FFXIV Dawntrail reviews are out on Metacritic

If we're trusting Metacritic as completely valid then Endwalker would've been the best expansion, which many people argued it was not.

That aside though... I am generally more inclined to ignore early reviews, just because they don't really encapsulate a complete picture. So it is better IMO, just seeing what changes (If anything) when more reviews come out after the raid.

2 of these reviews are questionable, at best. Not because of the score itself, but the reasoning for the score.

About what I expected, tbh. General consensus seems to be, good gameplay, bad story. When story is one of the highlights of FF, it hurts the game when you mess that up.

How did Dawntrail get a lower metascore than Dragonflight?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Y2K21

How did Dawntrail get a lower metascore than Dragonflight?

---

Dragonflight: 26 critic reviews
Dawntrail: 4 critic reviews

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by coffeepotz

Dragonflight: 26 critic reviews
Dawntrail: 4 critic reviews

---

Only 4? Still too early?

I'd say so since having so few reviews leads to wild swings in the avg until you get a larger pool of reviews.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Y2K21

How did Dawntrail get a lower metascore than Dragonflight?

---

Funny joke. Some people called Dragonflight the "Disney" expansion, because it wasn't about war yet again, but it is a million times less Disney than what Dawntrail delivered. Dragonflight makes you feel like an adventurer exploring new lands. Dragonflight has an awesome new dragon flying mechanic that makes an ancient game feel like something brand new. The new location design got overhauled completely, huge open, vertical world with a metric shit ton of content to do, making exploration the most enjoyable WoW ever had. Daily chores removed letting you play at your own pace. Super alt friendly which is critically important in WoW. New talent trees for classes that people liked. Etc.

Dawntrail has a shallow and childish story. Doesn't make you feel like an adventurer. No new mechanics, same structure of locations, same structure of dungeons. Same everything really, SE never try new things, old stale formula for the win. And that means a filler MSQ followed by running same old Extremes on same old brain dead classes. Wait, no. That IS something that got changed. Jobs are even more brain dead now!

So that's how.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BakoolJaJa

Funny joke. Some people called Dragonflight the "Disney" expansion, because it wasn't about war yet again, but it is a million times less Disney than what Dawntrail delivered. Dragonflight makes you feel like an adventurer exploring new lands. Dragonflight has an awesome new dragon flying mechanic that makes an ancient game feel like something brand new. The location design got overhauled completely, huge open, vertical world with a metric shit ton of content to do, making exploration the most enjoyable WoW ever had. Daily chores removed letting you play at your own pace. Super alt friendly which is critically important in WoW. New talent trees for classes that people liked. Etc.

---

Even then, I would say all of this is opinionated because there is a hefty argument to why each thing you said is bad.

1) The story isnt the best, but then again - the writing team is in transition and the primary narrative guy is gone (Danuser). There is this overarching narrative of family that does play in each zone and in each of the tiers as well, with certain tiers have very weak writing (Zaralek campaign, Forbidden Reach).

2) Daily chores may be gone, but there is a huge argument that there is also no reason to log or to do anything outside raidlogging.

3) Talent trees are contentious for a number of reasons (no real choices, placing abilities we already had on bars just as talent nodes, the usual argument of the majority will just use WoWhead/IcyVeins, button bloat).

Its really who is looking at it at the end of the day (WoW players will call it dogshit one moment, then praise it the next). Someone who plays both might say Dawntrail pulls it off better (story wise) because simply the narrative elements are so more vast and better without retcons.

It's the first expansion in FFXIV's history where I've needed to force myself to log-in in order to keep doing the MSQ, which is the main thing that the vast majority of us experience for the first days after a new expansion drops. Some days I just played another game and didn't bother, since it was a slog (even annoying) at times. So, there's that. Don't get me wrong, it has some good things. But overall I would rate the story as a 5. Some parts and characters are terrible, other parts and characters are good. 50/50, so my 5.

In regards to the gameplay, the dungeons & trials were the usual stuff and I had fun with the Viper. But whatever, since it seems that the job might be dumbed down soon. We can't have nice things.

