What Dawntrail Changes Were for the Worse?

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Originally Posted by SongOfTheWind

She was not involved in 6.x either.

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Well that explains, uh. 6.x.

Not a fluke.

meikyo shisui and tsubame geisha changes don't make any logical sense they worked fine as they were before this patch i hope they can revert this back in either 7.05 or 7.1

Mao feels like is becomings less wiggle rooms for BLMs. Gotta gets extra Ice spells cast or mana runs low. Gotta gets rotation perfects or no prize ats end. Is just seem likes funs being ripped from BLMs. Maybe is get betters later ons? Mao askings BLMs whats finished gettings to 100 if still feels as funs as was in EW?

AST's new Aetherflow knock Off.
Not only did it lose a fun apm intense buffing feature in Exchange.
Not only is the choice of what to use the stacks for pre made for the Player.
It also didn't lose any other healing tools, so it's really just superflous outside the one dps buff a minute.

To much pointless cutscenes. No mystery or hook in the story at least to level 94. Had to force myself to play or take breaks. No innovation or reinvention of aether currents/fates. Brings nothing new to the world, story or dungeon. Not even random treasure chests in the world. Same rotation of patches. I have no desire for the future patches.

The only thing I have not been enjoying is the changes to my character. I've seen so many that look good, and then my girl just looks bad... Unfinished even.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

Allow me.

The argument being put forth for Plunge's removal is that it reduces the amount of buttons being pressed in DRK's burst window. That's the reason that was given, but as you pointed out, it makes little sense, because us DRK mains only play it for that high APM. It's the only time when the job extends past 1-2-3 gauge spender, so the removal of 2 oGCDs and potential fight optimization is a net loss for the job. I don't know who actually gains from this.

Further more, Shadowstride, as cool as it is thematically for those who are okay with losing the Berserk reference, has the "unintended?" drawback of nerfing Enhanced Unmend, a trait that was already the laughing stock of the game. Now you can't even get theoretical potency gains off increased Plunges. Doesn't even return the entire Shadowstride, it's still five seconds. Meanwhile Raiton, something you actually use, gives you FREE Shukuchis on NIN.

Like, why not have Shadowstride TURN INTO Plunge after using Unmend? Like how SAM/RPR's change when they are forced to disengage? Why am I not allowed to gapclose to friends if I'm not hitting them with my giant sword? If you're going to give me Thunderclap, why not go all the way?

There's an inverse relationship with how much I want to say about DRK vs what was meaningfully added to the job this time around. Three expansions running, and we're still failing to meet our potential.

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the main reason its gone and why pld/war should also lose the damage is using your mobility for damage is bad game design.
They should replace the damage ogcds with new ones, however.

Seraphism. this ability alone is lore-breaking and the effect is OP


Oh.. and it's ugly

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

Writing.

That's my #1 problem. Making it hard to get through this MSQ and I have to take regular breaks.

Other MSQs I actually cared what happens next. Here when my WoL is asked what I think, my real answer is "Just do what you want, I don't care!"

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Adding specifics:

1. No attention grabbing situations in at least the first 5 hours, maybe more.
2. Little to no action for long periods of time. Even if they wanted to have us be "on vacation" why not some friendly comepetitive minigames to break up the boredom or something?
3. Weak cast of characters, especially the main party.
4. Unlike other MSQs where the cast changes throughout, we are stuck consistently with this cast and it doesn't vary as it did in other stories. Some characters are better in small doses. Having them center stage here feels bad.
5. Our Warrior of Light has become a background prop to the "Story of Wuk Lamat". I don't think many people really wanted an expansion where we aren't even a protagonist.

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The lack of action is devastating. Let us hunt some things. Let us dive into more dungeons. Give us more FATEs. What's the point of having these gigantic beautiful zones where we never get to do anything in them? I think this is like the biggest weakness this game has. Something that it suffered from since ARR, but at least the story could carry the experience all on its back. When the story doesn't have you as invested the weakness shines very brightly. Also it is extremely hard to get friends to play this game when you can't even do anything with them. So we take a week off from work and all we got to do is a couple of dungeons and one trial together. Rarely even get to see each other between the endless torrent of cutscenes.

