I was still leveling through ARR when HW released. I'll never forget trying to do quests in Costa De Sol for MSQ while approximately *everyone* else in the game farmed fates to level DRK, AST, and MCH to use in 3.0. The game had been super dead in the months I was playing, I'd never seen that many people playing before!
Aether currents were also the reward from the last quest in a zone's questline, and this was before the plus quest sign existed, so players essentially had to do all of the quests in every zone to unlock flying since you had no idea which quests would lead to the questlines that had the currents. Later on it was changed so that the first quest in the questline had the aether current. I have fond memories from Heavensward's early access period. The first thing I did was unlock Machinist and reload and quick reload were absolutely broken. They didn't just remove the cast bar from gauss barrel, they removed the cast bar from EVERYTHING. That included teleports and mounting etc. It was fixed by the end of the weekend, but I had fun with it for those couple of days. Oh yes, and we can't forget Skybear. May he forever float in our hearts even though he floated for only a short while in Coerthas West Highlands. I also remeber the time when expert roulette was Alwaysreap and Neverfractal.
Wasn't the last zone's flying quest all MSQ, even on launch? I distinctly remember a main story quest finishing and you are already in the air, even though you couldn't fly before finishing said quest. It was right before the dungeon.
@@encapturer I think they're talking about Feature Quests (blue quests). Like how some of the aether currents are behind zone quests that aren't the MSQ, but it's usually the first quest in that series that gives the aether current. It sounds like they're saying that it used to be the last quest, and that the Feature Quest icon didn't used to be there, so there was no way of telling which quest would give an aether current, until you got to the last one.
@@KlaelDemon That's exactly what I'm saying, thanks for elaborating. I've never even known the blue quests are officially called feature quests, learned something new I guess. But @encapturer is correct too, that Azys Lla is the one zone that had all of its aether currents always in the MSQ.
Ah yes, HW. I had been to a fair few expansions myself in older MMO's but for the majority of my FC it was their first expansion for an MMO so it was really quite exciting seeing them explore what a new expansion could bring. Heading into the Sea of Clouds with a few of them right out of the gate, killing FATE upon FATE, working through the start of the story then IMMEDIATELY getting sidetracked to search for the aether currents and wondering why the hell a lot of them were on floating islands leagues above where we were standing (not knowing the zone was effectively split in two at that point)... Then moving onto the Western Highlands and tracking down all the aether currents there, as well as doing the first dungeon - Dusk Vigil. The aether currents back then were also a LOT harder to find before they put them in easier-to-reach places, as well as not knowing which side quest chains had aether currents at the end of them due to no unique quest markers (and yes, the END of a quest chain - you had to work through an entire chain to see if it contained an aether current or not. Not that that was a bad thing; the stories were great). Then moving onto the Forelands and trying to tackle that giant bloody turtle of a FATE at level 53-odd; sending wave after wave of bodies at it and FINALLY bringing it down just before it timed out (the same happened to me in Stormblood when the S rank of the Azim Steppe spawned on the first day and we sent wave after wave of bodies at THAT for hours on end to bring it down). Heavensward was just a magical time; the community was different back then so, if you returned to it with a classic server, you just wouldn't capture that magic. The atmosphere was a circumstance of that time. Also, I still hold out very faint hope we'll get Corsair or Chemist at some point (as they revealed DRK then said there was a healer class and a gun class left to reveal, so people thought that the healer class would use a gun and be Chemist, or that the DPS would be Corsair due to the Corsair icon in the Coral Tower in Limsa). I also didn't mind the casting time BRD/MCH; then again, I've enjoyed all the iterations of the ranged physical Jobs (except the most recent BRD iteration as they've just completely removed DOT's from doing much of anything for anyone. We really need a DOT-centric Job again).
Really appreciate these. Joined mid SHB, so, no idea how HW was received at launch. Of course, the MSQ of HW remains at the top of the list though.. the characters, etc. so compelling. Thank you Mr Happy! great video!
Dude, I remember the hype like it was yesterday-I’ve been a loyal subscriber since a week after 2.0 launched. Even though everyone pretty much knew that Ishgard would be the focus of the 1st expac, the reveal had us all in tears. And once we got to play, we knew that we had something special. I still have my HW banner that came w the preorder, as well as my original PS3 launch disc.
I know you don't like this kind of comment, but you can already see the results of your training regiment as you're looking so much better and slimmer in the face, man. Hope you're well, and I appreciate these retrospectives. Takes me back to a different time...
I can't imagine how much bigger the zones will be in 7.0 without the constraints of the PS4. Considering HW was made to work on PS3 and how well those zones were made.
@@ikeaira8701 please don't fix that my pc runs this game fine but can't run d4 lol and I really don't want to spend 1200 on a new pc just to play a game i'm already paying for
If 7.0 comes to PS4, that would be fantastic, but with the rumored talk for upgraded models and engine upgrades, I think PS4 would struggle in certain situations. But hey, we won't know for sure until it's "officially announced". I guess I should have been more clear in my original post. My bad.
I will note that there was something similar to the "mysterious ship" in Endwalker. There's a light that shows up in the final zone, that people didn't know what it was about. People were investigating exactly what caused it to show up for certain people, and figured out it was tied to finishing one of the optional dungeons - which people guessed to be (and were proven right in guessing) connected to the gatherer tribe for Endwalker.
I remember doing new players guide for Heavenward, even got mentioned on this channel at one point. Reason i did it was because somethings like the jobs weren't as streamlined like today and I didn't see anyone doing a guide at the time.
What a weird design decision to have MCH and BRD casting animation NOT be them looking like they’re aiming at their target. It’s a strange gripe but it still bothers me to this day whenever im reminded of it.
