2.0 VS 3.0 The final verdict and it's lessons for 4.0

[Balipu]

Alright my subscription time is running out and I don't know how soon I can get back so let's make it count.
Heavensward only has one major content patch left, and features like the ninja, the gold saucer or the palace of the dead, get advertised months in advance so I'm pretty sure no big surprises are waiting.
Besides, if I were to compare ARR and HW after 3.5 we would be perhaps a month away from Stormblood. Any conclusion would be wasted with development mostly done.
Bear in mind that this is MY oppinion. It is possible that many of you will disagree. Hopefully respectfully disagree. Thankfully you can also post your views as that is how forums work.
Also, when I talk about 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 I'm talking about the entire lifecycle of that expansion. With all the patches included.
So, without further to do let's jump in:

Visuals
A simpler one to ease us into this whole comparison. Now I'm not talking about graphics quality. That's obviously better in 3.0 with the higher Direct X support and ditching ps3 will likely help 4.0. What I'm talking about is the graphics design. For me this is a tie. Personally it's not enough for the world to look good though. I like to have at least one place that looks really fantasy like. Where IRL conventions are thrown out the window. For ARR this was the Sylphlands (I'm totally spooked by that place but it looks so damned beautiful) and for HW this was Azys Lla. I really hope that Stormblood will have at least one zone like this.

Music
It is always good to talk about music in Final Fantasy because it is alwas good. It is no different in XIV. Although I wouldn't mind more memorable battle themes for regular battles. But can we crown a victor here? Yes, we can. Heavensward wins. No contest. Why? Simple. Not because of the quality of individual tracks but because how the soundtrack is built around the two themes of the expansion. Heavensward and Dragonsong if I remember the titles correctly. In ARR Answers mostly stayed in the Coil. In HW the recurring themes made the soundtrack more cohesive and this is something I definitely want to see returning in 4.0

Main Scenario
Oh, boy another easy win for Heavensward. For the most part the ARR main scenario was: Go kill the next primal while we wait here. While you are out there please pick up groceries for me. And the ending....uhhhh. All that drama about everyone dying yet as of 3.4 only Teledji is dead. Do not do that ever again. In HW Primal fights are integrated better into the greater narrative, NPCs accompany you more often and even try to fight Primals with you (Shiva vs Ravana). If the 3.4 Main Scenario is any indication of what we can expect from the future, I will be very happy with 4.0

Villains
Sort of related to the main scenario, but I wanted to keep this separate. This one goes to ARR. I felt the bad guys in HW were lacking. Thordan was great, but his time as villain was cut short and he was the only bright spot. Lord Lolorito was set up as the greater scope villain behind Teledji only to immediately turn out to be a good guy (sort of). Igeyorhm was a nobody compared to the similarly brief but memorable Nabriales. Elidibus still refuses to actually do anything beside act friendly. The Warriors of Darkness turned out to be good guys and left, before they could become a serious threat. Urianger was a double agent for Hydaelin, Varis just stopped to say hi, before disappearing, Regula van Hydrus is just a pokemon rival who has already done the run away after getting beaten routine three times and Nidhogg is just a huge jerk with no personality a single minded lust for destruction who makes it really hard to sympathise with the dravanians.

Side stories
Another hard decision. In ARR both the Crystal Tower and the Coil filled in parts of the story while in HW the two raids existed in a bubble. Especially Mhach as Alex at least had Cid, Y'shtola and several other MSQ characters show up. On the other hand I am getting sick of everything being related to Allag so the two raid storylines were refreshing in a way. However I really hope the 4.0 raids won't involve a Prime version o a giant primal and the locking up of a friend as both of these showed up twice already. I also like the Warring Triad storyline and how it gives us a glimpse into Meracydian culture all the while adding additional info to the coil and CT story. Another part where ARR is better is the Hildibrand storyline. The one in HW is not only shorter but simply isn't as funny. The overused gazeboo joke and the old people simply do not work as well as the ARR storyline. At least Briardien is back at the Scholasticate with a serious detective story. Granted we can't do much actual detective work, but I still enjoy it a lot.
I'd say ARR wins because both the Relic questline and Hildibrand had their own trials, while nothing like this appears in HW.