The quests are just so badly designed they don't allow you to take in the world and maybe stumble into the "optional" side content easier. Like being able to stumble into FATEs without having to hunt them down, or having more monsters to kill on the hunting board. Lack of dungeons and very little quests that involve combat. Sometimes your brain needs a mental break from the 12 hour movie to digest what's going on and just kill some monsters while zoning out. Doesn't have to be nearly as tedious as something like WoW which is a 10 on the tedium "how many hours killing boars" spectrum, but being a 1 like FF14 isn't that great either.

Shame we couldn't get like a special "variant" style dungeon. That has a lore reason to revisit, which we discover 1hr into the MSQ. That gives us a reason to pause the cutscenes and explore it once in awhile and not feel like we're "wasting time" like we would if we were doing roulettes for example. We could be 100% done with it by the time we're 100.

Things like story/pacing/graphics is all subjective there is no definitive answer… some rate stormblood over shadowbringers or love ARR I think overall from what I’ve seen on Twitter/discord and Reddit is more positivity then I thought… this forum however has just divulged into nitpicking every facet and yes one can be critical of a game but it gets tiring that ‘everything’ is wrong… I treat this expansion as a fresh start… anyone who says it’s slow or upset we aren’t the focus need to understand we aren’t always the main character lol… we can observe the world etc through new eyes. You can’t keep one upping yourselves each time plot wise it would make no sense and eventually it would just be getting silly… oh no our 5th end of the universe event we must come together to win…just let it be muted and build for once… its about the journey not the destination.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

Allow me.

The argument being put forth for Plunge's removal is that it reduces the amount of buttons being pressed in DRK's burst window. That's the reason that was given, but as you pointed out, it makes little sense, because us DRK mains only play it for that high APM. It's the only time when the job extends past 1-2-3 gauge spender, so the removal of 2 oGCDs and potential fight optimization is a net loss for the job. I don't know who actually gains from this.

Further more, Shadowstride, as cool as it is thematically for those who are okay with losing the Berserk reference, has the "unintended?" drawback of nerfing Enhanced Unmend, a trait that was already the laughing stock of the game. Now you can't even get theoretical potency gains off increased Plunges. Doesn't even return the entire Shadowstride, it's still five seconds. Meanwhile Raiton, something you actually use, gives you FREE Shukuchis on NIN.

Like, why not have Shadowstride TURN INTO Plunge after using Unmend? Like how SAM/RPR's change when they are forced to disengage? Why am I not allowed to gapclose to friends if I'm not hitting them with my giant sword? If you're going to give me Thunderclap, why not go all the way?

There's an inverse relationship with how much I want to say about DRK vs what was meaningfully added to the job this time around. Three expansions running, and we're still failing to meet our potential.

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I will say that Dark Knights changes were as bare minimum as you could really get. Which is pretty notable in what was basically the most bare minimum job changes as a whole.

I don't really feel like the dev team has passion for this game anymore, they're just going through the motions at this point. And you can see it in their odd decision to nerf DRK's defenses with the MP nerf of all things. They're just out of touch, they change for the sake of change, because exapnsions need change, and then they go develop other games.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

I will say that Dark Knights changes were as bare minimum as you could really get. Which is pretty notable in what was basically the most bare minimum job changes as a whole.

I don't really feel like the dev team has passion for this game anymore, they're just going through the motions at this point. And you can see it in their odd decision to nerf DRK's defenses with the MP nerf of all things. They're just out of touch, they change for the sake of change, because exapnsions need change, and then they go develop other games.

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If they cared about job design they wouldn't make everything the exact same.
The Drk nerfs were more of an accidental oversight i'm guessing, stemming from that lack of care.

The lips. They'll go down in history with those cursed grapes

Not a fan of the MNK changes at all. Perhaps it's a matter of me not getting used to the 2-3-4 cadence, but regardless I don't think it's satisfying to stay at the flanks for 11 GCDs in a row (or more if you throw in the new Reply attacks and blitzes). The new HUD element is difficult to read quickly, and simple mode doesn't help. I could enlarge it, but it's linked to the nadi element which would become massive and take up too much space on my screen. Potencies are bugged as well, and basically you ignore every other blitz except for Elixir Field until lvl 86. And Dragon Kick doesn't have a form requirement so Bootshine is best followed up with Dragon Kick rather than your raptor form moves. Likewise you want to follow up your last Perfect Balance GCD with Dragon Kick if you don't have opo-opo's fury up before you execute your blitz, so you can go straight into an empowered Bootshine immediately.

