Quote Originally Posted by Daniolaut View Post
5.4 is going to add 1-2 dungeons tops, and 1 trial, maybe 2. They arent misleading at all. Especially when the previous expansions had significantly more content.
There are two more weapons in the weapon series, Emerald and Diamond, that will end up as trials bringing our trial total up by two to 8. Not a reduction at all.

As for dungeons yes, we will get two more dungeons, a two dungeon reduction total not the four dungeon reduction that you're currently highlighting. This is the reason I called your numbers misleading.

Also, what have they been doing with all that dungeon time?

Bozja, equivalent to a Eureka zone only with actual levelling progress possible to ease the deep dungeon being cut. Comes with the Castrum engagement which is similar to Baldesion Arsenal. Will there be more Bozja zones? Highly Likely.

Ocean Fishing, basically a gatherer's dungeon. Not everyone's cup of tea but it features unique weather patterns, the passage of time, small assets for fish, and all the new fish have behaviors that all had to be tested out.

Ishgard Restoration, the timed rebuilding of a housing ward complete with seasonal and progressive leaderboards, zone progression fates, dozens of new crafting recipes, a new type of craft with new craft statuses, and assets upon assets upon assets required. You can toss the Diadem rework in here just as an added bonus.

Unreal, rotating updated primal content with connected Faux Hollows minigame.

2.0 Flying, something they said in the past they didn't want to do for various reasons including the amount of work and testing to make sure zone maps didn't break.

Small systems, like Fellowships, the Guild Recruitment tool, Fashion items (i.e. currently just Parasols), and the updates to things like Gpose and Perform.

This doesn't include any of the upcoming changes promised with 5.4 where it really doesn't look like a single system was spared a QoL look. Nor does it take into account that at some point during this they had to transition from working into an office to a remote environment which cost them untold hours of development time and led to how many scrapped projects? I'm not saying that as a 'give them a pass' I'm saying that as a reality. We obviously lost the All Saints event to it, they were very upfront about that. We experienced a delay of months that had to be recouped somehow. How many non-visible projects were quietly put aside? Things they'd maybe only teased in passing or hadn't yet mentioned that they had to let go of in favor of smaller or more critical projects?

Lastly, the roulette map that you mention not existing, it'll be around in 5.4. Stormblood didn't start with Shifting Alters either, it was added partway through.

I'm not totally disagreeing that this expansion feels a little light in terms of content but when you sit down and really look at it, they've done more work this expansion on things that aren't front facing than either of the previous two. It just seems it's come at the cost of content that you prefer. I'd rather they keep trying new things, even if those things might not be my cup of tea. That's how we get deep dungeons and roulette wheel maps. Who knows, maybe we'll see some nifty boss rush mini content next.