Zepla's Dawntrail MSQ Analysis

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Originally Posted by Rehayem

The only thing I didn't actually spot right away is how Wuk Lamat, during the moment becoming Daenservant and talking to people on the balcony, addresses the Yok Huy being from Kozama'uka, when they're actually from Urqopacha. That's just straight embarassing how CBU3 team made this crucial mistake

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I mean.. this also happened to western politicians in the current era.. :D
They just made it more realistic

i just cant wait for the inevitable where wuk lamat's role in the story is reduced as the next expansion is hyped up but people are going to treat it as a win like the developers actually listened lmao

as for the video I'll have to check it out when I have the time
but a lot of points have already been made in the forums and in other places, so I don't know why the video is being proped up and praised
I guess it's because she's a big streamer?

I do more or less agree with the point of how draining it is for the whole thing to be turned into a political argument, and for Wuk Lamat to be the scapegoat for any and all problems for the Dawntrail MSQ

As much as I enjoy FFXIV, Dawntrail highlights just how ancient the game is.

From the archaic quest design, which requires you to interact with NPCs along the route to the objective rather than them simply following you in real time and talking while you walk, as the other major MMORPGs have been able to accomplish for at least the previous decade.

The constant usage of ARR music in non-voiced awkward cutscenes, and a dead open landscape that primarily serves as an MSQ device.

I understand that it would be a massive (secondary) endeavor, but FFXIV requires a complete overhaul, including character creation, UI (poor inventory), open world rehaul, and bringing the game up to 2020, like World of Warcraft did years ago, despite its flaws.

FFXIV plays like a game from the early 2000s, and it feels older than both ESO and World of Warcraft combined because, while the other two have made an effort to update their systems over time, FFXIV has stagnated.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1bcp-rjOBo

Going to be honest. I don't think this deeply about the story, so most of these things didn't really occur to me and honestly wouldn't in the future either.

But it's at least a constructive analysis of things rather than the vague statements made by everyone else.

(If you don't want to listen for an hour you can set it to 2x speed)

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her video is completely scathing and im happy she pointed out everything wrong with wukky. yoshiP said recently he wanted to show "more of her cool side" so wede "like her" and i thought to myself. "OH GOD NO, PLEASE GOD NO" because he doesnt realize that the reason people hate her is because she has no flaws. SEA SICKNESS ISNT A CHARACTER FLAW!

at some point msq tried to draw parallels to emet selch and sphene and it actually offended me because emet is an amazing well rounded character with personality pain and intelligence. that is NOT sphene. how dare they honestly try and compare the two

Oh, I watched her play through this live and have been looking forward to this video. I enjoyed her analysis of the characters and the writing while she livestreamed; it took me back to when I was in those English classes in uni and we would pick apart everything in a book from the characters' motives to the writer's word choice, etc.
If you take that sorta "literary analysis" approach to Dawntrail (and I believe Zepla does this; she's stated before that in university she focused mostly on creative writing, so I think it would be difficult for her not to take this approach), the whole narrative falls apart. Even under really basic scrutiny, you're left wondering really superficial things like "if X character wasn't really a bad guy, why did he seem to enjoy being evil so much even when he was alone and didn't have to force it?" If you've ever written even fanfiction for funsies, you probably came away from Dawntrail feeling like they didn't go back and reread their own story. If they had, there would've been a better use of foreshadowing, and lots of the "telling" would've been replaced with showing. There was so much room to improve. I actually paid attention in the DT msq, but by the end I felt like an idiot for trusting the writers to go anywhere with it. It really was ARR all over again in the sense that it took my trust (in the writers and their ability to craft a compelling narrative) and once again threw it in the bin.

And none of this even mentions how it feels from a GAMEPLAY perspective, but others have done a better job of explaining that already imo. Exhibit A: showing us a cutscene during the train moment, instead of letting us actually play the train moment. That alone sums up the problems with DT's story from a gameplay perspective. There were so many lost opportunities like that. So many exposition moments that could've been playable echo flashbacks. If DT's writer had done endwalker, he would have made us read "in from the cold" as an unspoken dialogue box presented to us from wuk lamat herself, instead of letting us play out the experience of crawling along the ground. I could go on and on about this but I'll spare everyone. Thanks for the link OP. I would've missed it otherwise.

edit: LOL, love how she's gotta spend the first two minutes prefacing that "everyone has opinions" and gently nudging the DT lovers away so the fanboys who'll inevitably lose their shit don't attack her for not enjoying their favorite toy.