BLM is a hot mess. Not being able to regen MP in between dungeon pulls before you get Umbral Soul is just bad. Are we expected to Transpose > Thunder > Transpose > Thunder > rinse and repeat while we run after the tank?

AST cards feel anaemic. As the most buff-heavy healer, I don't feel like I'm doing any buffing anymore. AST is already well equipped to handle any incoming damage with its existing toolkit; more card-based heals and mitigations aren't needed, so gameplay has become less engaging with less things for me to do.

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Originally Posted by rawker

Seraphism. this ability alone is lore-breaking and the effect is OP


Oh.. and it's ugly

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I know there are folks who like the way Seraphism looks, but I'd really prefer to have a toggle to turn off the forced outfit change. It definitely is a powerful skill, but I haven't levelled my SCH to 100 yet so I can't give my review of the skill. Not that I'm inclined to play SCH anytime soon given how the skill looks and how underwhelming the changes to SCH are in general.

Not going for a job redesign at the same time than encounter redesign (which we still have to see any colour of so far...).

Guess I'll put in my own $0.02.

Although things have trended in this way for a while now so maybe it does meet every criteria for a "change", it feels like this trend has sharpened even more with Dawntrail:

Falling back on simplifications to forgot the need for technical advancements or even basic UI polish.

Let's take Monk for example. Let's start from the a couple potential issues that the dev team has, apparently, taken issue with: unnecessary barriers to accessibility, button bloat, and action bloat.

• Let us also say that, due to frequent player complaints about tracking DoTs or buff timers, that difficulty could be considered an unnecessary barrier to accessibility.
  
  
• Next, let us define "button bloat" as any button(s) the control or gameplay from which could be provided without loss with (fewer or) no buttons used.
  
  
• Finally, we'll take the former examples of old Power Surge (buffs next single-target Jump or SSD, meant to only ever be used on every third Jump and only ever Jump and therefore providing no real further thought beyond hitting it when it's available since Power Surge was on a multiple of Jump's timer anyways).

Given these issues commented on in the past and the opportunities, therefore, to address them, which of the choices below would seem to do the greater general good and least harm to job design?

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OPTION ONE:
Improve the combat UI gamewide through simple but effective changes, thereby making essential (de)buff tracking a non-issue; revitalize lackluster actions; trim unnecessary constraints and buttons without opening rotation to ill or degenerative effects; and, in doing so, inadvertently make Monk more open to nuance and unique.

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Click below to expand for details:

• Status Effects can now be placed separately and/or at separate sizes for one's own debuffs and Target Status Effects may now similarly be customized into chosen layouts of icons per row / total number of rows, left or right aligned. You may now customize the order of different types of status effects, including separately by self, party, and others.
  
  
• By default, timers for core debuffs, specific to each job, are now tracked directly below or to either side of enemy nameplates, with an icon, faded icon, small icon, or just the timer; said timer may be given as a bar beneath the enemy health bar, a number, or both. You can customize this to remove these timers or permit more effects to be tracked. Enemy nameplates may be further customized to reduce seemingly unnecessary information and now carry further information by default, such as interruptible casts, stunnable special actions, level of threat, and whether one is out of range, etc.
  
  
• HUD Layout has been revamped to include Gauges, Targeting, and Groups as separate categories. Additionally, many more pieces of UI have become separable and show this by default; UI elements with separable parts, including these new ones, now list each potentially separable element indented below the name for the combined form of that UI element.
  
  
• Most gauges and parameter bars are now separable in this way, including the Mana Bar, Song Gauge: Codas, Soul Voice, and Song Progress; Beast Chakra Gauge: Blitz Progress, Nadi, Forms, Leaden Fist, Disciplined Fist, Demolish, Perfect Balance Stacks; Balance Gauge: Black Magic, White Magic, Mana Crystals; Elemental Gauge: Elemental Timer, Elemental Counter, Umbral Hearts, Astral Soul, Polyglot Timer, Polyglot Counter, Paradox; etc.
  
