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

[Vickii]

The relic sidegrades were pathetic at best. There was always a higher item level weapon which would overshadow it in terms of raw damage for DPS, which is all anyone truly cared about.

Maybe it's all you cared about. You need to remember that different people play the game for different reasons and like different things about it.

I am a new player, doing the relic quest and using my relic weapon even though someone in my FC offered to make me a white weapon which is way better.

Why? 1) I like the lore and quests. 2) I like the thought behind a relic/legendary. 3) I like the 'prestige' of having completed it.

People who only care for stats and BIS are catered to somewhat, although there are probably better games out there for you. Final Fantasy at the end of the day is kinda about the story and the content is there for enjoyment rather than being the best, although like i said, you are catered to as well in many respects.

[Evtrai]

Maybe it's all you cared about. You need to remember that different people play the game for different reasons and like different things about it.

I am a new player, doing the relic quest and using my relic weapon even though someone in my FC offered to make me a white weapon which is way better.

Why? 1) I like the lore and quests. 2) I like the thought behind a relic/legendary. 3) I like the 'prestige' of having completed it.

People who only care for stats and BIS are catered to somewhat, although there are probably better games out there for you. Final Fantasy at the end of the day is kinda about the story and the content is there for enjoyment rather than being the best, although like i said, you are catered to as well in many respects.

I don't want to sound and do not intend this on a mean, but you said the key word here, you are a new player, anyone just started the game will feel overwhelmed by the content, and have fun, the story alone imo even though some people dislike it is one of the most fun aspects and one of the fun parts that I also enjoyed about XI and thought it was unique among MMO's, enough that SWTOR tried to mimic and it went horribly bad for them, but when you are up to date with the game you realize what's being complained here about atm as it stands right now, I doubt you'll trully understand the issues with the game unless you experience them. The problem is entailed on what you are supposed to do once you caught up with the content, ive played several MMO's and I gotta say FFXIV trully is one of the less attractive endgame MMO's ive played. Unless you are into glamour collecting of course, but if you are actively looking into ways to play your character to optimize, improve your play with your class, there's literally none other than just stack the best stats.

Also note, the current relics are nerfed, they weren't as "interesting or ok" to do like they are right now.

[Vickii]

snip.

Yeah but you're not looking at the bigger picture. You are looking at you, how you feel and what you think and coming to the conclusion : expansion bad, game bad.

You're forgetting that you've had a very long time where you admittedly enjoyed the game, and you're blaming SE for having nothing to do when perhaps you need to ask yourself, 'should i maybe do something else until the next expansion comes out'?

You can't say a game is bad, because you have exhausted all the content that you want to do. There is still a lot of people (myself included) who enjoy the game, and you seem intent to label us all as blind defenders, for disagreeing with you. As people have pointed out there are lots of things you could do in game if you chose to.

Honestly, just sounds like you maybe need to move on or take a break for a while. There is enough content here for most people, but it's never really struck me as a super hardcore game or anything.

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

snip

All that content that you are still doing is stuff long time players have already done. The old content gets completely obsolete really fast, I mean look at Ravana Ex, people don't farm that anymore and it came like what about one month+ ago?, it's rare you'll see a party going on and when it does, people rage quit after one failed attempt. So you can't expect people to do content that's obsolete now that rarely anyone does anymore. I'd love to do pony farms for the sake of variety and such but those parties never fill up. Barely anyone in FC is interested. I want to farm the hell out of Moogle Ex for whiskers but no one is interested and I am limited to where if I go undersize, I don't get item drops, only chest. So what else is there to do for long time players who've already been there, done that? Is there REALLY enough content for most long time people who've already done what you yet have to do?

This is end game:
Eso farming, through instanced dungeons... and alex normal (and those who like PvP, I guess. I would love to get into it but last I tried the queue times were very long)
Alexander Savage.

There, that's it. I'd love for content to be relevant wayyyy longer than it does, then we'd have a bit more variety and things to do ingame but we don't even have that. Outdating content so fast is a double edged sword.

Like someone said in another thread, the point of an MMO is to keep you hooked so you keep paying your subscription, more steady money for the company. Not unsubscribing until the next patch comes out... just because that's a trend that's been the norm because of how "modern" MMOs are doesn't necessarily mean it's good, at all. People shouldn't be restricted on how much they play, specially in a sub based MMO, which brings me to the next point, remember 1.0's fatigue system and how everyone outraged because of limitation? This is exactly what we have right now, in form of Eso caps and loot caps per week (surprised people don't relate both only because it's not experience points). At least FFXI the content reset every 2-3 days and not every week. Why are people having to pay a subscription when the game itself is restricting how much they play per week? They are paying certain amount of cents everyday yet they can't even play everyday because there is nothing else worth to do and the little they can do is already timegated!

Then there's the limited armoury system. I have to stick to one job only because, caps. I love variety and I love playing more than one class but I can only bring one to Alex because, gear. We can't mix it up, we can't come up with experimentation, because, restrictions. Restrictions everywhere.

I wouldn't say the whole game is bad, but the end game is defenitely lackluster imo.

[Iromi]

Like someone said in another thread, the point of an MMO is to keep you hooked so you keep paying your subscription, more steady money for the company. Not unsubscribing until the next patch comes out....

I agree with your entire post. Especially this part! I don't like how people think unsubbing is an acceptable answer to lack of variety content. Or "taking a break", I should not have to take a break from my MMO, I don't play it 24-7 by any means..but the whole point is to always have something to do and keep subscribers busy...

[Evtrai]

You're forgetting that you've had a very long time where you admittedly enjoyed the game, and you're blaming SE for having nothing to do when perhaps you need to ask yourself, 'should i maybe do something else until the next expansion comes out'?