This is a bit off topic, but wanted to reply to it.

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Originally Posted by Eldtagg

the archaic quest design, which requires you to interact with NPCs along the route to the objective rather than them simply following you in real time and talking while you walk, as the other major MMORPGs have been able to accomplish for at least the previous decade

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Other games (especially single player games) were doing it long before FFXIV even existed and MMORPGs were always reluctant to catch up with those games. So I saw FFXIV doubling down on cutscenes for all interaction as just a unique FFXIV thing where they didn't want to innovate on it but rather double down on it. The cutscenes do allow for more interesting animated events to show with a cinematic camera, which might not show well if the player can move their character, since they could just look away from it or be exploring elsewhere and miss it (I remember this happening in one of the CoD games I played). But there is still value in events happening while you control the character because it's more immersive.

They do have it in the solo duties, dungeons and since Endwalker they have had characters follow you around sometimes like in FF8, but of course all the talking they do is rarely voiced and the vast majority of the story takes place in cutscenes that don't let you move the character. Not voicing them doesn't make sense sometimes, especially alliance and normal raid cutscenes because the boss fights themselves are voiced and the voice actors are right there in the recording studio.

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The constant usage of ARR music in non-voiced awkward cutscenes

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I actually feel they have kept the emotional music mostly to music from a given expansion and not re-used prior expansion music much - except in Dawntrail. It changed in Dawntrail. They tried to draw upon the greater variety of music from different expansions this time. I respect that they tried this, but it didn't work, because I like the fresh coat of paint (new music, new zones, new dungeons) and don't want to go backwards. I'm also not sure that they particularly used it well enough to justify it a lot of the time.

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a dead open landscape that primarily serves as an MSQ device.

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Feels intentional though. Older games than this had open world landscapes, so it's not simply that this game is "old", but rather that they just never cared for the open world much. They did a bit (which is why they make FATEs, hunts, maps and sightseeing logs) but still draw us into instances mostly. I think it's a design decision to make people play across worlds on cross-world duty servers, as opposed to people restricting themselves to their homeworld (which means they play with less people, potentially making it feel dead). It also means there are never too many or too few people in most cases, which is an issue with hunts.

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FFXIV requires a complete overhaul, including character creation, UI (poor inventory), open world rehaul

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I don't think it requires a character creation overall, but it would be a "nice to have" because there are way better character creators out there.

I don't think it requires an open world overhaul either. Because it's obviously a design decision to not be an open world game. If they want it to be an open world game, they could overhaul it, but otherwise I think people should just accept it's not an open world game. Maybe instead of making it an open world game, they could focus on improving the duty servers so we can queue for duties from within Field Operations, join PFs, send tells and speak to friends not in the duty, thereby making it "feel" like it's an open world area that doesn't restrict what we can do, while still being a cross-world area.

What I think IS required is a UI overhall. They keep adding to those menus and never remove anything. I can think of so many menu items that could be merged. It's wasteful and confusing to new players. For example, Raid Finder and Duty Finder are both listed but they are the same thing now! Not a single person uses Duty Recorder, remove it! V&C could be merged into DF as a third tab! Trust could be removed because it's already a button found within Duty Support!

I could go on, and on, and on about how wasteful the UI is like that, and how it's unnecessarily confusing for new players. My understanding is the UI team pride themselves on how amazing they are at designing UI, and while they have done some amazing things such as with controller support, they have become complacent about how good they are at designing UI, resulting in bloated menus, several inventories that serve the same purpose, multiple glamour inventories that serve the same purpose, slow inventory management in some cases, and cases where a request is met with "it's impossible" before subsequently adding it (proving that it was possible and they didn't know).

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

They're probably blaming the specter of "Woke" "DEI" consulting firms or something, just guessing from what I've seen the conspiracy folks around the forums say since DT dropped.

I seriously disliked Dawntrail and was shocked at how incompetent of a story and world it built, but I don't think it has anything to do with Sweet Baby Inc. or whatever company is in people's crosshairs that isn't even confirmed to have worked on the game. I think it's the usual mundane suspects when a project like this goes wrong: bad management and corporate financial decisions on Square Enix's part, shuffling former writers and devs into other projects and leaving FFXIV with less staff and budget.