  
• Twin Snakes and Dragon Kick potency reduced by 20 and True Strike, and Demolish potency increased by 20. This significantly increases the punishment of using simplified Dragon Kick rotations (from about 92% to ~86% of regular damage).
  
  
• Riddle of Wind now, for 10 seconds, increases you auto-attack and movement speed by 40%, allows auto-attack critical strikes to generate Chakra, and causes the use of single-target and multi-target attacks with Form to replace The Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment, respectively, allowing you to use that skill again as an ability. Brotherhood and Riddle of Wind now both allow your Chakra to overcharge, up to a total of 10 Chakra.
  
  
• Anatman now grants 1 second of Riddle of Fire, Riddle of Wind, and Riddle of Earth for each second it is channeled. These durations do not begin to fade until the channel ends.
  
  
• Greased Lightning has been returned in a rehauled state. It now reads, "The damage of your Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl skills are increased by 20% and their recast times reduced by 20%. Outside of Perfect Balance, each Form that benefits from these effects cannot benefit again for (3 GCDs' time)." Moreover, all Form Bonuses have been removed, their benefits rolled into the original abilities, but the bonus damage from Leaden Fist has been reduced to 80 potency and Snap Punch potency has been increased by 20 in its stead.
  

  This causes optimal play to follow the same rotations as before, as one can only get full value out of the form every but makes Form Shift unnecessary.

• Revamp the default Beast Chakra Gauge, having it instead by default show the three forms, Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl, from left to right, with each losing its glow and shrinking upon consuming the effects of Greased Lightning, gradually restoring to normal size and glow over 3 GCDs' time to mark when it will again have full power. By default, the remaining time on Leaden Fist, Disciplined Fist, and Demolish (on your current target) are shown as a radial timer around and a numeric timer below the Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl nodes.
  
  While in Fluid Form, all are shown again at full size and glow (since Fluid Form guarantees the effects of Greased Lightning) regardless of recent progress, and a stacking chevron appears above reused forms.
  

  This, in effect, maintains the same general rotation as before, but without need for windup (beyond Disciplined Fist), a single direction of progression (O->R->C->), or the bloat of Form Shift in order to begin from a different point in that set order. Essentially, for fewer buttons, you get a Monk who is more uniquely Monk, and by removing the need for set Form bonuses, you more nuanced use of Forms is now available.

• (Steeled/Forbidden) Meditation (and Inspirited/Enlightened Meditation) has (have) been removed, though Chakra spenders remain and can now be used at three or more Chakra for a fifth of their current potency per stack. Instead of needing an active button-press, you generate 1 Chakra per half of a global cooldown's time that you have not been under the global cooldown. Progress towards this the next Chakra granted in this manner is saved and accumulated and is now tracked just above your Chakra counter by default (and is separable).
  

  This provides roughly the same Chakra generation over time but without the need for a separate button press, therefore allowing more flexibility among Chakra spending and reducing the chore of use between fights.

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OPTION TWO: Make players look at their job gauge, instead of their more customizably placed (Conditional Buffs portion of the) Status Effects bar, to see whether they should use Dragon Kick or Leaden Fist, Twin Snake or Raptor Strike, Demolish or Snap Punch; remove Monk's GCD nuke, replacing it with a much more rarely pressed maintenance buff; remove any interaction between surrounding rotation and Blitz; remove any rotational interaction with downtime; rather than giving Anatman any purpose (again), remove it entirely.

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For details, play Dawntrail Monk or even just review its job guide.

I'm also in the camp of it ruined how my character looks. I love Thyn'a I tried to go through and get screenshots of this new thing to compare so I can give more feed back but it was just so upsetting to have to go and get the same feedback from the first benchmark cause they didn't fix anything.

Good thing our character doesn't really get a lot of time in the story...


That said, I'm pleasantly surprised with most other things. DRG felt the most fun is has since HW for me, WHM it's fun, can't wait to see how all the others feel too. The dungeons have all been fun. I am looking forward to the content.

To bad I didn't get to enjoy doing the story with the character I've loved for over ten years now.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

What Dawntrail changes do you think have negatively affected the game or your experience thereof?

