Which expansion did they get right, and why?

[Lunaxia]

To be honest, the original title was going to be "what did Heavensward do right and why?" but I thought that might be a little too subjective for the topic I had in mind. It came to me as I was running through some dailies, and realised as burnt out as I am on the current content cycle, I always feel a pang of nostalgia and relief when I run HW duties, which got me wondering why I still look back on it so fondly.

I can't speak for every player, but I think it's somewhat fair to say HW is possibly the most beloved expansion overall - ShB steals the spotlight as perhaps the most conventionally popular due to its bombastic ending, but HW is commonly cited as being the most consistently enjoyable throughout, and many vets even now miss those days in particular, through to early SB.

So what was it that made HW feel so much better? Was it the writing? The content? The battle design? Job identity? Going that extra mile implementing new features - a new, fully developed race, three new jobs, a shortened patch schedule, the addition of as of then never before seen content? The story? Or does it perhaps simply benefit from being the very first expansion and immune from the repetitive formula fatigue that plagues us now?

And if you disagree, which time in the game's history did you think was the best, and why?

[FudoMyoo]

We are conned into HW being the best because of the flight added? They also killed Lord Haurchefant Greystone, Ysayle (Iceheart) & Papalymo. Many players cried buckets.

[Krokov]

I would say IMO its a tie/toss-up between HW and ShB. Both had great storylines and gameplay. Though they did take away some stuff that I like with HW, (Old Diadem, though I didn't do hardly much with it). But loved the story and other options/perks. Same with ShB also great and etc. SB and EW were good as well in their way of course. DT is all right but it's none of the previous x-pacs. Why were they good?, because their storyline drew you in was emotional and really made you close to the characters.

[Jeeqbit]

It's not an expansion they got right, but specific aspects.

Heavensward was only good on the surface. By that I mean, job complexity (but a lot of it was useless jank and bloat). Stat choice (but an illusion of choice because most stats sucked like Parry, or were required like Accuracy). Not as much homogenization (but then you had Paladin's struggling to mitigate Alexander). Materia diversity (but it was a trap, because your alternative choices were Piety, Elemental stats, main stats that did not benefit your job, and lack of clarity on if stat cap reached). Cross-class being something we could have fun with (but it was abandoned and poorly implemented, only supporting class skills not job skills without their traits that make them useful).

So SE fixed the issues under the surface by removing them all and not replacing them with something better, leaving what many would say feels overly simplistic.

The story of Heavensward was what made it great, of course. It felt like an adventure and there was a lot of lore that had been teased and speculated on. They had talked about Sharlayans a lot, for example, so the Hinterlands had me excited until I saw it was rubble and "they all abandoned it". It wasn't really until Shadowbringers and Endwalker that we had some expansion stories that gave Heavensward's story competition. The issue now of course is most of the lore has been explained so the mystery isn't there as much.

What Heavensward did have right, was the holy trinity. As a tank, I needed the healer. As a healer, I needed to heal. If I tried to pull some enemies without a healer or without a tank, they would kill me. Vulns made you very vulnerable. This wasn't always easy to accept, but it felt right, so I accepted it had to be this way. So to have got to a point where we no longer need to rely on eachother doesn't seem right. Dungeons still feel like teamwork, but only insofar as our damage contribution, whereas, the struggle of mitigating and healing was part of the teamwork back then. Where you could finish a pull and respect the healer - not like now, where you don't need the healer.

I could go into what other expansions did right or wrong, but none of them did everything right. A lot of Quality of Life was added over the years, so the game would be a complete nightmare if you actually went back to Heavensward. There were annoyances and frustrations we put up with and probably the people who did had the time to do so. Despite that, it's a drop in the ocean of the amount of quality of life issues that there are overall which take many years to be looked at.

[Valence]

HW when the game wasn't yet trying to pass for an action game with little substance behind.

But honestly hard to say otherwise. HW certainly had... utter failures, like Diadem, even though it had actually great itemization gearing ideas.

[0blivion]

It's Shadowbringers though. HW ages really poorly when you play it on an alt, unlike ShB, which remains engaging until you're dealing with the damn train. Fuck that train. ShB's strong point really, really isn't just its ending. It's its inherent narrative consistency because it contains good usage of all the plot threads Ishikawa started at some point, lol.

[Aravell]

HW wasn't perfect, but it set up a good base to evolve upon until the dev team decided to tear it all down in SB because suddenly every job requires gauges.

