I hope Square doesn't keep deeming certain content unnecessary

[KizuyaKatogami]

As someone who prefers Eureka over Bozja ... Bozja CE's are way more mechanically complex.

Also not only was there Covid, but we had the ARR rework in 5.3 to revamp the new player experience. And also we had the male Viera, female Hrothgar thing. I think there were a number of reasons why content was a bit light this expansion but hopefully the next expansion will be rich in the sort of content everybody is looking for

Island sanctuary will be amazing but hopefully there'll also be 2 Ultimates to satisfy the raiders

SB had Female Viera and Male Hrothgar in the works, while also implementing diving,world transfer, 4 eureka zones, a new housing district etc etc, had upgraded things from HW without cutting out on content. Yet for Shb, it’s just been downgrade after downgrade from SB. Honestly, seeing as how things like ocean fishing,chocobo racing,mahjong etc were abandoned and rarely played, i see Island Sanctuary being no different. They keep implementing fluff like this that just ends up being dropped once the expansion is over, and ignore serious issues like either content loss itself or things like the shitty housing system. I’m just tired of seeing people continue to make excuses for the devs when there’s obviously something wrong and we need to call it out instead of babying them.

[Rae88]

SB had Female Viera and Male Hrothgar in the works, while also implementing diving,world transfer, 4 eureka zones, a new housing district etc etc, had upgraded things from HW without cutting out on content. Yet for Shb, it’s just been downgrade after downgrade from SB. Honestly, seeing as how things like ocean fishing,chocobo racing,mahjong etc were abandoned and rarely played, i see Island Sanctuary being no different. They keep implementing fluff like this that just ends up being dropped once the expansion is over, and ignore serious issues like either content loss itself or things like the shitty housing system. I’m just tired of seeing people continue to make excuses for the devs when there’s obviously something wrong and we need to call it out instead of babying them.

They've been constantly working on data center visit since that point. Diving was an incredibly superficial system that didn't add almost anything to the game TBH and I wish was never introduced. Ocean fishing is still very popular, I don't see how you can say it was abandoned. Mahjong hasn't been dropped and last I heard was INCREDIBLY popular in Japan (there's an annual mahjong tournament).

I'm not into making excuses for the devs, but I've played a game where the devs DO drop ALL the endgame system every expansion and introduce new ones each time and FFXIV is nothing like that. Squadrons were abandoned presumably to keep the incentive of playing with other people and that's fair enough

EDIT: Also Island sanctuary was originally supposed to come in Shadowbringers I think, which would have fleshed out content a bit but oh well. Things got delayed

[Shurrikhan]

Honestly, seeing as how things like ocean fishing,chocobo racing,mahjong etc were abandoned and rarely played, i see Island Sanctuary being no different. They keep implementing fluff like this that just ends up being dropped once the expansion is over, and ignore serious issues like either content loss itself or things like the shitty housing system. I’m just tired of seeing people continue to make excuses for the devs when there’s obviously something wrong and we need to call it out instead of babying them.

It's funny how much WoW gets crapped on for its one-expansion-and-done borrowed powers systems, which were at least granular and integral (everyone used them, and they could be interacted with or progressed in nearly any way one pleased), with so comparatively little scorn falling on resources here that neither promote the game nor are played by any significant portion of players even in their few moments of vitality.

We've got quite a lot of content of which development amounts more to reskinning than reiteration, thereby neither meaningfully improving on old designs nor reusing old assets -- a worst of both worlds, development-wise. I'd have much rather have seen, for instance, PotD improved and stretched a further 10 levels than get a barely-changed reskin in the form of HoH. Bozja at least brought relevant and variably enjoyable plot tie-ins, but I'd have rather seen the fundamental systems -- such as mob behaviors and something, almost anything, beyond merely FATEs / CEs and killing X mobs of type Y to spawn them, and early span being designed in a way less susceptible to starving under too few active players in the given area -- improved further upon if Bozja seemed worth having at all. There needs to be a plan for longevity, beyond the current expansion alone, especially in side-content.