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I have a broader issue of the game that has (as far as I am concerned) begun in Shadowbringers. MSQ writing has been paralysed in order to cater to people who could not let go of their "WOLship". I have had a lot of discussions with friends about the game and came to the conclusion that the writers seem to be scared of sacrificing a key character because of social media backlash. The realisation that any given plot consists of not being allowed to sacrifice someone has been killing my interest in the main scenario. It kills all suspense because any threat you may see it's just Goody Two-Shoes WOL and the Scions to the rescue and nothing ever goes wrong except for the occasional expansion-exclusive side character dying (see Tesleen, Galool Ja Ja). The last time we genuinely lost a Scion was Papalymo all the way back at Baelsar's Wall. That was in 3.5, that was seven-and-a-half years ago. That is still more than double the time I've been playing this game. The Exarch has been the greatest offender. He repeatedly hints and then tells us all that he will sacrifice himself for us. Two expansions later he is sitting on a love boat with the WOL, how convenient for all the Twitter WOLship fanatics. Not so much for the players that just want a thrilling story.

What does it mean for Dawntrail? I already entered MSQ with a poor taste in my mouth, knowing that there would be no key characters lost. And I was right! The only key supporting character they have killed off was the parting two-headed Dawnservant whose wiser face has already died years ago. That is about the most cowardly way you can write a death. Yshtola and Graha have not even been close to any threat. Yshtola's involvement in the MSQ was poor in general. Basically comes in just to tell us what an interdimensional rift is, and then tells Graha to fix it basically. Estinien's involvement in the plot was to kill a few drones in Shaaloani. Krile has been advertised as a woman on a mission with a newly acquired fighting skill. In the end, she gets two truly relevant plot sections (the Lalafellin couple handing the child to Galuf, and Krile later meeting the Endless of her parents. She was also seen using her pictomancer kit once in the MSQ. Even Alisaie and Alphinaud may as well just stayed in Sharlayan for the first 70% of the story. Just don't put anyone in danger please, the Twitter horde might not like it.

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Originally Posted by freekyfreezer

<Some spoilers>

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Just a tip, in case it may be of use: you can use [ HB ] [/ HB ] (without the spaces) to hide spoilers until clicked upon.

1. Writing. I don't need to go over it here since it's already been said but I agree with 95% of it, and not just the complaints about a certain Hokage.
2. Pacing. I am just eternally bored so far. I've finally reached Texas (after needing to take numerous breaks) and it feels like a slog. The only time I've enjoyed myself so far with the MSQ is the duel with Dad. Every other Expac (since HW) I practically played straight until completing the MSQ because I was hooked by the story and gameplay.
3. Graphics Update*. This has an asterisk because I think it has potential, but it's not done and needs a lot of work.
3a. DLSS/FSA - There are a lot of issues with it ranging from blurriness, inability to disable it properly, etc... but it's so bad some people get motion sickness or eye strain.
3b. Character changes - The changes to characters really wasn't for the better IMO. I miss the old look of my Face 2 Xaela.
3c. Texture glitches and bugs - Many of them were addressed with the benchmark but not all of them. The messed up scale texture on the hands of Au'ra for example is glaring, particularly for a race with generally darker skin. It should've never made it past QA.
4. Job balancing. I'm not gonna get into it with the healer strike since I'm not striking, but there are a lot of valid complaints they have and there are times my role feels relegated to second class.
5. Location/Monster names. I get it, you want something that's culturally sensitive or whatever. But it's hard to pronounce and hard to type. For example, if someone asks where to go I can't just say "Oh head over to Elpis!" or "It's right outside Uldah!" I can't remember the names, spelling or pronunciation for words that long.

It just feels like little thought was put into the player experience. Just lots of "Oh this is a good idea!" without anyone there to critique said ideas and how they would affect the actual gameplay.

Who ever decided that rough divide needed to be changed on gunbreaker, needs to rethink their life decisions and quit their job.

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Originally Posted by freekyfreezer

The realisation that any given plot consists of not being allowed to sacrifice someone has been killing my interest in the main scenario.

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The Warrior of Light and all the "party members" basically have plot armor. They can't die because a MMORPG does not allow you to put someone on a bus. They have to exist due to mechanics in the game that say they still exist.

