Why heavensward story is considered a better one then stormblood ?

[Kenarashi]

I mean I play both of them and I have to say fighting Zenos is far more entertaining than hearing about ishgard hidden history. People are always saying how heavenward is awesome but noticed people complaining about stormblood story, that it is worse somehow. Does anyone know why that is?
Thank you for the insight,
Cheers,

[HisShadowX]

They tried to make Stormblood harder and it back fired and they made the game easier. Getting through Stormblood can be a struggle due to the upped difficulty. Thankfully due to this expansion upsetting the core consumer of this game they removed the Hardcore Minority's most favorite system since FFXIV 1.0 was shut down and that was the Cross Class System

[Lihtleita]

They tried to make Stormblood harder and it back fired and they made the game easier. Getting through Stormblood can be a struggle due to the upped difficulty. Thankfully due to this expansion upsetting the core consumer of this game they removed the Hardcore Minority's most favorite system since FFXIV 1.0 was shut down and that was the Cross Class System

ok but they were asking about story

[HisShadowX]

ok but they were asking about story

Honestly, when I compare the stories what I didn't like about the story was it was all over the place. You had to jump from one part of the world and then head to another part and it was a lot of back and forth. I did not have that issue with Heavenward. Yeah, it jumped around here and there, but travel was not as bad. I think Stormblood was made for the weebs and weebs really didn't help sell copies. I just remember there was a whole lot of problems people had with Stormblood. If you were on this board during that time and of the hardcore minority stormblood was great.

Between the story and making the game harder it rubbed people the wrong way. I think it's annoying one Stormblood main city still does not have an airship landing even though thankfully the eastern city finally got one.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Honestly, when I compare the stories what I didn't like about the story was it was all over the place. You had to jump from one part of the world and then head to another part and it was a lot of back and forth. I did not have that issue with Heavenward. Yeah, it jumped around here and there, but travel was not as bad. I think Stormblood was made for the weebs and weebs really help. I just remember there was a whole lot of problems people had with Stormblood. If you were on this board during that time and of the hardcore minority stormblood was great.

Between the story and making the game harder it rubbed people the wrong way. I think it's annoying one Stormblood main city still does not have an airship landing even though thankfully the eastern city finally got one.

What a gross exaggeration. You werent jumping around back and forth between the two conflicts. Want me to outline this for you?

Start - Try to liberate Ala Mhigo. It failed
Middle - Divide Imperial forces by liberating Doma. It succeeded
End- Resistance Redemption where we try to liberate Ala Mhigo again. It succeeded.

So yeah, Im not seeing where this "constant back and forth repeatedly" issue people seem to have lies exactly in SB. I heard the same complaints from a friend who told me this exact thing and here I was expecting oh we would be awkwardly traveling between the two nations solving their issues and its an unfocused mess, but no, the entirety of the Far East section is a one and done deal in the main msq. Now what I do have issues is that the story itself was very ambitious and I wouldve personally preferred they dedicated an expansion for Gyr Abania and another for the Far East so we could get some more world lore like how we got with Coerthas and Ishgard in Heavensward.

[HisShadowX]

What a gross exaggeration. You werent jumping around back and forth between the two conflicts. Want me to outline this for you?

Start - Try to liberate Ala Mhigo. It failed
Middle - Divide Imperial forces by liberating Doma. It succeeded
End- Resistance Redemption where we try to liberate Ala Mhigo. It succeeded.

So yeah, Im not seeing where this "constant back and forth repeatedly" issue people seem to have. Now what I do have issues is that the story itself was very ambitious and I wouldve personally preferred they dedicated an expansion for Gyr Abania and another for the Far East so we could get some more world lore like how we got with Coerthas and Ishgard in Heavensward.

We would have quests resulting from going from Gyr Abania back to Doma and then back to Gyr Abania to deliver the message or item and then back to Doma... It was as annoying as the Doma kids fetch quests in post ARR.

Bottom line Stormblood whether you feel is good it was looked down on. Systems from Stormblood were made easy and other systems like the Cross Class System was completely removed. Stormblood was an okay expansion it was not bad, but it just was not as good as ARR or Heavenward.

[Seraphor]

What a gross exaggeration. You werent jumping around back and forth between the two conflicts. Want me to outline this for you?

Start - Try to liberate Ala Mhigo. It failed
Middle - Divide Imperial forces by liberating Doma. It succeeded
End- Resistance Redemption where we try to liberate Ala Mhigo again. It succeeded.

