I hope Square doesn't keep deeming certain content unnecessary

[DPZ2]

The thing is both Hildibrand and Allied beast tribes were cut but both are very popular. So i don’t think it’s them indicating people aren’t interested.

Story line: the Warrior of Light is the only one who can traverse bodily to the First. We have to have our Pixie friend act as a go between us and our Retainers. Everyone else we know on the First [Scions] who came from our world is, essentially, an embodied ghost, and it took great power to get that portion of them to the First.

Bringing in Hildibrand? Not gonna happen from a story perspective. In all the other expansions, his presence kinda made sense.

Allied beast tribe single quest? I thought that line of questing was pretty much finished in SB, unless you're telling me that being eaten by a shark(?) is a recoverable feat. I suspect the villain's presence on the First was cut short by a certain flood, or perhaps by starvation since his only source of possible income kinda died with a certain now-dead ruler.

HoH was also extremely popular. Especially because of the mounts and hairstyles locked behind it. Eureka had very negative reactions and results(as much as i personally love it) and the relic weapons had a very low completion rate amongst the playerbase yet they thought the best thing to do was repeat that same style again? But this time made it worse where the relics are locked behind raids? Lol.

Can't say much about the relic weapon, since I haven't gone for those since Heavensward. However, the use of Bozja and Zadnor for leveling alt jobs (instead of another deep dungeon) is brilliant in that you are encouraged to work toward those things necessary for completing relic weapons AND also leveling from 71-80 to get the basic weapons, all while providing over 100 potential drops of anything from glamour gear to mounts/minions/orchestrion rolls and other items of interest.

Is it different? Yes. Do some people miss deep dungeons? Yes. Did the ability to get everything except haircuts from Bozja mean that a deep dungeon's purpose (alt leveling) was replaced? Yes.

I think that it became so much easier to level alt jobs using other methods than deep dungeons over the years since Palace of the Dead came out. The grind may have done it in, no matter how popular it was four years ago.

As for the squadrons thing, i don’t think the story is a very good excuse. If they wanted to they easily could’ve transferred squadrons over to the First with minimal issue. I think a lot of people’s problems with Squadrons vs Trusts, which again is a trend in this expansion, is just how much of a downgrade trusts are. They somehow managed to take Squadrons overall system and trash it in the form of trusts. Squadrons you can at least control so it makes things a minimal issue, whereas trusts have wonky AI amongst other things, and now instead of building on Squadrons, they just dropped it completely.

While I had fun with Squadrons, introduced toward the end of HW and updated with Command Missions (the dungeons) in SB, it wasn't necessarily the best way to run dungeons single-instance. You have no control over Trusts, true -- but then you don't have control over the other 3 players in any dungeon instance you run through Duty Finder either. At least in a Trust, your companions knew the mechanics ... as an example, your Squadron tank didn't know enough to get out the lightning pool in Halitali to avoid taking damage. Thancred, on the other hand, knows how to dodge an AoE. I still curse the Squadron healer during my brief attempts at tanking with a Squadron.

See the entry under "Storyline" for an explanation for "no, your Squadron can't make it to the First".

As I've said earlier, squadrons were fun, but ... how many players actually did much with it past getting the rank of Captain and the neat emotes? SE has the numbers, and it may have been "do we work on Trusts or we do work on Squadrons?".

I prefer the ability to actually run the Trusts at level in ShB, rather than wait for a queue to pop. Less go-go-go, more "I have time to figure out where I am and what I'm doing and what's coming up next".

Anecdotally, in year two of the expansion it became clear to me that the number of people actually doing level 70+ leveling content on a regular basis had decreased greatly. How so? The amount of time spent waiting for a selected MSQ trial to pop went to an outrageously high number for a DPS - we're talking hours, not the general 15 minute or less wait for Leveling Roulette to pop.

They did the same with Chocobo Racing. They did the same with Verminion. They did the same with the housing placard system. They just seem to bandaid fix things instead of outright addressing them.

