Unenthused About Dawntrail

I sadly regret the pre-order after what benchmark introduced. And it can’t be refunded, as part of it are items which are immediately distributed (at least how ps4/5 expansion licenses work).
I also wish housing system didn’t hold some of us hostage. So I can’t even cancel my subscription until I am sure I will never coming back, as otherwise I am loosing that emotional investment I’ve built.

I was excited for DT till it became obvious that they were pushing Krile (always hated her) & hairier and even MORE annoying Lyse (Wuk Lamet) front & center. Then the graphics "update" butchered my main so yeah, zero excitement here.

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Originally Posted by Miracle_Diva

Slower or faster, pictomanser's animations so far were all low poly cartoon versions of existing skills which, personally, looks very off to me.

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I'm rather neutral on the aesthetic rn, but I can stand by PIC's spells being super derivative of every other caster's spells being quite disconcerting.

One day we'll get a caster who doesn't cast fireball :^)

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Originally Posted by Windfire

hairier and even MORE annoying Lyse (Wuk Lamet)

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A lot of the games central characters underwent a process of flanderization over time, resulting in the weird comfort character versions of the original scions that we have today.

SE now feels like they're trying to skip the 'process' entirely, and are just engineering characters that are incredibly shallow and come functionally pre-flanderized out of the box.

Wuk Lamat and Zero are both examples of this, and I wonder if Wuk Lamat will experience the same meteoric falloff in popularity that Zero did as the patches went on.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

A lot of the games central characters underwent a process of flanderization over time, resulting in the weird comfort character versions of the original scions that we have today.

SE now feels like they're trying to skip the 'process' entirely, and are just engineering characters that are incredibly shallow and come functionally pre-flanderized out of the box.

Wuk Lamat and Zero are both examples of this, and I wonder if Wuk Lamat will experience the same meteoric falloff in popularity that Zero did as the patches went on.

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Wait Zero fell off?
Wasn't aware of that, been seeing her being solid enough in social media with people screaming their lungs for her to think she had been a popular one

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Originally Posted by WantlessYoYo

Wait Zero fell off?
Wasn't aware of that, been seeing her being solid enough in social media with people screaming their lungs for her to think she had been a popular one

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Nobody who posts anything on these forums has any actual data to back up the shit they say. And yes, that includes me.

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Originally Posted by WantlessYoYo

Wait Zero fell off?
Wasn't aware of that, been seeing her being solid enough in social media with people screaming their lungs for her to think she had been a popular one

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Zero was literally a hollow character. Maybe people liked her looks? She didn't know anything. After spending some time with us she was like uhhhhh... Okay.... I want to be good too I guess... /smile.

I think if anyone likes zero maybe they actually like the potential the character could have or how they envision them in their minds but if you just take what was there... well there wasn't a lot.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Yeah there is definitely a strong sense of “inertia” so to speak with the community right now

The collective community hasn’t been excited about the game since like 6.0 which is near 3 years ago at this point and a large part of the community has had large game altering grievances for nigh on 5

What’s there really to be excited about for what appears to be a “stage setter” expansion when we have been in the “bubbling along not actively terrible but not great” inertia stage for 3 years now, especially since the benchmark didn’t land with a lot of people (healers what a surprise) and we have functionally nothing else even though launch is 2 months away

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I think you are *strongly* overrepresenting the community at large here, just saying. The overwhelming majority of players aren't in this thread. People who are happy with the status quo and excited for what's to come don't have much reason to make forum posts.

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Originally Posted by WantlessYoYo

Wait Zero fell off?
Wasn't aware of that, been seeing her being solid enough in social media with people screaming their lungs for her to think she had been a popular one

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This is purely anecdotal, but it seems to have happened in my friend group. We all thought she was cool at the start, until it became clear she's basically a game version of someone's Deviantart OC.

I know my experience of the base expansion will be solid. I'll have a nice time exploring the new zones and experiencing the story with my partner [we've played everything together since 2.4] It's what comes after that makes me anxious. Very concerned about job changes and encounter design overall [bf is a Sch and he's...not been loving it or the state of healers overall for 2 expacs now] and how the lull and lack of enthusiasm will affect people in our extended social circle for raids and battle content. That particular interpersonal aspect kinda felt more difficult in EW and I'm not optimistic about how that will be going forward -_-

Looking forward to it it's going to be fun. Right now I'm happy enjoying another 2 months of chill time in game.

