After Dawntrails abject Failure of a Story, there need to be serious Consequences

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

Oh wow, Steam, a platform that most people absolutely hate to play FFXIV through and actively avoid is the way to go for counting the playerbase. It's not like FFXIV has its own launcher that doesn't involve Steam or anything...

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...unless there is any indication though that the preference for whether or not to play through Steam has changed independently of the popularity of the title at large, we must presume that Steam numbers do reflect the overall trend.

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Originally Posted by PassinLay

This community has absolutely 0 standards and it shows lmao

Restricted DC travel for absolutely no reasons at all aside from week 1, absolutely terrible story with a million plotholes and a lot of drama regarding all the people in it, an absolutely mediocre graphical update that made a lot of people upset, and also changed the world for the worst, a good example is sea of clouds at sunset pre-DT and after DT, 4-5 times a month constant DDOS with absolutely end to it in sight, lengthened content drought among other things.

Meanwhile this community :

Wow great job guys dawntrail is amazing woooooo!

For the love of anything holy please any kind of standards for once, the amount of things you people tolerate and accept is wild, and yall are the reason why this game is barely growing at all or just being barely stable in population.

The day this game ever goes down the drain a few years from now, yall will only have yourselves to blame.

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How's that "there will never be housing blacklist features" position going for you?

Oh no, the poor venues, how will they manage without all of the people already on aether. Maybe they should just move to dynamis where anyone can visit. Problem solved.

Would cut down on the advertising.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

...unless there is any indication though that the preference for whether or not to play through Steam has changed independently of the popularity of the title at large, we must presume that Steam numbers do reflect the overall trend.

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No, every FFXIV player I played with in game actively tells people to avoid steam at all costs. So it isn't a good way to see the number of playerbases at all. Unless you can only play FFXIV through steam, then yeah. But there are other ways to do it. So it doesn't really count.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

You do know almost like 80-90% of the playerbase use the Launcher and not steam, right...?

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Pretty sure it's more than that, but even at 80-90% it's still a large enough sample size for statics.

On a side note, it's funny reading through this thread as people try and defend DT. It's like they have no self-awareness, and have completely forgot everything that came before DT.

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Originally Posted by Alchemii

Pretty sure it's more than that, but even at 80-90% it's still a large enough sample size for statics.

On a side note, it's funny reading through this thread as people try and defend DT. It's like they have no self-awareness, and have completely forgot everything that came before DT.

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So what came before DT? Another story you didn't like and is solely based on your opinion? Endwalker, which had the highest rating ever? It seems like you are the one who has no self-awareness.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

...unless there is any indication though that the preference for whether or not to play through Steam has changed independently of the popularity of the title at large, we must presume that Steam numbers do reflect the overall trend.

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That's what I've been trying to tell these people that keep going agaisnt steamcharts really, you dont need 100% of players to make statistics, there is such a thing as a sample, and steam is big enough, but these people are in denial.

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Originally Posted by Alchemii

Pretty sure it's more than that, but even at 80-90% it's still a large enough sample size for statics.

On a side note, it's funny reading through this thread as people try and defend DT. It's like they have no self-awareness, and have completely forgot everything that came before DT.

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This.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

No, every FFXIV player I played with in game actively tells people to avoid steam at all costs. So it isn't a good way to see the number of playerbases at all. Unless you can only play FFXIV through steam, then yeah. But there are other ways to do it. So it doesn't really count.

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Kazemon, so many posts in what you are doing is not debating in good faith, it is just contrarianism, which even as I enjoy a sporting exchange of opinions is just tedious.

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Originally Posted by PassinLay

That's what I've been trying to tell these people that keep going agaisnt steamcharts really, you dont need 100% of players to make statistics, there is such a thing as a sample, and steam is big enough, but these people are in denial.



This.

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Here is your more active "statistic" if you wanna try that.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/worldstatus/

Almost half the worlds and an entire server is closed for character creation due to how congested it is. But sure, steam numbers are the end all be all for player base.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

Here is your more active "statistic" if you wanna try that.

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/worldstatus/

Almost half the worlds and an entire server is closed for character creation due to how congested it is. But sure, steam numbers are the end all be all for player base.

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LMAO. Balmung OUT OF ANY WORLD is OPEN for TRANSFERS.

And you are linking me that as proof the game is thriving.

LMAO.

You're the same kind of person to show me the login queue and be like "see !!! there's always a queue to log in the game is always full and congested !!!"

please get a clue i'm begging LOL

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

Kazemon, so many posts in what you are doing is not debating in good faith, it is just contrarianism, which even as I enjoy a sporting exchange of opinions is just tedious.

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How am I not debating in "good faith", and when have I ever contracted myself? Most of the people here want to cling to one bad thing and roll with it as a way to get the dev team "fired" when without them, we wouldn't have gotten this far in the first place, how is that "good faith"? Is it good "faith" to ignore previous numbers, reviews and/or praise because one thing you don't like comes about? Everyone says their posts are constructive criticism, yet call for the fire of Yoshi P and the entire dev team. Do you really expect me to see this posts in "good faith", yet mine is not when I disagree? All of your posts are the ones who are tedious.