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Oh I knew exactly what they were getting at, haha. I just didn't want to start yet another nonsensical "woke"/anti-"woke" war. People massively over-attribute power to those firms. Doubly so when they just can't accept Occam's Razor's simple truth: that a team just performed the cardinal sin of not doing a spectacular job with something.

Most of the time I disagree strongly with Zepla's takes but uhhhhh... I found nothing to disagree with here.

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Originally Posted by Eldtagg

The constant usage of ARR music in non-voiced awkward cutscenes, and a dead open landscape that primarily serves as an MSQ device.

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Even "ARR music" is being a bit generous. It's basically:

Sentimental cutscene: Unspoken.
Lore/ exposition cutscene: Canticle.
Funny cutscene: Bliss.
Suspicious/ odd incident cutscene: Fracture.
Starting quest: Machinations.

I don't know if DT is much better, but I've been going through bits and pieces of EW content and it feels incredibly awkward and stale at this point, especially when it shifts jarringly from one to the other depending on the current mood.

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Originally Posted by Eyrilona

Oh, it is worse than Zepla was willing to go into really, because the final zone is really ambivalent on whether we should or should not care about the plight of the Endless. Many of us who did the allied society quest in Ultima Thule came into the next expansion fully primed to consider recreated memories of life already extinguished, as a worthy new culture in its own right that we got to nurture and care about out there. But then in DT we go all Emet-Selch with "I don't consider you to be truly alive, so it's not murder if I kill you" on basically the same concept!

Now there are no doubt again going to be posters just waiting to jump on this with "ThEy'Re OnLy Ai", and that kind of shows that the same dilemma of deciding what is alive and not is as debatable iRL as it is in fiction, but that's beside the point. Due to the complete lack of our character being able to show any moral qualms about this, I have heard from quite a lot of people that they walked away in disgust that our character has now canonically committed a genocidal extermination of countless innocents, including women and children. Sure, it was a 'necessity' (although the game fails to even really back that point up, because it seems to have no effect whatsoever on what's happening at the Meso Terminal) to prevent our world being destroyed, but that is STILL on the same level as if Emet-Selch had destroyed all sundered life in his pursuit of saving *his* world. The writers really dropped the ball just glossing over how our own actions there look when seen in the context of all the lore of the previous expansions.

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I think personally the Ultima Thule questlines cheapened the blow of these cultures being lost and was one of the signs of them cowering out od tragedy to pat us and go all "oj no! Its alright! Look the horrible diseased weasel aquatic people are actually given another chance! Pat pat pat!"

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

snippety.

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I'm an 80s baby myself, so I get what you mean.

I'd like to emphasize that when I say cutscenes, I mean those in which characters stand motionless, move their mouths, and express themselves, such as by nodding.

Regarding the open world, I believe that these reasons are simply an excuse.

If the game is not an open world game, why are we all flinging money at SQEnix every month rather than playing a single player game?

I completely agree with the rest, including the user interface.

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Originally Posted by Eldtagg

If the game is not an open world game, why are we all flinging money at SQEnix every month rather than playing a single player game?

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The social interaction - which can occur regardless of if it's open world, such as in a housing area; inside an Alliance Raid or DR; inside a Chaotic raid; inside a Field Operation; inside a large-scale PvP game; inside dungeons, trials and raids.

There is actually enough open world stuff for social interaction in the open world, such as hunts and boss FATEs which can attract hundreds of people, map parties which have always been a popular content among FCs, and RP.

Even if an MMORPG is just "a single player game with a chat to discuss it with other players", that can work for some people as well, but as it stands it's more than that for sure.

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Originally Posted by Batbrat

Really hate flippant replies like this.
I'm sorry your favorite game in the entire world for once is rightfully getting criticized, even by one of your biggest local e-celebrities. I know it must be so hard and unconscionable-clearly to the point that the ONLY possible explanation for it HAS to be that the persons rent is due, because why else would anyone say any of this??? It's not like any of it is true, right??

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Soooo when did I defend the game? Go check my profile and my responses to other topic before making your own decision at getting triggered by someone on the internet. Must be fun being you, can't imagine being you in public transport.

I raised my concern many times and even shittalk the game from time to time I get the chance and hardcore fanboys who play the game because why not? Where does that make me your so proclaimed game defender?