The graphical upgrades (aside from personal taste issues) are also mixed, since some things look better but others look worse. Or better said, they look the same as always but the contrast with the updated features makes them stand out more as ugly. For example, the body poly count and textures, or some pixelated textures that still exist in several pieces of gear and hair. Looks like a half done job, really in the same line as how viera and hrothgar were released. It's inexcusable considering how the expansion took longer to release and how little we got in the last one. I refuse to believe that devs are at fault here, so I have to question SE in regards to where the resources (and income from subs and cash shop) are being spent.

I think that the expansion as a whole being rated as a 6 sounds about right. Not terrible, but neither an enjoyable experience as a whole, despite its good parts.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Y2K21

How did Dawntrail get a lower metascore than Dragonflight?

---

I mean, Dragonflight is a good expansion. Most fun I've had in a WoW expac since WotLK. People can argue that the DF story sucks, but I mean, not many people are playing that game for its story. They also made a lot of good changes in response to community feedback.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by angienessyo

I mean, Dragonflight is a good expansion. Most fun I've had in a WoW expac since WotLK. People can argue that the DF story sucks, but I mean, not many people are playing that game for its story. They also made a lot of good changes in response to community feedback.

---

To be fair even with how bad the dragonflight story is, it's still better than this MSQ. Also at least there's gameplay, I know that's alot to ask for in a game, call me old fashioned.

Interesting how players negative reviews kept being deleted and overall number of them decreases over time, while positive do not rise that much. I have screenshots before and now and it is funny how the red number goes down over time. Not the percentage, the reviews number.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Malthir

To be fair even with how bad the dragonflight story is, it's still better than this MSQ. Also at least there's gameplay, I know that's alot to ask for in a game, call me old fashioned.

---

To be doubly fair, no one plays WoW for the story, and the developers know this. They focus on making a fun game, while the story is more or less just the bare minimum to keep the narrative flowing.

I no joke have renewed my WoW sub for the first time in... god it must be like 8 years? Already having more fun in the Evoker starting zone than I did in the entire MSQ. Stuff is happening and it's honestly nice seeing Wrathion again, I always liked that lil shite.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rolder50

To be doubly fair, no one plays WoW for the story, and the developers know this. They focus on making a fun game, while the story is more or less just the bare minimum to keep the narrative flowing.

---

Indeed. It's not a bug, it's a feature. If they suddenly sacrificed the quality of combat content to add a million lengthy cutscenes and pointless voice acting all over the place, nobody would thank or praise them. The Dragonflight story needs to be compared with the story of other WoW expansions, and in that sense it is a perfectly fine story.

FFXIV focuses on story first and foremost. To the point of being detrimental to gameplay, exploration, etc. Dawntrail should be compared to other ffxiv expansions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rolder50

To be doubly fair, no one plays WoW for the story, and the developers know this. They focus on making a fun game, while the story is more or less just the bare minimum to keep the narrative flowing.

---

Well, with Metzen back and a new focus on an overarching story - people might actually play for the story.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Y2K21

Well, with Metzen back and a new focus on an overarching story - people might actually play for the story.

---

Even if new story is good, the game has tons of old story that nobody wants to slog through, so it still won't matter, because there's zero context that people care about.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Isala

Even if new story is good, the game has tons of old story that nobody wants to slog through, so it still won't matter, because there's zero context that people care about.

---

There is something so ironic about this post on a FF14 forum.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Y2K21

There is something so ironic about this post on a FF14 forum.

---

Right. I get that. But unlike XIV, the way WoW does their expansions doesn't actually make you go through them, so people would have to decide to go back through the old content, which just isn't going to happen.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Isala

Right. I get that. But unlike XIV, the way WoW does their expansions doesn't actually make you go through them, so people would have to decide to go back through the old content, which just isn't going to happen.

---

...because people wouldnt play the game if you had to go through 10 expansions to get to the current content. At most, you have to do 1 (Dragonflight) - which is basically all you really need to understand the upcoming story. There is some inferences to Legion and BFA (more Legion) that someone new may need to see, but saying that someone needs to play through TBC, WoD, or Shadowlands to understand the current story makes no sense.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SongOfTheWind

Interesting how players negative reviews kept being deleted and overall number of them decreases over time, while positive do not rise that much. I have screenshots before and now and it is funny how the red number goes down over time. Not the percentage, the reviews number.

