Endwalker is FINE and The Downfall of Final Fantasy XIV is a Lie

This is Part 1 of Xeno's Reaction to ‪@WeskAlber‬ 's video titled The Discourse is Dumb and Endwalker is FINE. He makes a great point that people are blinded by nostalgia and don't realize how much better Endwalker is compared to an older expansion like the critically acclaimed and award winning Heavensward.
Original video: • The Discourse is Dumb ...
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[@WeskAlber]

Honestly, when I put in my jab, I didn't expect you to actually do it. I merely though "eh, there's a chance." "I have no idea who you are" kinda cemented that. I further didn't expect you to agree with me on personal or objective level. On any level. I wanna further emphasize: This isn't about saying EW is fine because HW was bad. It's that if you want to call it "the worst," this is your competition. Every bad thing about EW, you have to also consider HW nearly killing the game before we could get this far. To be clear, I 100% agree that there's a lack of rewards. I got all 17 ShB relics on content because I really liked Bozja, so I want that content back. Other thoughts on what EW did wrong - including some comments we get in the rest of this video. We aren't paying to play mid expansions. I agree 100%. No question. We deserve as best as they can do. But I agree that a HW2 would just kill the game, full stop. And we get there by blindly claiming EW is this super bad, no upside experience. It's not about that HW is bad in the lens of HW. It's that HW is bad in the lens of HW. We didn't like this stuff 8 years ago either.

[@gryphon250]

This had better be pinned soon. Thank you so much for your work, WeskAlber!

[@KingSteve13]

Someone pin this man! Great videos from both you and Xeno.

[@mattfletcher2270]

First of all, nothing but respect for you Wesk. Thank you for all of your excellent raid guides. Top stuff! Totally agree that we're not paying for mid content. I've just moved from PS5 to PC myself, but feel especially bad for PlayStation users because they buy the game, the expansions, pay their FF sub & then have to pay yet another sub to Sony just to be online with their console, & they recently hiked the price of that too! Of course Sony's online sub is nothing to do with square, but it's still a raw deal for PlayStation users when they end up with mid content. Endwalker story was excellent, but the patches that followed were a bit mid-ish at the very least. I really hope PS users get a better deal with Dawntrail, otherwise lots of them might not think the cost is worth it anymore. I certainly wouldn't.

[@nick_woow]

​@mattfletcher2270 TBF, PS users don't have to pay PS Plus to play XIV, only the XIV sub. Although I think they get an extra free teleport spot if they are subscribed to PS Plus as well

[@mattfletcher2270]

@@nick_woow with all respect, you're entirely wrong. You cannot play online games at all without ps plus. You at least need the essential package. £60 a year I think it is now.

[@iamtorryian]

Wesk (in my opinion) has the best new player guides out there. Goes over every skill and ability you get, explains them well and helps craft a beginning rotation in how to play the jobs correctly. I owe a lot of my ability to play pretty much every job in the game decently to him.

[@TheIvoryDingo]

Heck, he even does it divided by expansion instead of just for max level, which is something that I'd say is decently useful as well.

[@fffeeelll7745]

@@TheIvoryDingo he also explains in some detail each ability by the level you get them, so at every step of the leveling process you can get a clear idea of how to do the rotations, even if you are not at the cap of an expansion's level

[@FiveLargeFries]

I 100% this whenever I pick up a new job the first thing I do is look for his guides, they are invaluable

[@ArchieGamez]

Weskalber is fkin goat, his guides helped me learn all jobs as a new player. Definitely deserves every single Patreon

[@greggreyes6869]

@@TheIvoryDingo espescially when i was levelling BLM different rotations per expansion lol

[@catherineturner9009]

Maybe I'm biased about Endwalker, but honestly, my grandmother passed shortly after Endwalker released and the underlying theme of "No matter how dark the days become, there is a light. There is hope if you just keep going." And honestly? I really needed that. And Endwalker earned a very special place in my heart because of it.

[@FullMetalEdits]

Thanks for sharing, i love endwalker too

[@DoppelgangerTH]

Nobody died in my family, but I had a period of unemployment back then. Then the winter hit, it was cold and miserable. Endwalker brought me down to the lowest with all the "whats the meaning of life even", but Venat is such a positive mom character with strong sense of conviction it actually gave me hope to continue. To pursue something I felt was so far away. But luck turned and I actually got into employment I'm still in rn.

[@FullMetalEdits]

@@DoppelgangerTH thanks for sharing 🙏

[@DemonLordSparda]

My father died shortly before Endwalker. I wasn't actually that close to him so I had some rather conflicting emotions. Endwalker helped me work through them. It actually helped me figure out what I value in life, and that mourning someone you loved that became someone you disliked is natural.

[@FullMetalEdits]

@@DemonLordSparda can't believe so many people used endwalker as escapism. Thanks for sharing man this really is the best community in gaming

[@syllawblood]

Based Wesker had some really good guides before he took his break. Hope he comes back for DT

[@Jacqli-Rivoli]

I loved Eureka and Bozja personally. There was a lot of standing around and then large bursts of movement, but I enjoyed it because it felt like those pieces of content brought people together. I have many fond memories of ferrying people across Eureka and running to save players who died so they wouldn't lose experience. Many fond memories of everyone in the whole instance talking to one another, having discussions, just memeing, etc. The alliance runs inside Bozja were really fun mechanically as well. Ah good times.

[@DM13972]

Agreed. They weren't perfect, but those zones made the game actually feel like an MMO; in terms of open-world gameplay at least. And the raids were fun as hell to boot.

[@phux]

I miss eureka so much. Truly made this game feel like an mmo. BA was the most fun I’ve had in this game, and I truly love this game, so not being negative, just saying I loved eureka.

[@Kude1707]

Sprite island for when BA runs failed and we all deleveled, Eureka was the only place where it was normal to see naked people running around the game

[@elvangulley3210]

I don't mind them I just don't want relics bound to them.

[@graybust8556]

Is Pazuzu up?

[@juanroman71]

As someone who only started playing at the end of Shadowbringers, I always appreciate ff 14 history lessons. Gives me such an appreciation for the version of the game i came to.

[@ArcaneGE]

Same here everything I hear about old ff14 makes me feel like I came into it at the perfect time

[@Scerttle]

For real. I came in at the end of ShB too and just... I'm glad I put off getting into the game as long as I did. I would have probably written it off if I tried it in ARR or HW.

[@DeusGamez]

you're just in the honeymoon phase atm enjoy it while it lasts the next two expansions will be eye openers an you too will join the chorus of those that have criticisms an complaints etc but sadly its far too late now for any meaningful changes to happen as someone who had played ffxiv for way too long some areas have improved but those things they improved are so minor in the greater picture/scheme of things that its gunna take another 1.0 level calamity for square enix to wake the fuck up and change direction for the better that or they'll just do the scummy thing every other AAA does an just end service or embrace predatory free to play model.

[@Vampireinarm1]

I first started mid heavensward, game made me stop playing from how annoying it was, didn't come back until shadow ringers got announced

[@juanroman71]

@@DeusGamez you sounds as bitter as lynx. I never said I didnt have criticisms or complaints...

[@Salt_Mage]

I remember doing Diadem version 1 and getting a healer robe that was better than Gordias Savage. Three high roll substats including capped Crit and Piety. My FCmates were livid because I had quit raiding.

[@Hugo-MTX96]

lmao

[@Zhombeee]

I’ve always found it odd that with such an influx of players the past few expansion, most of the community seemingly rate the expansions by the quality of the MSQ and any other facets of the past expansions are instantly forgotten. I think OP brings up a really good point of people just parroting hot takes which always have me scratching my head like ‘are y’all new?’

[@Zhombeee]

I also side eye ANYONE who says stormblood was the worst expansion

[@elvangulley3210]

It's the people that want 14 to be wow.

