Quote Originally Posted by ShadowyZero View Post
ah yes this topic lets have a history lesson shall we?
Mostly got everything, except 3.x had Diadem (as obnoxious as it was to enter), chloe was added in 3.x and unsyncing ARR primals for it was common group content, squadrons were added in 3.x, 4.x added blue mage and 7.x is adding a Chaos Raid which is new and obviously the graphics update.

I'd say the 5.x bozja raids were innovative over Eureka due to being more than 1 of them + the CE and duel systems, unreal was due to the emergence of the MINE community since 5.0 release, role quests just reduce the workload of job quests because there's twice as many jobs now and they have at least tested the role in prior expansions ie. making them heal, Esuna, dodge as a DPS or use interrupts as a tank.
viper is just re-skinned rogue lmao.
Disagree on this part, at least in terms of rotation. It is similar in terms of aesthetic. I was able to find sword glams on a Ninja before Dawntrail release even.
so i mean you tell me.. which of these expansions was the most ambitious and innovative lol
Technically, Heavensward tried to innovate with Squadrons, Palace of the Dead and Diadem. So from the standpoint of effort, it was innovative. The expansion just felt like it was more the standard stuff to me overall. Extremes, Savages, hunts, FATE/relic farms, the stuff we still have today, but partying for WT and relics and job leveling via FATEs was pretty big then.

Stormblood changed things for me personally, because Eureka felt completely fresh. Complicated terrain to navigate, dragons that could 1 shot you, enemies that were genuinly tanky and could kill you etc. Most people complained about these things and continue to attack Pagos, yet Anemos and Pagos are what made it great. The people who attacked these things are probably why everything got streamlined to be easy and not take much time to complete.

Of course, you can also attribute Ultimates to Stormblood which gives another point to it being innovative. This was also the expansion they added Role Actions and Job Gauges, which you could argue began the streamlining of jobs, but either way it changed them.

Shadowbringers felt pretty lively though with the effort put into making the zones have a fantasy feel and the additions of CEs, duels, CE raids and DR Savage. It created a midcore content and it felt like anyone in a CE was enjoying it even if they didn't want to admit it, much like was the case in Eureka. Shadowbringers also ran Ishgard Restoration, which felt amazing to participate in, even if it was just for a few short minutes at a time. You can watch a video of it if you didn't see it. Having hundreds of players build a house was really cool!

And that's about it, because y'know, Endwalker felt quiet with a lot of things being solo. Trusts, Island Sanctuary, Variant and Criterion were innovative, if I'm objective, but trusts are whatever in practice and mean more soloing, island sanctuary was solo in an MMORPG nothing more to say, variants just end up tedious to "complete" all the pathways especially when the first 2 bosses aren't so much a challenge as just a chore to get to the last boss. Once again, variants allow more soloing in an MMORPG.

I've only heard and seen good things about Criterion itself, but the reward structure and release timing caused a lot of people to complain. Nevertheless, around the same % of people have beaten it and got the mounts as the amount that have beaten M4S, which is pretty significant actually.

So there has been innovation, objectively, it's just that it either didn't land successfully, or resulted in soloing in what is meant to be an MMORPG, with the exceptions really being Ultimate, Field Operations, Ishgard Restoration, Criterion and Deep Dungeons. The problem with Deep Dungeons is that after Palace of the Dead, all the new ones were mostly a copy+paste of POTD, which they've realized so they plan to change it for DT.

As for what innovation we will see through 7.x, we really just need to wait and see.