Sorry about Chocobo Racing. I tried it once. Didn't appeal to me. Didn't even try Lords of Verminion. Perhaps that's why they haven't been improved since then? Personally, I enjoy the old game systems that won't ever see improvement, since they're still around when I run through yet-another-alternate avatar.

As for bandaid fix - sometimes that's all you can do, given that the development teams are (a) getting things ready for the next expansion (b) fixing bugs (c) getting things ready for the next patch (d) getting feedback from internal checks on what's hot and what's not (e) making decisions on where to put future resources based on past performance of added features (f) cognizant that a true fix for A will mean rewriting enough code to make creating a brand new MMO from scratch look easy..

I always consider the fact that this is a Japanese written, first and foremost, for a Japanese audience. It's not being written specifically for an American/English/Chinese/German/pick-your-country-of-origin audience. Tastes differ, and I'm sure feedback on the numbers from the Japanese servers drives a lot of what does, and does not, get improved upon in this game. Rightly so.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Story line: the Warrior of Light is the only one who can traverse bodily to the First. We have to have our Pixie friend act as a go between us and our Retainers. Everyone else we know on the First [Scions] who came from our world is, essentially, an embodied ghost, and it took great power to get that portion of them to the First.

Bringing in Hildibrand? Not gonna happen from a story perspective. In all the other expansions, his presence kinda made sense.

Allied beast tribe single quest? I thought that line of questing was pretty much finished in SB, unless you're telling me that being eaten by a shark(?) is a recoverable feat. I suspect the villain's presence on the First was cut short by a certain flood, or perhaps by starvation since his only source of possible income kinda died with a certain now-dead ruler.



Can't say much about the relic weapon, since I haven't gone for those since Heavensward. However, the use of Bozja and Zadnor for leveling alt jobs (instead of another deep dungeon) is brilliant in that you are encouraged to work toward those things necessary for completing relic weapons AND also leveling from 71-80 to get the basic weapons, all while providing over 100 potential drops of anything from glamour gear to mounts/minions/orchestrion rolls and other items of interest.

Is it different? Yes. Do some people miss deep dungeons? Yes. Did the ability to get everything except haircuts from Bozja mean that a deep dungeon's purpose (alt leveling) was replaced? Yes.

I think that it became so much easier to level alt jobs using other methods than deep dungeons over the years since Palace of the Dead came out. The grind may have done it in, no matter how popular it was four years ago.

Have the squadron members be "shards" of the one you have. There easy peasy. Your Hildibrand lore excuse is funny, considering he literally shows up in the 5.3 dungeon. No the allied beast tribe quests arent done. They easily couldve had him have had a shard on the first. Lore excuses are the least of why we didnt get these things or why they dont make sense lmao. Bozja is no different from eureka in that item drops remark, actually eureka was better cuz 4 zones instead of 2. It got double lmao. Honestly it just sounds like youre trying to make excuses for them. Ive seen this over and over. Instead of people like you actually addressing that theres a problem and there is a loss in content you try to use things like lore excuses of all things. Yoshi p said lore was why we didnt get male viera back at the start of shb. Look what happened. Im tired of seeing excuse after excuse for this.

[shao32]

On my opinion i don't like the lack of combat content like many here but it annoyme more that the combat content doesn't represent a challenge anymore, Dungeons lack not only numbers but they are so braindead, Extremes didn't even take me a couple of hours, hell diamon take me less than an a hour due how simple and boring the combat is and Savage has been a total joke in general, the first tier was nice but the other 2 has been extrene levels of compelxity and it doesn't help the oversimplified state healers and tanks are wich are part of the problem for sure.

I would like to point how Savage has been cut too compared to other expansions, Coil have zones with Adds before bosses, Alexander have the same in normal mode but smaller, Omega have it in single instances and now Eden have nothing, just instanced bosses and nothing more, and bosses in general has been more simple, the dedication of high end content has been lowered a lot if we count the lack of ultimate.

