Where is all the content?

[Saraide]

Zones
Ultima Thule is the smallest zone we have EVER had based on walkable terrain. Labyrinthos is also tiny compared to the likes of Heavenswards areas or even Stormblood. The Ruby sea? All zones in EW have at LEAST half of the area available to explore. The Mare Lamentorum was hailed as a completely new world for us to explore and yet it's as big as both areas of Uldah put together.

While most of the complaints look like to be over rather minor things blown way out of proportion and story being up to taste of course, this take about zones is just straight up bad. Size does not equal quality and the old giant areas with basically nothing of worth in it were terrible. Ruby sea is the worst offender at that, as a majority of the large open space in it doesnt even have fates happening. It's just water. There is no reason for ruby sea, western coerthas and dravanian hinterlands to be as large as they are.

[RdehlikaJenma]

1. New gearsets include: Level 73 and 75 dungeon sets, 570/580/590 tomestone gear, 19 unique job sets for combat, 15 new sets for tradecraft classes. Add to that, what, a four new weapon sets from dungeons, from one of the EX trials, Savage Raid, and two from tomestones. not to mention at least 13 new 'weapons' for tradecrafts. - Nice try.

2. Hell of a lot of new, fantastic OSTs, as well, what's your point here? Not enough music composed by Soken WHILE HE HAD CANCER?!

3. Ultima Thule is also remnants of shattered worlds, maybe the reason it's the 'smallest one based on walkable terrain' is for thematic/story reasons? Labyrinthos, again, could well be that size because it's literally an over-sized storage facility, while Mare Lamentorum is both a prison, and spacecraft, it's not a 'whole new world' it's a satellite. A satellite which is FAR larger than Ul'dah The comparison to Ruby Sea is laughable too, as it has about as much walkable train as Ultima Thule.

4. There have been TWO examples of voice acting in raids, beyond combat lines: The final two Coils raids, due to wrapping up the story of the Calamity, and Eden because... give Gaia a voice? I'm not sure why. The lac of raid voice acting is the norm, not a deviation from the norm.

5. Something, something lack of purchasable parts and raw materials needed to build servers, combined with an unprecedented exodus to FFXIV from WoW after highly popular streamers started playing, followed by the Blizzard lawsuit scandal driving more players over

On top of this, none of what you have complained about in the OP is CONTENT aside from the zones, which you are intentionally misrepresenting. So, to answer your title's question: Look around. The raids, EX trials, new dungeons, the new treasure dungeon.... about the same amount of content as Shadowbringers. Plus everything before Endwalker you haven't done.


6.

Elidibus states that we would be unable to communicate and affect things because of our intangible form. We also don't affect anything, we tell our story, and Venat acts.

Why not warn us about Meteion? Because Zodiark was keeping the Song of Oblivion at bay. There was also the fact that if Hydaelyn had told us outright, what could we have done? How would we have got to Ultima Thule? The moon was too big to reach the speeds needed. What guarantee was there that we were strong enough to stop Meteion before we killed Zodiark? Before we went to Elpis? There was none. The only way Hydaelyn could know if we were strong enough is if we had gone to Elpis. At that point, we had killed Zodiark, and Venat knew that we had done so before our jaunt to Elpis, considering we told her. For us to have gone to Elpis, we had to have killed Zodiark, had to have proven ourselves through that specific feat, our fight against her was the final test, not the first.

For someone who claims to adore this game, you have a LOT of nitpicking of things that... well, aren't true. Funny, that.

[Iscah]

Elidibus states that we would be unable to communicate and affect things because of our intangible form. We also don't affect anything, we tell our story, and Venat acts.

We do affect things. We affect a lot. Giving information to Venat that she acted on is an effect in itself, and on top of that we helped them find Meteion and force her to give the report and in doing so we form a link in the chain of events leading to the Final Days and ultimately to where we are today.

Elidibus was correct that we would not be able to communicate in the state we arrived in, but that's because he had no way of knowing we'd get spotted by Emet and given enough aether to be turned into a functional entity there.

I am personally of the opinion that the logic of the time loop is fine, but Venat's actions post-Elpis are either under-explained or too reliant on doing things because we told her it would happen. She should have her own reasons for acting in accordance with what we described.