---

Since I posted this comment 7 more reviews were removed, 1 positive added, score improved by 0.1
Just amazing to look at

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SongOfTheWind

Since I posted this comment 7 more reviews were removed, 1 positive added, score improved by 0.1
Just amazing to look at

---

7? It's way more that are gone...PC User score has gone up to 6.7 again and 100 more negative reviews are just...poof. Gone. When I try to post mine again it says 'Sorry, your review can't be submitted right now. Please try again later.'

What a joke.

Why do people think a 0/10 game is equally as common or reasonable as a 10/10 game? There are way more 10/10 games than 0/10 games. No one in the history of metacritic has seriously given a game a 0/10 in good faith unless it’s like Big Rig Truckers or ET for the Atari. If there are an unusual amount of 10s it’s because people are doing that in response to 0/10 reviews.

Review aggregates should delete 0/10s since review bombing is cringe and is often done for stupid bigoted reasons, like when the last of us show was review bombed for having a gay character. If you disagree you probably like to review bomb yourself

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amh_Wilzuun

Why do people think a 0/10 game is equally as common or reasonable as a 10/10 game? There are way more 10/10 games than 0/10 games. No one in the history of metacritic has seriously given a game a 0/10 in good faith unless it’s like Big Rig Truckers or ET for the Atari. If there are an unusual amount of 10s it’s because people are doing that in response to 0/10 reviews.

Review aggregates should delete 0/10s since review bombing is cringe and is often done for stupid bigoted reasons, like when the last of us show was review bombed for having a gay character. If you disagree you probably like to review bomb yourself

---

You are gaslighting.
0/10 is as unrealistic as 10/10. Both are extremes with no substance and only exist because the scale needs a limit.
Is Dt a 0? No but it's also not a ten, even if you like the MSQ there are problems like few Gameplay in between, Jobs right now or still buggy stuff. I think it's more a 6 or 7.

I know no game that should have a 10/10. The only game even coming close for me would be Terranigma or Chrono Trigger and even then these games had obvious flaws.

I gave it a solid 5. The dungeons and trials are good, the story is a joke, and the job design is lazy at best.

Lol, so Metacritic deleted even more user ratings and now the user score is at an 8.0 with 599 user ratings. Steam reviews dropped to 62% based on 2512 reviews. Main post updated.

Edit: Added 2 more critic reviews.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Voidmage

Yopu are gaslighting.
0/10 is as unrealistic as 10/10. Both are extremes with no substance and only exist because the scale needs a limit.
Is Dt a 0? No but it's also not a ten, even if you like the MSQ there are problems like few Gameplay in between, Jobs right now or still buggy stuff. I think it's more a 6 or 7.

I know no game that should have a 10/10. The only game even coming close for me would be Terranigma or Chrono Trigger and even then these games had oboius flaws.

---

First off I am not here to claim that DT is a 10/10, because I do not hold that opinion. However it is leagues and bounds closer to being a 10 than a 0. In fact most games are closer to being a 10 than being a 0 because most games are functioning products that are completely playable and are fun. If Shadowbringers is what a 10/10 ffxiv expansion looks like then DT is much closer to that than to Atari on the ET.

Most people do not say 10/10 to mean “literally perfect with no flaws”. It means “this is as good as media can get for me reasonably”. Dragon Quest 11 S is a 10/10 for me even though it has some clear flaws like a repetitive soundtrack, but it was a top 10 of all time gaming experience for me.

If you were to scrape every review from every outlet you’d find exponentially more 10s than 1s or 0s (inb4 “game journo bad” and ignoring the overall point). 10 is the less extreme score.

Let’s take a pretty mixed game like Assassin Creed Valhalla. If your buddy says the game is a 10 for him I’d find that opinion a lot more understandable than if he claimed it was a 0/10.

For the former I’m thinking “hey that game is not a 10 for me at all but it’s pretty well made, is fun in a lot of ways, has good graphics, etc so I guess I can see why he would personally think that.”

For the latter I’m thinking “jeez I don’t even like Assassin’s Creed but a 0/10?? The game had no redeeming qualities at all?”

What you are doing is making a false equivalence, plain and simple

Lol, what?