[@candykit5382]

@@user-xl5kd6il6c This is an entire video about why HW was not the peak. As a former MCH main, caster ranged jobs were absolute ass during this period. SB MSQ was a weak point, but the post MSQ and combat encounters are generally leagues better than HW in terms of interesting fight design and job design. Also lol. I see people struggle on fights like golbez, let alone the savages, which are NOT easy. Jobs may be easier, but the fights are not.

[@Zhombeee]

@@user-xl5kd6il6c *side eye intensifies*

[@absollum]

​@@user-xl5kd6il6cI could give you that SB story is bad, but I've heard nothing but praise from older players about SB combat. Every time I hear about HW, it's a good story, awful combat and encounters. I'm really glad I didn't play back then, it sounded miserable. SB seemed to hit the middle ground for most players, not too complex, but not too simple either.

[@theasilverberg4851]

All i’m gonna say is that when they turned bard into a caster, everyone lost their minds but when they turned summoner into a ranged dps, everyone clapped and cheered. We truly live in a society 😢

[@Lacerated_Heart]

Bard was busted even with the change. But I did miss running around n being able to dodge aoes while attacking

[@ashleybricco4107]

It’s called different groups of people who want different things. I, for one, love summoner being very mobile. Being stuck in place is annoying. Also, summoner was always very mobile…

[@thehurricane6767]

I bet paladins in requiescat probably triggers you then

[@theasilverberg4851]

@@ashleybricco4107 what i’m sad about is that you can have the fantasy of infinite mobility while doing dps on other classes but the old summoner fantasy is gone with no replacement wich makes me big sad 😢

[@nodot17]

I didn't clapp when they changed smn

[@kbhalacy]

Ive played the game 9 years and it has its up and downs. I think ppl are blowing this whole "ew is worst expansion" thing out of proportion

[@TheDapperDragon]

Honestly, it's because the entire community is just fucking awful now. People are all so hostile, rude, selfish, and just plain mean. The amount of players I see literally cheering on bullying sprouts is horrifying.

[@yasuke3020]

WeskAlber is goated. On his own wave and thinking on his own. Glad to see it.

[@sleepingparappa]

Man is a certified gem.

[@azatheeverchosen7615]

Yeah no I don't think so lol. The guy revealed in the comments he was just malding over the existence of the Reddit sub r/ffxivdiscussion, and when asked to source claims he pussed out and backpedaled. Also his white knightery resembles about 90% of the nutters on the XIV forums. His thoughts are hardly 'unique' or groundbreaking, every point he has has been thoroughly debunked elsewhere a gajillion times. It really says something about the XIV community that they just *CANNOT* handle criticism of any kind existing on any platform and have a pathologickal need to 'prove it wrong'.

[@KazanaAoi]

49:45 'That type of mentality I think is just so stupid'; Yes, Yes it is. And it's a result of players not really knowing what they actually want coupled with the fact that players GRIND their faces into some parts of the game instead of taking their time and enjoying it. They don't realize how much they enjoy the content because they're grinding their face into it until their face resembles a chunky paste, and then only realize hay wait I kinda liked that AFTER it's no longer there for them to do that. People have no patience, and min-max their time and don't just play to have fun.

[@sethharrison2284]

The diadem story kinda puts into perspective why the devs are so afraid to mess with alternative gearing paths.

[@mrbubbles6468]

New Fans: Why are the devs hesitant on switching things up? Old Fans: They tried that once. Didn’t go well. It was bad. But god we love it.

[@HowlingDoom]

I mean even in concept it's a horrible fucking idea for a game like 14, however I do agree that it does seem like the failures in the past cause them to hesitate with experimenting with new things

[@marioharrer9999]

@@mrbubbles6468 imagine all those FF logs addicts being so mad tht they didn't get the rng loot and they get shit on by some1 who did and tehre is no way they get better numbers bcs math.

[@QuintemTA]

@@mrbubbles6468 Difference between super RNG loot that literally messes with game progresssion and balance, WoW had the same issue with Legion. Some world bosses and such giving BiS items if RNG granted you a high ilvl version. That's not what modern FF players are asking for. They want alternate content that's challenging to also be rewarding. Criterions and the savage Criterions could offer gear rewards. Comparable to savage raid gear, especially because they come out in catch up/follow up patch.

[@mrbubbles6468]

@@QuintemTAwhen they’ve tried doing new stuff it’s not gone so well. Therefore it’s harder to make that content than most players actually realise. Not to mention a lot of EW’s issues stem directly from the actual talent making 16 and Covid. I fully expect going foward we will get better stuff.

[@avrax3497]

My server was a ghost town during the first half of Heavensward, and there wasn't that many people in the first place. People really don't realize how HW almost burried the game again. But to quote Lynx's video about the Downfall of XIV, "because the pixels said sad words", it is heralded as one of the best expansion to date. Yes, the story was top tier. The rest was an unmitigated disaster. You play the story for 40-60 hours. You play the rest for 2 years.

[@soldierorsomething]

Oh hell yeah he REACTED!

[@KakavashaForever]

Everybody I know who played FFXIV quit in heavensward and didn't come back for years. Most didn't ever come back. I hated it, because once I finished the story I just bashed my head against a wall for a short time, then watched everyone around me quit the game before joining them myself.

[@xbree_]

Ohh I’m glad he’s reacting this video. Really enjoyed it.

[@hexxity]

Oh small world we live in! What’s up Bree! These doomsayers must be stopped

[@jimbobuz]

Wesk got me into the game and made it very approachable for me he's awesome

[@axis1247]

Xeno yelling about Dragoon TP just took me so far back

[@patrickoverstreet2372]

On a fundamental level Heavensward was by far the worst expansion, as much as I loved it back in the day and I miss the job complexity it was just fucking awful. I got kicked from a fucking dungeon for playing paladin, a DUNGEON.

[@Nora-rb6tr]

the lack of discord back then, i think, is understated. we used to log in to game to talk to our raiding buddies but nowadays that feels like a weird outdated chore.

[@DarkDyllon]

but remember, discord is not allowed due to being a 3rd party tool (obviously joking)

[@mrbubbles6468]

Discord was out back then. Came out a month before

[@TheDapperDragon]

@@mrbubbles6468 And Skype was out before that.

[@Kiobao]

I was part of the HW raid groups disbanding part. They gave BLM Enochian and Leylines, hated them both and I didn't like SMN so I had an identity crisis trying to find a job I liked plus my raid group struggling with Faust every now and then without getting a consistent clear on him. Our SMN was a kind of SMN that didn't even have raging blows from Archer until later in our raid tier in ARR.

[@ninjakittehx]

As a BLM that didn't get quelling strikes til FCOB (We love taking aggro and getting one shot), I feel your pain from a place of being that SMN, I'm so sorry LMFAO

[@Mann42]

Glad to see you react to this one. WeskAlber is a chad.

[@NightingaleFairy]

As someone who just finished ARR right as Heavensward took off, I went through this whole thing and it's amazing to me having to explain some of this stuff. Like I hear so many ppl who started in Shadowbringers and I just chuckle a little. But I do love this game and I felt weird about how people were just dunking on Endwalker when like yeah, it's FINE. I don't think any of these people would have liked FF14 as much if they had been playing during that stage. I was lucky I had such an active and friendly FC at the time where it made me want to continue playing. Once you started talking about what AST cards used to do, I got war flashback when I first picked it up. It was my first healer and I swear I was scared the whole time to stance dance but my god, did I learn. I don't watch you on twitch but I enjoy your opinions on things lmao so I'm glad you upload to YT so I can put this on in the background and nod my head like some old grandma remembering the old ff14 days XD

[@mrbubbles6468]

There’s a reason it took off really after HW…HW basically walked so everything else could run

[@EmperorSnivy]

I don't see the argument of "Expansion A is fine because Expansion B was really bad" that Wesk is trying to use as logically sound. It's very possible for Endwalker to be a bad expansion regardless of whether Heavensward was worse. Also, the beginning of the video seems meanspirited and is misrepresenting the discourse that's been going on/the people involved, similarly to how Lynx's video did, but Xeno didn't seem to notice. Considering how much he complained about the lynx video (rightfully so), I really hope it's not because Xeno agrees with Wesk's premise more than Lynx's and that he genuinely didn't notice.