Zepla doing these videos are money farms, nothing more lol she does not care about you or that you are defending her.

Watched it and it's a very well analyzed and thought out video. There are nothing but objective facts. The only ones I see disagree with it are people who refuse to watch it in the first place, because they have an axe to grind with Zepla. Apparently she did the unforgivable sin of interacting with Asmongold and playing Hogwarts Legacy.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The social interaction - which can occur regardless of if it's open world, such as in a housing area; inside an Alliance Raid or DR; inside a Chaotic raid; inside a Field Operation; inside a large-scale PvP game; inside dungeons, trials and raids.

There is actually enough open world stuff for social interaction in the open world, such as hunts and boss FATEs which can attract hundreds of people, map parties which have always been a popular content among FCs, and RP.

Even if an MMORPG is just "a single player game with a chat to discuss it with other players", that can work for some people as well, but as it stands it's more than that for sure.

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Theres a lacking amount of open world variety I'd argue. They need to innovate on that front heavily to get people out there without relying on the same old systems. They need to make mobs matter, open the buildings up to make them seem livable and rpable.
Theres no rare drops, in fact monster drops dont matter at all. The quests dont give exp or matter either.
Ffxiv is missing quintessential systems that are apart of every other MMO.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Theres a lacking amount of open world variety I'd argue. They need to innovate on that front heavily to get people out there without relying on the same old systems. They need to make mobs matter, open the buildings up to make them seem livable and rpable.
Theres no rare drops, in fact monster drops dont matter at all. The quests dont give exp or matter either.
Ffxiv is missing quintessential systems that are apart of every other MMO.

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Agree. I run FATEs and hunts fairly regularly, and what really stands out to me flying around the open world is how little there is going on. So much beautiful scenery that might as well be wallpaper.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Theres a lacking amount of open world variety I'd argue. They need to innovate on that front heavily to get people out there without relying on the same old systems. They need to make mobs matter, open the buildings up to make them seem livable and rpable.
Theres no rare drops, in fact monster drops dont matter at all. The quests dont give exp or matter either.
Ffxiv is missing quintessential systems that are apart of every other MMO.

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The moment they make mobs matter people will be rushing to the forums complaining about how bot-campers are killing everything.

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Originally Posted by hydralus

The moment they make mobs matter people will be rushing to the forums complaining about how bot-campers are killing everything.

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So make the rare/legendary drops zone drops and make hunts matter more by having a personal drop chance for some rare ingredient or item / zone related gear.
Its better for the gil economy too when some players can gather, others can farm gathering sellables by battlecontent / farming.
Make daily /weekly optional minigames in each zone? Anything that gets us out of thid norm of the zones just being pretty to look at and nor functional zones.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Agree. I run FATEs and hunts fairly regularly, and what really stands out to me flying around the open world is how little there is going on. So much beautiful scenery that might as well be wallpaper.

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I agree, and it's a major shame given how much effort obviously went into creating the Dawntrail zones.

They are very pretty, yet there are few reasons to return to them.

FFXIV has a significant drawback for me in that the game does not always succeed in selling the setting. Zones are beautiful set dressing, but the exploration is limited. They feel really gamey, if that makes sense.

PeluPelu are my favorite tribes this expansion, but even though I exhausted the sidequests while doing the MSQ, I wish I could have learned/spent more time with them.

Heavensward was the last expansion where I thought the setting felt "real" because that expansion is given enough time to evolve not only the religion, but also Ishgard, the city, sociological statuses, the weather effects on poor and rich and other aspects.

I absolutely love Thavnair (my character is meant to have been born there), however, like PeluPelu, Thavnair suffers from the same issue outside of Vrtra: surface-level world building and gamey looking landscapes.

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Originally Posted by hydralus

The moment they make mobs matter people will be rushing to the forums complaining about how bot-campers are killing everything.

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Bots will do that yes.
But I mean what is the alternative to that?
The only thing I could think of is (outside of square doing something against bots) making a unique gathering job for monster mats that can stealth farm them.

I don't care what content creators think and I can't imagine why anyone would.

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Originally Posted by LilaIronman

Her analysis is mostly about her rents being due

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Forums when content creator is positive: <3
Forums when content creator have wrong think: >: (

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Originally Posted by Immut

I don't care what content creators think and I can't imagine why anyone would.

