What does Heavensward actually bring to the table as an expansion?

[Evtrai]

I've been a supporter of FFXIV ever since 1.0 and the announcement of rework I had faith in Square Enix being a fan since my childhood of all their games dating from Squaresoft and Enix, and decided to stick with them in the ride of being reborn from the ashes that was 1.0. 2.0 finally came out and I was thrilled about the rework that was done, the storytelling, pretty much all that a Realm Reborn had to offer. The exciting part of being able to switch jobs on the fly, the thrill of reaching endgame, and the pump to get my ""EARLY"" relic done, which was involved in ""MIDCORE CONTENT"", it had decent dificulty, it wasn't too hard, but it wasnt't too easy, but it was pretty fun getting my relic done. Then I was lucky to find my dear static and newfound group of friends. I was excited every night to gather and raid, at which we were clearing at a pretty decent pace, until we finally cleared it about 9 weeks before the SBCoB. In the way there, we see different patches which can be divided in the following: 24 man instance (I cannot call raid because it all boiled down dificulty wise in how much people paying atention you had in the groups), 3 new dungeons (eventually recycled hard mode dungeons), and the next step abobination that relics became, which I'll address in the following segment.

Here, Square Enix begins to misunderstand the definition of what's fun with grinding, what was a pretty exciting midcore content became this monstruosity that was the Atma grind, which people forcibly felt compelled to do because they had to and was the relevant content at the time, then it turns into another excruciating grind one after another of recycling the same content in a manner that actually makes you hate everything that the game did well, because you have been doing it so much and I beg to differ with what people says but I felt that relics, were the actual hardcore content due the insane ammount of time you had to invest in it and your leather face to stand doing the exact same thing for hours and hours and possibly days, vs raiding 3 hours 3-4 days a week. Then the patch updates could be resumed in: new Raid, 3 new dungeons, new primal, extra story content, new relic step, 24 man raid, random mini game that lost it's novelty with the majority of the game's population after 2 weeks or so, and it seems that Square Enix found their Cookie cutter mold and people voice their concerns on the forums but quickly get shut off with the common "It's not even their first expansion" "They barely had time to stabilize the game after rushing it out of the door"

Then we see the announcement of Heavensward, everyone is excited, myself included, with the huge possibilities that this expansion might bring new things and variety. The expansion is finally released it's a thrilling experience, there's flying mounts, and the story was actually pretty good and intense, and then the you reach the endgame, and some pretty bitter problems come to light, crafting is pretty unfriendly for all types of players, the same formula, new tomes, cap tomes weekly, which I guess it's fine, normal alexander is released people grind it and people started to hate it due the incredibly grindy nature of it, and savage is released and the interest revolving around it grew thin due people already grinding normal to death and the bosses being already seen and having some notions about what to expect.

And there it comes a huge problems that significantly reduced my motivation to continue playing FFXIV any longer, the live letter comes, and I'm surprised to see, that they will continue to use the SAME cookie cutter mold they have been using in 2.0, filler content that includes, the SAME primal, the SAME 24man instance, and now 2 new dungeons which one is a hard mode reharsh of an old one and a new one, a new relic which I dread to think it's gonna be a grind fest and some more minigames that people will get over 2 weeks after. Setting that aside a realization came to me, are we supposed to basically do Alexander Savage until Feb-March 2016? because sadly all the content they detailed for the future patch is filler content, what happened to the Midcore content of FFXIV? Why is there only piece of cake content or extremly hard content in the game and absolutely nothing changed from 2.0?

There's so many glaring issues that I could bring up but these are the ones that bother me the most, I know most people are gonna say; that they are having fun with the game and this fun apparently entails grinding all the classes to 60, grinding all the crafts to 60, they haven't managed to beat Ravana EX so they are apparently content with that, or maybe you should stop and unsub and go play WoW or something else. I always felt that the assets of this game and the core of it had potential, I loved getting on mumble for raid nights and chat with my static and laugh while we tried to clear raids, if not for them I don't think I would have managed to play this far, but it has reached the point that not even for them, I can stomach and continue with this trend that SE has decided to adopt.

