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Might be an unpopular opinion but if they make a relic similar to shadowbringers or storm blood I’m just not doing it. The replay ability of bozja and eureka is absolute trash tier and the relic shouldn’t be locked behind something with no replayability
I loved 6.0's story, not so much the following patches, but not because I felt they were boring. I looove Zero and I actually felt pretty emotional during some of her dialogue, but I had no emotional ties to Azdaja and trying to save her just felt "meh" to me. I'm really feeling the lack of exploration zones since I always do those while waiting for the new expac, and now we don't have that. I'm still not max rank on my island because it's so boring, but maybe I'll grind it out for the mounts and gear. :/
As my first full expansion, I enjoyed it. I do have similar complaints to some with content being a bit unfulfilling. Definitely missed having field operations like Bozja/Eureka.
However I think the strengths that EW should be remembered for is making pvp actually something I go out of my way to do, and massively sprucing up ARR dungeons and making the end of that story really fun. Obviously doesn't effect endgame players but seeing people get through it for the first time, thinking Rhitatyn was really cool, and enjoying Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium rather than being thrust into weirdly structured 8 man dungeons is just really nice to see.
Endwalker taught me that it's important to voice your opinion if you like something even if it's the unpopular opinion at that time. We lost Bozja and Eureka style content because of a vocal minority of terminally online people that constantly whines…
I hope people start to give way more pushback in Dawntrail towards doomers so this doesn't happen again because it really hurt the game. I don't want to see this happening ever again just because field operation content doesn't meet certain people's hyperspecific needs.
I loved the story for 6.0. Thats basically all the praise i can give really. I just hope Dawntrail is better in the after release support because that really killed EW for me. I basically logged in for 1-2 weeks and then waited for any new update.
I really liked the EW story and really disliked the patch quests. (For full transparency I was in the middle of HW when Endwalker was released so I don't know what it used to be like "back in the day" waiting for patch quests but it can't have been as bad as this.) I will say I found it interesting that both Endwalker and GW2-End of Dragons ended their decade-long stories by solving their problems the same way which wasn't super elegant and my only complaint for the MSQ but it is what it is. IIRC someone at SE said that they could've extended the story over two expansions and I think it would've been better if they did but what we got was still good. However, the patch quests being a mix of trial quests (which I only did now for Tataru's sake) and FFIV fanfic (haven't played) all set in the void (ugh) without Leofard to drag us through it was a slog and a half. It was also very anticlimatic to end Endwalker on a promise to go to Ishgard with catboy to comically checking up on Estinien so he doesn't get scammed to having our fun treasure hunting outing hijacked by Y'shtola researching her rift travels and becoming her assistant and babysitting Zero while sightseeing. We got the new adventurer outfit and everything…
Minor hot take from me but I also feel the music in the MSQ can be improved. Like boss battles and so on are amazing but for the greater part of the story it's just different renditions of Flow. Or when some character pop into frame and they play that characters song for 10 seconds to really hammer it in. I would just like some less leitmotif-y music. (The power of a leitmotif is when it comes at the right moment, not all the time.) I also miss that the major cities have their own themes, for example the Limsa day/night themes are some of the best music in the game and when you hear it it's just Limsa, Sharlayan and Radz in comparison are "the endwalker cities" and even if they have their own styles going there is an audible reminder which expansion's content you're in. But the game as a whole is very formulaic and I guess it makes sense the music will also be and a lot of people seem to like it and not mind that it's the same tune over and over again because it's memorable so it might be a me problem. shrug
I like the revamped PVP jobs and crystalline conflict, but I hope in the future they balance the jobs a bit more for the other game modes, as it is some jobs have a definite advantage in FL/RW. I love the unique limit breaks for jobs!
I liked Island sanctuary at the start but I feel like they added too many levels, it added new things but nothing new to the gameplay so it became a bit grindy and boring and I still haven't finished it now. Same with variant dungeons, the first one was a lot of fun to solve but it became very apparent that the next two followed the same pattern, it would be nice with some more ehem variety.
I liked the tomestone relics but I'm also still catching up on Bozja so I get that people think it's incredibly boring, I would probably think that too. I'm just waiting for the non-glowy version of my stabbers then I'm set.
Bozja is terrible. No idea why anyone runs it.
