I hope Square doesn't keep deeming certain content unnecessary

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

It's still around the same amount of mechanics. Hell one of the critical engagements is literally a pazuzu clone lmao.

Let's do a comparison.

Sabotender Carrido in Anemos has:

-Raid Aoe
-melee aoe around it
-targetted aoe
-stack marker

That's it. That's literally open world mob level mechanics; you can even argue its literally a cactaur mob given a stack marker. Compare the very first, weakest Critical Engagement, the Mandragora thing:

-Raid Aoe
-stack marker
-tank buster
-Multi-person targetting aoe that unleashes 3-4 sets of aoes back to back
-Managing a color debuff that will one shot or deal incredible damage if you don't swap colors on each set, along with making sure you're not standing in the black insta death zone.
-Dodging a constant rotating carousel of adds from the outside rim that spew hearts that need to be dodged or they deal high damage + confusion, putting you in a vulnerable state for the ground aoes, the color mechanic, etc.

Well over half of the Eureka bosses were literally just normal, open world mobs given 1 extra mechanic. The only ones even comparable to Critical engagements were the ones close to the zone's level cap, and even then a lot of them are super forgettable. This is even before the fact that Castrum's & Dalriada's bosses are basically on the same level as 24 man raid bosses in terms of mechanical design. That's also disregarding the duels that are leagues above anything in Eureka outside of Ozma in terms of mechanical design & complexity.

Let's not keep our rose-tinted glasses on. Eureka had quantity in bosses due to more zones; whereas Bozja's bosses are much higher quality in fight design. There was even the fact a good majority of Eureka's bosses weren't even threatening if you were a caster or ranged, since half their mechanics couldn't even affect everyone at the NM due to the game's internal target limit on enemy attacks when you had like, 100+ people all targetting the poor thing.

[DrWho2010]

All that "cut content" was repurposed elsewhere though. The devs have a vision they want to realize as well. They can't possibly acquiesce to every whim and want that the player desires.

Covid also really reduced what they could do. Even now Yoshi-p says they're still not back at full working capacity like in the past. (I think the latest stat he threw around was like 90%).

Deep dungeon in 5.x was cut because just pumping out another version wasn't what they were looking to do. Instead the leveling method got put into Bozja. We also got 3 new large scale instances as well associated with this (CLL, DR, Dalriada).

Hildy was put on the backburner for 5.x because they also felt it was getting stale. They have said he will be back for 6.x though, so don't worry there. He just needed a rest.

Sure it's disappointing that there is not going to be an Allied Beast Tribe quest this time, but *shrug* it is what it is. It just wasn't a priority this time around. As well the three beast tribes this time don't really.... mesh well together? Plus the usual catboi villain guy doesn't exist on the First either. It was a stretch that he was there for the Stormblood one.

[lezard21]

All that "cut content" was repurposed elsewhere though. The devs have a vision they want to realize as well. They can't possibly acquiesce to every whim and want that the player desires.

Covid also really reduced what they could do. Even now Yoshi-p says they're still not back at full working capacity like in the past. (I think the latest stat he threw around was like 90%).

Deep dungeon in 5.x was cut because just pumping out another version wasn't what they were looking to do. Instead the leveling method got put into Bozja. We also got 3 new large scale instances as well associated with this (CLL, DR, Dalriada).

Hildy was put on the backburner for 5.x because they also felt it was getting stale. They have said he will be back for 6.x though, so don't worry there. He just needed a rest.

Sure it's disappointing that there is not going to be an Allied Beast Tribe quest this time, but *shrug* it is what it is. It just wasn't a priority this time around. As well the three beast tribes this time don't really.... mesh well together? Plus the usual catboi villain guy doesn't exist on the First either. It was a stretch that he was there for the Stormblood one.

The resources were obviously redistributed to new ideas, like Delubrum Reginae, Delubrum Reginae Savage, Memoria Misera, a second BA-like thing (Dalriada), critical engagements (which each involve the same amount of design work as dungeon bosses), the Firmament, ocean fishing, crafter and gatherer overhauls and QoL.

To be honest, this is pretty much the reason why we have less content. Square enix factually made less content, with comparison charts to prove it, while making more money than ever, but Square forum warriors will contort themselves into a human pretzel trying to justify it.

To the list of cut stuff people mentioned we then also have 2 new races very half assedly introduced, genderlocked and unable to use hairstyles and hats.

And from what's been shown so far, 6.0 is shaping to go down the same path or even worse, with no limited job announced, and the release of only 1 of the gender locks.