[@Zeathian]

This wasn't a video to showcase the real places the Endwalker is lacking, but to dunk on the claim it is the worst. What you're talking about is a completely different argument my guy.

[@Muzangetsu]

As someone who played ninja in HW, I'm still exhausted.

[@saninorochimaru2]

Childcare is an unrewarded job in our society

[@AmenoMagatsu]

My hot take: The community was way better, more tightly knit, more social and just felt less afk than it is these days Likely due to the rise in player base, automation of systems, more roulette or solo activities, and discord This is what people remember when they think of HW/ARR fondly

[@spudbang]

Also a lot less babyism from the community as well

[@avrax3497]

To me that isn't a hot take but the actual truth. People were much more engaged back then. More willing to teach and learn.

[@saleenf5]

Yeah HW balance was horrible but the community dealt with it better. I raided on MNK through HW and hardly ever saw any actual PFs not wanting MNKs despite how bad it was and never had a problem finding groups or statics. This was likely due to the pool of players being so much smaller and forced to be less picky. Hearing these days how a class will be 3% less dps than another and it now being called "griefing" to play is always surprising.

[@Nazuiko]

@@avrax3497 more willing to teach and learn than entire internet communities like the Balance and Overseas casuals plus -several- others if you care to look for them, plus content creators like Caetsu making videos about nuance, rotations, stats etc.? Sure MIzz and Happy had their guides back then too, but was the in-game and surrounding community and resources as openly available back then?

[@mrbubbles6468]

@@avrax3497It wasn’t that people were more willing to learn and teach. They had no choice but to be. Because game was rough. Which is why you can thank all of those same people for complaining till things were changed. People weren’t that way because they wanted to be.

[@jewii3824]

I'm glad y'all revealing the truth about Heavensward. Granted, I quit ff14 in HW back then (not becuz I didnt like raiding or anything. I just stopped playing cause I wasn't interested), but once I came back to play Stormblood, gosh it felt SOOOOOO much better. So much of the goofy shit that made playing the game straight up annoying were gone.

[@DarkDyllon]

yeah, i've quit before in HW aswell, then came back made a new character and stuck through it, was roughly a few months before SB was gonna release. 1 thing that i despised in SB was the TP system, it was used for sprint (draining 100% of what you had and would only give you some seconds depending on howmuch you had) if you had an AST you would basically pray that he/she didn't use the skillspeed buff card, even on PLD i would run out of TP around 4-5 minutes into the fight if the DPS didn't give me goad, the Bard didn't use their TP song or the AST giving me a Spire card, was I happy that in SHB they removed TP outright. although i do miss tank stance/dps stance. i think it hit a sweet spot in SB since it gave the OT something more to do that "just be there as an extra meatshield" , granted it made WAR basically mandatory since they could pull in tank stance without the DPS penalty, but this could've been remedied with all tanks having an unchained like ability in SHB, instead they remove the 1 thing an OT was suppose to do and made it a 2nd meatshield that on occasion take a tankbuster and shortly after swaps back to being in the background.

[@jewii3824]

@@DarkDyllon ya I agree, TP was definitely one of my least favorite things pre-shadow bringer. Good riddance. as for tank stance, I have basically the same opinion of it to any other simplifications. It made jobs more easy to learn for new comers, and lowered the ceiling and increased the floor so that raiding becomes more accessible. So overall I think it's a good thing. On a more personal note tho, I am a competitive person (even when not doing hard core content), and I want to be better than others by understanding the jobs better, knowing the mechanics better, etc. I mained summoner ever since Stormblood, and even though SMN was very punishing to play back then - if you die you basically do no damage moving forward, if you mess up your aether flow, you do no damage moving forward, if your party doesn't wait 60 seconds at the beginning of every wipe, you do no damage moving forward. Basically you needed to be GOOD. A good SMN and a newbie SMN is like heaven and earth, and personally I enjoyed that. I like being superior, lmao! But ya I understand why they changed it.

[@DarkDyllon]

@@jewii3824 summoner is definitely 1 of those points they really messed up on imo. it went from a complicated puzzle but fairly simple once you get it, into "just press glowy button and follow lego blocks" I tried learning SMN in SHB and was bad at it obviously, but when i heard they were reworking SMN i stopped playing it altogether as it's not my main and potentially everything i've learned and likely would've mastered would be gone. I kinda get why tank stance and DPS stance was removed, tanks were alergic to tank stance and Warrior became the #1 main tank at all times due to unchained getting rid of that penalty, granted Agro was a whole different beast back then requiring SE to actually add more agro management tools to other jobs. like most jobs got diversion or lucid dreaming which would cut your enmity in half, then SAM also got the enmity reduction build into third eye (and the heal variant, forgot the name) while white mages definitely needed those tools since using Benny on a tank would instantly shoot that person from 8th to 1st. Hope in Dawntrail they add more complexity to jobs, currently maining WAR and RDM (mostly WAR) and it's easy to play, hope they add some more OGCDs to it so i got more to do than the occasional OGCD usage.

[@jewii3824]

@@DarkDyllon I would appreciate some complexity too, but seeing how they've only dumbed down jobs for 2 patches (5.0 and 6.0), I find it hard to see them change what has been working. I don't know the stats, but my guess is that more ppl started raiding in shadow bringers and in end walker (adjusted for higher number of new players) becuz the jobs are less punishing to play and you don't need to be that good to do decent damage.

[@Steven9567]

i disagree dumbing down the game is going make it boring@@jewii3824

[@jish55]

Endwalker had one of the best stories out of all games i've played, really touching on the emotional weight. If anything, the only reason it's "bad" is because we're waiting on the next major expansion, where every chunk of story that takes place between expansions always sucks and feels like a grind.

[@joshanonline]

gameplay is boring. i quit. story is good but only once. you guys are coping so hard on a game that's only just started to decline. have fun with realizations in a few years. I wonder how many of you will criticize it. we should take names. it's gonna be fun.

[@silvergrove8517]

​@@joshanonlineif you say so man... I swear I will never understand this desire to see others get as jaded about a game as yourself. If I really felt that the game was that far gone off the deep end, I would just move along while carrying the memories of the fun times I had.

[@silvergrove8517]

To be clear, I don't think the game is flawless, far from that. I very much agree with a lot of the gameplay criticism and I definitely think that the game needs a fresher content formula and cycle. From what you said, even if you think that the game "has just began its decline", doesn't that mean that there are opportunities to correct the course and address the issues?

[@polmao]

Xeno is right. Tons of people left during heavensward. It was miserable man... I hope this game never goes back to those times.

[@Kikkia2018]

I’m not sure what all the fuss is about, I don’t want FFXIV to turn into WoW and feel like I must play every day / every week. I’ve been branching out since I found FFXIV, I like to play multiple games at once as hobbies rather than jobs. I guess the option should be available to people who have nothing else to do / don’t want to play any other games, but I’m personally happy with the state of the game. I know it’s not perfect, but I’m chillin’ in Limsa and doing dailies with my friends every so often, and that’s fine with me :) But hey, maybe there should be more to do. I don’t think Squeenix can make everyone happy though. I wish they could, ‘cause I love this community, and I hate to see everyone so madge.

[@Jay-mx5ky]

I definitely can sympathize for that crowd of people, but last year I was introduced to that "log in, do dailies, chat with friends, maybe try maps, log out" kinda group and it made me realize the monotony of that grind. Like, why am I doing dailies and maps? What am I supposed to be working for? To get gear to do what? That doesn't hold my interest personally.