I overall loved this expansion. I have to admit that the feeling of the post story was a bit slow paced but overall love the expansion. I'm not upset they did tomestone only grind with the relic weapons nor am I upset they didn't give us an exploration zone. They took on a bunch of new things this expansion with the Data Center travel. The housing system rework. Then Island Sanctuary and Variant dungeons even though they were a bit of a flop. I commend them for trying new things. Hopefully they learned from what the players did like and overall didn't like. I am pumped for Dawntrail.
Good review, I overall agree with your positives/negatives about the expansion. Some things were done because of what they decided before the expansion was released (probably) like no field operation. Just having one and the relics tied to it solves 2 problems with 1 stone, missed opportunity. I think the ults were really really really good, DSR was hated until TOP came out so I take overly negative statements about that with a big pinch of salt, honestly. Both are good ults which like tea will stand the test of time. Var/Crit dungeons have a lot of potential but it really needs more reasons/rewards to encourage replayability.
MSQ-wise honestly the presentation of Elpis severely damaged my enjoyment of the overall story. My own interpretation is that Venat only became Hydaelyn because the WoL went back to the past, told her about the future, and then she escaped getting memory holed by Hermes so she could go on to challenge the Zodiark orthodoxy. That really bothered me, the WoL was allowed to influence way too much of what should have been an extended Echo flashblack. I also didn't like what it did with Emet Selch's character, it changed him from a compelling villain with a strong conviction to return to his people's halcyon days to merely having had a tragic misunderstanding due to the aforementioned memory hole that caused him to go down the wrong path.
As someone who subs for one month every patch, I loved Endwalker. I didn't even feel the lack of exploration zone, since I hadn't done Eureka before.
Few things i would do differently, add relic zone, and make island sanctuary more like the sky pirate island from havensward, in other words smaller and more customizable. Like now we have a big empty island that u can't even customize. spoiler: i wish some character from the patches 6.X stayed as a scion! The major problem with EW there is no good grind content for rewards & the rewards are hit or miss. but it's a 7/10
Good thoughts, agree with a lot of this
STORY WAS GOOD BUT MMO CONTENT BAD. STILL NO REASON TO RUN DUNGEONS AFTER DOING IT FIRST TIME FOR PATCH STORY, NO REASON TO RUN VARIANT AFTER MOUNT, NO REASON TO RUN CRITERION OR SAVAGE VARIANT AT ALL, NO MOTIVATION TO DO SAVAGE WITH DEAD PARTY FINDER ON PRIMAL AND WEEKLY LOCKOUT BEING TOO LONG, DOGSHIT GOD AWFUL TOMESTONE RELICS AND THE INSUFFERABLE TIME GATING TOME CAP. YES THE STORY WAS GOOD BUT GOD DAMN I HAVE PUT THOUSANDS OF HOURS INTO OTHER GAMES THIS EXPANSION THATS JUST HOW I'M FEELING INBETWEEN PVP BEING TRASH, NOT BEING ABLE TO QUEUE FOR CC TOGETHER WITH FRIENDS, AND NOT FEELING THE PVE STUFF. I DON'T WANNA PLAY ALL DAY EVERY DAY, BUT I DO WANT TO PLAY THE FKN GAME. THE GEARING IS SO BORING MAN WEEKLY TIMEGATED GARBAGE I AM ENJOYING POE AND TARKOV WHERE I GET AS MUCH LOOT AND PROGRESSION AS I WANT OR AM ABLE TO MAKE. I LOVED MY INITIAL FF STORY EXPERIENCE BUT I AM NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR GLAM AND MOUNT AND TITLE FARM GAME, I NEED LOOT AND ITEMIZATION AND GOOD GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS.
I will say, I loved Endwalker, as a newer player, and my only gripe was not really buying into Zero at first, but after a few patches, I definitely warmed to her. Seeing the call back to her curry was hilarious too.
I liked Endwalker a lot. The base MSQ was great and all the dungeons and trials were just amazing.
The stable content was great with Panaemonium and Myths probably being my favorite raid series since both had fun fights, amazing musics and visuals, and strong stories. Haven't given Savage for Pand a try yet due to lingering hated of Edenverse (specifically the dumpster fire that was Shiva) so I cannot judge those, but might try getting back into it before next expansion. Also liked the Void story. Its a solid middle ground between not as good as Stormblood and Shadowbringer patch story but better then ARR and Heavensward patch story, though its only slighty above Heavensward, and the trials/dungeons were all fun.