I LOVED finding the Aether currents in HW. Reminded me of Chocobo Hot and Cold from IX. I never did Alexander Savage but I remember people meming on Faust being the stuff of nightmares. My favorite memory of HW launch was in Coerthas Western Highlands: there was a polar bear stuck in the sky at launch that amassed a significant following, spawning the Cult of the Skybear. People were shout chatting in Foundation proselytizing for his holiness, the Skybear. He got fixed on the first patch and we all missed him & hoped for a NM or mount of Skybear to be added later. Sadly he's been forgotten by all but the most dedicated of his followers. May you walk in the Fur of the Skybear.
I was in a group that disbanded to Pepsiman and everything you said about losing friends is true. I have a lot of mixed feelings when I look back on Heavensward and I enjoyed this retrospective a lot, it's nice remembering what it was like playing around then and recalling some of the things I had completely forgotten about.
Shadowbringgers and Endwalker have far better stories and we’re much better put together expansions, but my heart still puts Hevansward at top. It was my first ever expansion and I loved that time in my life, it’s pure nostalgia and I am aware of it. I loved that because it was new and people were not yet used to the formula. I saw some amazing shenanigans. One of the most memorable was people who had skipped all the cutscenes and rushed ahead, were coming back and flying on their Midgarsorm in West Coerthas. I remember the chat log FILLED with people asking how you got the mount. The little jokesters said you had to kill 100 of every dragon in every HW map, spoiler that’s a lot of dragons. This caused people to ignore the MSQ and try and spend hours killing dragons only to find it was an MSQ mount. It was hilarious and something you don’t get now as info is very easy to get and the expansion formula is well known
There are many many things the devs have changed, removed, or over-simplified that I look back upon and lament.. But MCH and BRD being casters will neeeeever be one of them!
Heavensward holds such a special place to me. It certainly wasn’t perfect (Gordias, 3.1) but there was a lot to love about HW Though it took a bit to get used to I actually loved the complexity of some of the jobs and miss that almost all of it has been completely lost over the years. Though i think Stormblood had the perfect balance between skill ceiling and skill floor. Now I won’t deny there was some issues with the jobs back then. PLD and MNK (which happen to be 2 of my favourites) being more or less dead jobs (PLD more so than MNK) for the whole expansion was a big issue.
i remember starting arr a couple of weeks prior to hw release, i didn't even know there was an expansion coming. Was very surprised to hear there was one and then put extra effort in to complete arr to be ready for launch. Made it by like 2 days.
It really was an different time back then, I remember the emotions in my static back then going through A3S, lots of toxicity and arguments to the point everyone almost quit but a few of us persevered and rebuilt as a new group to clear the tier months later after 3.1 released.
I remember that raid series. I never did it because I knew that I didn't have the skill for savage but man it was crazy watching people fight Living Liquid and just die.
One thing I remember that if someone said Expert Roulette had other dungeons than Neverreap I would think they were lying as in my experience there was only Neverreap. Thanks to this and other things mentioned in the video I got so traumatized that I will never do Level 50/60/70/80 Roulette because there is a chance Neverreap will appear
Damn. Imagine having a static prep for progging on normal difficulty only to be broken apart by the savage version 2 weeks later. I've heard of the horror stories raiding in the HW days, but I had no idea it was THAT bad.
I still remember the bad taste in my mouth from the heavansward endgame raids as a Machinist main from the start of the expansion I was kicked off statics or never allowed to join just because how bad people thought the job was.
Oh yes i was a proud one who beat jiggly butt before the nerf, the biggest achievement i had in this game, and i dont even raid anymore now😂 But yea then my group got destroyed in a4s and we kinda never the same again, now u mentioning it...
Not sure if you mentioned this (if you did, I'm sorry!) In regards to the raid section - this was also when the party finder wasn't datacenter wide iirc and parties/statics were restricted to the people on your server only and that led to... many more problems. People FLOCKED to "raid servers" (I think this was Gilgamesh back then?) in the hopes of finding people that could clear the fights. We definitely had datacenter PF by Stormblood raids... but it was definitely not there for Midas - I think this issue was exacerbated by that tier in particular. When did they start marking servers as congested?
My old fc back then used to called Nevereap as Foreverweep cause we always got it in roulette. It was just crazy having to deal with the environment being an obstacle while the mobs are trying to kill you too. Sometimes we got cornered with tornadoes hitting us one after the other. Funtimes. Lol
The other problem of Netherreap wasnt so much that it was bad on its own (it really was the dumb interaction mechanics), but it also was the victim of the "these 2 same dungeons in the expert pool for an extra long time because there is a raid release patch, so there is even more months of this same semi-shitty dungeon", a problem that exists to this day. And yes the templesleves were 10 units, but it was also a group activity, so it was in theory something for you+buddy (Maybe with chocobs) could go and do, and get some loot out of them. If the amber rewards were better, it in theory could have been a viable group activity that wasnt as rigid as running a dungeon with a blue+green+red+red. I like to believe this dev work was allocated to the treasure hunts and we got the treasure portals instead.
Ah I remember how badly the exp rates were from hw FATES up through churning mists. Many players would instead farm in Northern Thanalan till around lvl 54
I was still a little baby somewhere in my level 30s when Heavensward came out. I remember being confused by the sudden inundation of Au Ra players and new jobs.
I think I bought Heavensward when Midas was out, so 3.2...feel like they managed to get their stuff at least a little bit together by then, but of course I was completely ignorant to all of that at the time. It's kinda crazy, I sometimes forget I'm basically a casual veteran. xD Here's to another 7 or so years, eh.