TL;DR: Why is Square Enix using the same cookie cutter content ever since 2.0, where's the midcore content? and why Heavensward doesn't actually feel like an expansion bringing actual new gameplay elements to the game?

[KaedrianLiang]

Hi,

All my combat classes are 60
All my gathering classes are 60
All my crafting classes are 60
I beat Ravana EX
I'm also subscribed to WoW while also being subscribed to FFXIV, because both games are good enough to have my $26 a month (between the two).
Almost every night i play its nonstop laughing in voicechat.

What bothers me the most:
-450 cap every week. THEY COULDNT MAKE IT 500!?!?!?!? IT JUST HAD TO BE 450 DIDNT IT!?

-Buying scrips in bulk option 5 for 250. WHY 250!?!?!?!?!? WTFFF THATS SUCH A STRANGE NUMBER SERIOUSLY. WHEN YOU CAP SCRIPS FOR THE WEEK THAT MEANS YOU BUY 1 set of 5 AND 4 SETS OF singles. WHY DIDNT THEY MAKE a 4 for 200 OPTION!? THAT WAY I ONLY HAVE TO BUY 2 SETS of 4 AND 1 SET OF 50 WTF!!!!

[Souljacker]

snip

Good gravy when do you sleep?

I'm a little disappointed with the content as well. Leveling is dreary (FATES are a million times worse than Abyssea, at least that had some interesting things that kept you engaged) and dungeons are mostly toxic so I only go when FC goes or I'm feeling particularly masochistic. More of the same just seems like they aren't putting much effort into crafting a unique and interesting experience for us.

[KaedrianLiang]

/prune

I sleep during maintenance

I'm in a series of very well connected hunt ls's that also post fates worth 100k-137k exp in HW zones. There have been days where im literally rotating all the zones an hour for these high value fates and doing lesser fates in between. My best day i was rolling in 1.5mil exp an hour, without rested exp.

Dungeons on NA/EU can be very.... unhealthy... I recently moved to a JP realm and dungeons are far more laid back. JP players prefer to pull single groups over the 3-4 groups at a time that's common practice in NA/EU realms, which an lead to death and lots of rage.

[ValkyrieL]

Hi,

All my combat classes are 60
All my gathering classes are 60
All my crafting classes are 60
I beat Ravana EX
I'm also subscribed to WoW while also being subscribed to FFXIV, because both games are good enough to have my $26 a month (between the two).
Almost every night i play its nonstop laughing in voicechat.

What bothers me the most:
-450 cap every week. THEY COULDNT MAKE IT 500!?!?!?!? IT JUST HAD TO BE 450 DIDNT IT!?

-Buying scrips in bulk option 5 for 250. WHY 250!?!?!?!?!? WTFFF THATS SUCH A STRANGE NUMBER SERIOUSLY. WHEN YOU CAP SCRIPS FOR THE WEEK THAT MEANS YOU BUY 1 set of 5 AND 4 SETS OF singles. WHY DIDNT THEY MAKE a 4 for 200 OPTION!? THAT WAY I ONLY HAVE TO BUY 2 SETS of 4 AND 1 SET OF 50 WTF!!!!

This....like wdf, buy a stack than buy 4 individual ones.....

[dank1]

Abobination?

[Reinth]

Up to this stage, it has been more of balancing what's already on the table. Probably just wait it out?

[Souljacker]

That's serious dedication and coordination. My hero!

[Magis]

The sad thing for me is... the next update (following every other cookie cutter) isn't going to add much due to it being in the even part of the cycle. Your going to get 2-3 new dungeons to grind the same esoterics (cause it's two patches per currency change), a faceroll 24 man raid which will get boring after the third time like CT series were, and some fluff content. I couldn't care less about FFXIV: Pokemon, and the airship stuff seems to be mainly to get to the 24 man... which isn't really airship content. I'll probably play the main story and then get bored once again doing the same shit we were doing the last 3 months (and 2 years with ARR).

Maybe we'll get those NMs Yoshi said airships would lead to... but I am not holding my breath.