[@kelvinhernandez966]

People say "Critically Acclaimed" but dont understand what that means. To be Critically acclaimed, it to be praised by the critics who reviewed the game. The thing about MMOs when it comes to critics is that they only review the game on the surface level. First 24 hours kinda stuff. Of course ffxiv being a story focused game, all critics played during reviewing was the story which was good. After they finished the story review, they move on to review other games and dont stick around for all the patches and raids. Which seems to be where the issue a lot of players had with Heavensward.

[@ThatOneCloudGuy]

the only reason people think heavensward is good is because they played it with the Shadowbringers QoL at the time. No one would think it's the best expansion when you had to level multiple classes for spells or god forbid the TP bar.

[@theornerytrilobite]

Wesk is the GOAT. Homie's job beginner and Blue Mage guides are just so cleanly made.

[@MrXxsnipesXx]

okay the game dies then i am the only one left to play the new expansion and attend the next fanfest ha ha

[@xxBG06xx]

I've always said that FF fans rate the expansions based on the story element only. This is why they think they want to try HW as it was, in a WOW classic form, but they don't know that most of them would be exposed as trash raiders as you needed to be on point to clear Tier 1. Also, Brute Justice was more of a mini Ultimate for it's time than anything other fight. This one also had low clear rates. Hell, people were hard stuck in A6S (the gauntlet). I remember so many PFs just stuck on this fight for weeks on end. This fight also made friends into enemies. Also, Stormblood was great for content, just the story was "ok" compared to HW story. This is why people say it sucks, only due to the story.

[@victisomega4248]

That’s the thing though, some of us (like myself) who did value MSQ, may not have given a toss about raiding. You want to try and convince me not to go back you only need to utter one acronym. TP 😂

[@TheDapperDragon]

But HW was the absolute worst in the story. Mind, it's still the bottom of XIV, so, a solid 5 or 6, but compared to all the rest?

[@victisomega4248]

@@TheDapperDragon agree to vehemently disagree

[@JPrescottQ]

Very true. I would also piggyback on your statement and add that I think "homogenization" was at its worst in HW. People complain now in EW, but every single melee in HW did the same thing. Put up your resistance debuff, self buff, dot, fill combo, repeat.

[@valleria5]

As a non-raider, I absolutely loved heavensward, I still have the best memories of ffxiv in that expansion.

[@Sceraph]

As a person who played MNK and PLD back in HW... I can still feel the pangs of rejection to this day...

[@soldierorsomething]

It must feel strange since MNK is one of the best DPS jobs in the game right now

[@Asin24]

I basically lost my raid spot for a NIN as a Mnk. Even doing as much damage as a NIN or a little more on a Target Dummy, it doesn't make up for TA and the raid damage it brings.

[@SuguSugux]

@@soldierorsomething back then times were diferent and job balances was also diferent. monk was not good compare to a ninja. monk had NO utility. you dint have brotherhood. thats why everyone prefer a ninja, cause trick attack

[@soldierorsomething]

@@SuguSugux Aah the times before endwalker when you actually had to do the mudra´s to get it, but now you just click it :D

[@Prodigy_Vesper]

What honestly continues to bother the shit out of me, Yosi P literally SAID that the content for Post EW was going to be less content packed BECAUSE Dawntrail was going to be MORE content packed + all the additions to the system and graphics. If you guys can't stand the fact that EW is the end of a saga and it's expected to have little to nothing left to do until we go to new lands, PLUS the fact the developers are even saying themselves they'll be slacking on Post EW to ensure Dawntrail has all the time needed and effort put into it because it's going to be fucking huge, then yall don't deserve to play this game. All people want to do is whine, for once think logically, gather your information, and then speak. P.S before you respond "well why didn't they make sure all of this was settled before so on and so forth" bro, covid happened and threw them way off schedule with Endwalker as is. So of course that fucked up the course of Dawntrail too.

[@TacticianCero]

This guy is being real af, lots of people today have no idea how good they have it and seeing them cry about the most nothing problems are fools.

[@NemesisUmbral]

It’s good to get insight in how HW was back then. As someone who joined in during Shadowbringers I understand that as a new player who has not experienced past expansions one shouldn’t confuse a stories quality with the old state of the game. I think I can understand how HW was terrible, considering I actually chose to farm the DrK relic during ShB. It was certainly a terrible experience for a staple glamour.

[@EmpyreanDreamer]

Man you have no idea. As someone who did this relic for DRK during HW... Damn its smooth sailing these days. The HW relics got nerfed so many times, if I remember correctly the steps got nerfed again during stormblood. Was an absolute nightmare before all that. I found it pretty funny that people complained that endwalker relics are too easy. But the reality is making it hard and then nerfing it later just makes people like me feel bad later if I did it when it was current. They should just make them all easy from the start, the bigger issue is making sure its fun which it most definitely wasn't in ARR or HW.

[@dracodragniel8648]

​@@EmpyreanDreamerRelics were always meant to be the staple for casuals who wanted an equivalent of BiS weapons by not doing savage. I loved doing my HW relic because it gave me something to do as I didnt really raid much back then, for me the endwalker relics are incredibly boring, but to each their own.

[@Ekr3l]

@@EmpyreanDreamer is it fun now?

[@EmpyreanDreamer]

@@dracodragniel8648 It's boring because they put no effort into making it fun. That said it also doesn't need to be a mindless grind to be fun either. If its not going to be fun I'd rather its over quick but thats just me and I still play FFXI so its not like I don't enjoy grind if it's done right.

[@EmpyreanDreamer]

@@Ekr3l Before it was anti-fun. Now its just not fun because they didn't put any effort in. Honestly at this point they should just make the relics a side story quest. If the story is good enough people will be happy and there'll be no need for any crazy grind either. Even better if each quest is job specific. There's already a lot of people who miss the old school job quests. Perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone if you ask me.

[@SakuraShuuichi]

As for crafters the only crafting class that didn't need any cross class abilities was Carpenter, in Heavensward carpenter made the accessories. also mog poms from fishing. only fishable in one location, and noone fished there.

[@kS-ic4rf]

FF has the same problem as wow. Now because everyone is starting to compare how it used to be. Instead of focusing on the how is it right now. Nostalgia is a powerful drug. The things you tend to remember are way better in your memory. Then in reality. It’s how everybody remembers classic wow as this hardcore mmo experience. When in reality everybody was shit at the game and at video games in general. Because it was one of the most popular mmos that attracted a lot of new people to gaming in general. In general don’t look back because you’ll only see the things you want to see.

[@Infectedjohn]

The fact that people are complaining about EW being a "bad expansion" is one of the most moronic things i have heard.

[@NinjaFrog65]

I think the biggest issue that EW is suffering from is that there are people who want very different things from the game. Some players want more hardcore PvE content, and thus want content catering to those experiences. Some players want chill, fun times to do with their friends, and thus want content catering to those experiences. None of these are necessarily wrong things to want, but players of all stripes need to understand that just cause they didn't get EVERYTHING they wanted (cause at the end of the day everyone gets something) that doesn't mean the expansion sucks. My own belief is that the dev team wanted to have 6.X content feel a bit more relaxed, which is how we got stuff like the Variant Dungeons, the Island Sanctuary, and the Hildebrand quests replacing Bozja/Eureka. This is obviously speculation on my own part, but I think it has some merit to it given the tone that the expansion we're leading into seems to be sporting. Also to go the point about players wanting different things, some people just don't want to play FF14 anymore. And that's also fine. But I think demanding the game change to suit your now differing tastes is unrealistic. One of the examples I remember seeing of this was that someone was saying they wished that FF14 was more like a horror game. Which just doesn't seem attainable without massively changing the game (of course there are some horror moments in the game, but those are more story moments and not even main components of said story anyways).