I remember hearing all of the hype surrounding the main story of Heavensward as I was making my way through post-ARR more than a year ago and when I ended up finishing 3.0, I enjoyed the story enough to actually purchase the game and get out of the free trial. But now that I'm looking back... I think that 3.0's MSQ suffered a good amount of "hype backlash" for me that ultimately make me regard it as my least favourite of the base expansion MSQ's (yes, lower than both ARR and StB). While I won't deny that it has some really good moments and is an overall improvement in writing compared to ARR, 3.0 has some aspects to it that ultimately soured my opinion (the scenes showing the aftermath of the Bloody Banquet not only felt like pace breakers of the more interesting story, but also stumbled in landing the really good setpiece of the Banquet; Thordan and the Heaven's Ward are STILL the main villains I consider the most boring in the entire game; and some other more minor stuff).
This was the expansion in which I started my tradition of immediately picking up one of the new jobs and leveling it to the previous cap so I can do the MSQ with it. HW was peak DRK for me. It felt good to play. Simple as that. It’s gone downhill since then.
I got back into the game around 3.2 to slowly chug through MSQ and finally catch up by 3.4 full steam ahead, but yeah im glad i missed out on the initial insanity of 3.0 and 3.1 lmaooo
Ahhh, Neverreap. Non-Caster mains could never understand the pure hatred I have for you. Just about to refresh Enochian? Nope, tornado! Wanna cast? Too bad, pick up 15 totems. Ugh
To this day, I still flip flop on who between HW & ShB has the better plot. During ARR, I found ALL of the scions to be insufferable exposition dumps. They would blather on and yet, I was the only one doing any of the work. Of all of them however, Alphinaud was by far the worst. I hated him with a passion. Due to the events of ARR's ending, you get separated from all of them, save him of course, and Tataru. Let me tell you, HW single-handedly turned him into my favorite character in the game. Seeing him get knocked off his block, show some humility, and then work his way back up from zero was amazing. Plus, that part where you head towards the Churning Mists with two others made me finally see this game as a Final Fantasy title; going on a journey with a party. Then, there's the final zone. After everything, it truly felt like an old school RPG, going from towers and castles to this unexpected marvel. Afterwards, you get to reconnect with the Scions, one by one and spend some individual time with them. This was way better than just having them all dumped on you at once like before. Not to mention, the new voice actors where a lot better...save for Merlwyb. I miss her cranky granny voice. ShB, on the other hand, is a masterclass in making an MMO feel like a single player game. Systematically restoring each area, learning about the people who live there, and then seeing it all come together... Getting to truly understand the enemy I had been fighting all this time and see the humanity in them. Beyond that, I think the best thing that ShB does is KEEP you in the new zones. While you're allowed to leave, canonically there's no reason to, so you can stay invested in this new location. I also got kind of a kick when I pieced two and two together and realized that all of it was just an alternate version of places I had been before. To top it all off, finally getting to run story dungeons WITH the scions that I had finally grown to love was a blessing. There were no more awkward moments of me just running off with a band of nobodies that aren't addressed by the plot. After I was done with it, ShB really made me want to explore other worlds like it. I don't know if the devs ever plan to send us there, but I'd be all for it. Between the two, I still struggle to determine which hit harder. The hub areas of both are the best in the game and I still find myself forgoing fast travel to manually go through the zones way more than ARR or SB. I haven't touched EW yet. Still trying to slog through that post game war chapter with all the Hrothgar, which really killed all the momentum I had. EW was already out when I was about halfway through ShB, but I told myself I'd finish that post game part before jumping in, since I kinda flaked on the SB one with Krile. I've heard some mixed things, but I hope EW is just as good.
I started XIV during Heavensward and seeing as I like making alts I didn't end up getting into HW or finishing it until Stormblood came out, so I imagine I missed a lot of the initial issues in the expansion.
As much as I like HW, I think a lot of its story is remembered with rose tinted glasses. There was a lot of filler before the good parts of the story started. ShB had better moments and pacing.
Faust... Was a nightmare, I still remembers being called an idiot just for sugesting that healers should also dps. I left raiding forever after that, no more statics.
After listening all the stories, I'm glad I wasn't there for Heavensward. I wish I started at the beginning of Stormblood though, came in at the tail end of it and I quite liked the content. I still think Shadowbringers told its story the best, felt unique and different. Heavensward felt like a typical story with dragons and I mean you can't go wrong with dragons., everybody loves dragons lol. I did like the zones in HW however, their music and ambience were very nice but I didn't like the dungeons that much, maybe 2 I thought were cool. Didn't care for the raids at all but I liked the alliance raids and trials alot. Dunscaithe still one of my favourites. Overall, HW feels like an "okay" expac with a good story which is only thing ppl seem to remember it for.
I stuck through it but a friend of mine quit Bard with this change and never went back. I still put Heavensward's story in the middle. I think ShB and EW have higher highs. And HW still had issues. The 2.55 cliffhanger was resolved terribly, imo.
Not only did Gordias kill the raid scene with its difficulty, it also fractured communities. On my server, Phoenix, we had a reasonably healthy raid community to that point but those who cared all fled to Odin as the "official" serious raiding server. This was of course before cross-world anything other than duty finder. And as you said, the bosses - particularly the last one - were so god damn boring in terms of design. Ugh, I get angry just thinking about the 3.05-3.1 period. Not to mention the huge 5 month wait between 3.0 and 3.1. Story aside it is by far the lowest point of the game post-revival.
best if you ignore the raids that nearly killed the game, the changes to bard from the most mobile class to a caster or the tank meta where if you used tank stance you were bad which lead to so many wipes, but the story was great
@@cyanmage1 First point is overexaggerated, for every raider there is 20 Limsa AFKers with hundreds of dollars worth of fantasias on their accounts. Bard I agree with but so what? Every expansion has a class that gets screwed. Tank stance issue is streamer cancer and bad players not understanding that things that work for a team of 8 coordinated good players may not work as well with a bunch of randoms. Also not unique to HW (see: healers wiping parties because they only press their two button dps rotation even when it's inappropriate. Yes it is still my opinion that HW was the best expansion.
