Which expansion did they get right, and why?

[Kaurhz]

Uhhh...

On release I am inclined to say that Stormblood was the best. It felt rewarding to do whatever it was that you wanted to do.

I liked HW also, it required effort, it too felt rewarding, e.g., crafting first set of Ironworks gear. Neo Aetherstones bred an absurd amount of life into doing Coils unsync... But granted, some of it was because some systems were a little clunky,

Shadowbringers, Endwalker and Dawntrail have all felt like expansions where they've just been giving tokenisms to players for things they ripped away from said players... Rewarding manual crafts, and a reason to actually learn the crafting system? Expert recipes, and even then, they don't feel core, and nor do they hold a candle to systems like WWYW.

[Khryseis_Astra]

It's Shadowbringers though. HW ages really poorly when you play it on an alt, unlike ShB, which remains engaging until you're dealing with the damn train. Fuck that train. ShB's strong point really, really isn't just its ending. It's its inherent narrative consistency because it contains good usage of all the plot threads Ishikawa started at some point, lol.

While I enjoyed HW, and it was my favorite until I got to ShB, I agree with your opinion on ShB… it really felt like everything was coming together, all those threads being woven into one tapestry. And it’s even more amazing when you realize they didn’t even plan out every detail in advance! They just made things fit!

It’s also why I enjoyed EW, even though it gets a lot of negative feedback… to me, EW was just ShB part 2, and tied up the story arc in a way I found very satisfying.

I don’t hate DT… but it’s not really thrilling me. I find a lot of the side stories stronger than the MSQ, although I feel it’s improving. We just really need to set up the next big arc, to get a sense that things are going somewhere. I get that maybe they felt ShB/EW was really “dark” or “heavy,” and they were trying for a more lighthearted expansion. But I want the story to get back to that level of emotionally powerful again. I want the story to punch me in the gut and make me cry. lol DT, especially towards the end and the patches, actually touches on exploring some deeper themes (what constitutes life, AI and the benefits/harm of technology, etc.), but not with the depth and emotional power of ShB/EW.

[Rithy255]

Story wise? Likely shadowbringers. Personal preference though, I also liked HW and parts of EW.

Gameplay wise? I'd say also shadowbringers but they made a lot of the trends that plauge the game to this day, Ideally we'd find ourselfs between something like Stormblood and Shadowbringers, but having its own interesting unique direction that isn't the same old bland game design we've been getting for a good while now.

[Daralii]

I've found the opposite, I've replayed Heavensward multiple times and always find myself enjoying it, whereas I expected to like ShB but found subsequent playthroughs kind of tedious. I feel like HW's character and scenario writing is a lot stronger which is what makes it fun to go back through, while ShB has insane atmosphere and mood setting but is a step behind in that regard, so it loses some of the impact after playing it for the first time. The sin eaters storyline really was great, but the characters themselves just feel a little bland outside of Emet and Vauthry. Especially considering they're living in a world that's nigh-apocalyptic, everyone just feels remarkably well-adjusted (?) and I miss the personal conflicts that drove the story in the game's earlier years.

The mindset of the locals makes sense when you consider that some viis would be the only ones that had ever known a different state of affairs. The apocalypse drawing closer and being completely inescapable had been a fact for several generations.

[Alicie]

Shadowbringers offers solid, dedicated story with exactly defined goals taking place in a specific, well detailed region. Though there is plenty of slog and filler, it is overall better than other expansions.

[Jaltaer]

Stormblood feels like the last expansion where they bothered doing creative things with instance and fight design (like the minigame phases in the Four Lords trials, or things like St Mocianne's Hard dungeon having extra/optional mechanics like rinsing off mobs, or that one mob that can transform other enemies if you get them in its AOE cast). It's also where we got Eureka, the Ivalice raids, and in general a pretty wide host of interesting and creative content.

Shadowbringers... narrative wise, they got it "too" right I think, to the point each expansion we've gotten after it has just been rehashing the core concept of ShB and trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle it was. Felt like EW was rushed and unsatisfying? Not a fan of how DT turned into "oops yet another apocalyptic event involving yet another shard and also our 3rd final dungeon with the villain narrating us through a flashback"? You can thank Shadowbringers for that!