This expansion seems a lot like Stormblood when it came to experimenting with content. Experimented with a lot of new content that came out mid but can be refined in the next expansion (ex. Eureka was terribly designed but then Bozja came out and improved most of the issues and made the field operations content actually seem like a fun idea, so hopefully varient and santuary follow the same trend in Dawntrail).
That and I will always love the massive rework and overhaul they did to old dungeons, even the ones with barely any changes except for a few bosses. MSQ roulette is so much better now and the update to old dungeons just made them all more enjoyable in general (Copperbell is actually fun now).
That and the PvP rework was great at improving the gameplay and maps of PvP. Shame that the actual people playing PvP being dumb then rocks is still the biggest issue but nothing the dev team can do will fix that.
MMO content is bad. Endwalker showed how overly stale the content cycle is. If Dawntrail is the same I'll give it a month then probably drop the game. If I wanted to play a single player game, I would play any one of the thousands of single player games that don't cost $15 a month. I've gotten more fun cooperative content out of playing 3 days worth of Palworld than I've gotten out of the entirety of Endwalker.
… all that being said I can appreciate the changes they made for newer players with duty support, extending free trial, and announcing Xbox release. Its just for someone who isn't a Week 1 Ultimate raider this expac, but isn't quite a new player or Limsa Mare Gamer either it has been pretty painful for me personally.
post endwalker was me just being like "let them cook". have some trailing ends to tie up while also bringing a nice sequence of events to ahead. FF4 stuff was great. The last thing that needs to be tied up is Ysh being able to figure out a way to get back to the first shard.
I enjoyed the 6.0 story, but I couldn't bring myself to care about the patch story, so much so I've already forgot the majority of what happens in it. After a cosmic level threat like the final days they really needed to lower the stakes down to the personal level, reconnecting with Eorzea and it's peoples, with Dawntrail being the start of the ramp up. After finishing the hydaelyn – zodiark saga with a cosmic level threat and going straight into a lower stakes, world ending threat makes it feel less impactful. It needed that slower paced, low stakes story to make it hit home, similar to how musicians will cut the music for a few seconds towards the end of high tempo songs to make the final part feel more impactful.
Why do you think there is such a reward issue with this game? Seems like so many cool features have been added that get sort of hamstrung by lame rewards.
My lady and I just started Endwalker a few days ago.
First dungeon was fun (Tower). I'll watch this one when we're done 😛
I know I'm the odd man out, but I hope (pointlessly) that they don't tie the next Relic to the new Eureka/Bozja. I absolutely loathe that content, only going through it for the story (and I'm still trying to slog my way through Eureka), and I can guarantee that if it is tied to that content, then I simply won't get it. Normally I'm fine with not doing content I don't enjoy, but when a BiS weapon is attached to it, it aggravates me.
I'm also perfectly fine with the difficulty of the Alliance Raid. Easy content is supposed to be easy. Let it be easy. I enjoy going into any of MotR- I'd much rather queue into them than any other Alliance Raid- by far.
Otherwise, I generally agree with you. At least on the things I have an opinion of.
my list Shadowbringers, heavensward , endwalker, ARR,Storm blood though storm blood raids were on point imop
I don't have another on-content expansion for comparison since I started playing in EW, but I've been pretty satisfied. The story didn't impress me as much as shadowbringers at first, but the more I think back on it the more I like it. What really defines the expansion for me though is the duty support dungeon reworks – it's not super flashy or replay-able, but I have a few friends who've picked up the game more recently and the arr experience is so much smoother because of it.
Fashion accessories surprised me with how much I like them, before they could persist in combat and between mount rides I had no interest, but now I regularly swap between them for diferent outfits and am looking to collect more – it's even getting me back into variant dungeons that I already got the mount from.
I'm curious if neurodivergent people resonated more or less than neurotypical folks. I found Zero at the very least a perfectly acceptable character. Not my favourite, but I'd be happy to have her return in 7.x or 8.0.
while the patch content for endwalker had some issues, notably doing away with the relic grind and no exploration zone, there was also some nice additions such as the variant dungeons and island sanctuary. and while the patch storyline for endwalker had some problems due it being disconnected from what comes before or after the initial 6.0 storyline is the best that the game had ever had. I still think shadowbringers is the best expansion overall but endwalker was still a solid experience.