@@ilikecatsandstuff1 I don't think you understand how big raiding was in this game back in arr most players came from wow and raiding is what people did and coils were a fun raid to do, then comes heavensward and the first raid tier was brutal and not tuned well and it killed it for so many groups my own included
@@cyanmage1 I mean, I played back then and it really is not much different than now. Most players never touch the raids. Doesn't mean raiders are not an important group as part of the whole but it's definitely a minority.
Not only were several Aether Currents hidden in sidequests but some of them were several quests deep in a chain of quests so you wouldn't know to do a certain quest because the reward wasn't there. Plus the Moogle quests really ruined a lot of peoples opinions on the fluffballs. Piss off, kupo!
Between Neverreap, the tank in dps stance meta, and (for me personally because I’m just not “good”) Bismarck ex….yeah I can say with certainty that Heavensward is my favorite expansion almost entirely from a narrative perspective…..but also just because it was probably one of the last expansions where I REALLY wanted to be playing the game. I havent felt that way about xiv really since then. I miss old PLD job lore, back when we were really diving into actual PLD stuff and not Gladiator stuff disguised as Paladin stuff.
Plus (and this is also personal for me) I miss when Ethys was the prominent lore guy for the community. I miss that era of State of the Realm. Sure the game is way more popular now than it was but…..idk I personally feel that the game doesnt have that same soul that it had back then. Maybe thats just me though.
my summoner still summons thing heck it summons primals now my dragoon still jumps, my warrior still gets angry, my white mage now casts holy magic instead of tossing rocks, I would say job identity is still strong if not stronger now then before
You keep repeating that "Heavensward almost killed FFXIV again" but I've yet to see any proof of that. If we look at steamcharts the playercount seems to drop to pre-expansion numbers only a bit before 3.1 releases and the game certainly wasn't dead pre-expansion. Of course steamcharts show only a slice of the bigger picture, and I certainly am not denying the issues Heavensward had at release, but I absolutely disagree about the game almost dying back then. It might have felt that way if a lot of your friends stopped playing, but so far I've never heard anyone else claim that except you.
it was the raids that nearly killed it the first tier was a broken mess so many statics fell apart trying to clear it, the second raid tier was better and it wasn't until the final raid tier that they found the perfect spot for difficulty and have stuck with that since then but it took nearly a whole expansion to get it right and the damage was done I was playing on Faerie server back then and it was a large pop server and I had to so many statics fall apart the largest fc's on that server just imploded, this was before data center travel and cross world pf which didn't come out till the end of heavensward so many servers just felt dead and everyone that wanted to raid was transferring to larger servers like Gilgamesh and if happy was feeling it on that server you can only imagine what the game was like on small pop servers
@@cyanmage1 Yes, but raiding dying wouldn't have killed the game. It was a dark time for raiding to be sure, but it still only affected like less than 10% of the game's populations. So no, I don't buy that Alexander being Alexander would have killed FFXIV.
@@Taikomo i can only go off what it was like on my server at the time and what every content creator was saying it was like on their servers I think Happy was the only one not hating on the game back then
The issue was that stuff like Relic was delayed, and if you weren’t someone whose static was clearing A3S/A4S like my static was, you just logged in to do Expert and then log off. I had a lot of casual friends of mine quit and never come back during those days and it still makes me sad thinking about it. I absolutely love Heavensward and all of the Alexander tiers, but I can understand why a lot of people don’t have fond memories of that expansion.
.... This expansion was terrible. It did nothing to really address the multiple balancing issues the game had, even double downed on many them, almost ruined the ranged dps, all 3 jobs were 'clunky' at release (Though some of that was just misunderstanding from the community, Hi DRK), the story is quite paint by numbers (It is, don't deny it), the zones were HUGE, which made travel cumbersome even with flying. Fate farming was 'fun' during this time because of that. NOW THE PATCH CONTENT That's where the good stuff is. Better story, great alliance series, alexander is...ehhh, but hey, job balancing was 'improving' at least. But even then, this expansion nearly killed the game again with how many fell off in the middle of the patch content roll out.
I was still leveling through ARR when HW released. I'll never forget trying to do quests in Costa De Sol for MSQ while approximately *everyone* else in the game farmed fates to level DRK, AST, and MCH to use in 3.0. The game had been super dead in the months I was playing, I'd never seen that many people playing before!
Aether currents were also the reward from the last quest in a zone's questline, and this was before the plus quest sign existed, so players essentially had to do all of the quests in every zone to unlock flying since you had no idea which quests would lead to the questlines that had the currents. Later on it was changed so that the first quest in the questline had the aether current.
I have fond memories from Heavensward's early access period. The first thing I did was unlock Machinist and reload and quick reload were absolutely broken. They didn't just remove the cast bar from gauss barrel, they removed the cast bar from EVERYTHING. That included teleports and mounting etc. It was fixed by the end of the weekend, but I had fun with it for those couple of days.
Oh yes, and we can't forget Skybear. May he forever float in our hearts even though he floated for only a short while in Coerthas West Highlands.
I also remeber the time when expert roulette was Alwaysreap and Neverfractal.
Wasn't the last zone's flying quest all MSQ, even on launch?
I distinctly remember a main story quest finishing and you are already in the air, even though you couldn't fly before finishing said quest. It was right before the dungeon.
@@encapturer I think they're talking about Feature Quests (blue quests). Like how some of the aether currents are behind zone quests that aren't the MSQ, but it's usually the first quest in that series that gives the aether current. It sounds like they're saying that it used to be the last quest, and that the Feature Quest icon didn't used to be there, so there was no way of telling which quest would give an aether current, until you got to the last one.
