Zepla: Endwalker is the Worst FFXIV Expansion I have played

[Renathras]

That’s the worst thing about the current drought, we are ripping each others heads off arguing about the content drought now; we are still between 6.4 and 6.5, the 6.5-7.0 gap is pretty much a flat year, and we already know what the content is gonna be in 6.5 and it isn’t much

Imagine how people will be in April next year with no content for 6 months and no substantial content since Anabeisos/EO launched 18 months ago

Damnit.

I typed up a really long post and now...ugh. Internet ate it.

Let's see...the bullet points:

1) I agree.

2) Unless they pull a lot of stuff out of their arse, the content drought is going to be a content desert.

3) I've done literally (and I do mean literally not figuratively) every side-quest in the game aside from DoH/L relics and a few Job quests for the ones I don't have to 80+.

4) I've also finished relics for every Job I care about (and many I haven't).

5) Even I'm running a little low on things to do - this is normally where I'd fall back on doing the expansion's Exploration Zone...but EW doesn't have one!

6) Island Spreadsheet/Sweatshop isn't fun since I can't craft stuff myself and I don't enjoy being middle management, and Orthos is the worst parts of PotD (damage) and HoH (enemy health sponges) to solo.

7) I've consumed most of the content I enjoy, so running out of stuff to do without new stuff added that's in the vein of the stuff I like to do.

8) My normal end-game, Extremes, decided to be Savages this expansion, which makes PFing them abject misery and not enjoyable at all. So my normal "farm the latest Extreme until mount drop" I've completely let go of this expansion. "Body checks! Body checks EVERYwhere!" I swear, whoever decided ever fight needs bloody body checks needs their head examined.

9) 4.5 series (4.5, 4.55, and 4.57, I think?) will add the new 24 man, new 8 man (possibly two), new dungeon (possibly second one), Hilde quests, and a smattering of maybes (Alliance Tribal quest?)
...but most of that is "one and done" stuff (much as I want to see the new 24 man story and who the last boss/deity is, that's a one-time thing followed by MAYBE an hour a week run since WEEKLY LOCKOUTS EXIST). That means once I finish my tome gear and upgrades (and I do Hunt trains...a lot...so I'll finish them with nuts well before I can with coins), it's going to be really easy to run out of things to do after the 2-5 days (being generous) of total quest/story content across all those lines of MSQ part 1, Twelve, Hilde (which won't even be until 4.55), Tataru, and then MSQ Part 2. After that, it's just grinds, but weekly gated grinds, and even those won't take long. Oh, and I don't think I'll want to grind the Extremes until 7.X because the Extremes this expansion have felt more like Savages and been ABSOLUTE MISERY to try doing in PF where people STILL don't understand how to form a line in the safe column for Gales 2 SOMEhow.

That is, there's a lot of "do once, then you're done" and a few "do once a week to cap" stuff, but nothing to really spend time with, and the other stuff I'd normally do are either played out (Deep Dungeons), broken for midcore folks like me (Extremes), or just outright missing (Exploration Zones). This has been a thing I've been pointing out as an issue for a while, but it's starting to stack up as the other stuff I could do gets consumed (e.g. can only run every sidequest in the game once, really).

And once the Moogle Tome event ends, things like Rival Wings are going to go back to being ghost towns, and Frontlines are horrifically unbalanced, and while I DO sometimes do 24 man ques for fun, there's only so much of "I'm capped on tomes and have no reason to do this, but I'll do it anyway" that's going to happen. Once one has PvP Rank 25 for the season, there's little reason to do any more, and A Ranks still only spawn every 6 hours and S ranks once every 2-3 days, so that content isn't really something you can grind (without a lot of downtime), either, even if server hopping.

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/sigh

Anyway, don't like being all "doom and gloom". But I do think it's an issue. I DO think that doing things like futureproofing (Duty Support, streamlining old quests, etc) and futurefortifying (graphics update, etc) are good things, but I'm worried they've spent too many dev resources on those things and neglected the present in the process. Stocking up for the future is fine and good, but not if you starve yourself in the present so you don't survive, or are emaciated and long-term damaged, to see it. And I'm not yet sure "filler beach episode" is going to really address that, pull back the people who have drifted away, draw in new people, or address the specific problems.

I do like this dev team and they've earned goodwill, but I do think at some point we need to be able to see what they're planning, and they need to be planning something to address this stuff. Playing too close to the chest may not be the right move here.

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...I think that's a vaguely adequate summary.

But again, I dislike being doom and gloom. I do have concerns about 7-8 months of no new real content to sink our teeth into, though.

You are assuming there wont be a patch in between. I am fairly sure they are well aware of the possible gap. Have a little faith, yeah?

I do hope you're right. But I am mildly concerned since they've not actually said anything to address this. Again, playing things too close to the chest is bad in situations like this (kinda like the DNC "will it be a DPS or a healer??" thing that they seemed to be having a coy fun game about not realizing it really did throw people off and generate a lot of backlash...)

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[Not really interested in the petty nonsense. Edited my post from back a ways to address things, but I don't want to keep the thread going off on tangents, so if people want to keep doing it, they're going to have to keep going back there for "validation" of their doing it.]