This story is really underwhelming - it's opened to mixed reviews.

Speaking of ratings; The steam rating sits at 63 % as of right now. With a sample size of over 2.200 people, I think it should be enough to indicate that the MSQ is mid at best.

https://imgur.com/a/lflAC2o

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Originally Posted by genuine_stranger

Speaking of ratings; The steam rating sits at 63 % as of right now. With a sample size of over 2.200 people, I think it should be enough to indicate that the MSQ is mid at best.

https://imgur.com/a/lflAC2o

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I was stunned to see this. I said it before in this thread, but I'll say it again: I don't trust any score besides the steam reviews. Game journos are in the pockets of the industry or don't want to bite the hand that feeds them unless it aligns with their values, metacritic seems to do some rotten tomatoes shenanigans and either block reviews or delete them, youtubers can somewhat be trusted but still have the problem as the game journos. Steam, so far as I know, doesn't block reviews or delete them b/c the gaming companies get upset. If I'm thinking of buying a game I always go to steam. Not to mention steam actually caused From Software to nerf their game, something I completely disagree with them doing.. they should've made it harder made a commercial having mesmer laugh at the crying reviews.. muahahaha!

Still, I've been keeping an eye on the steam reviews assuming it was going to pick up positives, but it's actually gone down. The last time I checked it, it was at 67% positive. The fact it hasn't gained momentum or even stalled and settled is really telling.

I don't want this game to fail. I'm really invested in it's successes and failures, but overall I truly hope they learn from this and course correct. They've done it before, they can do it again.

(Also, I'm not implying people should get fired, I'm saying that those that are responsible for the MSQ should read the criticisms and adjust - not completely change - their course. The ideas in the story were interesting imo, but the execution and plotholes were horrible).

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

Ummm..... yeah.... no lol idk who you played with, but this was a super unpopular opinion in XI.

So so so many of us loved the story and you never, ever followed some girl around who was constantly in our face and talking and talking and talking like we did with Wuk. They were much better written and only around when it was necessary. We did most of the expacs without them around. Not to mention, this is a controversial take for most ppl who are crazy hateful of XI, but the XI stories were much better than the XIV and many of the single player FF game stories. DT....is not lol.

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The stories stick with me the most from XI. Man, Treasures of Aht Urgan and Chains of Promathia were just so good. Prishe was best girl. I really enjoyed adventuring with her and Ulmia. I still hum this song almost every other day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxtIXjtV6qw

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Originally Posted by LittleArrow

I was stunned to see this. I said it before in this thread, but I'll say it again: I don't trust any score besides the steam reviews. Game journos are in the pockets of the industry or don't want to bite the hand that feeds them unless it aligns with their values, metacritic seems to do some rotten tomatoes shenanigans and either block reviews or delete them, youtubers can somewhat be trusted but still have the problem as the game journos. Steam, so far as I know, doesn't block reviews or delete them b/c the gaming companies get upset. If I'm thinking of buying a game I always go to steam. Not to mention steam actually caused From Software to nerf their game, something I completely disagree with them doing.. they should've made it harder made a commercial having mesmer laugh at the crying reviews.. muahahaha!

Still, I've been keeping an eye on the steam reviews assuming it was going to pick up positives, but it's actually gone down. The last time I checked it, it was at 67% positive. The fact it hasn't gained momentum or even stalled and settled is really telling.

I don't want this game to fail. I'm really invested in it's successes and failures, but overall I truly hope they learn from this and course correct. They've done it before, they can do it again.

(Also, I'm not implying people should get fired, I'm saying that those that are responsible for the MSQ should read the criticisms and adjust - not completely change - their course. The ideas in the story were interesting imo, but the execution and plotholes were horrible).

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As of right now, I can't view any of the negative reviews past the last day or so. They seem to be inaccessible. Feels...suspicious.

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Originally Posted by genuine_stranger

Speaking of ratings; The steam rating sits at 63 % as of right now. With a sample size of over 2.200 people, I think it should be enough to indicate that the MSQ is mid at best.

https://imgur.com/a/lflAC2o

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So 37% of 2,222 is 822 people that disliked it. Then we factor in steam charts, that currently there are 70,705 players as of writing. Which at least in terms of steam, amounts to 1.1625769% of the player population data.

Then if we factor in Metacritic, of the 631 user reviews by those who used it, only 50 were mixed and only 190 were negative. If we then combine the 822 and the 190 for a total of 1012, assuming the 1012 are unique users and not just the same persons who wrote at least 2 reviews we can then compare that to another data piece.

