How large are the expansion packs compared to ARR?

[OhnoozeMyToes]

I'm a fairly new player and have just gotten to Heavensward and I'm just curious how much is in these expansions.

Thanks.

[Ruinfeild]

Their. . .about the same? I honestly never looked at it that closely. I feel like heavenwards and onwards has more content than ARR.

[Seraphor]

Each one adds 6 new field locations, but they’re much bigger than the individual fields in ARR, so it probably equivalent to adding 8-10 of ARR’s zones.
A new major city and a hub like town like Mor Dhona.

Including all of the post expansion patch content (e.g. 3.0 + 3.1-5) is probably equivalent story to all of ARR.
15 or so new dungeons (8 on release)
7 new trials (3 on release)
Three tiers of normal and alliance raids in total.
Plus bonus content such as Diadem/Eureka, if you like it.

So outside of the slightly fewer locations, each expansion in full is about as big as ARR was, just bear in mind that Shadowbringers having just been released, is only about half complete.

[OhnoozeMyToes]

Thanks guys

[wereotter]

There are fewer quests in the expansions, but in fairness, the ARR quests have a LOT of fluff padding them out for additional length (sniff the chocobo?)

So what quests you do complete are much more impactful in general. The game doesn't make you do silly things like preparing a feast for 23 quests before you can fight titan, or spend 5 quests making perfume after you take down the Garlean base. The quests you complete are much more important, and the fluff has been put off to side quests, which there do seem to be more of than in ARR.

As mentioned, there are also fewer zones, but each zone is also much larger than an ARR zone, so it kind of evens out.

[Fynlar]

Not as large. Post 2.0 MSQ is something like 100 quests long, but post 3.0 and 4.0 up until the following xpacs is not even half that many quests (somewhere around 40-45). The number of dungeons we've gotten over time has become less and less, too.

This is surely part of their motivation for pruning ARR MSQ by 5.3 or whenever it was they said they were gonna do it.

[Sylve]

Not as large. Post 2.0 MSQ is something like 100 quests long, but post 3.0 and 4.0 up until the following xpacs is not even half that many quests (somewhere around 40-45). The number of dungeons we've gotten over time has become less and less, too.

This is surely part of their motivation for pruning ARR MSQ by 5.3 or whenever it was they said they were gonna do it.

Fewer quests to be sure, But better ones. Like, instead of a quest to talk to person A, then a Quest to go back to person B and then a third to go to person C, Its all one quest to talk to them. Stuff like that.

As far as story, All the expansions give a good 30~ or so hours, including leveling. Longer if you don't rush it.
For content … Well, Technically every expansion has the exact same amount of content in it as the previous one.
One main Raid series.
One Alliance Raid series.
One Trial/Primal series.
A set of MSQ Dungeons and Sidequest Dungeons.
One non-raid alternate content. HW had Diadem, Stormblood had Eureka. Dunno whats coming for Shadowbringers.
Beast Tribe stuff.

The stories change, but the content is the same throughout.

[OhnoozeMyToes]

Dang as a new player I have a crap ton of content...and I like it.

[wereotter]

Dang as a new player I have a crap ton of content...and I like it.

There's still going to be a lot to do. There's no way they're going to delete dungeons and important story beats, but they are just going to prune down the fluff.

And by fluff I'll put it like this: I created an alt to play through ARR with a friend. Its almost level 60 now and we still haven't made it into the city of Ishgard. Basically we're still doing ARR quests while being near max level for the next expansion. So ARR does have a lot of just filler quests, and it's a bit of a barrier to a lot of players since it is a lot to get through just to get to the 3.0 story. That's a lot to ask people to go through when we're now in the 5.x story.

[Iscah]

Dang as a new player I have a crap ton of content...and I like it.

Indeed! Take your time and do the side stories (anything with a blue quest marker at least) as you go along. It keeps everything chronological and happening when it's supposed to, because they all happen at fixed points in the story and sometimes MSQ characters are involved.