[@KyvannShrike]

Community that got stranded on dead servers when all the raiders left to join other raiders to join gordias has gaslit themselves into thinking that the patch that caused a lot of 14's competitors to jump ship and join 14 has somehow "killed raiding" and I don't even know what to think anymore because when you look at the tiny % dip in 14's playerbase during Gordias and Midas and compare it to Endwalker's freefall it's not even close. But I guess if that's the delusional way that people wanna look at 14. I remember how my circle quit GW2 and SWTOR en masse to join 14 when they heard Gordias was actually a challenge. We get that raiding isn't for everyone, but when you look at your guild that used to do Coils, and see that when demands for the raid went up they all jumped ship to settle with people who actually care about meeting the requirements, and then go "wahh my raid disbanded and joined the other elitists on [insert populated server here], Gordias killed raiding" it's extremely out of touch. It's honestly cope for a jump in difficulty that was frankly needed in 14 and I would even argue frankly that if it weren't for gordias and midas at all the population would have fizzled before Stormblood as the game would not have survived another Coil. Alexander was the raid that showed the raiders in competitor MMO's that FF14 was serious about giving us the content we wanted and that's why we even stuck with this piece of shit game for 8 years. Just because the raiding culture had to restructure itself doesn't mean that the raiding scene was killed, JFC.

[@stickman794]

Ty. This my exact thoughts lol. Say them louder plz

[@mrbubbles6468]

Well yeah. Story was still ongoing in HW and there was a stupidly high influx of people around Endwalker, it’s therefore going to have a bigger drop off especially cause Covid restrictions went away

[@jm7468]

omg i have not heard the name Dervy in so many years absolute legend.

[@mavfin8720]

Really, I liked all of the expansions. Did I like some of them better than others? Yes. Endwalker was not the overall favorite, but it was most definitely was worth the ride, imo. Even in this 'lull' between expansions, XIV is much better than most other options. EDIT: Of course, I built my first char when Stormblood was the 'current expansion' and then I moved on for a while, and didn't come back till EW was there. I picked up at about level 62 in about Oct 2022, and pushed on through. So, yeah, I missed all that part of HW when things were horrible. When I went through HW you were using newer job balance (I played BRD for MSQ), and the raid issues weren't a problem anymore. You can see just about anyone playing anything anymore. That's something that newer games really haven't yet mastered.

[@Taxmt]

My favorite part of what Wesk brought up was the pink gear because it's the problem I have with farming exotic armor in Destiny 2. Random chance for a drop on a random exotic piece with a random stat total with a random stat spread.

[@Vashril]

20:00 I feel this massively, I remember doing Doom Train in SB and reading my logs and seeing two fights, near exact same down to a GCD. One was a 30th percentile and the other was near 80th. The difference? Critting in wildfire windows.

[@Dystinction1]

That sounds awful. Like just miserable.

[@Eisenight]

Heavensward is where you have to log in the post expansion just to get by on how insane and time consuming everything is. Endwalker is where the post expansion you don't actually have to play often or perhaps at all if you're casual till the last update so you can justify the one month sub. They really went places ngl.

[@omegaxtrigun]

@@user-xl5kd6il6cFor you maybe. For me I’ve continually played and enjoyed it plenty.

[@crimsonking7179]

​@user-xl5kd6il6c HW wasn't fun. You're oversimplifying the problems with HW in every thread you commented on. This video went over the many problems HW had, that almost killed the game. Doesn't sound like fun.

[@sorinnoctis652]

Cant wait for this to happen after DawnTrail. People were saying the same thing about shadowbringers until azmon came around.

[@ringthatkill]

People seem to conviniently forget that hapenned when talking shjt lol

[@flaviomolina7165]

ppl were shit talking shb all the way though to the end, ppl were shit talking stormblood when it was current. everyone complains all the time and its hard to pick out th elegit critic because its ALWAYS like this. EW is fine, a bit boring in downtime, but not spectactular, but not a trashheap. fine

[@Slayheim]

Damn, I loved Heavensward lol but I feel the criticism. Raids were insanely difficult

[@dividedbyzero4]

​​​@@user-xl5kd6il6cthe high end content isnt any easier than before now (you put p10s in gordias or midas and everyone will lose their fucking mind even more than pepsiman), it's just the jobs getting easier, a lot of QoLs, and no more week 1 gear gating other than ultimates.

[@mrbubbles6468]

@@user-xl5kd6il6cNo. That’s what people think they are about. There is a reason Wow when it first came out did away with a vast majority of all those issues for the time.

[@rashid2898]

Heavensward hard? WHAT!? Heavensward was a joke the only thing that made it hard was DPS Checks because of TP

[@m0o0ntecrist08]

i cant believe ZEPLAH STARTED THIS LOL

[@DarkKnightofAnime]

So Endwalker has had its failings but for me the worst those failings amount to is: "this is just a bump in the road" then again my perspective on HW is because I kinda joined the game on the cusp of just before all those major overhaul changes happened, practically only a year and a half before 6.0 it’s not like I had a bad impression of the expansion or understand that perspective (although I think some of the changes from 6.0 were unnecessary)

[@peanutbutter625]

This feels like a FFXIV history lesson and I'm all for it.

[@holo_val]

I unironically believe HSW was the worst base MSQ of the game. Unlike every other X.0, HSW is the only one that ends entirely on a cliffhanger that kill a second-hand threat instead of completing a core story arc. The entire premise set up at the dramatic ending of 2.55 is completely disregarded and retconned by HSW, and done in such a way that it constantly interrupts the flow of the base 3.0 story. By the time you end 3.0 you have only recovered a single lost scion (y'shtola) whose sole purpose was being a mcguffin for introducing Matoya. Again and again as a sprout playing through MSQ my first time in 2021 I kept asking myself "how is this story fundamentally better constructed and told than ARR?" I don't believe it is.

[@TheIvoryDingo]

Agreed. Not to mention that the 3.0 story is pretty freaking slow to start (first required duty isn't until Ravana at level 53) and both visits to the Sea of Clouds were kinda pointless.

[@eyriskylt2472]

This was what I've been saying about HW since I played it on release; "Nidhogg literally just possessed Estinien - are we seriously rolling credits now and celebrating right this second??" They could literally have just had Estinien pull the second eye out after the credits rolled to set up the plot hook. Why was the scene put where it is?

[@TheDapperDragon]

3.0's story is also just shit from the start. Why am I just cool with working with the literal grapists who just ordered me to go butcher infants in their cribs?

[@lecrab8090]

My god, I have taken a several month break from this game and I'm just starting to check in again and people are still bickering about what is "real criticism" and what isn't? The game is not fun right now! Endwalker has been sorely lacking. Stop talking about Heavensward, that was then, this is now. That doesn't make Endwalker less mid. Seriously, what is up with the whataboutism? "Endwalker isn't bad because Heavensward was bad!" So stupid.

[@iantaakalla8180]

If anything, it just proves 2.0-4.5 and 5.0-6.0 and 6.1-6.5 are differing tiers. HW, mechanically, is the worst of FFXIV, but I think there is now another problem about FFXIV.

[@candykit5382]

People yelling about eureka and bozja coming back is interesting. I love the content but oh so many people hated the shit out of eureka in particulae. Its almost hilarious how much people claim to miss it.

[@LightSummoner84]

Because there are people who enjoyed this content. Personally, I loved Eureka, and I didn't like Bozja as much due to its poor visuals, but I enjoyed the raids in Bozja.

[@happyhealsgaming7614]

HERE'S the shittiest thing with Aetherial Gear. Wesk said it, but when he says "Lots of Points, or Little points." It was also RNG with HOW MANY points you had in the sub stats. Meaning, if you get a gear, you don't get 50 points of Sub-Stats point randomly allocated to random stats. You had RNG stats with RNG amount of points. So you can easily have a gear that has, for example 10 Crit, 10 Sks and 10 Accuracy, to the same gear dropping, but has 23 Critical only. So you HAD gear, that only gave you LESS than the sub-stats allocated points of a raid gear. It was IDIOTIC.