Taking mmopopulation, with a bag of salt, based on the daily playerbase count it has, that is an approximate as of writing, 362653 players. Then if we factor in the 1012 to 362653 as a percenatge of players, we get: 0.279054633% of the playerbase that are unhappy with the story of Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

So 37% of 2,222 is 822 people that disliked it. Then we factor in steam charts, that currently there are 70,705 players as of writing. Which at least in terms of steam, amounts to 1.1625769% of the player population data.

Then if we factor in Metacritic, of the 631 user reviews by those who used it, only 50 were mixed and only 190 were negative. If we then combine the 822 and the 190 for a total of 1012, assuming the 1012 are unique users and not just the same persons who wrote at least 2 reviews we can then compare that to another data piece.

Taking mmopopulation, with a bag of salt, based on the daily playerbase count it has, that is an approximate as of writing, 362653 players. Then if we factor in the 1012 to 362653 as a percenatge of players, we get: 0.279054633% of the playerbase that are unhappy with the story of Dawntrail.

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How to say you don't know how sample sizes work without saying you don't know how sample sizes work. Not everyone who plays the game is going to leave a review. They will either suffer in silence or enjoy the game blissfully unaware of what outside sources think. However, when thousands upon thousands opt to voice their praise and/or concerns (obviously we aren't there yet, but we will get there soon enough), that is a decent sample size to extract data from. And the current trend is that Dawntrail is on a downhill slide, so...

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

How to say you don't know how sample sizes work without saying you don't know how sample sizes work.

Not everyone who plays the game is going to leave a review. They will either suffer in silence or enjoy the game blissfully unaware of what outside sources think.

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A vocal minority of players actively voice their dislike or like of something.
Keyword: minority of players.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

So 37% of 2,222 is 822 people that disliked it. Then we factor in steam charts, that currently there are 70,705 players as of writing. Which at least in terms of steam, amounts to 1.1625769% of the player population data.

Then if we factor in Metacritic, of the 631 user reviews by those who used it, only 50 were mixed and only 190 were negative. If we then combine the 822 and the 190 for a total of 1012, assuming the 1012 are unique users and not just the same persons who wrote at least 2 reviews we can then compare that to another data piece.

Taking mmopopulation, with a bag of salt, based on the daily playerbase count it has, that is an approximate as of writing, 362653 players. Then if we factor in the 1012 to 362653 as a percenatge of players, we get: 0.279054633% of the playerbase that are unhappy with the story of Dawntrail.

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Not sure if trolling or if your head is just a decoration, but let me use small words just in case.

Not every person who plays Dawntrail posts a review, reviews are meant to give people who read them an idea of what to expect if they buy the product, and to point out what's good or bad about it.

Reviews also let people know how customers overall feel about the product, if a lot of people don't like the product and post a bad review, then the product is likely bad.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

How to say you don't know how sample sizes work without saying you don't know how sample sizes work. Not everyone who plays the game is going to leave a review. They will either suffer in silence or enjoy the game blissfully unaware of what outside sources think. However, when thousands upon thousands opt to voice their praise and/or concerns (obviously we aren't there yet, but we will get there soon enough), that is a decent sample size to extract data from. And the current trend is that Dawntrail is on a downhill slide, so...

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Agreed.

I don't think trying to make an argument against reviews is a smart way to go about defending or arguing against players general acceptance / enjoyment of a product. If you believe that then game journos should be out of a job because that's 1 opinion out of millions. Yet games still put up game magezine scores to sell their games.

Sample sizes are a thing, and there's a whole industry based off of giving 1 person's opinion about a game that has millions of players.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

if your head is just a decoration.

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That is my guess, anyway.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

Not sure if trolling or if your head is just a decoration, but let me use small words just in case.

Not every person who plays Dawntrail posts a review, reviews are meant to give people who read them an idea of what to expect if they buy the product, and to point out what's good or bad about it.

Reviews also let people know how customers overall feel about the product, if a lot of people don't like the product and post a bad review, then the product is likely bad.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

That is my guess, anyway.

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If my head is just a decoration so are both are yours. As you want to use statistics to show how something is bad, but don't like it when it gets flipped and compared to the rest of the data. After all it is a sample size of only 822 users who left a negative review on steam, yet there are 70,705 players. So again 1% of the playerbase decided to voice their opinion as a vocal minority. I have seen more numbers for Helldivers 2 in terms of reviews on steam in both the positive and negative.

