Are we destroying "our own" game?

[Isala]

For some reason, people on these forums are always very dramatic. Even during Shadowbringers, people went on long rants why "this expansion is the worst", while the objectively worst expansion, Heavensward, is now lauded as acclaimed masterpiece years later. It's a never-ending cycle.

What in the revisionist history? The "worst" expansion? There's a reason that the meme was about the free trial with the "award winning expansion, Heavensward." It was damn good, and accepted as such even then. Yes, people hated Bowmage and Gunmage, and people got filtered by Faust, but the rest of the expansion was widely praised even then.

[FuwafuwaMii]

What in the revisionist history? The "worst" expansion? There's a reason that the meme was about the free trial with the "award winning expansion, Heavensward." It was damn good, and accepted as such even then. Yes, people hated Bowmage and Gunmage, and people got filtered by Faust, but the rest of the expansion was widely praised even then.

Nah. Heavensward had terrible raids, terrible encounters and terrible class balance. Some classes were considered griefing if you brought them to a PF team. HW was definitely the worst expansion they brought, but it was also the first one, and they learned from their mistakes. Go back to those times on this forum, and you'll see some dramatic wails from people.

[Galvuu]

Nah. Heavensward had terrible raids, terrible encounters and terrible class balance. Some classes were considered griefing if you brought them to a PF team. HW was definitely the worst expansion they brought, but it was also the first one, and they learned from their mistakes. Go back to those times on this forum, and you'll see some dramatic wails from people.

That is revisionist in of itself. EW had more "forbidden jobs" in the pf during Abyssos than all of HW. You can see for yourself- while limited, all data we have on pf from HW logs will corroborate what I'm saying. 3.0 and 3.1 balance was pretty abysmal for AST and, to a lesser extent, MCH... but it's as abysmal right now for BLM and all the non-PCT ranged jobs.
And HW has some of the most original encounter ideas in this game- some of which became standard.
- A5S interacting with the arena to defeat the boss;
- A6S had a unique add phase in Brawler and the fight being made of 4 difficult minibosses was very unique;
- A7S had a different type of arena interaction with the spikes and the giant balls going around as you fought the boss;
- A8S brought Gavel, the first "resolve a ton of different debuffs in order depending on role" mechanic that became a staple of XIV Savage encounters;
- A10S had another different form of arena interaction, with people triggering traps that interacted with the players and the boss;
- A11S was the first Active Time Maneuver in the game, and A12S had the whole cutscene playing in the background;
- Sophia had the scales mechanic;
- Zurvan had the first cinematic transition of its type (where you can't move and just watch the transition).

I can't believe people think that Midas, Lamebrix Strikebocks and Cruise Chaser and Thordan/Sephirot/Sophia EX are "terrible encounters". HW had a lot of problems, but encounter and job balance weren't one of them. Yes, it had its stinkers, like A2S or A9S, but that's true of every expansion.
Even Gordias wasn't problematic in a vacuum- the issue is that it was deliberately tuned for 4/5 weeks of tomestone gear, making it unclearable before you got a ton of tomestone gear.
Ofc HW is old, and a lot of its fight design shows its age. It also didn't have a lot of QoL features we have now, but it's still a decent expansion with good msq.

The only truly new mechanic I've seen in DT so far is the whole Castellation thing in Interphos, Mountain Fire on Valigarmanda and the line aoes that interact with the swords on the field from Zoral Ja.

Fwiw, I think the combat in DT is pretty good. I enjoy the extremes and expert dungeons more than I've enjoyed any other batch since SB. But I'm also not gonna pretend it's groundbreaking. People also overestimate how "bad" HW balance was. EW's balance in 5.2 and 5.3 and our current DT balance are worse. (2.0 was also terrible, but that gets a pass since it was the first revision)