[@yummygummi1137]

Dude I remember one time doing a12s in pf as bard back in hw, we were waiting for a 4th dps to join for pages-- not even speed runs-- and then come q blm. He did good damage, didnt do anything bad, but the party leader got greedy and asked if hw could swap to mch. The blm was confused, bc we cleared fine, so he said "....why?" and the pf leader and a few others said "mch does so much more and has better phys buffs for us". He didnt want to, so they lost patience and kicked him. Those were rough days where the meta just made even the easiest tier just feel dirty to participate with when it comes at the cost of other jobs/playstyles, and I'm glad modern jobs are well balanced and nowhere as bad as it was in HW.

[@TheFuzzyKiwi3]

This video took me back. Bow mage and gun mage. Deep lore right here.

[@kattyt23]

The raid scene was truly dire, especially because your raiding was locked to ONLY your world.

[@Lacerated_Heart]

God I miss a realm reborn. Doing the coils was amazing. Rafflesia was crazy. Relics were actually viable. Being one of the few people on jenova that beat Nael with a static was awesome. Getting that tank gear was the biggest grind that i loved. Now heavensward made 3 of my statics quit. Living liquid was the bane of my existence. Imagine being stuck on it for 3 months...i went from bard in a realm reborn to heavensward and it was amazing. Sidewinder was broken xD. Ravana was awesome. Going to the raids tho... I ended up having to switch to a tank because people just sucked. Thats where i started learning my opener from xeno and watching your streams. I had plaayed with you in t12 once but i didn't really start watching you alot until i was a war. Then it was man mode all day lol

[@sirnonsense5033]

I guess a lot of it was pretty kick based like finding the right statics and loving a job that was good at the time. So Mayby some have pink glasses on seeing heavensward cuz they had the privilege to have all that.

[@Null_Experis]

FFXIV was so aggressively bad until Stormblood that it caused me to quit EVERY EXPANSION, and I played beta, 1.18/1.18a, 2.2, 3.2, and finally stuck with the game in 4.3 and haven't quit. Anyone saying EW is bad has zero context for how bad this game used to be, and has unrealistic expectations. It could be better, and I hope they DO change the formula, but it's not that bad by any measure. Anyone saying they miss cross class skills, stat melding, accuracy, etc are either lying or stupid.

[@hatakekasai]

oh hell no that crafting discussion I can't, it was too horrible

[@WhiteDragonTC]

the more i hear about the janky mechanics in the older expansions, the happier i am to have (properly) started in Shadowbringers. I did play a bit in Stormblood but i only played to lvl 30, but even then i found the TP System weird.

[@kynesovos8580]

I feel like EW is gonna be considered a phenomenal expansion in the future bc it's not current and anyone playing thru it not dealing with the drought. The relic? Easy and amusing, just play through some whimsical questline & grind tomestones then there you go. Bit of a boring pain as current content, but future wise it's probably gonna be considered the best because of how easy it is like a breath of fresh air. The raids? All relevant to the games universe itself, and that's pretty cool. In hindsight EW is probably going to be considered as good as SHB, just like how we considered HW the best before SHB and some people even still consider HW good because they aren't dealing with how it was at current. Now yeah, this is a big excuse. A game ideally shouldn't feel good in hindsight while it's not current. But to call it garbage and say "FFXIV is over" is intellectually dishonest.

[@rtbear674]

Yea, I think the relic will be godsend for even newer player. If everything is a grind, and they have ARR-endwalker relics + Dawntrail's, for 21 jobs... it'll be hell fast. I think I still have to do delubrum 40 more times for complete shb relics. And to be fair, even if it's just buying with tomestone, There are few stuff fighting for those poetics. Tomestone gear, Heavensward relics, endwalker relics. And they also need to do all manderville quest from ARR to be able to access it.

[@moonhaewon6689]

Final fantasy 14 has a stable influx of content with some new features added in expansions here and there (such as island sanctuary) that goes outside of what you can expect right, alliance raids, dungeons, raids... relics etc although I am unsatisfied with the relic on Endwalker since eureka and bozja are my favorite types of content I believe Endwalker is a fine expansion as well, I started playing on Shadowbringers and I really enjoy having a game that has this stable content coming in that you can pretty much "predict" what is coming and when specially because its not the only game I play.

[@DarkDyllon]

my main issue with Endwalker is that it's way too predictable, even fanfest was predictable, which when something is predictable you can't excite people for it anymore. "new dungeons!" no shit "new alliance raids!" no shit "new savage fights!" yeah ... every expansion, move on. on the topic of relics this expansion, yeah, it's atrocious and i think Xenos is the biggest hypocrit when it comes to this. he always complain that there isn't something to grind or do. then when normally Relics fill this space he is then happy you spend 1500 tomes to get it, making the relic weapon a 2nd tome weapon. for when 6.55 releases in januari, i'll make sure i got 2k tomes and just buy my WAR max relic, make it BiS for everything and then work to RDM and SGE relics.

[@moonhaewon6689]

@@DarkDyllon hmmm I get your point but for me that excites me still because I mostly care about what I'll see on the dungeon, or whatever other content right. I'm excited to go to the new world and see whats there as I was excited to meet the twelve in the latest alliance raid and well as I was excited to see a bit how ascians were back in the day as we saw in elpis. For content I guess I'm excited about what new features will come and what will happen to the present ones, but I understand that its not enough for everybody, for me seeing a game nowadays that its predictable that I'll get this amount of content is nice.

[@bigkaruge]

I remember trying to queue for Alexander and not being able to find anyone for normal

[@LionHeartV2]

Someone needs to send this video to Zepla at the speed of light.

[@ChrisMorray]

Endwalker really is just fine. People say it's the worst expansion... It just didn't have the long-term grinds and didn't waste your time for once. That's the main thing it "lacked", and it's only "lacking" in that regard if you're looking to spend a ton of time. Personally I'm glad we have easy gearing paths, because I can play casually while also still savage/ultimate raiding. People say we get less content in Endwalker: I've seen this criticism for every single expansion so far, and it always ends up with people going "yes we got that content but I don't do that".

[@scorpiowarrior7841]

The thing is some people log into mmos to spend a bunch of time in them and I think that side of the fence should be looked at as well

[@Miketation]

​​​@@scorpiowarrior7841not only that, but if I'm gonna pay for a sub, then there'd better be more than enough content to justify the monthly cost. Having to pay money for an expac plus less than 1 month of content is just not right. There needs to be repeatable content that feels rewarding and gives me a reason to log in every day. Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail offer way more content per month and they're free games!

[@ChrisMorray]

@@scorpiowarrior7841 Well yes, but that's the side that's been looked at for the past 4 expansions.

[@PumpkinHeadLemure]

Always nuts to me when I see people saying Stormblood was the worst expansion... f'n crazy.

[@TheKalazar]

Hey man, as a WoW andy this whole thing has been quite humorous.

[@mrcool9090]

As i commented on the original video, endwalker was probably a very experimental expansion. For us now it seems like they are shotgunning things but i feel like some of those changes will be well regarded when they make an actual legacy, and none of the experements have had the amount of time to have a legacy yet

[@_alreph]

2 minute experiment Aware

[@pyroflare7774]

Simping for yoshi-p won't get you anything for free hope you know

[@mrcool9090]

@@pyroflare7774 good i wasn’t looking for anything free

[@Arkibos]

My buddy and I just left the moon, been loving cutting through the game from fresh start

[@Kitkat5335]

I dislike accuracy and direct hit for different reasons. Accuracy was such that it literally created scenarios where you had to wait longer to properly gear/meld. Direct hit just added another random damage equation that, as Xeno said, can make something either do 30k dmg or way more than that. It was a stat that as such, made other stats in the damage equation take back seat to the point that SE had to come back and change the equation for determination so it didn't lag so far behind in comparison. I don't like having too much random variance in damage projection, and DH added that in as you had your standard attack, your Direct hit attack your critical hit attack then your direct hit critical attack. Then they had to adjust it so that Brd and other buffs to DH adjusted it to do more damage when the buff is on as opposed to just increasing the chance of it. It just seems that DH was both their bandaid fix and at the same time the whole reason why we had to go through various stat adjustments since it has been added, to include adjustments to fights where they 'adjust the HP too high and needed to correct it.'