EDIT: It would almost the equivalent of "See guys of the 100 players, only 2 left a positive review and there is 1 negative, its mixed, story confirmed bad"

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

If my head is just a decoration so are both are yours. As you want to use statistics to show how something is bad, but don't like it when it gets flipped and compared to the rest of the data. After all it is a sample size of only 822 users who left a negative review on steam, yet there are 70,705 players. So again 1% of the playerbase decided to voice their opinion as a vocal minority. I have seen more numbers for Helldivers 2 in terms of reviews on steam in both the positive and negative.

EDIT: It would almost the equivalent of "See guys of the 100 players, only 2 left a positive review and there is 1 negative, its mixed, story confirmed bad"

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You don't need to confirm a story is bad through reviews. If a player plays it and to them the story is bad, then it's bad to them.

Seeing mixed reviews like this when it wasn't this way before does show, however small of a percentage you feel it is, that people are mostly split on the story itself.

Now speaking objectively is the MSQ bad? I'd say compared to what came before, absolutely. From the lack of interesting interactive gameplay, to poor characterization and writing; I'd say as a whole the experience is worse than what came before.

My question to the defenders though is: what, if anything, from DT do you feel is a path that SE should continue with?

Do you feel it's better to have another character be the central focus of the story from here on out (where in we, the player, just watch as things unfold and occasionally do something every several hours or so)?

Do you feel there's compelling story threads, beats or elements from DT that should continue into the next expansions?

Do you feel the way characters are portrayed and dialogue written in DT should be the new standard going forward for the series?

I feel that, while yes some may say the story is "fine" or "serviceable" I feel like those players would be hard pressed to say "Oh I want MORE DT over getting another SHB".

It's OK to like the story, it's OK to like the expansion, but to try and handwave the very clear negative reaction players are having to aspects of the expansion (story and otherwise) is silly.

I, for one, think this is the worst expansion MSQ they've ever released and I've played since ARR launch. So my answer would be to carry over none of what's happened in DT going forward and try and go back to what made the MSQ great in the past. That's not to say repeat the same story beats again, that's to say look at how we as a player interacted with the world and those around us and what worked and build off of that.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

Snip.

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...you do realize the entire point of sampling a population is trying to get a statistic without asking the ENTIRE population, right? Sure, the DT reviews are biased in a sense because the people who post reviews are more skewed towards people with strong opinions who have finished the story, but the reviews are markedly lower than every other xpac, and while we may need to wait for the reviews to stablize/have more submitted, it's still telling of the quality of the expansion if there's a lot of negative reviews when the community is generally very positive about the game.

Going back to the sampling part, it's basically impossible and impractical to survey every single player to get an overall opinion, so statisticians instead take random samples of the population and use it to represent the entire population. You have to take a statistically significant sample of the population for the data to actually work as being representative of the population, and 3 people, as you've mentioned, is not statistically significant.

As for what sample size is statistically significant, I'm sure there might be someone who knows more about statistics than me who could explain, but there's a whole formula involved that I can't be bothered to learn since even if I took the time to explain it, it would fly in one ear and out the other.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

Reviews also let people know how customers overall feel about the product, if a lot of people don't like the product and post a bad review, then the product is likely bad.

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But there's more positive reviews than negative, almost double the amount of positive reviews actually, so that means it's good right?

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Originally Posted by Phaty

But there's more positive reviews than negative, almost double the amount of positive reviews actually, so that means it's good right?

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I'd say it means some people have an issue with your product.

The important thing here, especially for a MMO/live service style game, is to see if there's a tend. If, for example, SE sees that the volume of complaints about X area of the game are 10%....20%....50%....or however much higher than before, then perhaps it'd be wise to hear the feedback being said about why someone feels something isn't good to them.

There's nothing wrong with being critical of a product. I don't think anyone paying to play the game wants to see if fail, we want to make it better and you do that by voicing your displeasure and specifying what you dislike specifically.

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Originally Posted by Phaty

But there's more positive reviews than negative, almost double the amount of positive reviews actually, so that means it's good right?