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Originally Posted by PassinLay

LMAO. Balmung OUT OF ANY WORLD is OPEN for TRANSFERS.

And you are linking me that as proof the game is thriving.

LMAO.

You're the same kind of person to show me the login queue and be like "see !!! there's always a queue to log in the game is always full and congested !!!"

please get a clue i'm begging LOL

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Sorry but Im not going to reply to your ridiculous take anymore when you can't even use capital letters correctly to post.

And just so you know, the reason being is because they moved to Aether, where the "raid community" is stationed. Did you not check my world? It's still very much congested where you can't even walk anywhere without people popping up in front of you because they don't even load completely.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

How am I not debating in "good faith", and when have I ever contracted myself? Most of the people here want to cling to one bad thing and roll with it as a way to get the dev team "fired" when without them, we wouldn't have gotten this far in the first place, how is that "good faith"? Is it good "faith" to ignore previous numbers, reviews and/or praise because one thing you don't like comes about? Everyone says their posts are constructive criticism, yet call for the fire of Yoshi P and the entire dev team. Do you really expect me to see this posts in "good faith", yet mine is not when I disagree? All of your posts are the ones who are tedious.

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It is not your position, it is your style of argument. I absolutely do not want to see Yoshi P go either, because I see so many more downsides to that than upsides, but just that I do not agree with the OP article does not mean I am going to defend the use of bad arguments against OP. Over the course of this thread, you dismiss instead of dismantle, issue denials instead of counterpoints, and such.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

Sorry but Im not going to reply to your ridiculous take anymore when you can't even use capital letters correctly to post.

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oh no you really got me there lmao

actually trolling, I sent you statistics that you refused to acknowledge and went in full denial about, 3 different people told you you were wrong about it, and now you go "wow you cant even use capital letters lmao"

ya you really got me there I'm beat, you sure showed i was wrong

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

It is not your position, it is your style of argument. I absolutely do not want to see Yoshi P go either, because I see so many more downsides to that than upsides, but just that I do not agree with the OP article does not mean I am going to defend the use of bad arguments against OP.

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I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "style of argument". And what "bad arguments"? If you mean debunking the steam "myth", then show me the true numbers of the non-steam members. If you give me that, then I will accept that argument. Or is it the fact that other MMOs have shut down due to lower playerbase or mixed reviews? But we have WoW to contradict that, which is a fact and not a speculation. I fail to see what I have said that was "bad" or "wrong". The story is bad? That is subjective. An opinion. A difference of taste. So again, please tell me.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

... but giving constructive criticism in a respectful way is the way to do it.

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I did give out respectful criticism at first, but then came all the enlightened poets who proclaimed that everyone hating the msq is jsut an illiterate cavemen and who are seeing depth and nuance when there isnt any.

I'm done being nice.
I'm done debating what has been debated for months now.

There is no question about the writing that has not been answered or identified as pure garbage.

I don't want 8.0 to turn out like this, I don't want FF14 to "go to hell" like WoW did.

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

I did give out respectful criticism at first, but then came all the enlightened poets who proclaimed that everyone hating the msq is jsut an illiterate cavemen and who are seeing depth and nuance when there isnt any.

I'm done being nice.
I'm done debating what has been debated for months now.

There is no question about the writing that has not been answered or identified as pure garbage.

I don't want 8.0 to turn out like this, I don't want FF14 to "go to hell" like WoW did.

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This:

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

It's been almost three months, there has been hundreds of threads, negative reviews andhours and hours of essays analysing every possible detail of Dawntrails writing and its myriad of problems.

And I think it's safe to say that the Story this time was an absolute abject failure that warrants serious consquences.

For a game that advertised itself as the "Story-MMO", the story this time around did some serious damage to the game's reputation.

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Is not "respectful criticism". "I didn't like the story, so I think it's ruining their reputation and they have to have serious consequences". You are basically saying they should be fired because you didn't like the story. If you had started with "In my personal opinion, the story is lackluster, here are the reasons why", then yeah that is respectful criticism. But actively saying there need to be "consequences" for this? ....No.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "style of argument". And what "bad arguments"? If you mean debunking the steam "myth", then show me the true numbers of the non-steam members. If you give me that, then I will accept that argument. Or is it the fact that other MMOs have shut down due to lower playerbase or mixed reviews? But we have WoW to contradict that, which is a fact and not a speculation. I fail to see what I have said that was "bad" or "wrong". The story is bad? That is subjective. An opinion. A difference of taste. So again, please tell me.

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Firstly, valid sample size statistics are not myth. And I'll note that calling them that would be one example of a bad argument, since you asked me to point one out. Next, putting the burden of evidence on me to provide numbers over the totality of a population because you refuse statistical approximation is another antipattern, and therefore a bad faith argument. It would instead be far more reasonable for PassinLay to ask you to provide statistics in support of your position of at least equal sample size and validity to the ones they used to support the opposite position.