@@KlaelDemon That's exactly what I'm saying, thanks for elaborating. I've never even known the blue quests are officially called feature quests, learned something new I guess.
But @encapturer is correct too, that Azys Lla is the one zone that had all of its aether currents always in the MSQ.
Wild to think there was a time where the plus quest sign didn't exist! What patch did they add that in?
I'll never forget logging out just outside Ishgard's gates in Coerthas.
So much fun talking to everyone before the expac dropped
Ah yes, HW. I had been to a fair few expansions myself in older MMO's but for the majority of my FC it was their first expansion for an MMO so it was really quite exciting seeing them explore what a new expansion could bring. Heading into the Sea of Clouds with a few of them right out of the gate, killing FATE upon FATE, working through the start of the story then IMMEDIATELY getting sidetracked to search for the aether currents and wondering why the hell a lot of them were on floating islands leagues above where we were standing (not knowing the zone was effectively split in two at that point)...
Then moving onto the Western Highlands and tracking down all the aether currents there, as well as doing the first dungeon - Dusk Vigil. The aether currents back then were also a LOT harder to find before they put them in easier-to-reach places, as well as not knowing which side quest chains had aether currents at the end of them due to no unique quest markers (and yes, the END of a quest chain - you had to work through an entire chain to see if it contained an aether current or not. Not that that was a bad thing; the stories were great).
Then moving onto the Forelands and trying to tackle that giant bloody turtle of a FATE at level 53-odd; sending wave after wave of bodies at it and FINALLY bringing it down just before it timed out (the same happened to me in Stormblood when the S rank of the Azim Steppe spawned on the first day and we sent wave after wave of bodies at THAT for hours on end to bring it down).
Heavensward was just a magical time; the community was different back then so, if you returned to it with a classic server, you just wouldn't capture that magic. The atmosphere was a circumstance of that time. Also, I still hold out very faint hope we'll get Corsair or Chemist at some point (as they revealed DRK then said there was a healer class and a gun class left to reveal, so people thought that the healer class would use a gun and be Chemist, or that the DPS would be Corsair due to the Corsair icon in the Coral Tower in Limsa).
I also didn't mind the casting time BRD/MCH; then again, I've enjoyed all the iterations of the ranged physical Jobs (except the most recent BRD iteration as they've just completely removed DOT's from doing much of anything for anyone. We really need a DOT-centric Job again).
Really appreciate these. Joined mid SHB, so, no idea how HW was received at launch. Of course, the MSQ of HW remains at the top of the list though.. the characters, etc. so compelling. Thank you Mr Happy! great video!
'Coils with echo' is actually a really good idea for a difficulty. I wish we had something like that between normal story mode and extreme/savage tbh.
Dude, I remember the hype like it was yesterday-I’ve been a loyal subscriber since a week after 2.0 launched. Even though everyone pretty much knew that Ishgard would be the focus of the 1st expac, the reveal had us all in tears. And once we got to play, we knew that we had something special. I still have my HW banner that came w the preorder, as well as my original PS3 launch disc.
I know you don't like this kind of comment, but you can already see the results of your training regiment as you're looking so much better and slimmer in the face, man. Hope you're well, and I appreciate these retrospectives. Takes me back to a different time...
What I remember most from Heavensward Early Access:
Sly: AW, FUCK YOU!! Sorry...
Mrhappy1227: * laughs hysterically *
I can't imagine how much bigger the zones will be in 7.0 without the constraints of the PS4. Considering HW was made to work on PS3 and how well those zones were made.
Lol 7.0 will still come out on ps4 there’s no way they’d just let money from millions of people go to waste
ps4 is really not holding this game back at all
@@cyanmage1 yeah it's more of the game's engine that's holding us back now
@@ikeaira8701 please don't fix that my pc runs this game fine but can't run d4 lol and I really don't want to spend 1200 on a new pc just to play a game i'm already paying for
If 7.0 comes to PS4, that would be fantastic, but with the rumored talk for upgraded models and engine upgrades, I think PS4 would struggle in certain situations. But hey, we won't know for sure until it's "officially announced". I guess I should have been more clear in my original post. My bad.
I will note that there was something similar to the "mysterious ship" in Endwalker.
There's a light that shows up in the final zone, that people didn't know what it was about. People were investigating exactly what caused it to show up for certain people, and figured out it was tied to finishing one of the optional dungeons - which people guessed to be (and were proven right in guessing) connected to the gatherer tribe for Endwalker.
I remember doing new players guide for Heavenward, even got mentioned on this channel at one point. Reason i did it was because somethings like the jobs weren't as streamlined like today and I didn't see anyone doing a guide at the time.
What a weird design decision to have MCH and BRD casting animation NOT be them looking like they’re aiming at their target. It’s a strange gripe but it still bothers me to this day whenever im reminded of it.
Skybear. Never forget.
I LOVED finding the Aether currents in HW. Reminded me of Chocobo Hot and Cold from IX.
I never did Alexander Savage but I remember people meming on Faust being the stuff of nightmares.
My favorite memory of HW launch was in Coerthas Western Highlands: there was a polar bear stuck in the sky at launch that amassed a significant following, spawning the Cult of the Skybear. People were shout chatting in Foundation proselytizing for his holiness, the Skybear. He got fixed on the first patch and we all missed him & hoped for a NM or mount of Skybear to be added later. Sadly he's been forgotten by all but the most dedicated of his followers. May you walk in the Fur of the Skybear.
I was in a group that disbanded to Pepsiman and everything you said about losing friends is true. I have a lot of mixed feelings when I look back on Heavensward and I enjoyed this retrospective a lot, it's nice remembering what it was like playing around then and recalling some of the things I had completely forgotten about.