[DrWho2010]

To be honest, this is pretty much the reason why we have less content. Square enix factually made less content, with comparison charts to prove it, while making more money than ever, but Square forum warriors will contort themselves into a human pretzel trying to justify it.

To the list of cut stuff people mentioned we then also have 2 new races very half assedly introduced, genderlocked and unable to use hairstyles and hats.

And from what's been shown so far, 6.0 is shaping to go down the same path or even worse, with no limited job announced, and the release of only 1 of the gender locks.

yes just because they get more money than ever means they have the time and manpower to get everything that every player wants done. smh. you cannot just throw money at a problem and it magically goes away.

and if you're sooooo disappointed in what direction the game is taking... well there's always the cancel sub/cancel account button. byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[ZedxKayn]

yes just because they get more money than ever means they have the time and manpower to get everything that every player wants done. smh. you cannot just throw money at a problem and it magically goes away.

and if you're sooooo disappointed in what direction the game is taking... well there's always the cancel sub/cancel account button. byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I see where some of their money is going in this post at least.

[DrWho2010]

I see where some of their money is going in this post at least.

i wish i was some kind of paid shill for the company. I want money too. LOL

[KDSilver]

To be honest, this is pretty much the reason why we have less content. Square enix factually made less content, with comparison charts to prove it, while making more money than ever, but Square forum warriors will contort themselves into a human pretzel trying to justify it.

Show these charts then.
Prooves will be more objective than calling people blinded-warriors like.

Because what's the comparative point ? ARR ? HW ? SB ?
The more the game goes forward in time, the more they have to do in general. We have significantly more classes to balance, more race to care about with hairs and gears and weapon to do.
We got a lot of QoL in several department, content for crafter/gather as well as battle content.

So yes, please just show real proof that they put less effort in the game.
Because it's easy to not have what you want and then cry on forums saying devs cut content without taking the big picture.
People have been complaining of the "lack of content" since.... the game is out.
So they surely need to work on certain things they didn't, but saying they do less to earn more out of nowhere... Anyone can do this.

[lezard21]

Show these charts then.

On a quick search this is the one I could find which only does a comparison between SB vs ShB.

* To that chart I would add that before we used to have a questline for each job, and now we only have a questline for each role, which is a very drastic reduction.
I remember a more popular one that compared all expansions, but right now couldn't find it. Will get back to this later.

The only thing that has consistently increased through time is cutscenes, with ARR only having 3 hours of voiced cutscenes, HW having 4 hours, SB having 6 hours, and ShB having 9! hours, and EW has been announced to have even more cutscenes. Forgive me for not being part of the "FFxiv story circlejerk", but I'm paying a videogame sub to play a videogame, not watch a movie.

[Lauront]

On a quick search this is the one I could find which only does a comparison between SB vs ShB.

* To that chart I would add that before we used to have a questline for each job, and now we only have a questline for each role, which is a very drastic reduction.
I remember a more popular one that compared all expansions, but right now couldn't find it. Will get back to this later.

The only thing that has consistently increased through time is cutscenes, with ARR only having 3 hours of voiced cutscenes, HW having 4 hours, SB having 6 hours, and ShB having 9! hours, and EW has been announced to have even more cutscenes. Forgive me for not being part of the "FFxiv story circlejerk", but I'm paying a videogame sub to play a videogame, not watch a movie.

And to add to that, the story quality is variable and is down also to subjective tastes. I liked most of 5.0 and portions of 5.3, as well as 5.5 part 1, but not to the point that it would suffice to hook me to the game. And it can also cut both ways on that basis; 6.0 will be a bellwether for how they're likely to handle future writing, even if the plot moves away from the H/Z arc, so if I dislike it and the PVE content is underwhelming, I'll find something else to play.

[KDSilver]

On a quick search this is the one I could find which only does a comparison between SB vs ShB.

"No limited job"
But... BLU got an update twice... both lvl 60 and 70. You can't ignore that.

DoL/DoH got ocean fishing as well, the rework of diadem (that probably took time they could have have spend elswhere) for Ishgard as well as the big readjustment of crating. We can't ignore that too. That's dev time.
They got some of the lvl 70 crafted primal weapon. Not every pieces from lvl 50 though indeed. But are we going to ignore as well that having 2 more jobs in the game mean more time spend on creating weapon in general ? Same goes for the new races that isn't even listed.

What really dislike with this is, it doesn't take into account everything that should be.
This chart alone doesn't cover every single QoL ShB brought as well that definitly took some dev time.
ARR overall for example isn't mentionnted either.

I would have gladly shared the general opinion if it was honest. This chart shows it's not.