And for a third -- WoW literally DID get bought out by Microsoft and fired and replaced so much of its staff including development leads, the writing lead, and the very CEO of the company. WoW only started its present recovery after doing everything and more that the OP article is calling for, so using WoW's revival as somehow proof that those are things you don't need to do, is logically invalid -- which makes your insistence on using it anyway, another bad argument.

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

When I heard that Yoshi-P would ALSO be the director of FF16, I was worried if the quality of FF14 would suffer for it, and unfortunately I was right to worry.
The lack of oversight this story had is obvious to everyone.

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It's even worse, he oversees the whole CS3 now, basically. So even more games in addition to 14 and 16.

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

Don't waste Yoshi-P's time on side-rpojects that get "underperforming sales".

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I am afraid that's another problem entirely: namely, that SE needs to stop negotiating idiotic exclusive deals with Fony and then go surprise pikachu because PS5 didn't sell nearly as enough as expected. And it's about to get worse with the PS5 Pro debacle.
Go on Steam right away, it will sell just fine (it is even in TOP 10 of Steam right now despite all of the idiocies above).

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

It is clear that the current writers don't have the skill or talent required for this game and need to be replaced or even outright fired.

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Facts.

With "At first" I meant right after I finished the MSQ which was like a week after early-access.
Here is my very first criticism I wrote after finishing (July 4th):

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

The problem isn't that we got all that.

The problem is that Wuk Lamat is a textbook-case of "Mary Sue":

- Getting the majority of the screentime and dialog, making other characters severely underdeveloped (example: Zoraal Ja's goals and motivations are mentioned in like 10 lines in total) or Gabool Ja speedrunning his redemption arc in order to not steal WukLamats spotlight.

- getting plotarmor against Gabool Ja and half an army and taking him out, despite being fought off effortlessly before.

- No serious characterflaws (not likeing alpacas or being seasick doesnt count, or is even more embarassing, considering she's a 6'6 buff warrior, absolute cringe)

- She is never forced to do a morally grey decision, best example is with the red-armored HokYuj. Before they fight, some random fucking bird just attacks all of the sudden, so WukLamat can heroicly "save" her enemy and befriend them".
Imagine what kind of interessting dilemma she could have faced, if she had to kill in self defense, but her status as spotless hero is saved by coincidence, --> no character progession.

Textbook-case of "Mary Sue".

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Is this "respectful" enough for you? I even put in a concrete example for you do defend if you're so inclined.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

This:
If you had started with "In my personal opinion, the story is lackluster, here are the reasons why"

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Learn to read, I already said there are hundrets of threads who already gave out the exact "respektful" criticism you demand.
I will not write another essay with my personal opinions because that's redundand at this point.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

Firstly, valid sample size statistics are not myth. And I'll note that calling them that would be one example of a bad argument, since you asked me to point one out. Next, putting the burden of evidence on me to provide numbers over the totality of a population because you refuse statistical approximation is another antipattern, and therefore a bad faith argument. It would instead be far more reasonable for PassinLay to ask you to provide statistics in support of your position of at least equal sample size and validity to the ones they used to support the opposite position.

And for a third -- WoW literally DID get bought out by Microsoft and fired and replaced so much of its staff including development leads, the writing lead, and the very CEO of the company. WoW only started its present recovery after doing everything and more that the OP article is calling for, so using WoW's revival as somehow proof that those are things you don't need to do, is logically invalid -- which makes your insistence on using it anyway, another bad argument.

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Again, Steam is an extremely small portion of the playerbase. And I know, it is actually impossible to see the entire playerbase because only SE can see those numbers. We only have Yoshi P's statement that the game is still doing well. That is the closest we have. You cannot just focus on steam and ignore the rest of the playerbase and use that as the game is dying. That is a bad argument. I even forgot that most people use the PS5 too, 90ish% of the Japanese playerbase actually use PS5, then even had a liveletter and showed controller vs. Keyboard and mouse and the fact that most Japanese typically do not own a personal computer. There is also the new Xbox playerbase to consider as well. Steam does not account for them either. It is impossible for me or PassinLay to provide accurate statistics, so using that as an argument is invalid.

Yes, WoW did get bought out, but my main argument is it did not get shut down and is still going on. Which it is. Which is fact. And no way a "bad argument". If WoW, one of the most popular MMOs of all time can still continue on despite being bought out by other investors is proof in itself that a simple bad review or smaller playerbase for FFXIV is not making it in "danger of shutting down."

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

So what came before DT? Another story you didn't like and is solely based on your opinion? Endwalker, which had the highest rating ever? It seems like you are the one who has no self-awareness.

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I mean, I didn't have a problem with Endwalker. Could it have been better? Maybe, but not an issue. Endwalker post game was a bit meh, but I saw what they were trying to set up with the Aether transfer between shards to rebalance things. Shadowbringers was really good, with the only annoying parts being the fae. I didn't mind Stormblood, most my issues there were more on the launch problems, story wasn't as good as Heavensward, but it was passible. And yes I have recently replayed the MSQ on an alt, Stormblood is better than Dawntrail. But you don't actually care about that, no your just trying to throw it back in my face cause you don't have an actual argument or defense for Dawntrail. You don't have a defense for the fact that if you put even half a second of thought into what's going on in the Dawntrail story it falls apart, you have no defense for why Garfield suddenly got power boosted and had to be everywhere, and you have absolutely no defense for how all personality of other characters is dropped so they could all be cheerleaders for the worst character SE has ever created.

