Best Expansion / Most Time Spent

[Xaetica]

Here is something to think about. List out all the expansions in order of favorite to least favorite. The metric should be which one you like playing in most.

Then list out the one you spend most of your play time in. Those two lists should say a lot about the game (and the current expansion pack)

For example:

My Favorite Expansion:
ToAU > RoZ > CoP > WotG

Breaking out my time in a week:
6 hours of Dynamis
1 hour of Sky
1 hour of Sea
2 hours of Limbus
2 hours doing Ouryu/Bah V2
2 hours doing ENMs
1 hour of Einherjar (damn those gather times)
5 hours of Salvage
2 hours of Assault/Nyzul

With this breakdown, looks like time spent per expansion pack goes as followed:
ToAU > CoP and RoZ tied for 2nd > lolWoTG

Now I know this only reflects my time, but I was just curious how everyone else ranks the expansion packs and how everyone else spends their times in each of the expansion packs.

[Neosutra]

ToAU > All, just simply due to completely reshaping endgame content. Salvage, Einherjar, Khim/Cerb, Assault, Besieged, rediculous leveling camps, life now centers around whitegate in FFX.

Zilart: Sky, Kings, Dynamis, gear that is still the best to date.

CoP: Sea, Limbus Omega/Ultima, CoP-Dynamis, my favorite battle/stories to date.

I dont even count WoTG as an expansion yet... yay for adding 2 new HNMs with odd spawn conditions in remasked zones we already had.

[Mizango]

ToA and CoP are where its at.

[Ratatapa]

COP > Zilart > TOA > WOG

[Damane]

there is no real expansion I favour, every expansion gave things that I enjoyed or still enjoy

Wotg: Campaign, simple time killer and sometimes very funny, Fields of Valor
CoP: Story and difficult Battles (pre nerf)
ToAU: Salvage, Einherjar, Assault, Nyzul, I like doing all of them, not so much time needed to do them
Zilart: ummmmmm..., yeah

looking from a more casual playstyle
ToAU > WotG > CoP > Zilart

sky, dynamis and sea are just plain boreing events for me.

[Lordshin]

CoP >(close one) WoTG > ToAU > Zilart

CoP - had the Best Storyline and I enjoyed it the most (gogo static)

WoTG - story is amazing so far Over 42 "missions" and not even close to being done! Campaign Battles are fun and exciting, much better than Besieged (except for the no skillups part). Both SCH and DNC are fun Jobs to play and they both have their uses.
Oh and best part IMO: People Complaining it sucks and not knowing how WotG works.

ToAU - Changed the game completely.... Story was alright. Seems like it was rushed near the end. Nyzul, Einhejar, Salvage all great events, although i don't do Einhejar or Salvage.. yet.

ZM - Story was okay, added a bunch of things but I don't really care for it too much


As for Time Spent in a week:

7+ Hours in Campaign
6 Hours in Dynamis
4 Hours in Sky
3 Hours doing ZNM
2~ hours In Nyzul (starting today, this is an estimate)

not too much into endgame at the moment as you can see but I'm getting there.
also, I have never done HNMs so I didn't factor that into my decisions

[Killkenny]

How many people actually played before Zilart was released, I doubt I could even name all the zones it actually added. I've just never really seen it as an expansion as the content was there before NA release.

For the missions it was definately:

CoP >>>>>>>> Zilart (because I was a level 67 bst noob) > ToAU > WotG

Nothing has even come close to CoP before they nerfed all the fun out of the missions, it was well thought out with a good story line and interesting (albeit longwinded) missions.

For other content:

ToAU > CoP > Zilart/NA release >>>> WotG

ToAU brought us completely new zones, salvage, assaults, a whole bunch of different monsters (fuck you PS2 limitations) and even though the central missions were a bit disappointing SE redeemed itself with the other content.

At the other end of the scale we have WotG which for me has been nothing but a new way to make gil from the 2 HNMs there, if it wasn't for Ixion and Sandworm I doubt I'd have ever bothered to rank up a few campaign medals to get AN. The missions are terrible in terms of difficulty, reward and originality. There are very few new monster models and most of the zones are recycled.

I still spend a lot of time camping kings/wyrms/KV, do frequent sea farming/limbus and infrequent sky farming. The central focus of play is based around whitegate so my time is probably split pretty evenly between Zilart/CoP/ToAU areas and I only really ever venture into WotG areas for SW or DI camps or to do enough campaign not to lose medal.

[Sifer]

CoP and WoTG have a good story. RoZ and ToAU have most of the end game that actually matters. to me:

ToAU > CoP > WotG > RoZ.

WoTG can easily become 2nd or 1st depending on its end game events.

also, just that I spend 6 hours in dynamis a week doesnt mean that RoZ is a great expansion D: I'd want it to be shorter :/

6 hours dynamis
no sky
3 hours kings
1 hour Sea
No Limbus
4 hours salvage
1 hour assaults
1 hour Einherjar
8 hours MMM (WoTG? idk)
35 hours idling in whitegate

w/o the 35 hours in wg its: RoZ > WoTG > ToAU > CoP

EDIT: misscalculated.

[Mizango]

I think as this thread goes on we will see CoP running away with it as the favorite. That story pulled you in and kept you yearning for more. I know I personally read every damn cutscene in that expansion along with everyone else in my alliance.

