The bar for Island Sanctuary and Criterion Dungeons are very high

[Rhus]

I can already see the front page of the forum complaining it’s not instanced housing or animal sanctuary or isn’t what they’d convinced themselves it was goi g to be despite numerous attempts by devs to temper expectations and never claiming it to be anything other than what it is.

[Jaquan]

Given that it's meant to be a key feature for the expansion itself, telling people not to get excited is a major red flag. Instead they should be taking note of what people are expecting and then try to include as many of the desired features as realistically possible.

Especially since we're meant to be entering a bright new era for the game itself...

No, just no. Maybe it's my fault being too tame. But I didn't read it as "don't be excited for it" and more of "keep your expectations in check". Because that's what OP's first post is. Large expectations crossing the unrealistic territory. Building up hype by the community never, ever ended up well for any game no matter how much the dev team wanted to match the player's desire. It's pretty realistic to say we're not gettin an entire separate game with this function. We're not getting Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing or whatever mix of Farming sims we get out there in that feature.

[MistakeNot]

For many people, myself included, Island Sanctuaries and Criterion Dungeons are make-or-break for this game.

Why? We know almost nothing about how either of those will work, so there is no sane reason to assume that they will matter all that much.

[Seraphor]

Wow, setting yourself up for disappointment early.

If the game is so bad right now that you need a new feature to cure cancer and solve world hunger, then maybe you should have stopped playing already.

[Recon1o6]

Why? We know almost nothing about how either of those will work, so there is no sane reason to assume that they will matter all that much.

1. Job design: one need only see the dps forums and healer forums to find people quitting in large numbers. The game is bleeding healers and a lot of samurai have just left their job.
2. Lack of repeatable content coupled with delays: There's simply nothing to do at level cap if you are midcore or casual that cant be completed in a couple of hours.
-SE dropped the ball AGAIN with not introducing relic in 6.0
-Unreal's rewards are lackluster
-The extremes so far do not deserve the title they are so undertuned
-No deep dungeon either.
-Lack of none savage challenging content: Not everyone has the time for a static and if you are a healer or tank, then you literally dont get loot until a month into savage unless pug and rng shine on you
3. Story quality has gone down this expansion with poor pacing and plot holes galore. New story is a repeat of skalla. Many expressed concern over the new arc being "a battle of values" when not everyone is on board with the current values in addition to yoshidas confusion over Venat's actions being seen as questionable and his surprise at emet selch being popular for being very well written

These 3 together make the bulk of ff14s gameplay loop and right now its not in a good place for a lot of people. Can it get better? Yes. But the signs are concerning.

[FoxyAreku]

"Going the way of WoW" would mean actually having a good amount of challenging content to partake in, I'd love for it to do that.

[SieyaM]

I'm hoping that criterion dungeons are something that I can queue into and get done and not a "watch a video and memorize it before even considering joining a party" affair.

[Darthgummibear]

I've been saying for a while now that there's no way Island Sanctuary will ever live up to the monumental expectations people are heaping on it.

[LianaThorne]

Weren't we already told to lower our expectations for IS?

[MicahZerrshia]

Instead they should be taking note of what people are expecting and then try to include as many of the desired features as realistically possible..

lol they haven't done that since the ARR reboot and even then it was negligible.