[Absurdity]

Stormblood feels like the last expansion where they bothered doing creative things with instance and fight design (like the minigame phases in the Four Lords trials, or things like St Mocianne's Hard dungeon having extra/optional mechanics like rinsing off mobs, or that one mob that can transform other enemies if you get them in its AOE cast). It's also where we got Eureka, the Ivalice raids, and in general a pretty wide host of interesting and creative content.

Shadowbringers... narrative wise, they got it "too" right I think, to the point each expansion we've gotten after it has just been rehashing the core concept of ShB and trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle it was. Felt like EW was rushed and unsatisfying? Not a fan of how DT turned into "oops yet another apocalyptic event involving yet another shard and also our 3rd final dungeon with the villain narrating us through a flashback"? You can thank Shadowbringers for that!

Pretty much this.
People always gush about Shadowbringer's story but I consider it patient zero for the rot that has settled in this game.
As you said it is the reason for every MSQ following a similar template, but it's also the start of the incredibly stagnant job and fight design.

Funnily enough when people say "Stormblood story bad" they always tend to ignore the patch story from 4.2 onward. Building up Garlemald as more than just vague bad guy empire and giving us a glimpse of the political intrigue and factions within it...which was then completely sidelined in ShB and thoroughly destroyed by Endwalker, along with any remaining old story threads.

[ServerCollaps]

wuk lamat aside, dawntrail ist the best for me
90% of each expansion is copy/paste anyway, but 7.0 has the best dungeons and fights imo. The maps are also pretty. The moonbase stuff is much better than the island or diadem aswell. Chaotic and quantum are also nice steps that they took

[MikkoAkure]

I feel like people often look back at Heavensward with rose-tinted glasses.

It's still my second favorite expansion for many of the reasons people have already mentioned and the elf camping trip arc to get answers from Hraesvelgr was among one of the high points for the entire game. But then there was other stuff people tend to leave out of their nostalgic memories like having to go back to deal with Ul'dah junk, the waaaaaay too long moogle quests that interrupted the main story, the multiple versions of HW Diadem, BRD and MCH being forced to sit still as casters, MCH having a really un-fun RNG rotation and DPS much more reliant on ping, certain Alexander raids were so frustrating that it permanently damaged friendships, Wiping City of Mhach feeling like purgatory upon release since there were so many mechanics that a single person could mess up that could wipe the alliance.

Shadowbringers is looked at fondly IMO for a bunch of reasons. It tightened up the story really well so we weren't split between distinct arcs that broke the flow of the plot. The "cute mascot break" that HW, SB, and EW did here felt more natural and integrated into the plot by having them connected to Urianger and a Lightwarden while the "cute mascots" themselves still presented an element danger. The Scions are finally all present at the same time again with equal screentime and they each received character growth and attention from the writers. The WoL went from a silent hanger-on to more important NPCs who were actually doing the important things to suddenly being the main protagonist who is driving the plot.

Shadowbringers felt like its own game in itself while Heavensward just felt like just another (good) expansion.

My brother who has played way more Final Fantasy games than I have but hates MMOs even picked up FFXIV just to play ARR through Shadowbringers and then quit after he finished it but said the Shadowbringers piece is his top 5 of FF stories.

[Azurarok]

Pretty much this.
People always gush about Shadowbringer's story but I consider it patient zero for the rot that has settled in this game.
As you said it is the reason for every MSQ following a similar template, but it's also the start of the incredibly stagnant job and fight design.

Funnily enough when people say "Stormblood story bad" they always tend to ignore the patch story from 4.2 onward. Building up Garlemald as more than just vague bad guy empire and giving us a glimpse of the political intrigue and factions within it...which was then completely sidelined in ShB and thoroughly destroyed by Endwalker, along with any remaining old lore.

Yeah, as much as I love Shadowbringers they can't just do it again to get the same effect (not to mention they also had outside factors for those sales). I'm also convinced I enjoyed the jobs at the time because it still had traces of what made them good rather than any of the simplifications they've done being actually good. Bozja was fantastic and they missed pretty much every mark on what made it good with Occult Crescent too.

I think they don't have any idea what specifically was good about that expansion and have been blindly tracing its outlines since.