Quote Originally Posted by JohnLakeside View Post
I'm only on 5.4, but ShB had by far my least favorite zones. I get that 90% or something of the population was wiped out, but god the zones are so lifeless. Too much of it feels flat and textureless. Compare it to ARR where there are NPCs even outside of Aetheryte tele areas. Hell, in Shb's Aetheryte areas, most of the NPCs are just standing outside of their homes like mannequins. The fact that we can't even enter most of the buildings makes it even worse. It feels almost insulting that out of maybe the 4 buildings we can go inside in the entire expansion, 2 of them are lalafell only. Yes, the world is pretty, but it lacks a lot of that interiority and detail that makes a world feel alive imo. I also think the Crystarium is the worse expansion city we've gotten so far. I'd really like someone to explain to me how the Crystarium holds a candle to the likes of Ishgard or Kugane.

I'm actually kinda bitter about how underwhelmed I was by ShB. Almost everyone I talked to gushed about how ShB was almost like some life-changing experience. I loved every expansion so far and I thought ShB would reach heights that I couldn't even imagine. But at the end of it all, it was just "pretty good." Like a 7.8/10 for me.

A lot of the Shb hype, imo, comes from people who REALLY liked Emet Selch.