I miss HW

[Renathras]

It's almost as though some of us genuinely enjoyed the previous expansions and dislike the direction the game has taken in order to cater to those who did not.

How do you know people didn't enjoy the game then but think the changes were positive?

.

EDIT:

I think a lot of the "complexity" of HW is overblown. Job balance was terrible because of the damage type debuffs. PLD was unwanted in raids because DRK had magic def CDs and every tankbuster in Alexander was magic based.

It's kinda funny, Mr Happy was talking about this in his 3.4 video. At the time, balance was so bad, the meta wasn't just some Jobs, it was an entire party of WAR/DRK/AST/SCH/DRG/NIN/BRD/MCH. The meta literally did not include an entire role (Caster), and multiple Jobs; PLD, WHM, MNK, BLM, and SMN. Double-Melee-Double-Rangedphys was the meta because of how the piercing and slashing debuffs worked and the damage tuning at the time.

Sometimes, people see things in the past fairly.
Sometimes, people have rose tinted goggles.
Sometimes, people have their rose tinted goggles on so tight, it cuts off circulation to their brains.

HW was debateably one of the worst times and possibly the worst expansion in the game's history in a mechanical sense aside from 1.X itself. The story was great, but in terms of functionality and gameplay, it was pretty bad, and up until 3.4, it almost destroyed the raid scene and could have led to killing the game a second time if they hadn't adjusted course, which is probably why they did so.

^still waiting for that option where I can force every other character on my screen to just be wearing their artefact armour

If you were asking for unglamoured, I could see that (though I don't know why; a lot of the base gear looks abysmal and the accessories like everyone running around with dangly earrings is far more off-putting and historically inaccurate than a T-shirt), but artifact armor is supposed to be rare, not common. And you're basically asking for everyone to look the same, which seems...odd. Especially since that complaint is the entire reason every modern MMO has a transmog system; because people don't like looking all the same as everyone else.

Now, you could ask for a "town clothes vs combat clothes" thing, I suppose. But since we spend a lot of time in towns, that wouldn't change much. Other than the hat, my standard garb is the Lalafell tunic (Blue/Green/Red color matched to role; I like having a "physical" satchel for all the scenes my character either puts something into or uses something from it, not to mention if adventuring, I'd need something to carry things in), Cloud's pants (the only Lala pants that don't either tuck into the boots or hug the thighs and shins - I have no idea why they do that for all pants on Lalas, but I hate it, so go with the most available option that doesn't), and either the High Allegan Boots of Casting/Healing (for those roles, respectively), or brown Hard Leather Boots that remind me of FFTactics shoes. Oh, and the Pagos bandages (also color coded) since they're unobtrusive. And I swap out the hat sometimes for things.

I also like the WHM ARR robes and sometimes use those (with white Hard Leather Boots) or the ShB SCH coat (I like the cape), and I sometimes use the Ivalician Squire chest for my Tanks (sometimes with some gold gauntlets I found that match it, don't recall the name), and when I first hit EW and had just SCH/SMN/GNB at 90, I wore the GNB coat with those same gauntlets. Though those are more based on mood. I'd like a lot more armor sets if they didn't do a "floof" over the butt like Zenos'. I can't understand why that is a thing the Devs have decided on for so much gear (specifically, though not exclusively, on Lalas), but it's obnoxious.

It just seems you think that the people who genuinely like certain parts of that era are insane or lying about enjoying it because you found it boring or are making it up for enjoying it. Or that people only think they enjoy it because there looking back on it with nostalgia.

How's that different than the proponents of the past insisting everyone who likes how things have changed either didn't like the game then or is/wants braindead/lazy content?

Also btw, hahaha.

I'm saving this thread. Because come 3 or 5 years later or so, where we bark this same conversation again about "I miss EW" You bet I'll be pulling up this thread to remind the wishy washy/nostalgia goggle nature of the average MMO player.

While I agree with you in a general sense...it may not go ALL the way.

Warlords of Draenor is still considered WoW's worst expansion. That said, Mists and Cata (and Wrath, I still remember "Wrath Baby" as a derisive term for the game being "braindead" then) were all attacked in their time as being bad compared to what came before. Now, Wrath is deified as the height of the game's history by a lot of people, Cata as a monument to challenging and good gameplay (it wasn't, but whatever), and Mists generally gets the credit it should have gotten then.

So there is absolutely a contingent of people who will NEVER be satisfied and constantly saying something in the past was better while badmouthing the present. I'm not saying everyone, though, and I also disagree that EVERYTHING will be praised at some point. I could see EW being looked at like WoD to a point by a contingent of the community. I COULD see if things keep changing those people someday praising ShB, though. A lot of the people that praise SB now complained about it at the time, and that's probably true of HW/ARR as well.

It's either a "you never know how good you have it til it's gone" thing or a "you just will never be pleased and always say something else is better than what you have" thing with a lot - not ALL, but a lot - of people.

...but those people probably won't ever praise EW/WoD. They may praise other things that they currently decry, though.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The funny thing is, 2.x had my favorite raid fights, and 4.x had my favorite combat and class flow.



Endwalker is my least favorite when it comes to both. But that doesn't mean I can't see the faults in the systems back then.