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Originally Posted by Alchemii

I mean, I didn't have a problem with Endwalker. Could it have been better? Maybe, but not an issue. Endwalker post game was a bit meh, but I saw what they were trying to set up with the Aether transfer between shards to rebalance things. Shadowbringers was really good, with the only annoying parts being the fae. I didn't mind Stormblood, most my issues there were more on the launch problems, story wasn't as good as Heavensward, but it was passible. And yes I have recently replayed the MSQ on an alt, Stormblood is better than Dawntrail. But you don't actually care about that, no your just trying to throw it back in my face cause you don't have an actual argument or defense for Dawntrail. You don't have a defense for the fact that if you put even half a second of thought into what's going on in the Dawntrail story it falls apart, you have no defense for why Garfield suddenly got power boosted and had to be everywhere, and you have absolutely no defense for how all personality of other characters is dropped so they could all be cheerleaders for the worst character SE has ever created.

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Okay, let me put that to the test.

Her power coming from nowhere? Hm... let's see. During her battle with Bakool Ja Ja, she mentioned that she has learned what was important to her and no matter what, those feelings will pull her through. What did we learn in Endwalker? Dynamis is another source of energy, another source of strength, heck the entire second half was about how Dynamis can empower people, and even limit breaks are Dynamis based. What did she use for most of the fight to defeat him? Limit breaks.

You need to put two and two together to figure that out, because they don't hold your hand to explain it to your face, which people have been complaining about by the way, but the moment they don't, it's suddenly "bad storytelling" because they don't. So which is it? Do you need it to be explained, or can you use the past story experiences and think and then apply it to the situation?

The Scions personalities are also just fine. In no way they are "cheerleaders", they are however, emotional support. We had tons of threads saying the scions overstayed their welcome and want new characters...and yet not people are mad they aren't the focus? Wuk Lamat needed to be a less developed in order to develop her in the story, which she was. Yes, her personality (which people find annoying but that isn't a character flaw, some personalities you aren't gonna mesh with) stays the same, but her naiveness and innocence slowly grew overtime, if you paid attention. You need to develop new characters when you introduce them or the story will go nowhere. But no, the scions weren't the focus this time and a new character was the main focus, because she wasn't developed yet...but last expansion, people wanted a new character to see their development and not the scions... ...Please make up your mind.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

Again, Steam is an extremely small portion of the playerbase. And I know, it is actually impossible to see the entire playerbase because only SE can see those numbers. We only have Yoshi P's statement that the game is still doing well. That is the closest we have. You cannot just focus on steam and ignore the rest of the playerbase and use that as the game is dying. That is a bad argument. I even forgot that most people use the PS5 too, 90ish% of the Japanese playerbase actually use PS5, then even had a liveletter and showed controller vs. Keyboard and mouse and the fact that most Japanese typically do not own a personal computer. There is also the new Xbox playerbase to consider as well. Steam does not account for them either. It is impossible for me or PassinLay to provide accurate statistics, so using that as an argument is invalid.

Yes, WoW did get bought out, but my main argument is it did not get shut down and is still going on. Which it is. Which is fact. And no way a "bad argument". If WoW, one of the most popular MMOs of all time can still continue on despite being bought out by other investors is proof in itself that a simple bad review or smaller playerbase for FFXIV is not making it in "danger of shutting down."

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Very well, I can also work with statistics if you so insist.

According to the most recent article that really went into his in 2023, Final Fantasy XIV at the time had an estimated daily player count of 493,667, of which 20,014 on steam. That means that if you base yourself on the movement of the Steam numbers, we are availing ourselves of very close to 1:25 of the total population. One in every twenty-five players is part of the sample.

That is a larger sample size representation than we use for quality assurance in microchip production, automobile manufacture, polls for who is going to win the next US elections, or even nuclear safety.

So insist if you will that as far as you are concerned Steam users are too tiny a fraction of the population to treat them as a sample for trends, but you will en passant need to argue that as you are concerned almost every use of statistics underpinning our societies, science and industry means nothing.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

Okay, let me put that to the test.

Her power coming from nowhere? Hm... let's see. During her battle with Bakool Ja Ja, she mentioned that she has learned what was important to her and no matter what, those feelings will pull her through. What did we learn in Endwalker? Dynamis is another source of energy, another source of strength, heck the entire second half was about how Dynamis can empower people, and even limit breaks are Dynamis based. What did she use for most of the fight to defeat him? Limit breaks.

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I hate this "muh dynamis" defense so god damn much.

If it is soooo easy to just use dynamis, when that tears a lot of holes in the previous story.

Like why didn't Haurchefant use tank lb3 to protect from that attack?
Why didn't Yshtola use LB3 to fend of Zenos in rhalgars reach?

Where are so many examples of deaths that can be retconned to "could have been prevented if he just believed more".
I liked Endwalker very much but this Dynamis bs needs to die.