You can't say a game is bad, because you have exhausted all the content that you want to do. There is still a lot of people (myself included) who enjoy the game, and you seem intent to label us all as blind defenders, for disagreeing with you. As people have pointed out there are lots of things you could do in game if you chose to.

Honestly, just sounds like you maybe need to move on or take a break for a while. There is enough content here for most people, but it's never really struck me as a super hardcore game or anything.

I never said that I din't enjoy the game before, but for the fact that it's an expansion hence my topic title "what does heavensward bring to the game as an expansion?", it's lackluster, let me put it in this analogy, you go to this place where they make fantastic vanilla icecream and this is the only flavor to make, I liked the vanilla ice cream a lot, but after a while I got tired of just tasting the vanilla icecream, then the company to keep people interested in their product they say: we'll have a new product soon, please look forward to it, you get excited you liked the vanilla ice cream but to your surprise all they do is add sprinkles on the same vanilla ice cream, it's the same vanilla ice cream, but it now has sprinkles on it, that's basically what the heavensward expansion is.

[DawnSolaria]

I never said that I din't enjoy the game before, but for the fact that it's an expansion hence my topic title "what does heavensward bring to the game as an expansion?", it's lackluster, let me put it in this analogy, you go to this place where they make fantastic vanilla icecream and this is the only flavor to make, I liked the vanilla ice cream a lot, but after a while I got tired of just tasting the vanilla icecream, then the company to keep people interested in their product they say: we'll have a new product soon, please look forward to it, you get excited you liked the vanilla ice cream but to your surprise all they do is add sprinkles on the same vanilla ice cream, it's the same vanilla ice cream, but it now has sprinkles on it, that's basically what the heavensward expansion is.

But thats what an expansion is, more content and sometime extra feature on an established core game. WoW released so many expansions and every one is pretty much the same deal. Sure they may have added mastery or odd stats like multistrike, but those end up just an extra variable in the simcraft and tbh isnt anything special. Its probably unwise to expect a new game with every single expansion.

I also have to disagree with the poster that said additional skills made classes more clunky. SMN got many times more interesting, some bard loved and some hated WM. Complexity is only clunky when you are not used to it.

[Evtrai]

But thats what an expansion is, more content and sometime extra feature on an established core game. WoW released so many expansions and every one is pretty much the same deal. Sure they may have added mastery or odd stats like multistrike, but those end up just an extra variable in the simcraft and tbh isnt anything special. Its probably unwise to expect a new game with every single expansion.

I also have to disagree with the poster that said additional skills made classes more clunky. SMN got many times more interesting, some bard loved and some hated WM. Complexity is only clunky when you are not used to it.

If you are gonna bring WoW, at least WoW has variety on their job system, talent trees, gear variety, different builds you can try, as far as I played which was the Lich King it did have more variety than what is palpable on FFXIV and at least WoW has an actual working PvP system or had that you can fill your time with when not end gaming or raiding, more variety on endgame was well and dificulty levels, I'm not sure right now but well, I will only comment on what I actually experienced, another example if you would, FFXI pretty much innovated in their content in each expansion, which actually made it feel like an expansion, not just a plain extention of what's already existent, Chains of Promathia was significantly different than Rise of Zilart, and Treasure of Aht Urhgan was even more different that CoP adding new systems to the game, so looking at the other games examples and Square Enix's OWN previous sample, Heavensward is lackluster and it's future is bleak, if they intend to continue with this clone stamp of content.

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

But thats what an expansion is, more content and sometime extra feature on an established core game. WoW released so many expansions and every one is pretty much the same deal. Sure they may have added mastery or odd stats like multistrike, but those end up just an extra variable in the simcraft and tbh isnt anything special. Its probably unwise to expect a new game with every single expansion.

Except to put an example on a game that in my opinion, did expansions right, was FFXI. Each of their expansion not only added more content, but that content DID NOT play exactly the same as the old content. They always spiced it up with different design in terms of dungeon mechanics. Like for example, Sky did not play the same as say, Limbus. Sea did not play the same as Dynamis. Nyzul did not play the same as all of these. Salvage played completely different from Sky, Sea, Limbus, etc and I could go on with the rest of the content from that game. They always released diverse content (and a lot of it) with each expansion which made players super excited about what new ideas they'd come up with. Hell, not even the add-ons/mini expansions played exactly the same way as the expansions. Like I said before, just because something is a trend because of one popular MMO, doesn't mean it's always good.

FFXI may have had a much smaller playerbase than WoW (FFXI wasn't that much advertised on the west, which was a very impacting reason on subscription numbers) but it did so many things better. In its humble existance, it created a powerful, long lasting (10+ years yikes) community. It brought a lot of fun and created tons of bonds between players across the seas. Can people honestly say the same about FFXIV. Honestly. Imo, it'll be long forgotten as time passes by, because it follows trendy games and we know how a trend ceases to exist after a while then something new comes around.

[Vickii]

all they do is add sprinkles on the same vanilla ice cream, it's the same vanilla ice cream, but it now has sprinkles on it

There would be far more complaints if they told all the people who paid for and enjoyed the vanilla ice cream to look forward to their next thing, then replaced the vanilla ice cream with mint. Far more complaints.

An expansion is essentially more of the same. While you can argue that there isn't enough to do months after the expansion was released, it's a bit much to complain about it being too similar to the original game. All an expansion is intended to do is 'expand' the original game. Not drastically change it.

And as you mentioned, they did add in flying mounts and i hear the story is much improved. Plus there were class changes and changes to how certain things are obtained. So it's not like it was exactly the same.