I'm only interested in DT because i'm curious about what they've thought up storywise,

Mainly because endwalker wrapped up so many things so abruptly, they must've been struck by something amazing im hoping,

but deep down I feel DT is another thing that'll be aimed at all these new players and it'll be a massive letdown, then i'll shelve ff14 and close that chapter of my life.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I agree that these hooks being sudden and done at the tail end of the patch cycle made them feel rushed.

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I'm holding judgment on that one for now because I remember how utterly baffled we all were with the rather rushed leadup to Shadowbringers and why the heck we were going this route suddenly and then it all made perfect sense.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Secondly, there are a lot of references to FF9 and if you have played FF9 you know it is one of the best Final Fantasy games ever, and they will most likely borrow things from it.

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Is that why they waited so long to reference it?

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Originally Posted by xxmiamorecadenza

But I'm curious about folks who are actively going 'meh' about it's arrival.

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I really think it's just because of the Trailer. The trailer just didn't really deliver for me personally.

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Originally Posted by WantlessYoYo

Wait Zero fell off?
Wasn't aware of that, been seeing her being solid enough in social media with people screaming their lungs for her to think she had been a popular one

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Nah she's the coolest side character right now. Best home base with the best music in the game, funny interactions with other story characters, nice looks and an interesting back story. I really hoped she would be a part of Dawntrail and the trust gang but I guess not. At least we got Erenville.

The next void story arc can't come fast enough. I want the orchestrion roll too.

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Originally Posted by Araxes

I really think it's just because of the Trailer. The trailer just didn't really deliver for me personally.

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I haven't even seen the trailer. That's how unenthused I am about DT. I'm only aware of what's going on from the LLs, a few snippets, and from posts here on the forums. FFXIV content creators on YT are also some of the most annoying people on Earth to me, so I couldn't care less to get their takes on things.

The job actions preview, EX trials, updates to encounter/job design, and glamour will make or break the new expansion for me. The MSQ has such a small role because of the relatively small amount of overall time it consumes. Most people will wrap it up in a week or two, we'll talk about it for a few days and that will be it. A four month gap will need to be filled by other activities.

We have a sword with a shield, a big sword, a small sword, dual wield baby swords, a magic pokey sword and a sword with a gun in it. Now we are getting two swords you can attach together. How can I not be excited, it's literally the pinnacle of design. How could they possibly make a sword even more...swordy.

I'm mostly just lukewarm. The character updates are cool but I REALLY wish we had updated character creator options. And the thing I'm most worried about is job/gameplay design, which looks like it's going to be more of the same dumbed down junk.

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Originally Posted by Araxes

I really think it's just because of the Trailer. The trailer just didn't really deliver for me personally.

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One of my issues with the trailer is it just showcased people we already know. It would have been amazing to see someone new and unknown presented on the screen that wasn’t a monster or beastly in nature. Our veira and hroth was a nice touch - and krile was acceptable - but perhaps shifting focus away from the scions would have been grand.

Imagine the battle scene revolving around Wuk instead of Estinien. Or her fabled brother showing up.

We’ve already seen Thancred and Urianger in the city. And Estinien in action. And Y’shtola breathing. And G’raha Tia doing cat boy-related activities. Maybe have the WoL not have a melee-based class that doesn’t have a sword or his fists or an axe or a spear. :/

I would love to see meteor actually be a caster for once

Square likes to use the excuse “oh we can’t really make them feel as dynamic” but that more just feels like an excuse so they can put the melees front and centre every single time or otherwise they just don’t know how to make their own jobs feel interesting

SMN is a god awful class from a design perspective but it’s a visually interesting class with a lot of unique casting poses (unlike SCH that gets one) and it has a lot of artifact armour that’s less “robey” than most casters why couldn’t meteor be a SMN this expansion

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Secondly, there are a lot of references to FF9 and if you have played FF9 you know it is one of the best Final Fantasy games ever, and they will most likely borrow things from it.

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I haven't ran the benchmark, or done anything really to look into Dawntrail yet (heck, I'm just starting, and still figuring things out), but... FFIX you say!? It's in my top 3 favorite (tied for number 1) FF title ever. Now, I think I'm going to have to look more into Dawntrail...

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I would love to see meteor actually be a caster for once

Square likes to use the excuse “oh we can’t really make them feel as dynamic” but that more just feels like an excuse so they can put the melees front and centre every single time or otherwise they just don’t know how to make their own jobs feel interesting

SMN is a god awful class from a design perspective but it’s a visually interesting class with a lot of unique casting poses (unlike SCH that gets one) and it has a lot of artifact armour that’s less “robey” than most casters why couldn’t meteor be a SMN this expansion

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They should've made meteor the pict and Krile the Viper, but they are cowards!!!

