Thanks for all the Fish

I've read fanfics that were better than DT, and even if they're badly written, we take solace in the fact that the people writing them are not professional writers.

Between entertained and horrified, I don't think I've had a fanfic that put me to sleep the way DT MSQ put me to sleep every 10 minutes, it was a similar experience to when I consistently fell asleep during Nero's speech in the old Prae which means I was bored out of my mind.

Even I never thought it'd flop so hard.

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Originally Posted by Rueby

I've read fanfics that were better than DT, and even if they're badly written, we take solace in the fact that the people writing them are not professional writers.

Between entertained and horrified, I don't think I've had a fanfic that put me to sleep the way DT MSQ put me to sleep every 10 minutes, it was a similar experience to when I consistently fell asleep during Nero's speech in the old Prae which means I was bored out of my mind.

Even I never thought it'd flop so hard.

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I read Hentai that had better story than this piece of crap

If it means anything at this point, I am starting to see where they might take future expansions. There are several plot devices I foresee getting a huge part in at the end of this expansion and I'm actually kind of excited for that. The thing is, I DID go into Dawntrail expecting it to be a much much slower pace. It's a fresh start after Endwalker concluded. We're just kinda there at the moment and I remember telling people that this world ending threat just isn't going to be present yet. It's going to take a long time to build to that point. Unfortunately for the people writing this game, players don't want to feel a high of literally killing god and then going back to boring escort quests.

It will get exciting again. I promise that.

One of the main reasons people stop playing this game at the start is because ARR is such a slow slog of a build up, but it does pay off towards the end. I know people will say ARR is better than DT because of nostalgic reasons, but they're really sort of the same. We are just in that slow slog again, but maybe it's cope that it will pay off at the end of Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Dastan

One of the main reasons people stop playing this game at the start is because ARR is such a slow slog of a build up, but it does pay off towards the end. I know people will say ARR is better than DT because of nostalgic reasons, but they're really sort of the same. We are just in that slow slog again, but maybe it's cope that it will pay off at the end of Dawntrail.

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ARR didn't have the majority of the cast clapping like mindless dolls as the world warps itself around a single character so that nothing can or will actually oppose them in any meaningful way.

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Originally Posted by Dastan

One of the main reasons people stop playing this game at the start is because ARR is such a slow slog of a build up, but it does pay off towards the end. I know people will say ARR is better than DT because of nostalgic reasons, but they're really sort of the same. We are just in that slow slog again, but maybe it's cope that it will pay off at the end of Dawntrail.

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Sorry but ARR was nowhere near as much of a slog as dawntrail. Dawntrail is not only a slog it doesn't give you any intrigue, it doesn't set up any interesting conflicts, it is actively a detriment to pre-existing lore, the setting it presents is incredibly uninteresting. "It's setting up stuff" is not a valid excuse. ARR gave us an introduction to a world full of mystery, it gave us interesting characters whose stories we could look forward to, it set up a mountain of interesting conflict.

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Originally Posted by Jangles

"It's setting up stuff" is not a valid excuse. ARR gave us an introduction to a world full of mystery, it gave us interesting characters whose stories we could look forward to, it set up a mountain of interesting conflict.

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But we have THE KEY now. It had the Azem symbol on it for sec. And it's THE KEY.... That will allegedly accomplish the exact same thing as any random permanent or semi permanent portal to another reflection that we keep stumbling across already do.

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Originally Posted by Jangles

Sorry but ARR was nowhere near as much of a slog as dawntrail.

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Wow; I definitely have to disagree with that. I remember ARR asking me to run and deliver pizzas to people. On foot - I had no mount. Sprint only lasted 10 seconds. Then I had to run between locations in Central Thanalan. And we all know about the titan slog. It was painful as a new player.

I stuck around for that because: I wanted to play the FF mmo anyway, I liked the bright colors of Thanalan and for some reason the gameplay of just 2 buttons on a Gladiator was nevertheless fun to me. The tease of a bigger story with Thancred and masked mages also gripped me enough.

Dawntrail in contrast took me to Kozama'uka to meet the Hanu Hanu and the Moblins, which felt good, the beautiful Urqopacha, the place where the music reminds you of a disney film (Yak T'el) where we finally see the Mamool Ja as something other than what we 1-shot in Upper La Noscea and the cool, western area Shaaloani to see duels, become embroiled in cowboy conflicts and all this ceruleum talked about in the Blue Mage quests. I didn't feel any of that was really like delivering pizza on foot.

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Dawntrail is not only a slog it doesn't give you any intrigue

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I was looking for the moment where it would feel like a "fantasy" story and that moment for me was entering the upper area of Urqopacha, meeting the giants and them revealing the dreams they had. To me, that was what gave it intrigue. The stuff about Krile also provided intrigue.