[@DarkDyllon]

there is literally 0 reason for DH to still exist in the game. most jobs either meld full crit into DH, or meld full crit and then DH, which obviously will then just completely devistate you when you instead of hitting 150k you hit 30-40k. it's such a stupid thing, they started to move slowly torwards the 100% crit/DH on some skills, Midare, Fell Cleave etc. then say this was because of "damage variance" meanwhile a ninja critDH hits for an easy 150k while without 30-40k, which is just stupid, crit dh is basically 3-4 burst phases at that point.

[@eji]

He's not wrong about the HW thing... in ARR I did the entirety of the Coils of Bahamut with a static, as difficult as it was back then, and still came out of it feeling incredibly satisfied because the raids were just that good despite the hiccups. BUT I thought the MSQ story was very vanilla and forgettable. Conversely, the HW story really grabbed me and I thought the story was a massive improvement... but then I never finished the Raids, because they were so frustrating with little payoff, and at a certain point I just noped out. I was also happily a PLD Main in ARR and.... well, let's just say I stopped maining PLD in HW.

[@EvaHoshizora]

I actually hated coils and loved Alexander, it depends on the person. Some people like the mechs of the old, some like the mechs of the new, we can't think "I", we need to think "we", this isn't WoW, this is not a singularity experience based game. They are trying to make it more singular for the WoW refugees, and I hate that. And most people hate it.

[@eji]

@@EvaHoshizora What? What people's own opinions are about the raids have no real bearing on how the devs change the raids from expansion to expansion. What they look at is if there's a noticeable drop-off of people doing or completing raids (which is already a much smaller portion of the general FFXIV population to begin with) and if so, how to remedy it. There was definitely a lot of people leaving the raiding scene during Alexander, for many of the same reasons stated in the video. You might be one of the people that enjoyed having to gear for weeks just to get past that arbitrary 2-3% on the DPS check, but a lot of others didn't, so devs aren't just going to sit and let raiding turn into a ghost town if there are things they think they can tweak to bring people back into it. Did they solve the problem? Definitely not. They seem to still be having a tricky time figuring out what sticks because the raids have been changed up each cycle. But ultimately it unfortunately doesn't matter if you or I or anyone else liked/disliked the raids of old because the devs clearly aren't looking to go back to that; they will keep changing/tuning these things to appeal to what they perceive as the widest group of people possible... which EVERYONE seems to hate, to some degree, lol.

[@DEJ915]

The worst part about crafting and gathering back in the day was you had to spiritbond gear to get materia but it destroyed the gear to spiritbond it so you just recrafted and melded and made stupid items to spiritbond the gear via use over and over and over again. I only got an emergency mission 1 time in diadem and we didn't clear it lol (obviously) so yeah that was a complete garbage system.

[@VitalusEM]

I'm not going to lie, I miss Heavensward because I miss all the Dark Knight buttons. Class was so dope.

[@EvaHoshizora]

I think the issue is that ARR and HW were in a weird conundrom. HW story was amazing, but the Raids were HARD, because they couldn't balance the classes at the time, and now that they balanced them, most players are fucking vile about it, like, Monk, Samurai and Dragoon are all viable for ALL RAIDS for the first time in forever, you don't need to choose between one of them, and the players are mad over that bc they want big numbers, they don't care about balancing. I did the entirety of Alexander as a WHM with a OH AST with the shield set, because we needed the overhealing more than we needed overshielding, but again, I was in Gilgamesh, the raiding server at the time, so it was an entire different story for who was in servers like Behemoth, that is largely RPers. That is something a lot of people don't seem to realize too. Servers make a difference as well, nowadays not so much bc of the data travel, but back then, it was a big deal, if you were in a RP server, you weren't gonna do raiding at all. Gilgamesh was ALWAYS full, so the idea of "the game is dying" is just a surreal commentary to me, because I couldn't even log in some days bc of how full the world was. But I was also one of the first, if not the first, to get the Scatach minion when Dun Scaith came out. AND GOD, EVERYTIME PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT THE NEW 24-MAN, I JUST THINK "Oh, you are crying bc you never did Dun Scaith nor Ivalice. Gotcha."

[@EvaHoshizora]

@@user-xl5kd6il6c way better than having jobs not being viable, no? Or you mean to tell me having jobs not be viable is better than having all classes be balanced?

[@ambystomamexicanum3803]

@@EvaHoshizora I'd argue there would be a difference between "this job is considered less viable because it has less damage output" and "this job is actually unplayable due to fatal flaws in its design that the developers refused to address for 5 years.". Monk didn't have to be gradually gutted of its toys to bring it in line with the other jobs, it just needed an in-house answer to TP while that was a thing, and then the devs to stop doubling down on lengthy cutscene attacks robbing them of GL or make Anatman an actual answer to this problem instead of a meme.

[@EvaHoshizora]

@@ambystomamexicanum3803 there is a buff pause now for Monk, and he's not the only class that suffers from the cutscenes pauses.

[@ambystomamexicanum3803]

@@EvaHoshizora Yes, *now* there is, when if they had done so earlier monk would've crawled out of the "why bother" bin earlier.

[@EvaHoshizora]

@@ambystomamexicanum3803 but my argument is that NOW jobs are balanced and viable, vs BEFORE that sometime they were and sometimes they were not. Edit: Like, I do get some people hate the more cinematic fights, but like, I love them personally, some people hate them, it goes from person to person, that's all.

[@InvictusRed1911]

Having to be in the zone where the raid was and not having PF made Fallguard Float or the follow up zones bustling on reset night. But I do remember being fucking butthurt and almost leaving my FC because no matter what I did they could NOT clear Titan with me tanking as a WAR and I had to end up buying a clear so that I wouldn't leave the FC. (That should've been my cue honestly because we fell apart on T4 and I went to a different group).

[@ZephyrXu]

Finally someone talking sense and actually knows what was it like “back then”. Rather than some people keeps pink glasses the past but complain all th patches

[@ZmanVlog]

I was a BLM during Gordias, and it was hell. The one memory that has stuck has stuck with me; Classes were so unbalanced and the general combat was so unforgiving that I had to constantly switch targets in a1s for both dps AND aggro on top of managing Quelling Strikes and Raging Strikes ON TOP OF the extremely tight rotation. I am (now) proud to say that I was able to clear Gordias as a BLM, but it took everything out of me and I almost immediately stopped playing after that clear. When I came back towards 3.4, I had a PTSD-like reaction to seeing my BLM gear; Legitimately stressed at the instant flashbacks of going days without 1 clear and forcing myself through it despite the stress, and I switched to SMN just to keep playing casually. I will still complain that XIV has become too easy, and that the devs should not be afraid to skill test players in mid-core content (If we ever get any.) But I would still rather have the game we have now over HW any day.

[@Teru91333319]

I gotta say it's been quite amusing/quite a bit of vindication to follow this arc of people shitting on Endwalker, only for those who have been here for a long time to walk it back. I think there are very valid criticisms, especially when it comes to homogenization of jobs and raiding in general (mechanics being shared, tomestones being locked PepeW, etc), but damn, is it refreshing to see people go "No, the game was not better before, and even if it was, the REASON we have what we have now is because there was such uproarious feedback to get it changed to now". I really did feel lowkey gaslighted when I started hearing people wanting a new Bozja. I was so confused as coming in on the coattails of 5.5, Bozja was CONSTANTLY complained about, bemoaned, and generally disregarded because it was so "tedious". Only DR runs were the one exception that people had for it. Only for suddenly in Endwalker, people were pissed we didn't actually have some kind of similar zone. Of course, these are not the same group, but two different groups being vocal. But that just goes to show what Xeno has been talking about time and time again: There's a lot of people that play the game, and what might be for us, might not be good for the game itself, because it's so diverse.