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Originally Posted by Arkdra

They should've made meteor the pict and Krile the Viper, but they are cowards!!!

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if only. smh.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I would love to see meteor actually be a caster for once

Square likes to use the excuse “oh we can’t really make them feel as dynamic” but that more just feels like an excuse so they can put the melees front and centre every single time or otherwise they just don’t know how to make their own jobs feel interesting

SMN is a god awful class from a design perspective but it’s a visually interesting class with a lot of unique casting poses (unlike SCH that gets one) and it has a lot of artifact armour that’s less “robey” than most casters why couldn’t meteor be a SMN this expansion

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They literally could have made meteor in Stormblood Red Mage/Samurai and they still would have satisfied their desire to represent jobs from both Ala Mhigo and Doma but oh no...that clash with Lyse wouldn't make as much sense...even though it happens in game regardless of what job you are. No but for real they could have made red mage work for that scene.

Speaking as an "Endwalker hater" I'm actually more excited for Dawntrail than I was for Endwalker.
I know the MSQ will be garbage, half the Scions will be overstaying their welcome like usual, the writers will continue to contradict pre-existing lore to get themselves out of dead ends, ethics and negative parallels with what is frowned upon in the real world will be completely ignored whenever it favors the "good" characters in the eyes of the storytellers (such as colonization), and they will rehash character arcs for sake of justifying certain characters still being active participants in the MSQ... But Dawntrail is being advertised with the non MSQ content being more group focused, which already makes it better than the past 3 years of the game.

I'm...cautiously optimistic I guess? Just finishing up the 6.x MSQ finally and ready for something new.

I'm a bit nervous that we're going to get another Stormblood in terms of story though, which I didn't like. I hope they don't split the focus too much and develop a single, strong storyline. As for all the other stuff, I'm curious to get into the field content stuff while it's fresh, I missed out on the older stuff, and while it's still doable, it feels out of place for some reason.

Artist holds no interest for me in the slightest, but viper could be fun, hopefully it's not a bunch of positionals.

I'm not really going into this expansion excited, but I also don't really care. It's a new story and it needs some time to develop.

I do have disappointment in the Viper. I don't really know why it was needed.

Stormblood was an expansion I wasn't excited about at all, didn't really care about the storyline, but the patch content might be the best of any expansion.

It looks like the same stuff we get every expansion. It's going to be fun because it's been fun so far but also not particularly excited about it because... well, we already know everything that's gonna be in it and what .x patch it's gonna come out almost, it's just a matter of what paint they slapped on it.

For me, I hated Endwalker's gameplay and encounter design. The extremely precise, fast, "Literally breaks the game because of internet infrastructure fast," mechanics combined with Summoner turning into an rphys has effectively killed the way I prefer playing this game. I long for the days of stormblood where every job was challenged, including rphys-unique mechanics, forced melee downtime, and casters having to really work their butts off just to maintain cast bars during the comparatively few mechanics where they had to move (compared to now.)

That, combined with the 2m meta, addle/feint turning into basically tacticians and also being made mandatory for some mechanics (You know what's better than 1 tactician? Needing 4 of them! ~SE dev, unlikely,) massively homogenizing everything in every possible direction and I'm just tired of it. None of the fights were particularly awesome, the ultimates were exhausting instead of invigorating, and, well, Dawntrail will be the make-it or break-it expansion for me where I finally take a break from this.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Zero was literally a hollow character. Maybe people liked her looks? She didn't know anything. After spending some time with us she was like uhhhhh... Okay.... I want to be good too I guess... /smile.

I think if anyone likes zero maybe they actually like the potential the character could have or how they envision them in their minds but if you just take what was there... well there wasn't a lot.