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1. The developers do because they said they watch Zepla's videos.
2. They are not just content creators, they are players and human beings.
3. She had been working on the video for ages.

I don't even subscribe to her, I just see what's going on in the FFXIV category on YouTube because the recommendations are perfect in recent years and inform me of everything important in YouTube's FFXIV space, regardless of their subscriber count.

I watched Zepla's video (twice actually) and I concur with most of her feedback surrounding Dawntrail. I share many of her criticisms and have also provided additional bits on the forums in my own feedback post.

Dawntrail's story is not up to the standards I have come to expect from Square Enix. I honestly feel that A Realm Reborn had better writing by far. But I can not fault the writers alone for this. Where was Yoshi-P? What was he doing? It is ultimately his responsibility to ensure that the story and all other aspects of the game are up to the quality and standard expected.
There was so much poor writing that I question also if Ishikawa and Oda were involved at all, despite being listed as Senior Story Designers. Much of the story appears half hearted, and half written that I honestly suspect it was an initial draft.
I apologize if the devs read my comments and feel discouraged. That is not my intent. I do not mean only to admonish them. I know what your team is capable of, we have seen it! I hope that they will take our criticism use it to guide them into creating a much better experience with future arcs.

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Originally Posted by JimCasey_RF6

Ohh that's right she plays WoW now, instead.

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It's pretty concerning when one of the biggest cheerleaders for this game just couldn't take it anymore and had to jump over to the "rival" game instead.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

Even "ARR music" is being a bit generous. It's basically:

Sentimental cutscene: Unspoken.
Lore/ exposition cutscene: Canticle.
Funny cutscene: Bliss.
Suspicious/ odd incident cutscene: Fracture.
Starting quest: Machinations.

I don't know if DT is much better, but I've been going through bits and pieces of EW content and it feels incredibly awkward and stale at this point, especially when it shifts jarringly from one to the other depending on the current mood.

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Yeah that's pretty spot on

They ought to use new music for scenes like that because it does get old after awhile, and it's something they have been doing for years

The idea of an "MSQ Package" is very worrying to me because I can see it, and its far worse than just the exact same bad guy 4 times in a row.
8 Endwalker dungeons (6 MSQ + 2 Extra) and 8 Dawntrail Dungeons (6MSQ + 2 Extra) with the exact same level spreads
3 Trials In Endwalker at 83, 89, and 90 vs 3 Trials in Dawntrail at 93, 99, and 100
Scions randomly and mysteriously hanging rejoin your party before anything happens, solely to justify the trust system
Then what Zelpa mentioned about the Final boss being a big bad we just go and enter the memories of for the last dungeon.


The devs really do just go through the motions and deliver bare minimum based on existing formulas huh

Alright I watched the video. I'm not a big fan of Zepla anymore but I can't disagree with many of the points she made.

I actually think the overall plot of Dawntrail was pretty good, but the quest-and-dialogue level writing was often quite poor. A lot of that was very repetitive and, frankly, written like a story for children.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

The idea of an "MSQ Package" is very worrying to me because I can see it, and its far worse than just the exact same bad guy 4 times in a row.
8 Endwalker dungeons (6 MSQ + 2 Extra) and 8 Dawntrail Dungeons (6MSQ + 2 Extra) with the exact same level spreads
3 Trials In Endwalker at 83, 89, and 90 vs 3 Trials in Dawntrail at 93, 99, and 100
Scions randomly and mysteriously hanging rejoin your party before anything happens, solely to justify the trust system
Then what Zelpa mentioned about the Final boss being a big bad we just go and enter the memories of for the last dungeon.


The devs really do just go through the motions and deliver bare minimum based on existing formulas huh

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My super duper HYPEEER far-reach tinfoilhat theory is that the story was AT LEAST partially written by AI.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

8 Endwalker dungeons (6 MSQ + 2 Extra) and 8 Dawntrail Dungeons (6MSQ + 2 Extra) with the exact same level spreads

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That's not new though. I rather expected exactly that as early as Stormblood, since we already could see that SE did "formulas" then. Once Stormblood used the same MSQ format, it was pretty clear it would be done that way forever. If we're honest, it constrains the story and makes it somewhat predictable, because when I reach level 63, 73, 83 or 93, I know for certain I am about to fight a trial boss. So I ask myself, which boss fitting the bill have I heard/spotted recently? I instantly know I will be taking care of that very soon, thus spoiling the near future.

