I’m late to this discussion, but I’ve been watching a few videos about this from content creators and I find this argument impossible to defend.
Taking ARR out (it’s not really an expansion), you can’t actually think EW is worse than HW. HW had much worse and less content and while the story, including the patches, was better, that era didn’t have what people are complaining about now. Maybe less job homogenization, but also absolute dumpster tier jobs that people didn’t play.
So yeah, things are a bit rough (specially now that a lot of new players are caught up), but the worst one? I can’t agree with that.
I have the same issues. But I also found that they had ascians bloviate more.
Just random sentences of philosophical nonsense. Mostly this was in Hermes.
For example, what he wants to say “I went against the conclave to figure out things”
What he says, " DOES THE BUTTERFLY YEARN TO FLY KNOWING ITS LIFE IS SHORT. WILL THERE BE A COMING DAY, WHERE THOUST DREAM WITH ME. WHO CAN WALK WHO HATH NOT CRAWLED THROUGH THE DARKEST NIGHTS. WHEN A CREATION DREAMS OF AETHYRIC SHEEP ARE THEY NOT REAL"
Not literally what he said but… it felt like long sentences of hyperphilosophic filler. I could be wrong, but it’s what I remember.
Ultimately, I wish they spent longer building up Meteion. Also, I really didn’t care for or enjoy the old final fantasy story rehash. Though I do get its important.
I agree that Meteion being built up more would have helped. Maybe even just having had references in a previous expansion.
Hell, we could have found out stuff in the First during Shadowbringers, since Meteion’s song is what lead to the split happening in the first place.