Maybe it's time for a casual "strike" if not complete departure.

[BigCheez]

Shadowbringers really was the best expansion, honestly. My only complaint in the entirity of it was that Bozja relied too much on gating the fun stuff behind FATE grinding.

I think Stormblood is massively underrated and actually GOATed. The MSQ was mid but it felt like they really found their feet, figured out how they wanted their fights to be designed, added ultimate, figured out how exploration zones should work and stripped away the last of the jank from the early days without oversimplifying anything.

If we could get rid of TP and melding main stats, I'd go back to Sb any day.

Considering it was developed during the height of COVID, I think Shb was a really good expansion too though. I like Bozja but it's pretty boring if you aren't in VC with some friends or something.

[Collin_Sky]

I think Stormblood is massively underrated and actually GOATed. The MSQ was mid but it felt like they really found their feet, figured out how they wanted their fights to be designed, added ultimate, figured out how exploration zones should work and stripped away the last of the jank from the early days without oversimplifying anything.

If we could get rid of TP and melding main stats, I'd go back to Sb any day.

Considering it was developed during the height of COVID, I think Shb was a really good expansion too though. I like Bozja but it's pretty boring if you aren't in VC with some friends or something.

Personally, I thought the raid series, msq, alliance raid, job balance changes, etc of ShB were significantly more fun than SBs. As well, I thought that Bozja added a lot more than Eureka did, with DR(S), Dalriada, Castrum Litore, etc.
Also Perfect Alexander the best antagonist of the year, all years.

[BigCheez]

Personally, I thought the raid series, msq, alliance raid, job balance changes, etc of ShB were significantly more fun than SBs. As well, I thought that Bozja added a lot more than Eureka did, with DR(S), Dalriada, Castrum Litore, etc.
Also Perfect Alexander the best antagonist of the year, all years.

Eureka gives me the old school MMO feels a lot more than Bozja does. It has a bit more depth and nuance and I enjoy the spawning NMs > killing NMs gameplay loop more than farming skirmishes, even if the CEs and instances in Bozja are more fun than the NMs in Eureka for the most part.

I like Coils and Bahamut a lot more than Alexander so that probably also affects my opinion.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Wow, I actually agree with something both BigCheez and Collin_Sky for once. Yeah I agree, I personally found SB and ShB as the best two expacs in ff14. They had everything IMO, in fun hard content with fun casual to mid-core content as well. On nonraid nights I would hop into Eurake and Bozja to have some fun grinding for relics and other items. Plus this was before Yoshi P and dev team decided to kill my most fav job, SMN. EW and so for DT haven't been nearly as fun.

[Collin_Sky]

Yoshi P and dev team decided to kill my most fav job, SMN

aaand back to disagreeing. SMN is better now.

[BigCheez]

I think the idea of SMN is better now but the execution is absolutely horrible. It was more of a Walmart affliction warlock than a summoner before. Now it's actually a summoner but it's also miserably boring.

When they reworked it in 6.0, I thought for sure that this was just the skeleton and they were going to flesh it out in 7.0. Then they basically added nothing to it in Dawntrail.

If it had another resource to manage, or at least a couple of cooldowns and procs to track then I think it would be ok, but it feels like half a job in its current state.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

aaand back to disagreeing. SMN is better now.

If you like boring jobs that are brain dead sure it's better now :P But Im not going to get into that with you here since its not part of this topic.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

I think the idea of SMN is better now but the execution is absolutely horrible. It was more of a Walmart affliction warlock than a summoner before. Now it's actually a summoner but it's also miserably boring.

When they reworked it in 6.0, I thought for sure that this was just the skeleton and they were going to flesh it out in 7.0. Then they basically added nothing to it in Dawntrail.

If it had another resource to manage, or at least a couple of cooldowns and procs to track then I think it would be ok, but it feels like half a job in its current state.

There was your mistake, you trusted the devs would add on to the job.

[BigCheez]

There was your mistake, you trusted the devs would add on to the job.

Surely it will get better in 8.0, right?

[Collin_Sky]

If you like boring jobs that are brain dead sure it's better now :P But Im not going to get into that with you here since its not part of this topic.

I generally tend to prefer that the jobs themselves are easier and the complexity comes from the content itself. Especially considering I share the game with a large player base who refuse to utilize half of the buttons the devs give them, even on easy jobs. It's really evident if you check [redacted] in a lot of the more DF/PF-able content that people aren't even capable of playing these "brain dead" jobs properly.
Does that make easier content more boring to me? Sure does, but I still think it's healthier for the game as a whole.