I enjoyed every part of the game when it was current. I even enjoyed parts of 1.0.

[Nebelheim]

How's that different than the proponents of the past insisting everyone who likes how things have changed either didn't like the game then or is/wants braindead/lazy content?

All i said was i like that era and would like the harder gameplay back. And content has become easy and braindead. I don't have a problem with people liking how the game is currently i just prefer how it was before. I know we wont be getting heavansward era combat/gameplay design decisions back.

[Supersnow845]

The funny thing is, 2.x had my favorite raid fights, and 4.x had my favorite combat and class flow.



Endwalker is my least favorite when it comes to both. But that doesn't mean I can't see the faults in the systems back then.



I enjoyed every part of the game when it was current. I even enjoyed parts of 1.0.

1.15-1.23b what I’ll call the fall of dalamud is even better than EW

Yeah I said it

Give me back rivenroad

[Aravell]

There's one thing I truly miss from HW, and that's SMN. I know people will say it's horribly clunky, but for me, it had everything I wanted. MP management, pet micromanagement, burst stocking, timer tracking, it was one of the most engaging jobs I ever played.

[Amnmaat]

There's one thing I truly miss from HW, and that's SMN. I know people will say it's horribly clunky, but for me, it had everything I wanted. MP management, pet micromanagement, burst stocking, timer tracking, it was one of the most engaging jobs I ever played.

That's a bold take haha, but actually factual; HW Smn had a big level of player expression. The big problem was the summoning and pet management system itself.

Player expression is ultimately king. You can have a simple job which you can play differently from the person next to you and squeeze out different levels of skill (like good damage, mitigation, healing, etc) than other people playing the same job, in different ways.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

1.15-1.23b what I’ll call the fall of dalamud is even better than EW

Yeah I said it

Give me back rivenroad

I disagree with that, and you can still do rivenroad, kind of


1.2x combat was even clunkier than what we have now. That was one of the worst parts of 1.0 for me. The combat was just too clunky.

[Supersnow845]

I disagree with that, and you can still do rivenroad, kind of


1.2x combat was even clunkier than what we have now. That was one of the worst parts of 1.0 for me. The combat was just too clunky.

T9 is not rivenroad and I will not accept this slander against rivenroad

True the combat in the 1.2 patches was clunky but the world had a sense of “entropy” to it in the fall of dalamud that nothing has come close to for me, oh and nael as well as legacy gaius are criminally underrated as villains

[Absimiliard]

but the world had a sense of “entropy” to it in the fall of dalamud that nothing has come close to for me, oh and nael as well as legacy gaius are criminally underrated as villains

Aight, you know what? ....I kinda have to agree with this. The game has somehow managed to lose that sense of "dread" or "entropy" it had in the days when Dalamud was a serious consideration. Ditto for Nael and OG Gaius being pretty underrated.

Perhaps it's because I was around to hear Answers - Reprise fill the zones as Dalamud burned in the sky? Whatever the case, I found ARR's whole "feel" was far better than what we have now, and a large part of that was knowing what kind of threat Bahamut actually posed to the world. The player-character(s) have gone on to face much greater threats than he, but somehow the "feeling" was lacking. Even the Final Days and lead-up to the Endsinger did not stir any kind of feelings within me at all.

Heavensward was two or three steps removed from that feeling, but there was still a sense of urgency with the threats posed by Alexander and the Warring Triad. Although the former turned out to be benevolent, his mere presence could've killed the planet. The latter were of course primals that very much lived up to their hype as gods, and any one of them would've been basically unstoppable by modern man if allowed to regain its former strength. Admittedly, my interest in the Warring Triad in this regard may have stemmed in part from FF6 having been one of my favorite Final Fantasies to date, but still.

[Supersnow845]

Aight, you know what? ....I kinda have to agree with this. The game has somehow managed to lose that sense of "dread" or "entropy" it had in the days when Dalamud was a serious consideration. Ditto for Nael and OG Gaius being pretty underrated.

Perhaps it's because I was around to hear Answers - Reprise fill the zones as Dalamud burned in the sky? Whatever the case, I found ARR's whole "feel" was far better than what we have now, and a large part of that was knowing what kind of threat Bahamut actually posed to the world. The player-character(s) have gone on to face much greater threats than he, but somehow the "feeling" was lacking. Even the Final Days and lead-up to the Endsinger did not stir any kind of feelings within me at all.

Dalamud burning in the sky; the hymn of dalamud filling the zones only to be replaced by answers reprise later on created a sense of overwhelming dread that they have failed to capture again even with threats bigger than Bahamut, dalamud was present in every zone, the music filled every corner, you couldn’t escape it and you knew what was coming

The first visit to kholusia came close but the final days completely failed to replicate the feeling and I think it’s because dalamud made the world dangerous, superbosses spawned, hamlet defence became harder, beloved NPC’s that had necessary functions in the world died and never came back, nothing in ShB or EW made me feel like “I” was in danger

And still coils makes me feel that, even going in as a level 90 character coils fills you with a sense of dread and makes you feel like you are actually in danger

Dalamud was just so perfect in how it affected the world it’s sad that 1.15-1.23b are just lumped in with the rest of trashy legacy and forgotten