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It just means that there are more reviews in the 5 and above which makes sense because DT is not a 0 and those are review bombs. This expansion for example is more a 5 or 6 for me which is above average.
It would make more sense to compare it to other expansions and the score of them to get an understanding and not in itself or other games. Given that the game is normaly at an 8 or more and now about 6 or 7 just says that overall players liked it less.
Review sites semself are also not allthe same. There are sides with a more positiv user score (Metacritic) and sites with a more negativ score (google). For steam for example a 60-70 is normaly pretty bad. I don't know how truthfull those sites are and tbh I don't really care.

DT is not unplayable just like another poster said but if we go by score it's also not at the level of other expansions and almost all negative reviews gave the story as a reason for that.
All the reviews imply is that the players are heavely divided this time.

Also even if DT has a final score of ~60 or 70 / 100 that means that about 30-40% of the players are not happy with it. That would not be the majority but certainly a big number of potentialy lost customers.

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Originally Posted by Phaty

But there's more positive reviews than negative, almost double the amount of positive reviews actually, so that means it's good right?

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To add onto what others said, a ~66% positive still marks the game as mediocre, which is honestly about right. DT isn't horrendous, but the MSQ is just okay to tolerable and they haven't done much in terms of innovating the same old formula that they use every xpac.

At the moment, a lot of the xpac hinges on how good the MSQ is, and there's plenty of complaints about it. If they also added new QOL changes, like for instance, removing job-restrictions from glamour, that significantly impact the game for the better then we would see DT's score improve because even though the story is a flop everything that's not the story has made players happy.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

To add onto what others said, a ~66% positive still marks the game as mediocre, which is honestly about right. DT isn't horrendous, but the MSQ is just okay to tolerable and they haven't done much in terms of innovating the same old formula that they use every xpac.

At the moment, a lot of the xpac hinges on how good the MSQ is, and there's plenty of complaints about it. If they also added new QOL changes, like for instance, removing job-restrictions from glamour, that significantly impact the game for the better then we would see DT's score improve because even though the story is a flop everything that's not the story has made players happy.

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Yea I can agree with that. FF14 is in a predicament where they just finished a huge decade long arc and have to think of something new, but they don't have the luxury of 50 levels to tell it over to set a foundation like ARR did. I think the worst thing they can do is just ditch what they started and try something new, cuz then that turns into a bad cycle (wow after the LK died)The best would be to learn and improve on what's here now.

https://i.imgur.com/oBny70N.png
I should post this because I can't handle discussions I don't agree with.

10char123.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

A vocal minority of players actively voice their dislike or like of something.
Keyword: minority of players.

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An even tinier vocal minority of players actively defend the company to ward off criticism. What's your point?

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Originally Posted by KurenXIV

I, for one, think this is the worst expansion MSQ they've ever released and I've played since ARR launch. So my answer would be to carry over none of what's happened in DT going forward and try and go back to what made the MSQ great in the past. That's not to say repeat the same story beats again, that's to say look at how we as a player interacted with the world and those around us and what worked and build off of that.

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nah no going back we're done with that now, and the scions need to go away too there was no reason for them to be here in Dawntrail where they essentially contribute nothing and are just there as decoration or comic relief this should've just been a story with krile, erenville, g'raha and maybe estinien.

writing may have felt weak or not interesting this time around but it is still something new and i'd rather they keep trying new things then to keep bringing back a festering boil (primals,eikons, ascians, allagans etc.)

let all the past stuff remain as it is if you liked that stuff so much make an alt or just do new game plus let everyone else have a brand new adventure and new story.
and to be precise i dont care if they re-use some points of contension or put in things that were highlights from a different time we did something or met someone but those shouldn't be the main things but just passing mentions to remind us what we fight for etc

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Originally Posted by ShadowyZero

nah no going back we're done with that now, and the scions need to go away too there was no reason for them to be here in Dawntrail where they essentially contribute nothing and are just there as decoration or comic relief this should've just been a story with krile, erenville, g'raha and maybe estinien.

writing may have felt weak or not interesting this time around but it is still something new and i'd rather they keep trying new things then to keep bringing back a festering boil (primals,eikons, ascians, allagans etc.)

let all the past stuff remain as it is if you liked that stuff so much make an alt or just do new game plus let everyone else have a brand new adventure and new story.
and to be precise i dont care if they re-use some points of contension or put in things that were highlights from a different time we did something or met someone but those shouldn't be the main things but just passing mentions to remind us what we fight for etc

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I think you misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not saying we need the Scions back. I agree they should have been gone this expansion.