My only criticism of the HW story is when Ravana is like "DUEL ME!!!" and you proceed to summon 7 more people to trounce him.
Damn happy. Can tell you’ve been working out. Keep it up man
Shadowbringgers and Endwalker have far better stories and we’re much better put together expansions, but my heart still puts Hevansward at top. It was my first ever expansion and I loved that time in my life, it’s pure nostalgia and I am aware of it.
I loved that because it was new and people were not yet used to the formula. I saw some amazing shenanigans. One of the most memorable was people who had skipped all the cutscenes and rushed ahead, were coming back and flying on their Midgarsorm in West Coerthas. I remember the chat log FILLED with people asking how you got the mount. The little jokesters said you had to kill 100 of every dragon in every HW map, spoiler that’s a lot of dragons. This caused people to ignore the MSQ and try and spend hours killing dragons only to find it was an MSQ mount. It was hilarious and something you don’t get now as info is very easy to get and the expansion formula is well known
i still think HW MSQ is the best yet.
There are many many things the devs have changed, removed, or over-simplified that I look back upon and lament.. But MCH and BRD being casters will neeeeever be one of them!
Heavensward holds such a special place to me. It certainly wasn’t perfect (Gordias, 3.1) but there was a lot to love about HW
Though it took a bit to get used to I actually loved the complexity of some of the jobs and miss that almost all of it has been completely lost over the years. Though i think Stormblood had the perfect balance between skill ceiling and skill floor.
Now I won’t deny there was some issues with the jobs back then. PLD and MNK (which happen to be 2 of my favourites) being more or less dead jobs (PLD more so than MNK) for the whole expansion was a big issue.
Ah, Neverreap.
You truly were the Brayflox of HW.
i remember starting arr a couple of weeks prior to hw release, i didn't even know there was an expansion coming. Was very surprised to hear there was one and then put extra effort in to complete arr to be ready for launch. Made it by like 2 days.
It really was an different time back then, I remember the emotions in my static back then going through A3S, lots of toxicity and arguments to the point everyone almost quit but a few of us persevered and rebuilt as a new group to clear the tier months later after 3.1 released.
I remember that raid series. I never did it because I knew that I didn't have the skill for savage but man it was crazy watching people fight Living Liquid and just die.
One thing I remember that if someone said Expert Roulette had other dungeons than Neverreap I would think they were lying as in my experience there was only Neverreap. Thanks to this and other things mentioned in the video I got so traumatized that I will never do Level 50/60/70/80 Roulette because there is a chance Neverreap will appear
Damn. Imagine having a static prep for progging on normal difficulty only to be broken apart by the savage version 2 weeks later. I've heard of the horror stories raiding in the HW days, but I had no idea it was THAT bad.
I still remember the bad taste in my mouth from the heavansward endgame raids as a Machinist main from the start of the expansion I was kicked off statics or never allowed to join just because how bad people thought the job was.
That a good serie :D, that was good memory and im hype for the fan fest :D
Oh yes i was a proud one who beat jiggly butt before the nerf, the biggest achievement i had in this game, and i dont even raid anymore now😂
But yea then my group got destroyed in a4s and we kinda never the same again, now u mentioning it...
Not sure if you mentioned this (if you did, I'm sorry!) In regards to the raid section - this was also when the party finder wasn't datacenter wide iirc and parties/statics were restricted to the people on your server only and that led to... many more problems. People FLOCKED to "raid servers" (I think this was Gilgamesh back then?) in the hopes of finding people that could clear the fights.
We definitely had datacenter PF by Stormblood raids... but it was definitely not there for Midas - I think this issue was exacerbated by that tier in particular. When did they start marking servers as congested?
My old fc back then used to called Nevereap as Foreverweep cause we always got it in roulette. It was just crazy having to deal with the environment being an obstacle while the mobs are trying to kill you too. Sometimes we got cornered with tornadoes hitting us one after the other. Funtimes. Lol
The other problem of Netherreap wasnt so much that it was bad on its own (it really was the dumb interaction mechanics), but it also was the victim of the "these 2 same dungeons in the expert pool for an extra long time because there is a raid release patch, so there is even more months of this same semi-shitty dungeon", a problem that exists to this day.
And yes the templesleves were 10 units, but it was also a group activity, so it was in theory something for you+buddy (Maybe with chocobs) could go and do, and get some loot out of them. If the amber rewards were better, it in theory could have been a viable group activity that wasnt as rigid as running a dungeon with a blue+green+red+red. I like to believe this dev work was allocated to the treasure hunts and we got the treasure portals instead.
Ah I remember how badly the exp rates were from hw FATES up through churning mists. Many players would instead farm in Northern Thanalan till around lvl 54
I was still a little baby somewhere in my level 30s when Heavensward came out. I remember being confused by the sudden inundation of Au Ra players and new jobs.
Ah heavenword the memory's of it and the ups and downs yah
ah, this was my start of the game. Sometimes I miss the clunkiness of TP and will always miss some of the cut actions
I think I bought Heavensward when Midas was out, so 3.2...feel like they managed to get their stuff at least a little bit together by then, but of course I was completely ignorant to all of that at the time. It's kinda crazy, I sometimes forget I'm basically a casual veteran. xD Here's to another 7 or so years, eh.
I remember hearing all of the hype surrounding the main story of Heavensward as I was making my way through post-ARR more than a year ago and when I ended up finishing 3.0, I enjoyed the story enough to actually purchase the game and get out of the free trial. But now that I'm looking back... I think that 3.0's MSQ suffered a good amount of "hype backlash" for me that ultimately make me regard it as my least favourite of the base expansion MSQ's (yes, lower than both ARR and StB).