I'll let others explain to you what is wrong with he Scions in DT.

You know I had an idea of what this thread would be like once I opened it and I am un-surprised to find out it is exactly like I thought it would be even down to the back and forths.

This is going to be a long two years.

If it takes 2 years of bitching and moaning to prevent 8.0 of being garbage then so be it.

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Originally Posted by ZXN

You know I had an idea of what this thread would be like once I opened it and I am un-surprised to find out it is exactly like I thought it would be even down to the back and forths.

This is going to be a long two years.

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As back and forth argument threads go though, I am rather enjoying this one. We have made it to page seven already without a nasty ad hominem. For this forum, we are doing well!

for a story MMO it was not a good story.. Or, well, more accurately it was rushed.

However these suggestions are, at best comically unrealistic.

Prelude to 1. - No, they aren't going to halt a game of this magnitude just because you're disappointed by the story. It's not only feasible, but it is an incredibly bad idea.

1. Yes, he should be focusing on FF14 exclusively. So should the entire development team.

2. No - Simply because the writers are only a small part of the problem. With any project there were people that turned around and said "Yes, this is good."

3. Honestly, no... A lot of the problems are just that there wasn't enough foundation to support everything they tried to pull out of the rabbit hat. Granted, there are mistakes.

3.5.(?) They aren't going to give a public apology. For as bad as the story was, it was honestly not that bad... If it were a complete and utter buggy mess and unplayable then yes I would understand. Frankly, I would just prefer them to take this as a learning experience. You aren't always going to hit the nail on the head.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

Very well, I can also work with statistics if you so insist.

According to the most recent article that really went into his in 2023, Final Fantasy XIV at the time had an estimated daily player count of 493,667, of which 20,014 on steam. That means that if you base yourself on the movement of the Steam numbers, we are availing ourselves of very close to 1:25 of the total population. One in every twenty-five players is part of the sample.

That is a larger sample size representation than we use for quality assurance in microchip production, automobile manufacture, polls for who is going to win the next US elections, or even nuclear safety.

So insist if you will that as far as you are concerned Steam users are too tiny a fraction of the population to treat them as a sample for trends, but you will en passant need to argue that as you are concerned almost every use of statistics underpinning our societies, science and industry means nothing.

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Said it a lot better than I would, thank you.

That person is so far in denial it's actually wild.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

Okay, let me put that to the test.

Her power coming from nowhere? Hm... let's see. During her battle with Bakool Ja Ja, she mentioned that she has learned what was important to her and no matter what, those feelings will pull her through. What did we learn in Endwalker? Dynamis is another source of energy, another source of strength, heck the entire second half was about how Dynamis can empower people, and even limit breaks are Dynamis based. What did she use for most of the fight to defeat him? Limit breaks.

You need to put two and two together to figure that out, because they don't hold your hand to explain it to your face, which people have been complaining about by the way, but the moment they don't, it's suddenly "bad storytelling" because they don't. So which is it? Do you need it to be explained, or can you use the past story experiences and think and then apply it to the situation?

The Scions personalities are also just fine. In no way they are "cheerleaders", they are however, emotional support. We had tons of threads saying the scions overstayed their welcome and want new characters...and yet not people are mad they aren't the focus? Wuk Lamat needed to be a less developed in order to develop her in the story, which she was. Yes, her personality (which people find annoying but that isn't a character flaw, some personalities you aren't gonna mesh with) stays the same, but her naiveness and innocence slowly grew overtime, if you paid attention. You need to develop new characters when you introduce them or the story will go nowhere. But no, the scions weren't the focus this time and a new character was the main focus, because she wasn't developed yet...but last expansion, people wanted a new character to see their development and not the scions... ...Please make up your mind.

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Even Dynamis isn't that extreme... otherwise anyone and everyone with ambitions are unstoppable forces of nature.
We don't get to use Dynamis off the tip of our hand no matter when. We need a party of 4 at minimum to access LB1, and a party of 8 for LB2, and LB3 is reserved only during bosses. Dynamis has limits in an aetherically suffused environment (such as Etheriys).
Endwalker is an exception because we went to a place where it is dynamis-rich and aetherically lacking. It would be fine if she used Dynamis, but not in the way where she just got power up after power up after power up to the point she can contend with foes far beyond her ability *alone*. If she's weak individually, then write her as a strong character who relies on friends to make up the difference.

And the scions are definitely a shell of their former selves. There is no chance G'raha would not be questioning the existence of said entities in the final zone when he himself gave pause when answering the Omnicron's question on existence in life. He was so strongly defined in his feelings to be able to persist against the Omnicron's logic in the events on Endwalker. G'raha directly agreeing to shutting them down rather than looking for alternative solutions is already a red flag that his character has somehow changed drastically in the final zone. The scions themselves are far more well equipped at solving problems involving the soul and yet we never bring them into the fold even though we are aptly aware they have the ability to fix things... WHY? The Levin sickness is one such example. Alisaie is with us during our time in Nine Solutions. There was not a single mention to Sphene or that we can solve the issue and show promise to work together to solve their issues. We just left innocents suffering for no reason at all. The Archon Creed defines the majority of the scions. "To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom - it is indolence." The scions are not heartless and ignorant of helping those who are in need. We see this time and time again in The First and in The Source. They ended up destroying the entire characterization that makes the scions who they are in the first place in Dawntrail.