So yeah, Im not seeing where this "constant back and forth repeatedly" issue people seem to have lies exactly in SB. I heard the same complaints from a friend who told me this exact thing and here I was expecting oh we would be awkwardly traveling between the two nations solving their issues and its an unfocused mess, but no, the entirety of the Far East section is a one and done deal in the main msq. Now what I do have issues is that the story itself was very ambitious and I wouldve personally preferred they dedicated an expansion for Gyr Abania and another for the Far East so we could get some more world lore like how we got with Coerthas and Ishgard in Heavensward.

You somehow miss the point and hit the nail on the head in the same post.
It's not a "constant" back and forth, but it is split between two different (albeit complementing) stories. Neither Othard nor Gyr Abania get enough development in comparison to Coerthas, and in fact Gyr Abania is mostly one dimensional. None of the Gyr Abania zones or locales are at all memorable, and we miss out on the city proper.

The story is also very repetitive because of this "lets see the same thing happen in two (actually more than two) places" idea.
WoL, Alisae and Lyse arrive in [insert oppressed nation/city/village].
"We hAvE cOmE tO lIbErAtE yOu"
"Go away we don't need liberating"
WoL accomplishes [insert impressive task]
"NoW cAn We LiBeRaTe YoU?"
"Yeah ok."

That happens at least three times, five if you count the individual Gyr Abanian villages. (and come to think of it, there's the Kojin too)

To be fair, Shadowbringers was equally as repetitive, slaying the Lightwarden for each zone, but this was purely in comparison to Ishgard at the time when Stormblood was the contemporary, which had one fully fleshed out plot line that gave the main characters all the screen time needed to give them a full character development arc.
And besides, Shadowbringers does a better job at diversifying the repeated steps and the different locales, with a separate overarching narrative with Emet progressing alongside, which compared to Zenos is virtually classical prose.

[KariTheFox]

What a gross exaggeration. You werent jumping around back and forth between the two conflicts. Want me to outline this for you?

Start - Try to liberate Ala Mhigo. It failed
Middle - Divide Imperial forces by liberating Doma. It succeeded
End- Resistance Redemption where we try to liberate Ala Mhigo again. It succeeded.

Agreed, SB did seem to follow a pretty conventional 3 act structure there. Honestly, as much as I like HW I think it suffers much more from the "going back and forth and pointlessly meandering" complaint that people lob at SB - first you're in Ishgard, then you leave to take care of the aftermath of the bloody banquet and rescue Raubahn, then you're dealing with a bug primal, then moonless? Then the sky whale - then the Vault happens and the entire expansion feels tightly focused right up until the end of the Dragonsong War arc and Nidhogg's death.

Maybe that's why HW is better remembered, even though it meanders a lot more imo in its first half, by the end it's so tightly focused that it's hard to remember the messy start.

[CrownySuccubus]

Honestly, when I compare the stories what I didn't like about the story was it was all over the place. You had to jump from one part of the world and then head to another part and it was a lot of back and forth. I did not have that issue with Heavenward. Yeah, it jumped around here and there, but travel was not as bad. I think Stormblood was made for the weebs and weebs really help. I just remember there was a whole lot of problems people had with Stormblood. If you were on this board during that time and of the hardcore minority stormblood was great.

Between the story and making the game harder it rubbed people the wrong way. I think it's annoying one Stormblood main city still does not have an airship landing even though thankfully the eastern city finally got one.

Mostly, a lot of Stormblood felt like wasting time. The entire Steppe portion of the story (don't get me wrong -- most players, including me, love the Steppe for what it is) was basically superfluous and came down to a "Mighty Foreigner" story in which you defeat several nomadic tribes to become the leader of them all, press them into a war that didn't involve them, and then frick off and leave them. The main villains of the story (the Garleans) are largely one-note and without any sort of nuance -- the antagonists most people enjoy from the expansion are Yotsuyu and Fordola, who are traitors that joined Garlemald against their own people and have complex or compelling reasons for what they do.

Really, what Stormblood has going for it are its absolutely stunning locations. Whether Kugane, the Ruby Sea and the rest of Yanxia/Gyr Abania are better than Foundation, the Churning Mists, etc. is up to player preference. But they're still absolutely in contention for some of the most memorable locales in the game well up to 6.0.

[deadman1204]

I think Stormblood was made for the weebs and weebs really didn't help sell copies.

The hilarity of racists complaining about "weebs" in a game made in JAPAN