A comparison of combat content in Endwalker.

[Rolder50]

Dixie: weekly lockouts are a staple of MMO design across the board..for one thing it stops people from spamming them to complete a new ilevel gearset in one week. Those lockouts DO get released, eventually.

The lockouts do get released eventually. A few weeks before the new patch when people aren't playing anyway.

They ought to unlock it when the alliance raid releases, and not have the alliance raid be locked at all.

[dspguy]

Personally, I think it is player perception that has changed. SE has followed the same formula since 2013 - at first loosely, but consistently since HW.

Just to add to the OP's list... each expansion has 6 new zones. New zones require you to do MSQ, side quests and explore the zone to fly in those zones.
New jobs are released when the expansion is released (discounting NIN, since we are talking HW and onwards).
1 new dungeon with each major patch.
Relics released piecemeal from around patch X.25 onwards.
PvP "seasons"
Lots of job balance adjustments early in the patch cycle, less later on

Etc etc

They haven't changed their formula. We've changed our perception of it. In part, because we are "used to it." We can skim over about 80% of the patch notes without reading it and already know what's in it. There's just those tiny bits of difference like Island Sanctuary updates that make a difference vs what we may have expected.

[LianaThorne]

Lets say they dont have the lockouts, the players then spam that instance and get all the gear they want. then they dont do it anymore and what will we hear?

"Theres nothing to do"

Personally I'd rather have this than have my progress intentionally slowed down because some random people want to whine. If I have the ability to pump through getting a set of gear in a week, why shouldn't I be able to do that and then just go focus on something else or play something different? Timegates are probably the stupidest thing to ever come to video games which are generally supposed to be "progress at your own pace".

[VelKallor]

Personally I'd rather have this than have my progress intentionally slowed down because some random people want to whine.

To reiterate: Lockouts are a universal part of MMO gameplay. its an industry standard.

Raid lockouts are so that you can only kill a boss for loot 1 time a week, otherwise groups would be forced to farm for gear from the raid over and over, instead of steady progression over a patch

[NekoMataMata]

Something I noticed about the dungeon count is that while SB has 15 dungeons in comparison to EW's soon to be 13, almost half of the SB dungeons were optional. ShB broke that trend, having only two optional dungeons, and EW has followed, but do you feel that could be something to say about it? I imagine that if you cram everything into the MSQ that can be a bit constraining.

I have to wonder... I know its a tired reason, but could the lack of in person meetings of the teams be a contributor to the lack of quality? I mean a world changing event happened right while Endwalker was in development

It could also be the community. The community was way more alive during the pandemic, for obvious reasons.

[LianaThorne]

To reiterate: Lockouts are a universal part of MMO gameplay. its an industry standard.

While they are, there are also some that allow for bypassing timegates via paying real money or exchanging currency for more attempts. Personally I'd like to see something similar implemented so those that do want to progress further and have the ability are able to in one way or another. I'm not just talking about raid lockouts, I'm talking about tomestone related ones as well. Give x amount of y to double your alloted tomestones you can earn per week, for example.

[Kaurhz]

The amount of content never really changes too drastically between expansions, bar the dropping of dungeons (Which I personally think is better) - It's just a matter of how it is dispersed and utilized. E.g., if V&C dungeons were in some way tied to the relic or had more substantial rewards / incentivization for solo play with a system as flushed out as logos/essences then you would take great milestones to solving a lot of the problems people do have.

Similarly, one of Island Sanctuary's biggest issues is that it is:
1. Tied to end-game story completion rather than something that can be picked up
2. It is a self-contained system in that nigh on everything you get from it is only usable within Island Sanctuary - It's a shame they couldn't actually tie in the crafting and gathering system with this - It would have been a lot more substantial for arguably something that could have been a relatively minor direction change.

I would say one of the biggest issues with any expansion is that x must always come at the expense of y.

[Blossoming]

The amount of content never really changes too drastically between expansions, bar the dropping of dungeons (Which I personally think is better) - It's just a matter of how it is dispersed and utilized. E.g., if V&C dungeons were in some way tied to the relic or had more substantial rewards / incentivization for solo play with a system as flushed out as logos/essences then you would take great milestones to solving a lot of the problems people do have.

Similarly, one of Island Sanctuary's biggest issues is that it is:
1. Tied to end-game story completion rather than something that can be picked up
2. It is a self-contained system in that nigh on everything you get from it is only usable within Island Sanctuary - It's a shame they couldn't actually tie in the crafting and gathering system with this - It would have been a lot more substantial for arguably something that could have been a relatively minor direction change.

I would say one of the biggest issues with any expansion is that x must always come at the expense of y.

I think that was one of my biggest gripes with sanctuary island was the lack of including the existing gathering and crafting classes into it, kind of was surprised about that tbh

[Boblawblah]

I think that was one of my biggest gripes with sanctuary island was the lack of including the existing gathering and crafting classes into it, kind of was surprised about that tbh

That was part of the point, to allow players that didn't have crafters/gatherers to participate in the IS. It's a positive thing in my opinion.

[CelestiCer]

I think that was one of my biggest gripes with sanctuary island was the lack of including the existing gathering and crafting classes into it, kind of was surprised about that tbh

I actually feel same way about this even if this is not combat related