People aren't mad at the scions if they were well written. People are mad because the scions aren't well written and they just exist for the sake of saying they exist. It pleased no one and it isn't congruous to the storytelling at all.
And it IS bad storytelling when people all collectively point out the flaws of the writing to the point it happens in every part of the story. I didn't have a problem with Endwalker base expansion as much I had a problem with Dawntrail exactly because there hasn't been a lot of moments where a bit of examination creates tons of plotholes in the story.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

Very well, I can also work with statistics if you so insist.

According to the most recent article that really went into his in 2023, Final Fantasy XIV at the time had an estimated daily player count of 493,667, of which 20,014 on steam. That means that if you base yourself on the movement of the Steam numbers, we are availing ourselves of very close to 1:25 of the total population. One in every twenty-five players is part of the sample.

That is a larger sample size representation than we use for quality assurance in microchip production, automobile manufacture, polls for who is going to win the next US elections, or even nuclear safety.

So insist if you will that as far as you are concerned Steam users are too tiny a fraction of the population to treat them as a sample for trends, but you will en passant need to argue that as you are concerned almost every use of statistics underpinning our societies, science and industry means nothing.

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Okay, thank you for the numbers. Would you mind linking the article? Because sometimes, articles still do not have the big picture, I would like to verify its source and what website it came from. And I would argue that in 2023, yes the playerbase was at a low, but that always happens. Post-MSQ, in-between patches are going to be at an all-time low where people are going to play other things while waiting for the next patch. It has been a thing since 2015, when HW first came out. The numbers are going to fluctuate.

According to the statistics they linked btw (https://steamcharts.com/app/39210), peak being around 94k on steam, and taking the almost 500k into account, then yeah, roughly 20% of the playerbase, as I said. So, I'm not sure I get this but, why is it okay to based statistics on 20% of the population? Please make me understand why ignoring 80% of the playerbase/population is a good statistic for things? And if that is how other companies do so as well, basing it on 20%, then yes, I will say that. Because it's largely ignoring the majority and should be looked at.

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

Okay, let me put that to the test.

Her power coming from nowhere? Hm... let's see. During her battle with Bakool Ja Ja, she mentioned that she has learned what was important to her and no matter what, those feelings will pull her through. What did we learn in Endwalker? Dynamis is another source of energy, another source of strength, heck the entire second half was about how Dynamis can empower people, and even limit breaks are Dynamis based. What did she use for most of the fight to defeat him? Limit breaks.

You need to put two and two together to figure that out, because they don't hold your hand to explain it to your face, which people have been complaining about by the way, but the moment they don't, it's suddenly "bad storytelling" because they don't. So which is it? Do you need it to be explained, or can you use the past story experiences and think and then apply it to the situation?

The Scions personalities are also just fine. In no way they are "cheerleaders", they are however, emotional support. We had tons of threads saying the scions overstayed their welcome and want new characters...and yet not people are mad they aren't the focus? Wuk Lamat needed to be a less developed in order to develop her in the story, which she was. Yes, her personality (which people find annoying but that isn't a character flaw, some personalities you aren't gonna mesh with) stays the same, but her naiveness and innocence slowly grew overtime, if you paid attention. You need to develop new characters when you introduce them or the story will go nowhere. But no, the scions weren't the focus this time and a new character was the main focus, because she wasn't developed yet...but last expansion, people wanted a new character to see their development and not the scions... ...Please make up your mind.

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There is no evidence of anyone on the Source being able to use Dynamis like that. That entire argument is nothing but a Fanfic solution you came up with in your own head and are now trying to push as fact. Limit Break doesn't hold up either, and you know it.

Your second argument makes no sense.

Third argument starts off with you whining that people aren't ok with stuff you think is fine, then devolves into you trying to strawman and push things on me that I never said. So you can't make an actual coherent argument, and instead need to try and strawman me to push your bad taste in stories and games. Maybe you should go back to reading tumblr fanfics, those seems to be more what your looking for.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

Even Dynamis isn't that extreme...

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Had to shorten the quote for limits on posting, but...
Did we not see the havoc of what the Endsinger has done? To say Dynamis isn't that extreme would be ignoring the Final Days. And to add to this why others can fail (Haurchefant), again, we seen it in Endwalker. Dynamis can be good or bad. Putting faith into strength has always been FFXIV plot point, they just gave it a tangible name. The "power of friendship" trope seen in 90% of anime, that's basically Dynamis. Are we saying 90% of the shows who use this trope are considered bad writing? As for using limit break, the Scions have time and again were able to access limit break when you play them in solo duties, so again, if they can, why can't Wuk Lamat? Not to mention, the enemies can also access Dynamis (As we saw with Endsinger/Meteion), so yeah, it really depends on who's "feelings" are strongest in that moment.

