So I'm not seeing how this is them changing things up from 2.0/3.0

[Vidu]

In case we want to talk about new features we'd like to see that wouldnt require fundamental changes of the game:

I'd like to see the option to redo any quest in the game. Without getting the rewards, ofc. Just doing the quest again - a lot of sidequests are telling great stories and in a singleplayer game I would probably have a savegame that would allow me to do that quest again without playing through the whole game. Doing 2.X Hilli again? Yes, please!

Frankly I dont know why this isnt already in the game - we even have a character in the game that could give us the quest: The Wanderin Minstrel, whos singing about our adventures and telling our story.
So what I'd like to see is: Go to him, pick the quest(line) you want to do again, get the quest from him, follow the quest normally but without getting any rewards (no exp, no gil, no gear - just the quest).

[St0rmchild]

This is good, though. Gearing up to the basic level should be quick.

No it's not -- it's rewarding people for not putting effort into gearing.

Basically the intent in Stormblood is to split the game into a top tier (ex trials, raids, hard raid, harder raids, all the raids) where you have to work hard for your stuff and give it your very best effort and still possibly go home empty handed;

and a bottom tier (normal trials, 24 man trash, dungeons, fates, hunts, potd, whatever) where everything is handed to you on a silver platter, where you don't have to put in any effort -- and then pretending that this split never happened because tomestones fix everything.

[dragonseth07]

No it's not -- it's rewarding people for not putting effort into gearing.

Basically the intent in Stormblood is to split the game into a top tier (ex trials, raids, hard raid, harder raids, all the raids) where you have to work hard for your stuff and give it your very best effort and still possibly go home empty handed;

and a bottom tier (normal trials, 24 man trash, dungeons, fates, hunts, potd, whatever) where everything is handed to you on a silver platter, where you don't have to put in any effort -- and then pretending that this split never happened because tomestones fix everything.

I'm gonna be a jerk here and just say that the top and bottom tiers should be split in this game. Let the super casuals have their game, and let the hardcore raiders have theirs. The drama in this game comes from those groups mixing.

[ADVSS]

The last time the relic was a challenge, Titan Hard was actually hard.

To the person who said it before, I agree now more than ever: "Bring back the bees." .

I remember those days, i was only pld back in 2.x, it probably took around 2 or 3 months to get my relic, in fact my luck with drops from ifrit and garuda were so bad, that I ended up tanking my win with a high quality aeolian scimitar lol. After finally getting past the monstrosity that was tttan hard, then the game unlocked the raid, assured you had a competant weapon, and skills required to tackle or at least a chance at succeeding. That was good content pacing, but others may not have been so lucky. But in some form shape or color, i definitely agree with your sentiments. At least you didnt have to tank those bees though, god that was pretty awful. DRG. LB THE LEFT BEE!!!!!!

[Belhi]

I suspect a great deal of the money is going into server moves and upgrades. That isn't going to be cheap. A lot of foundation stuff rather than just more content. As for content, they have mostly shown us stuff we are used to but they very rarely discuss new content before it is ready.

As for the gearing, the gearing the moment you hit 60 was painful and unsatisfying. It involved grinding Neverreap or Fractal Continuum over and over again. The initial gear set is probably a pretty good idea. As for Tomestones, they are a RNG mitigation device. You don't have to grind them if you don't want to. There are alternative places you can get gear from. All removing Tombstones would do was make the RNG sources more compulsory.

Finally on the Relic, it will focus around Eureka which we currently know precious little about. Regardless I doubt it will be highly challenging. Time consuming but not challenging. Having the relic be challenging entirely defeats the purpose of the relic. It is supposed to offer players who don't farm EX primals and Savage raids an option of getting a good weapon. Players who want challenge already have a multitude of ways to get weapons. People who don't do that content, don't.

Not everyone who plays is after a challenge just like not everyone who watches TV wants to be educated. Saying people should do challenging content is like saying people should watch documentaries and News instead of comedies, sport or dramas.

[Sebazy]

I'm gonna be a jerk here and just say that the top and bottom tiers should be split in this game. Let the super casuals have their game, and let the hardcore raiders have theirs. The drama in this game comes from those groups mixing.

Pretty much this. SE would do well to either figure a way to close the skill gap between the two communities (ideally by better in-game tuition and instruction, better incentives for good play, the much vaunted button reduction and some resemblance of a difficulty curve on content as players approach the end game) or at least think of a way to reduce the friction and frustration when players of wildly differing skill levels have to interact.

[Recaldy]

Hoping there's something good in new this set or I'll be saving myself a lot of money canceling my sub during majority of the 5.0 cycle. 13$ a month for 1-4 fights for a few months isn't enough to keep paying.

[Daranion]

So did you all miss the memo where Stormblood is just supposed to be more of what people liked about Heavenward? They're not trying to add new things, just give more of what people want.

[ADVSS]

Hoping there's something good and new this set or I'll be saving myself a lot of money canceling my sub during majority of the 5.0 cycle. 13$ a month for 1-4 fights for a few months isn't enough.

Technically the best way to handle this, is buy the game play till msq and your level is max. Then stop untill the next expansion is about tocomes out 3 months later, resub with all the nerfs and gear catch ups and the full story and bam you've played the full expansion with many more features than when it started off...you even get 2/3 months of double weekly tomes to catch up and enough time to down all of story added since expansion launch.

[Lexia]

Hoping there's something good in new this set or I'll be saving myself a lot of money canceling my sub during majority of the 5.0 cycle. 13$ a month for 1-4 fights for a few months isn't enough to keep paying.

Well there more to the game then that, unless you don't do any of that other stuff like crafting, gathering, RPing that many seem to like (least on my server). Lot of times I just log in to talk to FC/LS chat.