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it doesn't set up any interesting conflicts

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It did set them up since obviously we fought people, but didn't really set up that much for post-expansion I agree.

I think it's because SE has long been on a mission to "explain everything" and tie up loose ends. They pretty much concluded that with Endwalker and its patches, where we'd finally explored almost every piece of lore that existed and had it explained in full.

So now they create some lore, but are very quick to jump on it and explain it all. We're already quite far through Emet's bucket list (if you include the side content).

What created a lot of the intrigue for many years was that the lore remained unexplained for years, allowing for speculation and imagination.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Wow; I definitely have to disagree with that. I remember ARR asking me to run and deliver pizzas to people. On foot - I had no mount. Sprint only lasted 10 seconds. Then I had to run between locations in Central Thanalan. And we all know about the titan slog. It was painful as a new player.

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You definitely have to have a certain mindset going into XIV to get over the initial slow story hump, and of course things famously pick up immediately following the Shiva trial.

Since then, the story has had a decent enough pace, which I'm assuming most people are used to.

DT feels like a return to pre-Shiva ARR. Instead of running around delivering pizzas, you're running up and down the stairs of Tulliyolal because Lamat wants to give you 5 tours of the city. The change in pace after EW was probably too jarring for a lot of people--I get that they wanted to at least fake a beach episode expac, but instead it feels like a lazy river where someone on the shore is screaming at me the entire time.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Dawntrail in contrast took me to Kozama'uka to meet the Hanu Hanu and the Moblins, which felt good, the beautiful Urqopacha, the place where the music reminds you of a disney film (Yak T'el) where we finally see the Mamool Ja as something other than what we 1-shot in Upper La Noscea and the cool, western area Shaaloani to see duels, become embroiled in cowboy conflicts and all this ceruleum talked about in the Blue Mage quests. I didn't feel any of that was really like delivering pizza on foot.

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The locales and cultures were certainly pretty and creative, but it didn't help that they Disney-ed pretty much every single culture.

Bird people too stupid to understand their own culture, one guy who does know withholds the information because lulz?
Fakeium Goblins so one-note that I forgot about them the moment I left their level bracket?
Giants that are foreshadowed the entire time leading up to them only to seemingly exist for the sole purpose of showing us the big evil bird?
And of course, my favorite: Who is more stupid--the residents of Mamool for mass-producing miscarriages instead of, I don't know, cutting down some of the stupid trees blocking the sun, or Gulool Ja Ja, the dude from the miserable shadow land who completely forgot about the suffering of his people the moment he ascended to the throne?

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Originally Posted by Dastan

[...] The thing is, I DID go into Dawntrail expecting it to be a much much slower pace. It's a fresh start after Endwalker concluded.[...]

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That was my expectation going into the expack too and while a lot of things in how the MSQ experience changed rubbed me the wrong way it certainly wasn't that things were too low stakes.

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We're just kinda there at the moment and I remember telling people that this world ending threat just isn't going to be present yet. It's going to take a long time to build to that point.[...]

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It was that they just threw that notion out the window.
They just had to have the equivalent of Galactus crashing the beach episode after little more buildup than us being on luggage duty for the new MC up to that point.
Granted that world dimension ending threat was wrapped up during the same episode in typical Saturday morning cartoon manner but it most definitely was there.

Even if magically all my other issues with DT MSQ (which have been discussed to exhaustion) disappeared that development still wouldn't sit right with me.
I have no issue with a low stakes expansion to rediscover the joy of adventuring for the sake of adventuring. I have no problem with us discovering the next big threat of this new post-Ascian arc, we were bound to.
I absolutely take issue with them realizing they were three quarters through their airtime, instantly escalating things from zero to 100 to throw a threat on a level we haven't seen since depressed TwitterX bird our way and immediately wrapping it up in time for the credits.
If our power as the WoL/D has now escalated to the level where our casual, one-off villain of the week comes with powers to threaten the multiverse as a default I really wonder what bigger threat they can still build up to or if we're going to see future stories take place exclusively in other dimensions where they can justify a lazy power reset "because it is another dimension".

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Wow; I definitely have to disagree with that. I remember ARR asking me to run and deliver pizzas to people. On foot - I had no mount. Sprint only lasted 10 seconds. Then I had to run between locations in Central Thanalan. And we all know about the titan slog. It was painful as a new player.

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I will add to this, I started playing after they trimmed down ARR during EW, it was still miserable and you couldn't pay me to replay ARR, what kept me going was a mix of the promise it gets better with ever-increasing sunk cost fallacy, I legitimately cannot understand how anyone could think otherwise, unless they have played ARR so long ago you developed rose-tinted glasses for the crumbs of good that are in that vast sea of misery.