Allow me to elaborate; what I mean by how we interact with the world is reflected upon the starting of ARR, how we got to know the Scions, how we became a part of the larger story and such.

As an example, imagine if we started DT by just going to the new world with Erenville. Heck keep the same plot point of looking for the City of Gold, a perfectly good adventure to plot the story around. Perhaps something happens and we get knocked off course and land somewhere unintended. Both of us are now out of our element to some degree and we have no connections to help us. We go through and begin to encounter towns and cities belonging to the people of that region and we learn about them and their troubles. We slowly grow to understand the neighboring areas and the connections they have with the lands we've discovered and gone through. You can imagine how this opens up the ability to introduce the politics of the region (similar to ARR with Gridania, Ul'dah and Limsa) and we can learn about the greater conflicts that impact the land. And the best part . . . is none of those have to be addressed yet! They'd be like seeds that can be planted and grown for later story harvesting. Instead as we learn and progress we can eventually get back to finding the city of gold and that can be the later part of the MSQ. Thus you now have a nice self contained story but also all the elements to build upon a larger world story and future stories.

This is me just spit ballin' but you get the idea.

I just realized that we couldn't even get a decent echo vision in the game. The two or so we DID get was just made up as a flash back and wasn't even like any of the echo visions which we had in the past. IE if two characters are talking we literally see the dialogue between the two characters in the echo vision. Not a narration of what is happening with the two characters mouthing nothing.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

As the most powerful White Mage on the planet, I watched and couldn't be bothered to muster a single heal.

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StB Krile: YOU'RE A HEALER, AREN'T YOU? HELP US, DAMNIT!
DT Krile: zZz

I've played the game for over 11 years and had up and down feelings about MSQ's over the years. But this one was just really bad and actually my worst experience in an RPG in like... a long time in general, too much wuk lamat, too much bad writing.

If they had like not finished the story the way they did which really was the icing on the cake for me, and I didn't have to have to wuk around for 99% of the game, and instead maybe only 50% I think it might've been passable. Alas, I was a side character to a main character that wasn't fun to be around in the slightest.

I wish when she asked me if I wanted to help her become ruler I could've said no.

The gameplay was good though, dungeons are awesome, viper is awesome.

Okay, so what the heck is this writing. 92-94 MSQ spoilers.

First Bakool releases the scary bird and totally gets away with that. We are told in length how harmful this serpent is. In real life his crime is comparable to sabotaging a major nuclear plant. Not only should he have been disqualified immediately as a claimant, he should be detained and imprisoned as Tural citizen. We don't recall the king giving claimants indulgence to perform any crime they wish during the rite. But nothing of it happens, and when we meet him again, he admits his deed nonchalantly, Wuk Lamat scolds him briefly, and that's it. After that the bird is never mentioned and completely forgot. Everyone is okay. No one seems to go tell the king that his kingdom barely evaded a huge disaster due to obviously dangerous and evil deed of one of the claimants.

Second, Bakool kindaps one of the electors, drags him somewhere, threatens him harm, issues a kill order on him, and actually inflicts at least minor physical harm to him, as in the cutscene we see how his goons throw the elector onto his knees. Wasn't it explicitly told that attempting to harm electors results in disqualification? But once again, no one ever tells anything to Bakool or to the king. While a bit later first Promise is disqualified exactly for this, and I presume for much even less than Bakool did.

We may assume that Bakool was acting dumb and desperate, not thinking of consequences of his actions. So be it. But why everyone around acted the same? Why no one calmly told him that what he does will simply grant him disqualification, if not criminal trial on top of that, instead of whatever he wanted to achieve? Why no one informed the king about all that, isn't that electors' direct job?

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Originally Posted by Kiarin

Okay, so what the heck is this writing. 92-94 MSQ spoilers.

First Bakool releases the scary bird and totally gets away with that. We are told in length how harmful this serpent is. In real life his crime is comparable to sabotaging a major nuclear plant. Not only should he have been disqualified immediately as a claimant, he should be detained and imprisoned as Tural citizen. We don't recall the king giving claimants indulgence to perform any crime they wish during the rite. But nothing of it happens, and when we meet him again, he admits his deed nonchalantly, Wuk Lamat scolds him briefly, and that's it. After that the bird is never mentioned and completely forgot. Everyone is okay. No one seems to go tell the king that his kingdom barely evaded a huge disaster due to obviously dangerous and evil deed of one of the claimants.

