Despite how controversial Stormblood is/was...

[Atelier-Bagur]

Im one of the few whom genuinely enjoyed Stormblood's story and environment. It introduced a lot of interesting characters and it fulfilled my curiosity with the build up of the Ala Mhigan plight while putting the Empire back into the spotlight since they were pretty much almost absent last expansion. Also the music itself I loved more than Heavenswards, including its leitmotif and boss theme. It also still to this day imo, had the best raid content with the Omega Raids calling back to previous FF bosses (and the story line of it was super cool and cute) as well as the Return to Ivalice which was just a huge fanservice to FF Tactics and FFXII fans. And of course the post-Stormblood scenarios was just the icing on the cake to how it lead up to Shadowbringers. Yeah it had its awkward moments and a bit of pacing issues but so did ARR and HW and its funny despite how perfectly loved ShB msq was it still had weird story pacing issues (never gonna forget and lol at the Ahm Araeng trolly/Talos obsession arc).

To me every expansion keeps improving from the last which is a general good growth for this game.

[MediocreIndigo]

I didn't find the main scenario of Stormblood that interesting but I didn't hate it either. The postgame was awesome.

[Alestorm]

My only complaint is it feels like they took 2 areas worthy of their own expansion's worth of content and watered both down. I would love to go to Naxia or Hingan mainland someday.

[Roflcopter]

The whole Yotsuyu storyline kinda ticked me off. She deserved better and wasn’t really a villain. Part of me wanted her to burn Doma to ashes realizing she went through so much abuse as a child and was sold into sex slavery while everyone ignored her plight. Quite frankly, I wanted to burn the entire city of Kugane to the ground after that too realizing they are nothing but corrupt and engage in sex slavery.

[Kolsykol]

People tend to be overly dramatic and act like because something didn't appeal to them and was meh it equates to it being '' UNBEARABLE THE WORST THING I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED ''.

Stormblood was very well-received by most newcomers I've seen at least, I think a lot of people also just have a tendency to zone out and stop paying attention unless something is good from the start.
The story was very flawed and had pacing problems but I don't think it was terrible it just wasn't as good as Heavensward.
The post story tho is a lot better and I think is genuinely really good.
But even just the base MSQ was better than average stories in media really, not exactly a high standard to live up to imo tho.

But yeah people who are negative and dislike things have a tendency to be very loud, it's why if you go to Reddit and look at art that some people are very '' opinioated '' about ( particularly with female characters ) and compare the upvotes to the comments...
99% people can like something but the 1% can take over the entire comment section, people who have a negative reaction are more likely to comment.

It's the same with Minfillia too, so much of the criticism people throw at her applies to a lot of other characters too that don't receive the same hate.
But because she was the anchor of the scions who you '' pray returned '' to all the time people zero:ed in on her way harder and basically scapegoated the character.
I think a lot of people just had their opinion set in stone the moment the Lyse reveal happened too, it's a bit bizarre too for people to pretend like Yda was much of a character to begin with she was just comedic relief.
It's not like we don't have other characters too who are known liars that people fanboy/ fangirl over *cough* Urianger *cough*.

And in all honesty while I like Y'shtola too I think she's severely underutilized and has basically not grown she feels a bit more like someone who's just kinda there, but people love her anyway I don't think there's a whole lot of logic behind some of the attitudes towards the characters.
Like I dunno how anyone can seriously tell me that Lyse didn't grow and go through a whole character arc and that's why they hate her and thinks she's '' useless '' but then fanboy/ fangirl over Y'shtola.
Excuse me lol?
Did ya even play the game ( especially the post MSQ )?

The whole Yotsuyu storyline kinda ticked me off. She deserved better and wasn’t really a villain. Part of me wanted her to burn Doma to ashes realizing she went through so much abuse as a child and was sold into sex slavery while everyone ignored her plight. Quite frankly, I wanted to burn the entire city of Kugane to the ground after that too realizing they are nothing but corrupt and engage in sex slavery.

Everyone tho?
There's people irl who are sold into sexual slavery and we have no idea about them.

Bit extreme imo to support genocide because bad shit happen lol.

[Melorie]

I'm going to be honest, despite the Azim Steppe portion, I wasn't very fond of Stormblood. The lack of focus hitted me hard, since I had other expectations for it, and I didn't really care about Zenos. I despise almost every map of that expansion... And even the post-patches weren't much better if you ask me. Yotsuyu was too much of a drama for me and I couldn't bring myself to like nor dislike her. Ala Mhigo being an ugly quartier at the end of an empty map was a slap in my face.

That being said, the combat slapped.
Stormblood was my favourite iteration of AST and SCH. It had a killer bard as well. The 4-lords side-story was quite good, and the fights were fresh. Suzano and Lakshmi and even Shinryu to some extent were very iconic with killer music. Omega had very creative fights.

The Ivalice raids are still my favourite 24-man, with beautiful sets and fun fights.

All the beast tribes had good rewards, and the Namazu one was a joy of story-telling. I seriously cannot stress this enough, given that most of the SHB rewards were a lackluster, and we did not even have an alliance quest for these.

We still had Hildibrand quests!

Shirogane, although I don't have interest in the oriental-aesthetic of it, is still the most detailed ward. There's hardly "boring" spots in it, unlike Goblet, LB, Mist and even Ishgard. I love how the streets are narrow, and you actually feel into a neighbourhood and you pretty it much have it all - beach, park, hot springs, pretty staircase with shops, etc.
I say this as someone that has zero interest into moving there.

I wasn't here to actually experience Eureka, sadly. But I think I might have enjoyed it. Still, can't say I'm very fond of most of the weapons look.

Also, the fact that a good chunk of people thought that Lyse was a dancer in the trailer... Still makes me chuckle to this day.

[Padudu]

The whole Yotsuyu storyline kinda ticked me off. She deserved better and wasn’t really a villain. Part of me wanted her to burn Doma to ashes realizing she went through so much abuse as a child and was sold into sex slavery while everyone ignored her plight. Quite frankly, I wanted to burn the entire city of Kugane to the ground after that too realizing they are nothing but corrupt and engage in sex slavery.

"wasn't really a villain"? bro she literally set one of her life purposes on committing genocide against the domans lol

[TheMightyMollusk]

The Doma parts of the story were great. Unfortunately, Ala Mhigo felt way too condensed. And then the patches.....(going into spoiler tags, because I dunno if OP has done it all or not)....

Ala Mhigo getting just one patch to wrap it up, which also has to wrap up Raubahn's story, does not help the overall rushed feeling of the entire country.

The whole Tsuyu arc feels.....weird. I really feel it would've been a better end to both her and Gosetsu's arcs if they had died at the end of Doma Castle. Asahi being the most punchable little prick in the game does not help much. At least the fight with Tsukuyomi was great.

[Yuella]

I generally like Stormblood more than Shadowbringers. Shadowbringers' story didn't pick up until after the second trial and reaching the final zone. There were some cool moments with Thancred and Emet's big reveal but overall it was just...kill the big boss in each region to bring back the darkness for 5/6 the story. Stormblood started slow but by Azim Steppe, it picked up the pace and it was great from there till the end. 4.1 is also the best x.1 story ever and while 5.3 is better than 4.3, it's not by much. Yotsuyu's story is more relatable to many and 5.3's greatness mainly came from the tearful goodbyes after the trial and the final cutscene with G'raha.

[Roflcopter]

I thought the “absorb the powers of the big bads until it backfires and threatens to kill you” was pretty predictable in ShB if you have ever watched any anime at all. Like I knew from the first one we absorbed that it was gonna be a problem later. Didn’t take much to figure it out.