I would have liked to see them build upon the cross-class system, because while some abilities were less than useful on the class that learns it, other jobs could gain benefit from it. Like how Feint was useless for DRG but MCH and BRD could find a niche use for it, or Surecast being not very useful for BLM but the healers could use it because raidwides can interrupt precasting heals, or Fracture being not that great on WAR but fantastic on MNK, etc.

I think the only thing that greatly disappointed me in HW was the original launch Diadem, no one liked grinding dino island.

[Lunaxia]

It's Shadowbringers though. HW ages really poorly when you play it on an alt, unlike ShB, which remains engaging until you're dealing with the damn train. Fuck that train. ShB's strong point really, really isn't just its ending. It's its inherent narrative consistency because it contains good usage of all the plot threads Ishikawa started at some point, lol.

I've found the opposite, I've replayed Heavensward multiple times and always find myself enjoying it, whereas I expected to like ShB but found subsequent playthroughs kind of tedious. I feel like HW's character and scenario writing is a lot stronger which is what makes it fun to go back through, while ShB has insane atmosphere and mood setting but is a step behind in that regard, so it loses some of the impact after playing it for the first time. The sin eaters storyline really was great, but the characters themselves just feel a little bland outside of Emet and Vauthry. Especially considering they're living in a world that's nigh-apocalyptic, everyone just feels remarkably well-adjusted (?) and I miss the personal conflicts that drove the story in the game's earlier years.

[0blivion]

I can see what you mean. I think the parts where we were hanging out with Alohinaud, Estinien and Ysale were great. I think ShB's characters' "chill"ness in part does stem from the Exarch being there for like 100 years doing damage control. I also just remembered how much I hated Werlyt so I think I'm gonna say that 5.0 is great but the trial series sucks. Sadly, the waifufication of G'raha Tia in the period past 5.3 didn't help. But I felt that way about all characters that have obvious crushes on the WoL...

[Aidorouge]

Hmm, I started playing through ARR during post-Endwalker, and did HW/STB/SHB during current Dawntrail, so I can't exactly speak on how all of them were back at launch from the perspective of them being "new and exciting" with regards to their changes and additions.

When it comes to story it's... mixed. ARR was the grand beginning of it all, but also had moments of being an absolute slog. HW had some interesting concepts and expanded lore, but it also had a lot of characters and story beats I just did not care about. STB was a favorable premise of being able to deal more directly against the Empire, but was largely ruined by both being two plotlines that needed more room to breathe and Zenos brought down the whole thing. SHB had some intriguing zones, vibes, and subversion, but was overall underwhelming for all the hype around it and holy hell do I give zero ducks about Emet and Elidibus and their yammering (and oh joy, Zenos and now Fandaniel to knock further points from the final score).

Truthfully, Shadowbringers left me fatigued enough about the game's story that I don't even know when I'll do Endwalker, doubly so knowing those last two characters are going to be at the center of it all, or already knowing in advance that the overall story is rushed and crammed, with Dawntrail of all things following on its heels.

When it comes to gameplay... well, I can't really remember what side content unlocks when exactly (or what patch it was added in to say it was ARR/HW/STB/SHB content specifically), but I do know that I haven't been the biggest fan of Deep Dungeons or Field Operations, I constantly forgot the Firmament even existed until I started doing the Custom Deliveries there, I only went to the Diadem to map it out and never went back, Blue Mage stopped being fun once I hit Stage 29, Sightseeing Logs became a nuisance thanks to Kugane, company airships and submarines weren't anywhere near as fun as I thought they would be, housing IN GENERAL feels like a pointless scam despite owning two houses, and most STB/SHB dungeons, trials, and raids are some of the worst designed fights I've ever had to suffer through (Dying Gasp and Seat of Sacrifice being the lowest rung of all).

I did enjoy a lot of the side quests though, even the "pointless" yellow ones that everyone else skips, society questlines never cease to entertain me while always giving me something I really want from the vendors, daily/weekly hunting marks and FATEs have actually gotten BETTER over time with tracking down targets and Shared FATEs, you can never have enough NPC systems though Trusts aren't quite as fun as Squadrons, and job quests/role quests still remain engaging up until now.

If I really had to try and rank them so far based on which ones had more highs than lows... it would probably be:
Heavensward > A Realm Reborn > Stormblood > Shadowbringers