Quote Originally Posted by Striker44 View Post
ShB is widely viewed among players as the "best" expansion. The thing is - it was only able to be a real 10/10 because of the expansions that came before it. Two out of those three books of lore you could write were written in ARR, HW, and SB. The villains that became multi-faceted were introduced as one-dimensional back in ARR.

There's not really much "thought to evoke" in SE. It's already there. You just can't realistically expect the new equivalent of ARR (starting a new narrative) to reach as high as an expansion that had 3 prior installments to build on. Years from now, FFXIV will probably put out another 10/10 expansion - the only question will be whether those "hating" on DT will be willing to acknowledge that the new top-tier installment was able to reach those heights because of the foundation DT laid.

Me? I'm still having a ton of fun with the new stories and lore in DT. *shrugs*
The problem with saying DT laid any sort of foundation at all is that it introduced exactly one legitimately interesting concept: interdimensional fusion.

LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE about it was some combination of 1) cringe beyond belief, 2) hilariously undercooked, 3) convenient to the point of being nonsensical, and 4) wrapped up so thoroughly that it's not just a foundation, it's the whole freaking house.

At this point we're all best off just rolling our eyes and waiting for 7.4 to start setting up next expansion.