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For me, Zero had potential to be interesting but how they handled her felt very juvenile.
Oh, she's a grumpy loner because she just doesn't know what working together, altruism, and friendship are (even though voidsent have worked together in the past and she herself protects lesser voidsent in her domain)! Let's make almost every interaction she has explain those concepts to her, again and again!
It just made her look childish in my eyes, like a preteens first edgy OC based on Guts from Berserk... ┐(´～｀)┌

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

For me, Zero had potential to be interesting but how they handled her felt very juvenile.
Oh, she's a grumpy loner because she just doesn't know what working together, altruism, and friendship are (even though voidsent have worked together in the past and she herself protects lesser voidsent in her domain)! Let's make almost every interaction she has explain those concepts to her, again and again!
It just made her look childish in my eyes, like a preteens first edgy OC based on Guts from Berserk... ┐(´～｀)┌

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Also, even if they were set on that arc (which I'm not a fan of, I'd rather have more characters that are allies and friends also be kinda weird and offputting, especially the women), they had to slam it through with so little time for her to develop naturally that it felt particularly forced. A lot of people I know who were excited for her saw the writing on the wall real quick and rapidly became disappointed at her being rushed through development to be more normal and palatable. (　˙-˙　)

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Originally Posted by xxmiamorecadenza

One of my issues with the trailer is it just showcased people we already know. It would have been amazing to see someone new and unknown presented on the screen that wasn’t a monster or beastly in nature. Our veira and hroth was a nice touch - and krile was acceptable - but perhaps shifting focus away from the scions would have been grand.

Imagine the battle scene revolving around Wuk instead of Estinien. Or her fabled brother showing up.

We’ve already seen Thancred and Urianger in the city. And Estinien in action. And Y’shtola breathing. And G’raha Tia doing cat boy-related activities. Maybe have the WoL not have a melee-based class that doesn’t have a sword or his fists or an axe or a spear. :/

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We will probably see more of that in the launch trailer and story-focused trailers. Or they want to surprise us like with Yotsuyu and Zenos. The main expansion trailers usually focus around what the WoL is up to, what Scions are up to, maybe show a peek at some a place or two, and maybe a brief glimpse of something villainy.

All I know is that the playerbase was doomer about ShB being a "side story" and a narrative waste of time because it didn't take place on the Source and didn't have a good enough narrative hook leading in to 5.0. And that aged horribly.

I will let them cook and see how they can surprise us with DT's story.

I'm keeping my expectations safely in the mid range. I got real hyped for Endwalker and got burned bad. There's nothing in particular about Dawntrail I'm looking forward to beyond "oh cool, new stuff," and some of the QoL updates. If we get something akin to Stormblood, I'll be fine with that. Some folks seem to unreasonably hate Stormblood and it's...fine. The story wasn't the the most deep or engaging, but it introduced some neat zones and fun characters and still had some really nice moments, and the raids were good. I'm not hyped but maybe it's better than I'm not.

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Originally Posted by Tethan

what reason do I have to play? Why should I give my money to SE? I don't owe them anything.

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Maybe you should take a break from the game for a bit. It sounds like you are taking things a bit too personal with their GFX update, among other things.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

I'm keeping my expectations safely in the mid range. I got real hyped for Endwalker and got burned bad. There's nothing in particular about Dawntrail I'm looking forward to beyond "oh cool, new stuff," and some of the QoL updates. If we get something akin to Stormblood, I'll be fine with that. Some folks seem to unreasonably hate Stormblood and it's...fine. The story wasn't the the most deep or engaging, but it introduced some neat zones and fun characters and still had some really nice moments, and the raids were good. I'm not hyped but maybe it's better than I'm not.

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Stormblood's biggest problem was the focus being as split as it was and kind of convoluted as a result(Go to Hingashi to go to Othard to help one Xaela tribe win to liberate Doma to put pressure on the Empire so we can liberate Ala Mhigo). With the exceptions of Lyse and her non-arc and some of Zenos's plot armor, the characters were largely fine. Dawntrail could very easily be a repeat of this based on what they've shown, and while it wouldn't necessarily be bad in and of itself, it wouldn't exactly be something revitalizing after Endwalker either.

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Originally Posted by FakeCirka

Maybe you should take a break from the game for a bit. It sounds like you are taking things a bit too personal with their GFX update, among other things.

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Oh I am. We will see if it becomes a permanent one.

I want to be excited about it! Shadowbringers was meh (yeah I know pandemic), Endwalker is possibly the worst expansion of any game I've played (very anticlimactic for the end story of a 10 year journey). So I REALLY want Dawntrail to be amazing! I'm just dreading the stupid log in times for launch, and my internet being blamed by SE for the reason why I can't log in. So here's hoping lol!

They shouldn't have brought them all back after the end of EW. Sheesh, how many times is 'tola going to be brought back? The entire DT trailer was like a comedy sketch...the silly music at the start, no real story direction, ght eating a taco...and the pmancer reveal made all of it so cringeworthy this time. It's just disappointing to see how lackadaisical they have gotten.