[@Emelenzia]

I feel like this is a poor perspective. Only around 30% of people even do the first savage tier, and only 20% of players actually finish up raiding on "good expansions". Raiders are the minority of players and health of raiding scene has very little to do with a expansion being good or bad. No one cares if that 20% quits the game, it about if the expansion can keep that 80% logging in each day. People are in a bubble and view their tiny raiding community as the entire game when in reality they are just a small fraction. Memory is blurry but in terms of player retention and the casual 80% logging in each day even towards end of the expansion I feel HW and SB was the best. It felt like we had lot of casuals logging in even towards the final patch. Shb I feel like the last patch was kind pretty rough but people were pretty engaged for first few patches. It feels like drop off between ARR and EnW is pretty similar but it does feel like it happened earlier with EnW. I would probably argue if everything wasn't so brand new in ARR it would of probably performed way worse then EnW. I feel like EnW isn't a bad expansion but the issue is FFXIV itterate so little between expansions that with each new expansion there less brand new experiences each time. So while it took a year to experience all the casual content of ARR, For EnW you pretty much got 90% of the experience of the expansion within a month.

[@madsonmadgod]

I started raiding in HW as PLD and it changed me forever... i havent touched raiding since

[@kahome]

when i saw chat typed wow expansion was worse lol

[@JJJ42069]

The saddest thing is I’ve heard people say wow is in its best state atm 😂

[@Demi44]

I just think in my opinon that Endwalker was one of the best expansions of a rpg i played

[@DJ_Treu]

HW is to FF14 as WOTLK is to WoW - It is the fan fav but its issues that are glaring and blatant are hidden behind nostalgia and rose coloured goggles. (wrath was the start of required farms in WoW for context) ALSO - WOD was critically acclaimed when it came out for WoW and we all know how that went- That title means its special/well known it does not mean "the best".

[@JJJ42069]

Rep grinds and attunements were in WoW since Vanilla, Wrath did not start that.

[@DJ_Treu]

@@JJJ42069 The rep was never required in wrath. It was in TBC. The grind was the daily checks and Heroic marks that dropped BiS but took weeks to achieve and were not tied to raid content unlike past iterations of the game. Its part of why a lot of us stopped Wrath. Their H+ system works but its not for me.

[@Hirome_Satou]

Anyone that says Endwalker's story is bad is crazy.

[@pedroscoponi4905]

It's good to remember that when we say "critically acclaimed", the "critically" here pertains to critics, in other words, reviewers and game journalists. Those people are _busy_ (and often underpaid) - they would absolutely, 100% judge the quality of the product mostly based on what the MSQ offered. That's not a _worthless_ review but it's not very representative of the experience of someone who's going to play it like an MMO, for months or maybe years on end.

[@crowevil4658]

You know what I’m going to say… if this game was dying, then this perpetual queue to log in would go away AND more houses would become available.

[@soldierorsomething]

There are plenty of house available right now, better get one before DAWNTRAIL, since during ENDWALKER it was damn impossible

[@crowevil4658]

@@soldierorsomething I have a large. Lol

[@soldierorsomething]

@@crowevil4658 Oh you lucky bastard, recently some large houses have opened up and everyone that has GIL, wants them, for a house costing 50 000 000gil, there are over 200 participants trying to get it!

[@Dhalin]

@5:50 I came into Heavensward MSQ about halfway through its expansion, and... to be honest, I was never a person who cared about the "health of the community" or "how many people play it". I thought the story was awesome, and I didn't give a rat's behind about raiding. Heck, I did my first Alliance Raid in Shadowbringers, lol. I did my first Normal Raid in late Stormblood, starting with Omega. EDIT: @6:45 Eh, I'm replaying the story now, and I'm almost through Heavensward on this new alt, and there's still some magic there, because a lot of the story is fuzzy in my mind. There is value to re-experiencing a story some years down the line.

[@navi2710]

This is typical FFXIV community. Criticism met with what about this or what about that and if you don't like it don't play the game.

[@yogoholic36]

For me HW will always be the peak because what I value the most is how fun the rotations were. Also fire 4 was a tactical nuke. The fact that it had a longer cast bar meant it got to do so much more damage per hit. It was like casting 4 despairs every astral cycle. Enochian felt bad in the overworld and dungeons, but it was fine in raids. It was like a metronome to help keep pace with where you were in your rotation and it forced you to choose which spells to use and what to drop if you weren't able to keep casting

[@jellydamgood]

I'm still mad I lost butcher's block and power slash animations.

[@liftea7304]

I wish people would have had this energy regarding field operation content in Stormblood and Shadowbringers because a certain part in the community did their best to constantly hate on it. Please don't let the same thing happen with variant and criterion dungeons.

[@FloDaddelt]

I had 3 statics break on A3S and I was already not able to find tanks back then because there was no party finder nor cross server recruiting. So I gave up and stopped playing. The only reason I started playing again is because I stayed in touch with friends from the game, these players convinced me to join them on EU Fanfest in 2017 which got me hyped for the game again so I resubbed 2 weeks before Stormblood early access. Also to realize how low pop and low hype the game was back then, EU Fanfest did not sell out, there were shitton of empty seats. I bought my ticket very late with no issues. Guess it'll be my last Fanfest though since we have lottery now :(

[@andrewclear8905]

You are correct about people hating stuff when it is present, and when it is gone they want it back. A good case in point is a lot of WoW people who complained about borrowed power. Now that there isn't any borrowed power systems in the current expac, they are asking for it to return.... As for Eureka, I loved it then, and still do now. It is my favorite content in the game, by far. But, I was a long time FFXI player, so maybe that is why it resonates so much with me.

[@JPrescottQ]

I don't think thats really true about borrowed power in WoW. I think its more accurate to say that players want something to fill in the content gaps that AP grinds left behind. The problem with reliance on borrowed power systems is that when they were removed, players found very few evergreen systems that could occupy their time in the same way.

[@Grebeny]

Gosh, so many things hit me here. I often complain about things they changed and I miss, but I forgot (probably my brain intentionally deleted them) so much of the old crap that nobody misses... Just when this guy said TP I got insta PTSD. I complain a lot in modern days how many people don't read tool tips and just go with what balance tell them to do, without understanding their rotation. But back in the days, we had no balance, no DPS meter (at least me, because I am console player) and you needed to spend hours to figure out your rotation WITHOUT DUMMY because they were introduced later. Because it is easy to read and figure it out, but TP was such a pain in the arse to deal with... Tanking was not that bad as Xeno said. I mean, it was for speed kill, but if you don't go for speed kill, they were fine, except they often forget to go back at tank stance on time, that was annoying. Pepsi guy was a fun battle, and hard one at the time. I can't even talk about some of the Alexander battles, they were painful. I noticed that a lot of new players go around "Endwalker" have hardest boss tiers of all expansions. And I just can't explain them how harder older battles were, because even when you go back there at MIL you just don't have TP, positionals that break your rotation on fail, animation locks on a lot of the skills (strange for new players, but I kind of miss those, I loved to position and even delay some skills from time to time to avoid getting punched in the face). With so simplified rotations as they are now and main difficulty set around DPS, this game is way easier from anything we ever had... But I guess this is new player/veteran issue. I am sure new players have DPS issues on the content, but if you play the game for 10 years (you survived all the crap they did back in the days) and you still can't hold a rotation during "move to the left", you are just bad at the game.