We can't lose Nanamo any more than we can lose Ser Aymeric, because so much of the games writing observes that they are alive. If Thancred dies in act III of 8.0, they have to retroactively change every non MSQ quest that references Thancred to language acknowledging he no longer exists. Which can be quite daunting. We are not time traveling if we decide to finish Endwalker as a single job and then decide to do all the other content. This would mean that any new NPC characters have to exist in a bubble in their expansion like how "Zero" basically wound up. Likewise with Ryne and Gaia.

Like explicitly Thancred is in the Shadowbringers raid storyline. It takes place contextually as post-shadowbringers starts. But if you don't do this raid during this time, then a lot of stuff feels retconned.

Only a few characters can be killed off, and you will see the death flags the minute they are introduced. Not a single character that was killed (presumed dead) in the MSQ at any point surprised me.

Moenbryda didn't surprise me. Haurchefant didn't surprise me (I was literately expecting it.) Ysayle had the death flag, and i had assumed she died before she did. Yotsuyu I had assumed died the first time, only to not be surprised the second time.

With Shadowbringers, you had several characters basically get introduced and then die immediately. So this left the expectation that "anyone" introduced will die 5 minutes later.

Papalymo is probably the only "death" that seemed suspicious. Like the way Papalymo was written, and the way he was written out just felt like "we need to kill off this character because the Yda and Papalymo entire boke and tsukkomi thing doesn't translate from Japanese as funny." Hildibrand meanwhile is basically indestructible. So I feel that Papalymo was just thrown away rather than "noble sacrifice"

Anyway we can suggest killing off the scions but then the writers will get a lot of backlash for killing someones favorite character. So the window to do that has long shut and the only reason to do it now would be to kill the game. The window has not closed on killing off characters introduced in DT until the next expansion comes out.

Agreed. The writing is extremely poor, so much so that it seems like whole cut and stitched together.

I see the same mistakes in amateur writing, or sometimes when writing for children. Things like disjointed local narratives that are immediately contradicted by what preceded it or following it or, as I am seeing to a shocking degree, just god awful forced tension. Things like Wuk Lamat being pushed back after swinging her axe at the Blessed Siblings, and people assuming she is dead from that. Or when her Dad, during the ceremony said 2 things, a quick greeting and 1 sentence, followed by "But I've talked long enough". As the player, we saw you come out and talk for approx. 12 seconds... but the writers are swinging extremes, trying to manufacture tension, sympathy, conflict, etc without bothering to do any foot work, which, as previously stated, I see a lot in children's stories (single digit ages, easy to follow) or amateur writing that is still working out the pace. These are short instances, but severe whiplash nonetheless, much like Wuk Eva's quick adjustments to his own worries.

Taking a step back (im currently up to MSQ 97/98), things are looking even worse for the big picture. I get no sense of continuity and despite the WoL frequently not being the main character of the events, WoL is awkwardly treated as such when its time for the Care Bear Stare friendship power time. Many of the events thus far are poorly explained (I still don't understand the 'horror' of the blessed children; there was no mention of forced breeding pits or the like, so is it saying 'never breed outside your tribe! only 1 in 100 live!"). But I still have more MSQ to go, so maybe something will tie things together because currently it feels like a collage of writers, each tasked with homework in coming up with a story line, and whatever lead writer said "yes, all of them, leave nothing on the cutting room floor".

The character graphics update. Now in cutscenes I see the skin to my character clipping thru their outfit. One cutscene today saw whole top part of my character clipping thru her dress. They need to revert back to the old character models.

I didn't have high expectations for DT, but I didn't expect to have all my enjoyment sucked out of the game in one go. Right now, I'm totally uninspired to login.

I'm not leveling another job only to have it gutted and here they are announcing changes to a job that's only been out a week. I don't even know what I'd bother to play at this point.

They have completely destroyed the game balance- and don't try to tell me they can't achieve balance between low-end and high-end content, or design jobs that have some versatility and potential complexity. There are plenty of games that, while not perfect, have managed to do it quite successfully.

The story is poorly conceived and badly executed to say the least. (see myriad threads filled with heartfelt feedback).

If they make the needed changes to the graphics options so I don't hate all my favorite places including my house, and I can actually play without getting sick or incredibly frustrated, that will be something at least.

ugh