While I won't deny that it has some really good moments and is an overall improvement in writing compared to ARR, 3.0 has some aspects to it that ultimately soured my opinion (the scenes showing the aftermath of the Bloody Banquet not only felt like pace breakers of the more interesting story, but also stumbled in landing the really good setpiece of the Banquet; Thordan and the Heaven's Ward are STILL the main villains I consider the most boring in the entire game; and some other more minor stuff).
This was the expansion in which I started my tradition of immediately picking up one of the new jobs and leveling it to the previous cap so I can do the MSQ with it. HW was peak DRK for me. It felt good to play. Simple as that. It’s gone downhill since then.
The superleve costs 10 allowances, if they only gave as many rewards as they cost
I’d love for them to revisit temple leves (or leves in general) to revitalize open world content
I got back into the game around 3.2 to slowly chug through MSQ and finally catch up by 3.4 full steam ahead, but yeah im glad i missed out on the initial insanity of 3.0 and 3.1 lmaooo
Ahhh, Neverreap. Non-Caster mains could never understand the pure hatred I have for you. Just about to refresh Enochian? Nope, tornado! Wanna cast? Too bad, pick up 15 totems. Ugh
To this day, I still flip flop on who between HW & ShB has the better plot.
During ARR, I found ALL of the scions to be insufferable exposition dumps. They would blather on and yet, I was the only one doing any of the work. Of all of them however, Alphinaud was by far the worst. I hated him with a passion. Due to the events of ARR's ending, you get separated from all of them, save him of course, and Tataru. Let me tell you, HW single-handedly turned him into my favorite character in the game.
Seeing him get knocked off his block, show some humility, and then work his way back up from zero was amazing. Plus, that part where you head towards the Churning Mists with two others made me finally see this game as a Final Fantasy title; going on a journey with a party. Then, there's the final zone. After everything, it truly felt like an old school RPG, going from towers and castles to this unexpected marvel.
Afterwards, you get to reconnect with the Scions, one by one and spend some individual time with them. This was way better than just having them all dumped on you at once like before. Not to mention, the new voice actors where a lot better...save for Merlwyb. I miss her cranky granny voice.
ShB, on the other hand, is a masterclass in making an MMO feel like a single player game. Systematically restoring each area, learning about the people who live there, and then seeing it all come together... Getting to truly understand the enemy I had been fighting all this time and see the humanity in them.
Beyond that, I think the best thing that ShB does is KEEP you in the new zones. While you're allowed to leave, canonically there's no reason to, so you can stay invested in this new location. I also got kind of a kick when I pieced two and two together and realized that all of it was just an alternate version of places I had been before. To top it all off, finally getting to run story dungeons WITH the scions that I had finally grown to love was a blessing. There were no more awkward moments of me just running off with a band of nobodies that aren't addressed by the plot. After I was done with it, ShB really made me want to explore other worlds like it. I don't know if the devs ever plan to send us there, but I'd be all for it.
Between the two, I still struggle to determine which hit harder. The hub areas of both are the best in the game and I still find myself forgoing fast travel to manually go through the zones way more than ARR or SB.
I haven't touched EW yet. Still trying to slog through that post game war chapter with all the Hrothgar, which really killed all the momentum I had. EW was already out when I was about halfway through ShB, but I told myself I'd finish that post game part before jumping in, since I kinda flaked on the SB one with Krile. I've heard some mixed things, but I hope EW is just as good.
I started XIV during Heavensward and seeing as I like making alts I didn't end up getting into HW or finishing it until Stormblood came out, so I imagine I missed a lot of the initial issues in the expansion.
No mention of the bear that was glitched in the sky of Western Coerthas? :(
Shadowbringers was the best at telling its story
Endwalker had the highest highs
Heavensward had the best story
Thank god I missed the BRD Mage, Era of FFXIV. lol
As much as I like HW, I think a lot of its story is remembered with rose tinted glasses. There was a lot of filler before the good parts of the story started. ShB had better moments and pacing.
Faust... Was a nightmare, I still remembers being called an idiot just for sugesting that healers should also dps. I left raiding forever after that, no more statics.
After listening all the stories, I'm glad I wasn't there for Heavensward. I wish I started at the beginning of Stormblood though, came in at the tail end of it and I quite liked the content. I still think Shadowbringers told its story the best, felt unique and different. Heavensward felt like a typical story with dragons and I mean you can't go wrong with dragons., everybody loves dragons lol. I did like the zones in HW however, their music and ambience were very nice but I didn't like the dungeons that much, maybe 2 I thought were cool. Didn't care for the raids at all but I liked the alliance raids and trials alot. Dunscaithe still one of my favourites. Overall, HW feels like an "okay" expac with a good story which is only thing ppl seem to remember it for.
Poor Gordias. Forever shamed.
I made a alt just to do the story again for fun, I am almost done with Heavensward, I forgot how good it was.
It's funny hearing how hated Paladin was. I mained PLD throughout the expansion.
Heavensward big Ups and Downs from 3.0 to 3.5 I think the Story holdet the people in the Game not the Things around It
I stuck through it but a friend of mine quit Bard with this change and never went back.
I still put Heavensward's story in the middle. I think ShB and EW have higher highs. And HW still had issues. The 2.55 cliffhanger was resolved terribly, imo.
1:01 in and i hope drk is covered. Its not what it used to be worse and much to my shigrin; worse.
Man, I miss the thinking that AST had behind it in HW. Sad that it was devolved into forcing every AST main to be a balance bot.
For the record, all those players that struggled in heavensward are decent players now... or they never got good.... or they quit.
ah, yes. when north than was still the best fate farm post-launch LMAO
Happy fourth of, ...byregot?