And as a major G'raha fan, I disagree. The Endless need aether to sustain themselves indefinitely. Their aether reserves were diminishing. Yes, we could have let them "die" naturally once the reserves were done, but they explicitly stated that the Mesoterminal would not be able to be accessed unless the other terminals were shut down. How would they go about accessing the terminal then? I'm pretty sure if the dynamis beings on Ultima Thule were to go after their home planet, G'raha would be destroying them as well, even if he was conflicted, but they were ultimately harmless, so they let them be and tried to understand their circumstances.

As for the Levin sickness, the story is not over yet. Hell Alisaie didn't even do the Light-aspected aether sickness for Halric until the patch quests. Who's to say she won't help the levin sickness now that the dangers have passed? And as for the other things, again, the story isn't over yet. We still got the patch quests to see if the Scions try and help these issues.

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Originally Posted by Alchemii

There is no evidence of anyone on the Source being able to use Dynamis like that. That entire argument is nothing but a Fanfic solution you came up with in your own head and are now trying to push as fact. Limit Break doesn't hold up either, and you know it.

Your second argument makes no sense.

Third argument starts off with you whining that people aren't ok with stuff you think is fine, then devolves into you trying to strawman and push things on me that I never said. So you can't make an actual coherent argument, and instead need to try and strawman me to push your bad taste in stories and games. Maybe you should go back to reading tumblr fanfics, those seems to be more what your looking for.

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I was using a general consensus of what had happened in the past 2 years during Endwalkers massive "complaint" about the story, so not all was directed at you, but I did use them to convey my points of the general opinion of those who have complained over and over again, if that makes sense. The complaint that people don't want their hand held when plot stuff is being explained, so they don't this time, but then people can't figure it out and then complain it makes no sense. Or the complaint that people want new characters, and when they get the new characters, they still complain. And I have made my arguments clear, you just refused to take it into account. "Well that's stupid, I don't believe that", but I listed tangible reasons why, based on the storybeats of the previous expansions, because this is one long story, not separate stories that have no connection to each other. Scions used Limit breaks in their solo duty instances all the time, so it does hold up and you know it.

Another useless thread derailed.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

...unless there is any indication

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like, for example, an X-box version launch?
like, for example, an higher pc requirement to run the game smoothly (and graphic cards cost more than a console).

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Originally Posted by Mr_Gyactus

Another useless thread derailed.



like, for example, an X-box version launch?
like, for example, an higher pc requirement to run the game smoothly (and graphic cards cost more than a console).

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Lmao.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

Okay, thank you for the numbers. Would you mind linking the article? Because sometimes, articles still do not have the big picture, I would like to verify its source and what website it came from. And I would argue that in 2023, yes the playerbase was at a low, but that always happens. Post-MSQ, in-between patches are going to be at an all-time low where people are going to play other things while waiting for the next patch. It has been a thing since 2015, when HW first came out. The numbers are going to fluctuate.

According to the statistics they linked btw (https://steamcharts.com/app/39210), peak being around 94k on steam, and taking the almost 500k into account, then yeah, roughly 20% of the playerbase, as I said. So, I'm not sure I get this but, why is it okay to based statistics on 20% of the population? Please make me understand why ignoring 80% of the playerbase/population is a good statistic for things? And if that is how other companies do so as well, basing it on 20%, then yes, I will say that. Because it's largely ignoring the majority and should be looked at.

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Its called statistics.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr_Gyactus

Another useless thread derailed.



like, for example, an X-box version launch?
like, for example, an higher pc requirement to run the game smoothly (and graphic cards cost more than a console).

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Those should have got us to an increase (according to you) not a decrease, and what we got is a decrease.

Also xbox players are an extremely minuscule minority of players, go around and ask players if they are on Xbox, I'll be waiting.

And lol @ the graphic card excuse, its not that hard to get one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

Okay, thank you for the numbers. Would you mind linking the article? Because sometimes, articles still do not have the big picture, I would like to verify its source and what website it came from.

<snip>

According to the statistics they linked btw (https://steamcharts.com/app/39210), peak being around 94k on steam, and taking the almost 500k into account, then yeah, roughly 20% of the playerbase, as I said. So, I'm not sure I get this but, why is it okay to based statistics on 20% of the population? Please make me understand why ignoring 80% of the playerbase/population is a good statistic for things? And if that is how other companies do so as well, basing it on 20%, then yes, I will say that. Because it's largely ignoring the majority and should be looked at.

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Naturally. These were the sources: daily player numbers were sourced from numbers tracked by https://mmo-population.com/r/ffxiv and Steam's public information respectively, and put side by side in this article by Dexerto https://www.dexerto.com/final-fantas...-2023-2112769/

As for your second question.. I am concerned you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how statistics work and what they are. Mathematically sound, probability based methods for approximating things for a large population based on a small representative sample of that population is exactly what statistics is. If you have a sample size that is 20% of the total population, you are not ignoring the other 80%, the other 80% are represented by the 20% that you do sample. If you are not happy until you are sample size is 100% of your population size.. you are not even doing statistics anymore, that is just a head count.