That said, the reason she doesn't tell us sooner about Meteion is circular: we were unaware of Meteion prior to visiting Elpis, therefore she cannot tell us about Meteion in the present day until after our visit, or she would risk breaking the timeline.

[RdehlikaJenma]

I am personally of the opinion that the logic of the time loop is fine, but Venat's actions post-Elpis are either under-explained or too reliant on doing things because we told her it would happen. She should have her own reasons for acting in accordance with what we described.

I mean, we basically laid down the mother of all prophecies, we are a being from the future, detailing events that happen. For Venat to not do anything about it would be like Rand in Wheel of Time (books) ignoring the prophecy marking him as the Dragon Reborn.

That being said, she clearly states her intentions and motives during the cutscene after Elpis, her whole reason for Sundering the world and making preparations for Etheirys to either flee the Star, or for the Warrior of Light to go and face Meteion is because she believes so fully in the strength of man that she wants them to be completely free, whereas those enthralled to Zodiark wanted to keep the bubble of "Utopia" they once had before the Final Days began. Everything she does is to make us see that while there is suffering in the world, even as fractured, imperfect beings, we are able to overcome despair, overcome nihilism and find light and oy in life, even if it is fleeting.

[Sylve]

We do affect things. We affect a lotI am personally of the opinion that the logic of the time loop is fine, but Venat's actions post-Elpis are either under-explained or too reliant on doing things because we told her it would happen. She should have her own reasons for acting in accordance with what we described.

My opinion is that we were in an altered timeline from the beginning of ARR.
Basically, Original WoL goes back to Elpis, finds out about Meteion and then returns to the Original Timeline, leaving Venat to play out her role in the story as originaly described to her.
The Original timeline doesn't have a tagged Meteion, but the new altered time that we've been in since ARR is the one with the tagged bird. Original time goes through the Exodus on the Moon and finds another way to Meteion.
Meanwhile, we get the events of Endwalker. Its the only way the Elpis part of the story gels with the time travel rules they set out in G'raha's story.

[Johaandr]

I feel the zonez from SB, shb and ew are made for Giants…. I wish they coulf make some stuff bit smaller

[icrot]

I feel the zonez from SB, shb and ew are made for Giants…. I wish they coulf make some stuff bit smaller

I agree.

I really love that ARR zones are split into different sectors. The Black Shroud is beautiful and with the maps being smaller they feel more alive. The maps from HW onwards, on the other hand, are so vast but feel empty and lack life.

[Illmaeran]

I agree.

I really love that ARR zones are split into different sectors. The Black Shroud is beautiful and with the maps being smaller they feel more alive. The maps from HW onwards, on the other hand, are so vast but feel empty and lack life.

I agree with this, the Shroud especially as that's always what comes to my mind when people mention HW onward zones "lacking life". The point absolutely has merit but I chalk it up to designing world zones around flying vs walking/riding in ARR and try not to let it bug me too much.

To be completely honest, I would be quite happy if we never got flying and all the zones were small, but dense with assets, like ARR. Having larger areas without loading zones between them is nice, for sure, but I got so used to them in ARR that they don't really bother me and in a strange way feel like home.

And the restaurant learns nothing in the process. Ever watched an episode of Kitchen Nightmares? It may be hammed up TV drama, but a recurring theme in failing businesses is restaurant owners who refuse to acknowledge feedback and identify what they're doing wrong or where they could better please their customers. Why do you think businesses fixate so much on gaining customer feedback, to the point of sometimes hounding them for it? Although one does not need to "create a scene" or be dramatic about it, and do the whole "call your manager" schtick, complaints are very much part of the learning process for businesses.

Restaurants are a perfect example. If I get something that's undercooked or a side that wasn't what I ordered, it's a simple thing to call the waiter over and say "Excuse me, I asked for X but got Y, may I please have X?" or "This is a bit undercooked, on the rare side of medium rare, would you please ask the kitchen to cook it a bit more? Thank you.". Servers and chefs don't always get everything right, all you have to do is bring up the issue politely and quietly and they'll take care of it.