Now it's time to discuss actual gameplay:

Leveling
ARR. It might be different for fresh characters that can immediately get more XP once they hit 50 but as someone who jumped into HW at launch with a level 50 character, the leveling experience was terrible. There wasn't nearly enough XP in the main scenario to level your main job. And sometimes the level requirements were mindblowingly wrong. At one point I had to talk to Y'shtola in Idillshire. She explained that we are going to visit Matoya. And that was it. That was one quest. After that I had to spend hours looking for stupid moogles before I could talk to Y'shtola again and actually go into Matoya's cave for more talking and another level requirement. Main Scenario Quests that involve only walking and talking should not have a level requirement. That's just insane. Especially since there are no new guildhests past level 40, class specific hunting logs don't get updated in 3.0, and Levequests are replaced by temple leaves. With less choices for leveling, it became more grindy. Reaching the level cap with your first job shouldn't be grindy. That is for all the others. It's also less rewading as we don't get anything new beside the new job. We had no traits or class abilities, so we didn't strictly speaking gain anything new by leveling up. Everything came from the job quests. Except for the Artifact armor. We had to get those from Rowena.

Dungeons
Something that HW did right. Although 3.0 had quite a few dungeons that aren't that memorable I can't recall one that I actually hate. In ARR I had the thousand snores of toto rak, dzemael darkhold, and my all time least favorite dungeon: cutter's cry. Aurum Vale is also a huge pain but it gives very good XP at the very least. HW dungeons are mostly fun to do. Doing the last boss of Hullbreaker hard is especially good with a ninja as you can shukuchi out of the AoE he casts on you after inflicting heavy. That move never gets old. And I get to beat down Moglin. Also, the two Gubal Libraries. What could use some adjusting in 4.0 is the difficulty. There is no point in making dungeons that are considerably easier than the ones you had to clear to unlock it. Also, we need more dungeons like the Haunting House. Nonlinear, objective based, with flexible party.

Raid bosses and EX primals
This goes to ARR again I'm afraid. HW introduced some very fun and interesting mechanics bur overall I don't think the fights fit my idea of raiding. Now I'm not a hardcore raider. I don't do savage raids. I actualy support the idea of having a not savage and a savage difficulty. But I want the not savage to be pretty freakin hard. WoW has LFR where you can practically clear the hardest encounter of the game with auto attack. Avoid that like the plague. Raids are the pinnacle of group PvE content. And I think it was true for ARR. I remember Twintania blocking my progress for months and Darnus still can't be killed with a random groupe even if you go in unsynched. I'm totally fine with not being able to even set foot into a savage raid. I'm content with only the normal version. But I don't want it to be easy. I want to sweat blood and have several wipes before I clear it. Gordias was quite good in this regard, but the other two Alex wings could use some adjustment. I think I heared that Midas savage was too hard, but that's not something I can comment on. Similarly, Extreme Ravana is actually easier than hard Ravana as you can simply bring him down with superior item level. When I got my first kill (In freakin duty finder no less) some of the harder mechanics didn't even come up. What makes Darnus such a challenge is that you can't skip the meteor phase no matter how hard you hit. As for how to make savage special for hardcore raiders beside making it super hard and giving them an item level tier that will remain the highest till the next savage raid, I'm in favor of giving each raid a savage only bonus boss. A little more story and another chance at loot. That should be a pretty good reward. And yes, I am fine with never ever getting that reward.

Combat
Let's be honest. Stormblood is advertised with a battle system revamp and the reevaluation of useless abilities. This pretty much screams that the changes made in HW did not work out. Or at the very least not as well as intended. I can only comment on ninja. I'm really glad we got Armor Crush as now I don't have to waste ninjutsu on Huton, but poisons still need more interaction with the other abilities. I also feel that ninjutsu should get a bigger focus, but everything with more than one mudra is a risk due to GCD clipping (which is why it is annoying that Fuuma Shuriken has all the one mudra cobminations to itself). Also, Hyoton is a PVP skill. If it wre to be moved to the PVP tab we could have a free mudra combination for any skill that would otherwise occupy hotbar space.


Crafting and gathering
I cannot personally comment as none of my crafting and gathering skills are high enough, but I have yet to hear anyone say anything positive regarding the changes that came with 3.0


PVP
Well we have more pvp content and options in HW so it obviously wins, but this is still the least impressive part on FFXIV. It would be nice to get more creative frontlines. Like a siege. Or Blitzball. Speaking of Blitzball....

Side stuff
I thought long and hard about this one as I really really like the Palace of the Dead and both Squadrons and Woundrous Tails provide incentive to do activities that you don't normally do, but neither Lords of Verminion nor Exploratory missions lived up to their potential (especially exporatory missions). ARR on the other hand dropped the Gold Saucer on us. And while I don't do as many chocobo races and triple triad matches like I did months ago (I still do quite a lot) I always visit the saucer every day at least to buy a mini cactpot if nothing else. It is a huge part of the game and because I'm sure more mini games will be introduced there, it will continue to be a big part in the future.

Yikes. Most of the wins went to 2.0 When I decided to do this I figured the end result would be closer than this. Well all the more reason to compare the two I guess.

Leave a comment if you agree, disagree, or promise to take into account when developing Stormblood.