Idk, SHB has been a disappointment for me in so many fields if not all due im mostly a combat content enjoyer, considering im a Tank player used to be a DRK main before they gutted the job and a Viera with no head updates combined with the points above i guess i just hit the jackpot with the bad luck this expansion, the story was average ok for me but didn't like how they handle certain key element so is a minus point too.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Snip

This so much. The base shb dungeons were good difficulty imo, but idk wtf happened to the post patch dungeons. The adds die so quickly and bosses just absolutely melt and have hilariously easy mechanics. Extremes this expansion too yeah. Innocence was literally just aoes, no mechanics. Hades was great. Ruby was the most boring trial to date imo. Emerald was meh, Diamond idk wtf happened. According to datamines they cut out an entire phase so it makes sense why the fight is so quick and rewards two totems, but 90% of the fight is literally “let’s reuse ruby sapphire and emerald mechanics.” It came off as super lazy to me. Agree with the raids as well, they’re so simplistic and again, e12 is literally the same thing. Let’s reuse the past fights again instead of new mechanics. Also i’m surprised to see someone that shares the nearly same opinion as me on the story. Base ShB was okay to me, the ending put me off a bit and then the post patch stories just completely irked me, 5.3 especially. i’m not even a solely combat enjoyer. I enjoy crafting and gathering but they literally made the jobs so brain dead now that everyone and their mother is a crafter so there’s really no incentive anymore. This whole expansion just seems to have been let’s streamline everything, from jobs to dungeons to roles. What’s even more concerning is Yoshi said he wants to streamline dungeons in 6.0 even more than they are currently and im like....number one:Why? number two:HOW. They’re literally so simple now i refuse to believe they can be streamlined anymore other than them just being one long ass cutscene lmao.

[KDSilver]

Yoshi said he wants to streamline dungeons in 6.0 even more than they are currently and im like....number one:Why? number two:HOW. They’re literally so simple now i refuse to believe they can be streamlined anymore other than them just being one long ass cutscene lmao.

Streamlining dungeons ?
???

For what purpose ? I mean, what do tehy want to do that isn't already done ?
You can already mash your keyboard without even thinking what you're doing and clearing.

[DrWho2010]

snip

I think it's time you took a break from the game from what you've been saying.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I think it's time you took a break from the game from what you've been saying.

Already am, not your place to say though. Also unfortunately i can’t take a long break from the game because of the shitty housing system Gotta sub every other month. Try defending that one too bud.

[DrWho2010]

Already am, not your place to say though. Also unfortunately i can’t take a long break from the game because of the shitty housing system Gotta sub every other month. Try defending that one too bud.

I'm not going to. You are still supporting the game by not playing and subbing just to keep your house, that's fine by me.

[Jettinson]

Squadrons not going over lv60 still bugs me. At least get to lv70 for the people that want to level up and get some gear without forcing themselves to wait on DF.

Guildheists are a joke due to most of the fights being brutally forced so new players won't understand much either way. So it needs either better scaling, tuning or just leave it to dust.
Battle leves not being there anymore suck but understandable, I just liked reading the texts on what the requests were about.

I feel some stuff that could be used as an actual side content got canned in favor of those special FATEs. The elves and wargs are a big waste of potential, just like the Formidable dwarf FATE or the Daeon/frogs.

For Bozja, they badly utilized the monster mobs there, there are some areas that you will barely or never visit because nothing special happens there aside a star mob. There are also so many rank 4 and 5 monster enemies that are there just to fill the map, could had some additional spawner or anything for killing them. So the 2 zones can lack even harder compared to Eureka's 4 zones although 2 out of 4 i hated (Pagos being overly obnoxious and Hydatos being... the most boring area just for the sake of being the safest to navigate).

[Alleo]

Moreover, "small indie company" might be a meme, but it was born from truth. A company with profits of $250m should not have developers working in their free time to add viera hats, male viera, mahjong or anything else we're told was delivered under unhealthy working practices. We need to ask why the team is stretched so thin that this can occur.

Then

I kinda wonder if that free time truly means that they did it while not at work (or staying longer) or if that was simply meant as: In the downtime between tasks they worked on that. For example they had to wait for approval of something and in the meantime they worked on this.

Of course in a country that has a specific word for dieing because of working too hard its also possible that they truly meant their time after work.