Same with dungeons at each X1, X3, X5, X7 and X9 interval. I knew in Shadowbringers we were fighting lightwardens, so logically "each dungeon is a lightwarden then" which sort of spoils some of the plot outline. I knew in Dawntrail that each zone was basically being accompanied by a dungeon.

There are still a lot of nuances to the story to learn despite that, like setbacks, lore, character development and so on, but it obviously constrains the story because they have to develop the story around the idea we will fight things every 2 levels, which might make them develop a random enemy to appear to fill that gap. I think this is just the reality they have to work with though, if they want to provide us with a certain amount of dungeons, trials, etc.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

My super duper HYPEEER far-reach tinfoilhat theory is that the story was AT LEAST partially written by AI.

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According to an interview it's actually a story about AI and how in the future, we will try to create AI-powered versions of ourselves to live forever, consuming more electricity than we can produce (for context, tech companies are frantically trying to produce enough electricity to power AI by investing heavily in nuclear power). And the story is meant to show the inevitable result of that - needing to shut it down so we have enough electricity for the people who are currently living.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

My super duper HYPEEER far-reach tinfoilhat theory is that the story was AT LEAST partially written by AI.

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I mean...

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I believe that generative AI has the potential not only to reshape what we create, but also to fundamentally change the processes by which we create

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We also intend to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions. In the short term, our goal will be to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts.

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https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/n...esident_4.html

We can't know but I really wouldn't be surprised if at least some of Dawntrail was AI generated. It would explain why it adheres so rigidly to the formula of previous content while being completely devoid of the soul or charm. I could see it being a case of dialogue being AI generated with the intention of swapping it out for human-written dialogue later and then that just not happening. Either that or the devs have given up and are just serving slop.

If they were actually using AI, they'd probably be able to churn out everything many times faster since you could, for example, get AI to create an environment and textures and throw together story boards, characters, dialogue and a random mechanical dance using the list of mechanics from Hall of the Novice as a base to choose from. The only reason I think they won't do that is because it's controversial and because the current system works for CBU3 so they don't want to tamper with it. However, I've no doubt the rest of SE is going to focus on it where they can starting with areas that are less controversial.

However I think I do remember SE hiring lots of people for these sort of roles a while ago.

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Originally Posted by Gojin

If game so bad why you still subbed?

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Because the people, who write here still care. Other people just unsub. And if enough people unsub then the game closes.




Cheers

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Originally Posted by Oizen

The idea of an "MSQ Package" is very worrying to me because I can see it, and its far worse than just the exact same bad guy 4 times in a row.
8 Endwalker dungeons (6 MSQ + 2 Extra) and 8 Dawntrail Dungeons (6MSQ + 2 Extra) with the exact same level spreads
3 Trials In Endwalker at 83, 89, and 90 vs 3 Trials in Dawntrail at 93, 99, and 100
Scions randomly and mysteriously hanging rejoin your party before anything happens, solely to justify the trust system
Then what Zelpa mentioned about the Final boss being a big bad we just go and enter the memories of for the last dungeon.


The devs really do just go through the motions and deliver bare minimum based on existing formulas huh

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That's what happens when Square barely puts any funding back into FF14 despite most of their funding probably coming from FF14.

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Originally Posted by Lilapop

That's what happens when Square barely puts any funding back into FF14 despite most of their funding probably coming from FF14.

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1st half of fiscal year (ended September 2024)

MMO Division

Net Sales: 32.4 billion yen
operating income: 13.1 billion yen


The numbers include sales of the current expansion, which increased operating income greatly. [Q1 was 6.6 billion yen on 12.5 billion net sales)

Operating income is what the company uses to purchase shares, pay dividends, fund new development, and run the company as a whole.

Seems to me that putting almost 20 billion yen into the game itself (operating costs, salaries, marketing, whatever) can't be considered "barely".

Blame the company for whatever (unsatisfying expansion, mediocre gameplay, not enough shills on Twitch), but don't use "this game gets barely any of the proceeds", because that, at least, can be disproved.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Seems to me that putting almost 20 billion yen into the game itself (operating costs, salaries, marketing, whatever) can't be considered "barely".

