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

[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.

[magnanimousCynic]

I have one thing to say

Lord of Verminion.

[Dyvid]

"Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it." This expansion is nothing more than Mist of Pandaria, FF style. They need to be more creative and more willing to take risk. Also getting off the teat of instant content wouldn't hurt.

The only plus FFXIV has going for it is a healthy development schedule. Other than that, it basically the same as other MMO's on the market and the genre is in decline....

[Belhi]

"Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it." This expansion is nothing more than Mist of Pandaria, FF style. They need to be more creative and more willing to take risk. Also getting off the teat of instant content wouldn't hurt.

The only plus FFXIV has going for it is a healthy development schedule. Other than that, it basically the same as other MMO's on the market and the genre is in decline....

The last time they took more than one risk in a patch we got Diadem and LoV and both fell flat leading to most players having very little to do till 3.2 came out. It very much hurt the game I suspect. I would prefer they take sensible risks rather than overhaul everything and have the whole thing fail.

This is my biggest disappointment from the Live Letter. Everything else was expected, but I was really hoping they would learn from Heavensward and not fill Stormblood with the same huge, uninteresting areas, and instead focus on more smaller, different looking areas.

Maybe the large areas will be better broken up into distinct locales within the zone. At the very least, having parts of the zones be under water should break up the monotony.

We haven't seen all the zones in great deal, only a few screen shots, but at least the zone with Rhalgr's Reach attached will transition from the forests at the edge of the Black Shroud to the Wastes of Ala Mhigo so we will get at least a little variation within zones.

[Beckett]

Maps the same size as Heavensward with the same amount of areas.

This is my biggest disappointment from the Live Letter. Everything else was expected, but I was really hoping they would learn from Heavensward and not fill Stormblood with the same huge, uninteresting areas, and instead focus on more smaller, different looking areas.

Maybe the large areas will be better broken up into distinct locales within the zone. At the very least, having parts of the zones be under water should break up the monotony.

[Allyrion]

This is my biggest disappointment from the Live Letter. Everything else was expected, but I was really hoping they would learn from Heavensward and not fill Stormblood with the same huge, uninteresting areas, and instead focus on more smaller, different looking areas.

Maybe the large areas will be better broken up into distinct locales within the zone. At the very least, having parts of the zones be under water should break up the monotony.

Variation will be good if they have it, but I hope they never go back to smaller zones. I felt utterly claustrophobic in ARR because of the small areas and some of the corridor/labyrinth map designs from 1.0.

HW has been amazing map wise. And to be honest, while the areas in ARR were different, most were grouped into either The Shroud, La Noscea or Thanalans aesthetic. Every map in HW was vastly different from the others.

Within-map variation would be nice too, of course. However it shouldn't be overlooked that on a macro level, HW brought much different themed lanscape as all of ARR.

I was actually hoping for bigger maps. Especially since they're increasing mount speed.

[Felis]

This is my biggest disappointment from the Live Letter. Everything else was expected, but I was really hoping they would learn from Heavensward and not fill Stormblood with the same huge, uninteresting areas, and instead focus on more smaller, different looking areas.

Maybe the large areas will be better broken up into distinct locales within the zone. At the very least, having parts of the zones be under water should break up the monotony.

Make the maps smaller and they can turn off flying in those small maps. Flying need big maps.
also HW zones were designed with PS3 in mind. They can put more into the SB maps now.

[SecretCrowds]

Here we go again. We had the numerous threads similar to this one during the wait for HW too. I expect it is going to be a repeated cycle and this argument will resurface each time before an expansion and last till 2 months after the expansion releases.

People were complaining how SE was sticking to the same formula and that they were disappointed because "expansions are supposed to change the game fundamentally" before HW too. I can never fathom where this idea came from. Why do some people expect expansions to change how an MMO is fundamentally? If they wanted the basics of the game to be changed, why are they even playing in the first place.

Don't get me wrong. FF14 is definitely not perfect. However, we can't deny that SE has made changes to improve (whether they worked or not) and is still trying to do so. Heck, why are people even complaining in this thread that SE is giving a gear of your class at the end of a dungeon. Isn't that part of trying to improve and change the flaws of the game, where people ran dungeons several times and the "rng" that people always complain about is causing them not to get any gear drops?

Just because that changes you personally want is not being implemented by SE doesn't mean that the game hasn't been changing.

[azura84]

Here we go again...

It's a continuing discussion because it's a continuing issue. SE in the past did plenty to change the design and flow with each new expansion, I still remember Chains of Promethia, driving players to seek gear that had previously gone to waste so they could play in some of the new areas with level caps. The biggest stagnation of XIV is the lack of creativity. They already have multiple stats in the game they don't bother using (elemental resistances, slashing/piercing/blunt), whole 3d worlds that become wastelands within a weeks and repeated and recycled content. Deep dungeon is basically a watered down Nyzul, Daidem is a failed Dynamis and Alex is just a re-skinned Coil, all with rewards that become outdated the next morning. About the only lasting aspect that continues is building is relics. You can call us old timers if you like but "settling" for what we have isn't something that should be encouraged in game development.

[Airget]

With this, gotta wait to see the Battle System changes to decide if they are being stagnant or not. And honestly any content can be considered "watered down" because the one thing you neglect with said examples are the fact that all those pieces of content were time based. Dynamis I believe is 1/day now, but it use to be an awkward time like 3 days and some hours or something to the extent where you could only do it twice a week.

If Diadem had the same restrictions as Dynamis, then said weapons would be even rarer as each group could only go twice a week at most, and yet with the current setup one can go twice in an hour.

It's a different game ideology which I prefer since XIV reduces the amount of time based restriction to content in favor of being able to do it to your heart's content. However the ability to do it to your hearts content does cause people to be ungrateful because they don't realize how freeing it is to have the freedom to not be restricted to access to certain content on a day to day basis.