The same thing applies here. "I'm not a fan of X and would prefer if it were more ABCDEF." That says what you're not fully satisfied with and gives a solution. While it may not be practical to fix, at least the solutions mentioned open up an avenue for discussion and perhaps change in the future.

[Lauront]

I agree with this, the Shroud especially as that's always what comes to my mind when people mention HW onward zones "lacking life". The point absolutely has merit but I chalk it up to designing world zones around flying vs walking/riding in ARR and try not to let it bug me too much.

To be completely honest, I would be quite happy if we never got flying and all the zones were small, but dense with assets, like ARR. Having larger areas without loading zones between them is nice, for sure, but I got so used to them in ARR that they don't really bother me and in a strange way feel like home.



Restaurants are a perfect example. If I get something that's undercooked or a side that wasn't what I ordered, it's a simple thing to call the waiter over and say "Excuse me, I asked for X but got Y, may I please have X?" or "This is a bit undercooked, on the rare side of medium rare, would you please ask the kitchen to cook it a bit more? Thank you.". Servers and chefs don't always get everything right, all you have to do is bring up the issue politely and quietly and they'll take care of it.

The same thing applies here. "I'm not a fan of X and would prefer if it were more ABCDEF." That says what you're not fully satisfied with and gives a solution. While it may not be practical to fix, at least the solutions mentioned open up an avenue for discussion and perhaps change in the future.

I agree with you that that is the most valuable form of feedback, but I'd add a few caveats. Not everyone is capable of conceiving of solutions that are practically feasible, and in some cases, people can struggle even to articulate what it is they dislike about something, which is why companies will often probe feedback further to get the information they need out of it. Knowing a customer (dis)liked something is already feedback in itself. There's other things you could find out - e.g. is it decisive enough to stop them consuming the product? Will it end up being a series of straws, one of which will break the camel's back? Can we even do anything about it? And so on.

[Kaurhz]

SNIP.

[1] I don't think your opinion, nor the opinion of a couple of people on Reddit or the forums constituting as 'most people' - Besides the precedent has always been the case that the first tier of crafted is a reuse, practically the case since Heavensward. If you actually bothered to look at the items you'd notice they have some differences. Personally, I had them pegged on reusing Ivalician raid gear, not PvP gear. This point for me just reeks of complaining about recycled assets because you didn't like the asset they recycled. Much like many others have done. Ohh buuhuu, they recycled Ktiseos from Shadowless (Oh, but it's ok if they reuse Woad - Wink wink)

[2/4]If you also did your research you'd realise the certain theme in a certain expert dungeon is not a reuse, but the primals remix, something actually befitting the theme of the dungeon. You'd also realise that themes in raids has never been a sure thing either. Some of them using 1, some using multiple. Was never an established standard to begin with. Neither was the voice acting for raids. Shameful, sure? But an established standard? No. Besides, I would argue the story of this expansion has the most voice acted cutscenes of any previous expansion. Disappointed or let down by the lack of voice acting in the raid story, sure? But a content cut? LOL

[3] I'm glad we've managed to reduce ourselves to complaining about walkability, despite it arguably being one of the best and most well designed areas we've had in a long time. All I need to do is compare Radz-at-Han and Old Sharlayan to the abysmal likes of Idyllshire, or Rhalgrs Reach. Not that I necessarily disagree, but if you're going to make a point don't be selective about your data points, but use them fairly. But I get it they should design their areas around walkability and not quality. - if we want to reuse your point about the restaurant, the presentation and quality of your dish matters just as much as the size of it.

[5] Great, another armchair network/server engineer.

Budget constraints will have been established long before launch of the expansion, and in their initial development of the expansion. I don't think anyone really foresaw this level of player growth, and nor is budget you can simply change on a whim.

[6]I don't necessarily disagree about the story but the whole point of warning us sooner is a complaint for the sake of it. Regardless of when we were warned there's very little we could do about it in the first place, given we already had to contend with the empire, and the Ascians - I doubt they're going to listen to Hydaelyn or lay off their schemes whilst we get whisked off into another stage of the universe. Besides, they probably didn't even have the inception of the direction for the story until long after the events of ARR/HW.