Second, Bakool kindaps one of the electors, drags him somewhere, threatens him harm, issues a kill order on him, and actually inflicts at least minor physical harm to him, as in the cutscene we see how his goons throw the elector onto his knees. Wasn't it explicitly told that attempting to harm electors results in disqualification? But once again, no one ever tells anything to Bakool or to the king. While a bit later first Promise is disqualified exactly for this, and I presume for much even less than Bakool did.

We may assume that Bakool was acting dumb and desperate, not thinking of consequences of his actions. So be it. But why everyone around acted the same? Why no one calmly told him that what he does will simply grant him disqualification, if not criminal trial on top of that, instead of whatever he wanted to achieve? Why no one informed the king about all that, isn't that electors' direct job?

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As someone who liked Bakool JaJa I agree.
The problem was not his behaviour (it is great to have someone like this from time to time) nor his heel-face turn (even though it was to quick). It was the world and reactions around him.

The giant that was supposed to be guarding that thing just stood there.
No one really called Bakool out on anything but treat him like a lowly school bully when he clearly overstepped the boundarys.

I get that he was really desperate and all and that is actually the ground for a real interesting plot right there with him slowly coming to terms and changing for the better with all the failures and a disqualification but even that falls flat because all the problems he wanted to resolve? We do that in a matter of a few quests because the Mamool Ja apparently were to "stupid" to just plant other things despite having some people there that were to Eorzea and back.

Zoral Ja also. He could have had such a deep story with the whole expansion exploring the darker and deeper sites of charakters. Him descenting into darkness and Bakool rising out from it, maybe stand with us against him in the end but nothing.

In the end, Wuk Lamat was always the favoured child of the father and was always meant to be the victor. He talked to us to help her and said that none of the other candidates had anyone giving them a push. Hello? I guess Thancred and Urianger are not even important enough for that despite them doing more mentoring then we are.

Thats my biggest pet peave. Wuk Lamat not only stole spotlight from us but from the other candidates as well. She was just so perfect. Even when another candidate resolved a trial better or different then her (Zoral Ja defeating the giant before us, the Miqo boy finding a craftsman with no problems because he had the approval of them before or resolving the harvest of the birds quickly) Wuk Lamat always got an extra pat on the back.

What really bothered me was the amount of repetitiveness from the writing. I read/heard the same lines said in slightly different ways a zillion times. If you took a drink every time the word "peace" was said, you'd die from alcohol poisoning.

The one who did the writing didn't review anything that was going on with Shadowbringers and Endwalker MSQ from what I can tell. We had actual bargaining chips that could have been laid out on the table and discussed at multiple points that would have definitely forced Sphene to stop the aggression. I think ultimately what happened later with the brother likely would have led to the same conclusion, but at the very least it would have felt more like there really was no other way. Heck I'm not even convinced after that final event there wasn't a way to at least give pause or force Sphene into redirecting her attention elsewhere for fuel.

Gotta agree with the general consensus here. It was a tough job for CBU3 to take on, but it's a mess of their own making at the end of the day.

Throughout all the expansions we raised and raised the stakes, but I don't look at the trials in Heavensward and think 'that's such small fry' compared to ShB. It had weight, there were threats, lives were lost, and sacrifices made. Endwalker kind of went crazy shooting us to the moon, travelling back in time to be at the origin of the whole problem's making, and murdering the very gods that established the universe we live in. And it also did so without us actually really sacrificing anything for it. We dismantled Garlemald, stopped the final days, destroyed the very last link the Ascians and killed Zenos too. After that... What could really matter?

The 6.x story was already pretty mid and lacked any of the nuance we've enjoyed during ShB-EW era writing, but Dawntrail is just on another level. We are a literal fragment, the possible last remnant, of a powerful precursor race, and very likely the most powerful being left alive on Eorzea AND the other shards - so the logical thing is to trapse around the jungle and avoid treading on sacred flowers or whatever that zone's custom is. It's just so dull. Nobody is under threat, nothing really matters, and the impact here doesn't really mean anything. Even if it does, the world is kind of 'solved' at this point. We did it. We saved everything.

It's made worse that they TRY and make things feel threatening, but it just isn't. We had a similar concept in ShB - a new world, new traditions, unfamiliar environs - but the whole thing was underpinned by moving pieces and the machinations of greater plots. We just don't have anything here.

The only way they could have salvaged the plot they've gone with - at least the first half - is to let you choose your promise. But that'd be too wild for them to consider.

