if something niche gets a lot of player engagement they'll be willing to put more into it, but for some things they probably don't have too many players want to do it so they move resources away from it.

The curse of an mmo is that there'll never be enough content for everyone, even WoW with considerably more resources and content already in it barely put out anything in the last year.

I know my biggest disappointment is the lack of Hildibrand, doing that after the often heavy events of an xpac (and this one absolutely had some heavy parts) is like an amazing break to have some laughs.

I do hope between the pandemic lifting and maybe SE seeing the massive surge in interest that they can invest more into this game, because I feel like what the dev team is being given is not enough yet they're still putting out an amazing product.

[Theodric]

Even popular content has been neglected/abandoned over time though. I loathe Hildibrand, though I'll acknowledge that he's popular - yet ShB went without a quest for him. We didn't get an Allied Beast Tribe quest this time around, either - despite being an established tradition for each expansion.

I'd rather not see old content removed. That's exactly why I left World of Warcraft. Well, one of the major reasons at least. Guildhests are great - quite often my Mentor roulette is a guildhest, so there's definitely players still queuing up for them.

[Lauront]

On a quick search this is the one I could find which only does a comparison between SB vs ShB.

* To that chart I would add that before we used to have a questline for each job, and now we only have a questline for each role, which is a very drastic reduction.
I remember a more popular one that compared all expansions, but right now couldn't find it. Will get back to this later.

The only thing that has consistently increased through time is cutscenes, with ARR only having 3 hours of voiced cutscenes, HW having 4 hours, SB having 6 hours, and ShB having 9! hours, and EW has been announced to have even more cutscenes. Forgive me for not being part of the "FFxiv story circlejerk", but I'm paying a videogame sub to play a videogame, not watch a movie.

And to add to that, the story quality is variable and is down also to subjective tastes. I liked most of 5.0 and portions of 5.3, as well as 5.5 part 1, but not to the point that it would suffice to hook me to the game. And it can also cut both ways on that basis; 6.0 will be a bellwether for how they're likely to handle future writing, even if the plot moves away from the H/Z arc, so if I dislike it and the PVE content is underwhelming, I'll find something else to play.

[Lauront]

You can literally cheese half of them with reflect...

Shame the classic put reflect on yourself to neuter it (reflect vs reflect) doesn't exist in Bozja/Eureka content. It'd be nice to see it trivialised.

well i have to say it certainly doesnt feel like it. They have the same amount of mechanics as a eureka boss, theyre just in an enclosed space. Nevertheless though my overall points still stands. We're missing content. We were missing content before covid was a thing, and we're still missing content period. I hate seeing it used as an excuse when there were already things beforehand we were missing out on.

It proves they're pretty adept at wasting resources.

[Shurrikhan]

The real answer is it's both cut and delayed depending on what "it" is.

An Ultimate was cut from Shadowbringers, not because Stormblood had set a precedent for having two Ultimates per expansion, but because they've announced plans for a second Ultimate for Shadowbringers. There is now no second Ultimate in Shadowbringers, therefore, an Ultimate was cut.

However, the specific Ultimate (Dragonsong War) that was supposed to be in Shadowbringers was delayed, because it will still appear, only this time in Endwalker, and at level 90 instead of 80.

So it (an Ultimate content) was cut from Shadowbringers because it (the Dragonsong War Ultimate) was delayed to patch 6.1 of Endwalker.

Regarding whether there should be three Ultimates in Endwalker, that's a different issue. There was no promise for two Ultimates in Endwalker (as far as I know) before they announced delaying Dragonsong War to Endwalker, which means it can't be said that an Ultimate was cut from Endwalker if there are only two instead of three. As these are major contents, there is a low possibility that they're thinking ahead beyond completing the next Ultimate and maybe planning for the one after that.

Perhaps, but that doesn't mean specific Ultimates were planned yet for Endwalker. Ultimate was new content in Stormblood, and they tried it again with Shadowbringers only to have unexpected difficulties.

^ The fairest and most complete take on the subject I've seen.

[DrWho2010]

you know... eventually you all are just going to complete everything the devs make for the game. congratulations. you beat it.

they won't have anything more for you. you know what happens then?

you go play something else. ezpz

[KDSilver]

On a quick search this is the one I could find which only does a comparison between SB vs ShB.

"No limited job"
But... BLU got an update twice... both lvl 60 and 70. You can't ignore that.

DoL/DoH got ocean fishing as well, the rework of diadem (that probably took time they could have have spend elswhere) for Ishgard as well as the big readjustment of crating. We can't ignore that too. That's dev time.
They got some of the lvl 70 crafted primal weapon. Not every pieces from lvl 50 though indeed. But are we going to ignore as well that having 2 more jobs in the game mean more time spend on creating weapon in general ? Same goes for the new races that isn't even listed.

What really dislike with this is, it doesn't take into account everything that should be.
This chart alone doesn't cover every single QoL ShB brought as well that definitly took some dev time.
ARR overall for example isn't mentionnted either.

I would have gladly shared the general opinion if it was honest. This chart shows it's not.

[KizuyaKatogami]

you know... eventually you all are just going to complete everything the devs make for the game. congratulations. you beat it.

they won't have anything more for you. you know what happens then?

you go play something else. ezpz

That’s not the point. Quit blindly white knighting SE. The point is that we’re getting less content than we’ve gotten last expansion. We should be seeing upgrades as the game progresses further and it gets more money. Instead we’ve just seen downgrade after downgrade this expansion. It’s not about finishing the content. It’s about the content missing which leaves us unable to even attempt it.