Heavensward the worst expansion

[Oizen]

"Heavensward is the worst expansion" is the laziest response to "Endwalker is the worst expansion I have played", which was the title of the infamous Zepla video. Even if it was a good response, it still doesn't change the problems of the present game.

A lot of content creators feel the need to defend current thing, because current thing brings them revenue.

[Jettinson]

Man, it is so weird with Heavensward since I do not feel the overhype with that expansion (mainly talking with story since it had the highest moments but also the most atrocious ones).

But I can't judge being worst/best simply because I was not there and trying to make some comparison feels unnecessary. I just wanted to have a feel on the old combat system at least.

[hynaku]

My opinion best to Worst Heavensward, 1.0 story, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, ARR, and last Endwalker.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Man, it is so weird with Heavensward since I do not feel the overhype with that expansion (mainly talking with story since it had the highest moments but also the most atrocious ones).

But I can't judge being worst/best simply because I was not there and trying to make some comparison feels unnecessary. I just wanted to have a feel on the old combat system at least.

Heavensward its extremely overhyped. People memed on the free trial thing so much that it just clouded their judgment for what the expansion actually was.

Im mean Heavensward to me (from and outsiders perspective and from gleaming opinions from vets who remembered those days without the rose tinted glasses), is about on par with Endwalker in terms of general quality.

[Raven2014]

But this right here is why HW can't be the worst expansion. Yeah it did a lot of shit wrong, but they were changing it, they tried to fix shit, and they did eventually fix shit.

And how long did they take to fix it, or did they even fixed it? A few examples:

Changes to crafting system: was continuously changed and removed that 8 years later, pretty much any trace of what were added in HW have been completely removed or watered down into irrelevancy. In restrospect it's something that would be better didn't happen.

Diadem: launch, fail, launched again, then fail again, then launch again ... over the a period of 5-6 years.

BRD/MCH: changed to BRD was so unpopular that it was 180 reverse in the next expansion. While MCH go on and continue to have an identity crisis for the next 6-7 years until it's finally settle down.


Do you know why SE was very aggressive with trying to fix stuffs in HW? Because they were "this" close to kill off the game again after bring it back from the dead. It was the only expansion that I had longest abstention because I can't just be bother to play it. It wasn't just me, our FC was the same. Also our ward which was always bustling with activities in 2.0 become barren by the time 3.2 rolled around, because most people just stop playing.


There is a reason why Stormblood mark an extreme radical shift in the game direction that continue to this day, because anyone with 2 bit of brain on the Dev team understood "pull another HW and we gonna kill this game for good!"

Meanwhile in Endwalker,

So even if you gonna make a point to argue that they listened and improve, they did so over the span of over half a decade. How long ago did EW came out? Does the word "patience" and "context" even exist these days any more? The malcontents of HW were sure as heck weren't fixed during the 3.xx cycle, and you want to make a comparison to EW even before the next expansion come out?

Outside of the MSQ, HW will always gonna be the worst expansion because I seriously doubt they will ever make another mess like that again. Shatter that rose-tinted nostagia glasses and HW was simply isn't a fun expansion to go through. Maybe the other good thing about HW was it taught SE a very valuable lesson of how NOT to do thing, a lesson that they're fortunately keep very close to heart since then.


P.S: another fun thing to put in "context": make fun about Island Sanctuary all you want, but it have lasted longer, received more update, and probably generate far more player engagement then Diadem ever did in combined all of it different lease on life.