[Jurgen]

I liked the game a whole lot more when it was challenging. CoP was BY FAR the most engaging expansion, and easily the most rewarding. ToAU just broke the game IMO. Far too many easy merit camps, shitty players abound due to Bird/Imp parties 55-75. The game would be tremendously different if ToAU was never released. People seem to forget you could still reach near Colibri XP (~20-25k xp) in Uggy range with *SMART* players back in the day (this was before the release of COR too). Not to mention CoP Wyrms were like THE focus of HNM for the 2 years before ToAU.

Nothing came close to the satisfaction of getting sea/sky access when they first came out. All subsequent expansions have just given players too many ameneties without making them do any work. It sucks.

CoP > ZM > WoTG = ToAU

[Sifer]

Idk about everyone but WoTG story seems to be > CoP story so far. And people thinking RoTz is great for 3 hour camps...ijdk.

[Hercule]

CoP is still my favorite

[Shamaya]

CoP. Mood > all, for me. As the devs and/or Tanaka said, CoP came the closest to the intended feel of the game. I had the most fun during the CoP era, despite how shitty the rewards were.

[S N K]

CoP was my favorite but ToAU just provided so much damn more to do.

[Bakthi]

Excessive time spent is a detriment to me...3-4 hour Dynamis, ugh. Get me out of there. Salvage/Nyzul/Einherjar are good length events (maybe Einherjar is a bit short compared to the time required to gather 30+ people).

Where does FoV fall? I do a lot of those. It was added during the WotG "era", but to original/Zilart zones. WotG seems to be all about making exp better and better. It has also given us East Ronfaure [S] and Campaign battle/ops, plus MMM exp/merits (and Level Sync is part of the "era" too). Nobody should ever have to exp on a crab in a party with a 4-level gap again.

Don't get me wrong. I have a tidy pile of Salvage/Nyzul gear, AF+1, obis, gorgets, sky stuff, etc. I like those expansions and the things they brought too. But WotG has brought things this game has needed for a long time, and I think it has a great storyline with interesting battles. Now maybe in a year, they'll straighten out this augment foolishness :/

[Mooshywooshy]

ACP > All
Best storyline of all, and final battle is amazing fun!

[Katlan]

CoP > Rotz > TouA > WotG

CoP didn't change the game, but it added so much mysterious content and was backed by the best story thus far imo. RotZ added the first real end game experience to the game and is prolly the most farmed content to this day.

[Confuse]

cop > rotz > wotg >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> toau

ToAU broke the game imo... and i loved the cop story followed by the wotg story

[Spider-Dan]

Been too long since an expansion-comparing thread?

TAU > RoZ > CoP > WoG

Time spent for me per week:

2 hours meriting in TAU
3.5 hours in Dynamis (or 2 hours in CoP dynamis)
2 hours in Limbus
2 hours doing sky or ZNM

Rest of the time is random dicking around.

I found CoP to have the most tedious missions; I dreaded every step of them and the only sense of enjoyment I got from CoP missions was (after completing them) knowing that I would never, ever have to do them again. This was in full knowledge of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (Rajas, Limbus). As a point of contrast, city and TAU missions had no serious reward to speak of, yet I never felt the same sense of fear and loathing towards completing them; I was happy to do it for its own sake. And I, personally, really enjoyed TAU's story (maybe BLU/COR players have a bit more vested interest in the storyline? I dunno).

It's tough for me to say which expansion had the bigger impact on the game. RoZ makes the game playable, particularly for melees (/NIN and /SAM), while TAU revolutionized the (arguably) biggest timesink in the game, exp/merit.

While RoZ's additions greatly help the foundation of the game, I have to give the nod to TAU. There is a clear delineation between pre-TAU and post-TAU FFXI; before TAU, the devs treated the players like an undesirable but necessary scourge, to be minimally tolerated but not encouraged, but beginning with TAU's release, the devs have made a conspicuous effort to try to give the players what they want.

WoG comes in last because it just didn't do enough. Coming after a paradigm-shifting expansion like TAU, WoG would have needed to make big-time changes to have that kind of impact. Campaign had potential to do so (giving the game a plausible option for soloing exp instead of party), but Squenix actively chose to make Campaign inferior to party exp, and reinforced this decision with several patches. If Campaign allowed one to solo with exp/hr that's competitive to party exp (i.e. a major change in the game), then I would have put WoG in 3rd place. As is, WoG is too little, too late.

[Mayareira]

ToAU >>>>>>>>>> CoP > RoTZ > WoTG(so far).

CoP had a decent story but it was nowhere as memorable as what I've experienced in certain other games, mainly offline ones. Storyline isn't the main selling point of a MMORPG, in my opinion. I am not going to give it an "epic" treatment just because its better than what other MMORPGs offer.

ToAU changed the game completely, in a positive way. Gave us a beautiful new city, excellent, fun and accessible assault system(moment I engaged my first mob and heard the battle music, I literally went "FUCK YEAH, THIS IS IT!"), good gearsets obtainable casually, fun HNM(they still suck, I know), etc. I also don't agree that it toned down the difficulty, faster merits and experience points was a step in right direction. ToAU saved this game, I really don't see how sky merit camps or Lufaise merit camp makes people feel "smarter". Besides, they are still there.

If they made me stuck at Jeuno longer, and gave us another CoP-ish expension I would've quit the game. Sorry, a 1-hour long average story won't glue me to a game for years.