For example, the FDA approved 55 new medicines in 2023. Each of those medicines comes with whole sheets of numbers, like, "The chance of this or that side effect is 4%". Did you personally take each of those 55 medications, for their intended treatment duration? No? Then you must not have been in the tested sample. In fact, out of over 8 billion people on this planet, over 8 billion people were not part of the test group. Only a few hundred or thousand were. Did the FDA do an incredibly shoddy job ignoring over 99.9% of the population? No, the whole point is that by testing on a smaller volunteer group roughly representative of the general population, you already get a pretty good indication of what the stochastic probabilities are. You don't need to involve the entire planet's population in the test just to know that something is going to happen in around 4% of cases.

But please consult an impartial source for that as well - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics and https://www.fda.gov/media/175253/download?attachment

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

Had to shorten the quote for limits on posting, but...
Did we not see the havoc of what the Endsinger has done? To say Dynamis isn't that extreme would be ignoring the Final Days. And to add to this why others can fail (Haurchefant), again, we seen it in Endwalker. Dynamis can be good or bad. Putting faith into strength has always been FFXIV plot point, they just gave it a tangible name. The "power of friendship" trope seen in 90% of anime, that's basically Dynamis. Are we saying 90% of the shows who use this trope are considered bad writing? As for using limit break, the Scions have time and again were able to access limit break when you play them in solo duties, so again, if they can, why can't Wuk Lamat? Not to mention, the enemies can also access Dynamis (As we saw with Endsinger/Meteion), so yeah, it really depends on who's "feelings" are strongest in that moment.

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I don't actually recall a solo duty with a Scion where they can solo LB... the Scions often have their own fancy version of existing moves that they can do in instances, but usually if anyone does something akin to an LB there are at least a couple other npcs/player involved in that instance. Remember even the Warrior of Light, arguably the strongest non-boss individual in the game, cannot LB solo. Having a character not only solo LB but do it multiple times is a little unnatural.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

And as a major G'raha fan, I disagree. The Endless need aether to sustain themselves indefinitely. Their aether reserves were diminishing. Yes, we could have let them "die" naturally once the reserves were done, but they explicitly stated that the Mesoterminal would not be able to be accessed unless the other terminals were shut down. How would they go about accessing the terminal then? I'm pretty sure if the dynamis beings on Ultima Thule were to go after their home planet, G'raha would be destroying them as well, even if he was conflicted, but they were ultimately harmless, so they let them be and tried to understand their circumstances.

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The problem is that there's barely if any discussion amongst the Scions about the right way to go about things in the Living Memory. In any other expansion, we would've gotten a real sit-down moment where they discuss what they could do and if they should even do it. But not here, where the plot basically just keeps shoving everyone along. No time to experiment or try things, no looking into how Endless are stored or if there was a way to divert archived people elsewhere, no debate about whether they're even alive. Everyone is just treated like they're along for the ride; Cahciua tells us they're not alive and just shut everything down and we just do it. The Scions we've come to know and love are always thorough, always exhaust all possible options, try to see things from many points of view. They often can accomplish what others thought impossible. But here they just nod and mindlessly go from one spot to the next without doing any of that, and that's what so many people are taking issue with. The Scions are known for challenging things, and they don't challenge anything here. They are shades of the Scions we know. People often cite the G'raha gondola scene as maybe one of the few times a Scion feels/acts like they did before, but it's too few and far between.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kazemon15

As for the Levin sickness, the story is not over yet. Hell Alisaie didn't even do the Light-aspected aether sickness for Halric until the patch quests. Who's to say she won't help the levin sickness now that the dangers have passed? And as for the other things, again, the story isn't over yet. We still got the patch quests to see if the Scions try and help these issues.

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There's a lot riding on post-patch MSQ to address/fix issues, so yeah, that remains to be seen. If the Scions don't deal with levin sickness in it, however, I think that'll be a massive failing on the part of the writers, because that issue is practically screaming for the Scions to fix.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

Naturally. These were the sources: daily player numbers were sourced from numbers tracked by https://mmo-population.com/r/ffxiv and Steam's public information respectively, and put side by side in this article by Dexerto https://www.dexerto.com/final-fantas...-2023-2112769/

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Bro, MMO-population uses social media activity as a source for their numbers. That is horrible methodology. While determining the daily player populations in MMOs or any other game is extremely difficult, their metrics leave much to be desired. This is the same site that infamously had Wildstar at 80k players, several years AFTER the Wildstar servers were shut down (and no private Wildstar servers exist).

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Originally Posted by honest_psycho

Hard disagree.
The story was not only bad, the longer you think about it, the more plotholes and contrivences you notice.
At least the writers need to go.

If you just accept this supbar quality, you have no right to complain when the story get's actually bad.

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Actually, other way around. I've been watching the GG replay of MSQ and they just got to THAT SCENE earlier this week.

And after watching it, I went, "Huh. That didn't happen the way I remembered it."

There's still a few small tweaks that could have made the scene better for us, the WoL, and my overall critique of "we didn't do enough mentoring" still stands, but the story actually did make more sense watching someone else play through it, knowing what comes later.