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They put 20 billions into the MMO division. And this division is way more than FF14 only. :)




Cheers

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Originally Posted by Lilapop

That's what happens when Square barely puts any funding back into FF14 despite most of their funding probably coming from FF14.

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IMO, the issue with the game isn't necessarily tied to funding, with the exception of funding for additional staff to expand the game.

But most of the core issues with the game is related to direction and content pipeline. Like the budget matters, but it matters a hell of a lot more for how they use it.

They are more intent with giving the same downtrodden McDonalds formula than what they are with thinking how they can improve their content pipeline, because they absolutely could improve it dramatically without dramatic budget requirements.

I've watched the video and have pretty much had most of the same thoughts about the overall feeling of 7.0 as Zepla had. Even though I did really enjoy my initial play-through of the MSQ, looking back at it critically just revealed an alarming amount of issues from the characters to the story and everything in-between and beyond.

I hated Endwalker. Didn't care for most of it from beginning to end, and the post-patch drained me so much I unsubscribed for over a year. Then I played Dawntrail and somehow it made me wish I wasn't so harsh about Endwalker.

Most of the VA's sounded lifeless, which could be mostly blamed on the probable lack of any direction for their voice lines if that really was the case. Story almost feels like in some places it could've been written by an AI with the prompts "Friendship; Peace; Happiness; Smiles" from beginning to end and just has some really baffling decisions done to resolve issues. One single character essentially being a Black-Hole Sue by being the only reason anything and everything gets done/solved and making it so that without them literally nothing can move forward in anyway, which only gets worse when they added all that on top of the fact they decided to have said new main character speed-run "The greatest hits of your Warrior of Light" with pretty much everything they accomplish in the story.

Who really knows if there were a bunch of drastic changes while it was being developed, or if this really was the plan from the very beginning, but when I look back at Dawntrail it was all just...really odd with everything they decided to do with it from beginning to end.

Now I am looking forward to it being revealed that Sphene is Wuk Lamat's reflection and they pull an Ardbert and fuse together so that Wuk Lamat can round off her expansion by having her Endsinger moment and defeat the Embodiment of Death, Necron.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

The idea of an "MSQ Package" is very worrying to me because I can see it, and its far worse than just the exact same bad guy 4 times in a row.
8 Endwalker dungeons (6 MSQ + 2 Extra) and 8 Dawntrail Dungeons (6MSQ + 2 Extra) with the exact same level spreads
3 Trials In Endwalker at 83, 89, and 90 vs 3 Trials in Dawntrail at 93, 99, and 100
Scions randomly and mysteriously hanging rejoin your party before anything happens, solely to justify the trust system
Then what Zelpa mentioned about the Final boss being a big bad we just go and enter the memories of for the last dungeon.


The devs really do just go through the motions and deliver bare minimum based on existing formulas huh

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MSQ package probably would've been a blessing.

After the first dungeon in Shadowbringers you split the sky (the iconic image from the title screen) and you're hailed as the legendary warrior of darkness that's going to save the world.

The first dungeon in Dawntrail you leave town on a boat and your boat crashes and then you run around and then get on a new boat. And Wuk Lamat gets seasick.

Not to mention how horrendously sluggish the pre-dungeon MSQ is, I feel like everyone gets to level 93 before they can even do the level 91 dungeon.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

MSQ package probably would've been a blessing.

After the first dungeon in Shadowbringers you split the sky (the iconic image from the title screen) and you're hailed as the legendary warrior of darkness that's going to save the world.

The first dungeon in Dawntrail you leave town on a boat and your boat crashes and then you run around and then get on a new boat. And Wuk Lamat gets seasick.

Not to mention how horrendously sluggish the pre-dungeon MSQ is, I feel like everyone gets to level 93 before they can even do the level 91 dungeon.

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Not only did we as a community ask for a lowering of the stakes post-EW, we welcomed the idea of a low-stakes beach adventure when DT was announced. That means you can't have every opening dungeon be a sky is split moment. We have to build back up to that, or else we have the World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 problem of every single threat being somehow bigger and badder than the last and *this time it's for real.*

DT's story did a lot of things poorly, but delivering on the promise of a lower scale threat for the grand majority of it was not one of them. Sphene/The Endless would only make it into the Top 10 list because we've had 6 expansions worth to fill it out.