>>725553856
>now suddenly
I always said I preferred SB over everything that came after it. SHB messed up a bunch of jobs and as the expansion went on, you could tell they started lowering the amount of effort put into content. Storywise yeah, 5.0 is probably the best XIV has been in a vacuum, but everything immediately falls off a cliff starting in 5.1. The nuance of 3.X having three intertwined plots that all start at 3.1 is something XIV has never managed to redo, or even attempt for that matter. Instead we just get a bunch of filler until JP fanfest where suddenly they can reveal where we are going next expansion.

Meanwhile, ARR and HW were not scared at all to basically point out we were going deeper into Coerthas or Gyr Abania. Othard was a "surprise" but they spent 2.X establishing that region with the refugees so it's not like it came outta nowhere either.