EDIT: One other important thought. With ShB - we went to a new land and nobody knew who we were. So everything felt normal. It seems in DT our reputation precedes us and most people are well aware who we are and what we've achieved. Would you really mess with someone you know saved the entire planet? Yet they still want to throw hands at the first sign of tension.

I honestly feel that people will look on Dawntrail unfavourably, but come to realise that much of the blame does lie with Endwalker. It was just a bit too crazy compared to what came before. Now we're back with our feet on the ground and the grass is not greener for it.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

- Alise was behind the biggest medical break through in history (curing the tempered) that opened the door for total diplomacy and unification.

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Mah girl is so overlooked for this. Possibly the single biggest achievement by any character not the WoL in modern history. Sure she relies on other's technical skills but she made it happen.

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Originally Posted by Ritsugamesh

I honestly feel that people will look on Dawntrail unfavourably, but come to realise that much of the blame does lie with Endwalker. It was just a bit too crazy compared to what came before. Now we're back with our feet on the ground and the grass is not greener for it.

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Stakes aren't the problem, genuinely. There are so many stories in literature that have far lower stakes than whatever was going on in EW, but they manage to make them compelling and engaging to read through. The problem is bad writing, and not just bad writing but insultingly bad characterization of the characters, themes, and world, wrapped with incessant moralizing more apt for a toddler than any functioning adult.

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Originally Posted by Ritsugamesh

Gotta agree with the general consensus here. It was a tough job for CBU3 to take on, but it's a mess of their own making at the end of the day.

Throughout all the expansions we raised and raised the stakes, but I don't look at the trials in Heavensward and think 'that's such small fry' compared to ShB.

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Had nothing to do with that, the problems lie more with they can not buckle their own trend. I said it many times, if they want they can commit Dawn Trail to a full adventure ala Lara Croff/ India John, those games often very interesting story without the world ending thing. But instead, they decided to half-arse and back pedal in the later half. The whole Sphene/new reflection was totally unnecessary given what they said would be the main theme of DT. It would have been much better for the 2nd of the MSQ to be introduced at 7.3, and give Sphene/Endless their appropriate attention as the center of the next expansion kinda like how they set up Zeros and WoD. The fact that they had to jam an out of place world ending threat in the back half of their "fun and adventure" expack make me think SE is incapable of writing something with low skate.


Another problem with the writing team is their obsession with the "everyone is nice deepdown no matter how bad they look at the surface", this eliminate a lot of their options to diverse the narrative and thus they gonna keep go down the same road.

My biggest issue with the MSQ is the lack of setup and payoff. In fact, I thought Koana was being set up as a future dictator type villain who would end up trying to force communities in Tural to become advanced technologically, but nah, instead they (again) introduce a character never before mentioned over halfway into the story, and that’s the real big bad we’re supposed to care about. But we’re not supposed to hate her, because she’s a cute little girl with *good intentions*?

They’ve completely forgotten how to plant the seeds of characters and stories that grow and invest us. How am I supposed to care about any of this when it’s suddenly shoved in my face out of nowhere?

Do you base all of your opinions on what review websites say?

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Originally Posted by Underscore

Do you base all of your opinions on what review websites say?

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Your two remaining neurons really can't figure out that most of these threads and criticisms were made before Metacritic even went live huh.

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Originally Posted by HighlanderClone

Your two remaining neurons really can't figure out that most of these threads and criticisms were made before Metacritic even went live huh.

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Read the title of the thread we are currently replying to.

Why are you so mad?

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Originally Posted by Rynn21

What really bothered me was the amount of repetitiveness from the writing. I read/heard the same lines said in slightly different ways a zillion times. If you took a drink every time the word "peace" was said, you'd die from alcohol poisoning.

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* camera zooms on my hand curling into a fist * what do you mean you don’t want a zillion shots of my fingers curling so I can convey upon you my emotion.

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Originally Posted by xxmiamorecadenza

* camera zooms on my hand curling into a fist * what do you mean you don’t want a zillion shots of my fingers curling so I can convey upon you my emotion.

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I was vaguely keeping track of this, as it started happening NONSTOP on the second half. I want to say there were eleven shots of this happening, but my count may be off. There may have been more, or a bit less.

What do you mean, the devs get weirdly obsessed whenever they get a new emote/canned animation and overuse it in scenes where it just looks unnatural?

>:J