HW was the perfect expansion
How you not gonna mention Paladins Stone Skining Tank busters or Mch Stance dancing to maximize dps lol
Not only did Gordias kill the raid scene with its difficulty, it also fractured communities. On my server, Phoenix, we had a reasonably healthy raid community to that point but those who cared all fled to Odin as the "official" serious raiding server. This was of course before cross-world anything other than duty finder. And as you said, the bosses - particularly the last one - were so god damn boring in terms of design. Ugh, I get angry just thinking about the 3.05-3.1 period. Not to mention the huge 5 month wait between 3.0 and 3.1. Story aside it is by far the lowest point of the game post-revival.
The first and best expansion. The only one where it was cool to see the new things rather than wandering what you will be losing in the new expansion.
best if you ignore the raids that nearly killed the game, the changes to bard from the most mobile class to a caster or the tank meta where if you used tank stance you were bad which lead to so many wipes, but the story was great
@@cyanmage1 First point is overexaggerated, for every raider there is 20 Limsa AFKers with hundreds of dollars worth of fantasias on their accounts. Bard I agree with but so what? Every expansion has a class that gets screwed. Tank stance issue is streamer cancer and bad players not understanding that things that work for a team of 8 coordinated good players may not work as well with a bunch of randoms. Also not unique to HW (see: healers wiping parties because they only press their two button dps rotation even when it's inappropriate. Yes it is still my opinion that HW was the best expansion.
@@ilikecatsandstuff1 I don't think you understand how big raiding was in this game back in arr most players came from wow and raiding is what people did and coils were a fun raid to do, then comes heavensward and the first raid tier was brutal and not tuned well and it killed it for so many groups my own included
@@ilikecatsandstuff1 nobody wants to come play a game full of loser whales that ERP and AFK instead of playing the real content in the game
@@cyanmage1 I mean, I played back then and it really is not much different than now. Most players never touch the raids. Doesn't mean raiders are not an important group as part of the whole but it's definitely a minority.
Not only were several Aether Currents hidden in sidequests but some of them were several quests deep in a chain of quests so you wouldn't know to do a certain quest because the reward wasn't there. Plus the Moogle quests really ruined a lot of peoples opinions on the fluffballs. Piss off, kupo!
Second best expansion after Endwalker. Better than Shadowbringers
I think they cost 10 allowances, not 5. And the rewards are still pathetic.
Between Neverreap, the tank in dps stance meta, and (for me personally because I’m just not “good”) Bismarck ex….yeah I can say with certainty that Heavensward is my favorite expansion almost entirely from a narrative perspective…..but also just because it was probably one of the last expansions where I REALLY wanted to be playing the game. I havent felt that way about xiv really since then. I miss old PLD job lore, back when we were really diving into actual PLD stuff and not Gladiator stuff disguised as Paladin stuff.
Plus (and this is also personal for me) I miss when Ethys was the prominent lore guy for the community. I miss that era of State of the Realm. Sure the game is way more popular now than it was but…..idk I personally feel that the game doesnt have that same soul that it had back then. Maybe thats just me though.
Back when jobs had identities, interesting raids, and a great story, probably the best expansion
my summoner still summons thing heck it summons primals now my dragoon still jumps, my warrior still gets angry, my white mage now casts holy magic instead of tossing rocks, I would say job identity is still strong if not stronger now then before
agree with the job identity critique, everything else you said is super subjective and most people would disagree I'd argue
You keep repeating that "Heavensward almost killed FFXIV again" but I've yet to see any proof of that. If we look at steamcharts the playercount seems to drop to pre-expansion numbers only a bit before 3.1 releases and the game certainly wasn't dead pre-expansion. Of course steamcharts show only a slice of the bigger picture, and I certainly am not denying the issues Heavensward had at release, but I absolutely disagree about the game almost dying back then. It might have felt that way if a lot of your friends stopped playing, but so far I've never heard anyone else claim that except you.
it was the raids that nearly killed it the first tier was a broken mess so many statics fell apart trying to clear it, the second raid tier was better and it wasn't until the final raid tier that they found the perfect spot for difficulty and have stuck with that since then but it took nearly a whole expansion to get it right and the damage was done
I was playing on Faerie server back then and it was a large pop server and I had to so many statics fall apart the largest fc's on that server just imploded, this was before data center travel and cross world pf which didn't come out till the end of heavensward so many servers just felt dead and everyone that wanted to raid was transferring to larger servers like Gilgamesh and if happy was feeling it on that server you can only imagine what the game was like on small pop servers
@@cyanmage1 Yes, but raiding dying wouldn't have killed the game. It was a dark time for raiding to be sure, but it still only affected like less than 10% of the game's populations. So no, I don't buy that Alexander being Alexander would have killed FFXIV.
@@Taikomo i can only go off what it was like on my server at the time and what every content creator was saying it was like on their servers I think Happy was the only one not hating on the game back then
The issue was that stuff like Relic was delayed, and if you weren’t someone whose static was clearing A3S/A4S like my static was, you just logged in to do Expert and then log off. I had a lot of casual friends of mine quit and never come back during those days and it still makes me sad thinking about it. I absolutely love Heavensward and all of the Alexander tiers, but I can understand why a lot of people don’t have fond memories of that expansion.
Unlisted?
....
This expansion was terrible. It did nothing to really address the multiple balancing issues the game had, even double downed on many them, almost ruined the ranged dps, all 3 jobs were 'clunky' at release (Though some of that was just misunderstanding from the community, Hi DRK), the story is quite paint by numbers (It is, don't deny it), the zones were HUGE, which made travel cumbersome even with flying. Fate farming was 'fun' during this time because of that.
NOW THE PATCH CONTENT
That's where the good stuff is. Better story, great alliance series, alexander is...ehhh, but hey, job balancing was 'improving' at least.
But even then, this expansion nearly killed the game again with how many fell off in the middle of the patch content roll out.