Meanwhile SB had HoH, Eureka, Hildibrand quests, full relic, more dungeons, and so on. Then it started going downhillSpot on. Keep in mind we just got a Deep Dungeon whereas ShB didn't get one. There are lots of things that "skip expansions."
ARR: PotD
HW: none
SB: HoH
ShB: none
EW: Orthos
That's just one example. There are probably others. EW doesn't appear to be getting a Eureka/Bozja zone, but it doesn't mean we haven't gotten content. Personally, I think a lot of this mindset is simply one's perception or better yet... a predisposition to look for the negative.
SB also had horrible job balance, a lackluster story, and half of the zones were completely forgettable. Something is always sacrificed for something else to prosper.
Years Later, people Claim it had the Best Job Balance.
But of Course I can guess its because those people loved the META, especially the Stupid Fish for Balance.
I do miss Royal Road though...but mostly from the Animation & Aesthetic, not because it was good or anything.
Jobs were indeed fun to play. BRD was busier. SMN felt like the embodiment of Carpal Tunnel but it at least had a shred of logic (and was the last time it ever had one).
But the jobs were imbalanced.
DRK notoriously performed below the other two tanks early into the patch, PLD literally only existed to act as a cooldown dispenser for a Warrior Main Tank.
MCH never really saw much improvement.
SAM had that weird wheelchair meme going around, which eventually evolved to represent its weeb fanbase that didn't bother optimize.
RDM existed almost exclusively for comfort. SMN and BLM had to compete on and off for top damage in the game.
I don't even know what the hell WHM was at the time, it completely flew under the radar.
And there was an entire meta defined around Critical hits with Warrior, Dragoon, Bard, Astro and Scholar. If you didn't fit in the mold, you had to be super useful somehow.
Honestly, SB was fine and cool, especially on job design. A lot of what was "wrong" came down to jank and tweaking. Square Enix's solution was a complete wrecking ball instead.
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