I've been just looking it up, and apparently, they just straight up don't show PC reviews in the overall rating. And mixed reviews are also counted as a positive one?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amh_Wilzuun

snip for character limit

---

No I am not making false equivalence. I agree that it is closer to a 10 then to a 0 but nothing more.
Neither a 0 nor a 10 are realistic. One says a game is broken (like you said correctly) and the other says that a game is perfect, not that is is "as god as media can get for me reasonably", that would be a 9.5 more likely.
You are implying that a 10 is more realistic then a 0 because a person might think that a game is perfect for them but that's just as subjective as a 0 itelf.

You are right that I would probably find more 10's then 0's but what do we read of that? That more people loved those games instead of hating them? What do we do with that information? Or is it just a number that get's thrown around the most?
Every score is a subjective number of a person, nothing more nothing less. There are people that score media as a living but they also are human first and foremost, that's why "rotten tomatoes" exist.
For example, I give DT a 6 simply because I weight the MSQ as more important then the rest of the game. Another person might give it a 8 because they don't really care for the story.

At the end of the day most of those who give DT a bad score are those who give the MSQ more weight then the rest and didn't like it.
Those who give a good score are those who give the MSQ more weight and loved it or are not interested in it.
Neither side is correct but even the gaming websites are divided with their scores so this expansion and say what you want. If an expansion splits the players in two (this hasn't happened before) then that is a problem.

Either way I need to go to bed so I will stop here for now. I don't even really know why we are discussing how to interpred scores tbh.
Thanks for the discussion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Voidmage

Snip

---

Again, you are in the minority for having the most literal interpretation of what a 10/10 is. By this definition no piece of art can be a 10/10 because no piece of art is perfect (except for Super Mario Galaxy 2). So why do people frequently say certain games are 10/10 for them? These people aren’t saying it is literally perfect and flawless.

And the reason 10a are more common because games we actually know about are made by competent teams of professionals, not shovelware on the Ouya store. I don’t know why people think game scores have to have a statistically perfect spread of scores. Most mainstream games are pretty good actually. If I were to go to a farmer’s market and examine every apple they sell there, only a few of them would be rotten or inedible, whereas most would be tasty apples. If someone else ate the apple and was like “man this is a perfect apple to me” I wouldn’t be all like “NO NO that is unreasonable you are biased and using the scale wrong!”.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amh_Wilzuun

Again, you are in the minority for having the most literal interpretation of what a 10/10 is. By this definition no piece of art can be a 10/10 because no piece of art is perfect (except for Super Mario Galaxy 2). So why do people frequently say certain games are 10/10 for them? These people aren’t saying it is literally perfect and flawless.

And the reason 10a are more common because games we actually know about are made by competent teams of professionals, not shovelware on the Ouya store. I don’t know why people think game scores have to have a statistically perfect spread of scores. Most mainstream games are pretty good actually. If I were to go to a farmer’s market and examine every apple they sell there, only a few of them would be rotten or inedible, whereas most would be tasty apples. If someone else ate the apple and was like “man this is a perfect apple to me” I wouldn’t be all like “NO NO that is unreasonable you are biased and using the scale wrong!”.

---

Keep yapping so you hit your post limit and we don't have to see your inane thoughts for the rest of the day.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amh_Wilzuun

Why do people think a 0/10 game is equally as common or reasonable as a 10/10 game? There are way more 10/10 games than 0/10 games. No one in the history of metacritic has seriously given a game a 0/10 in good faith unless it’s like Big Rig Truckers or ET for the Atari. If there are an unusual amount of 10s it’s because people are doing that in response to 0/10 reviews.

Review aggregates should delete 0/10s since review bombing is cringe and is often done for stupid bigoted reasons, like when the last of us show was review bombed for having a gay character. If you disagree you probably like to review bomb yourself

---

I disagree here, what do you mean you cant give a 0/10 in good faith? I think the story is a 0/10 I decide that the story is the most important part of the game, that is, that would be what I would remmber this game for 5 years from today, even if raids are a 10/10 the total for me would still be a 0 that is not in a bad faith and the fact that you dismiss everyone else's opinions just shows who is acting in "bad faith" here

As long as people give reasonable explanations to their rating they're free to rate the game however they want and most people will respect it. Saying it sucks versus giving a solid few sentences behind that reasoning goes a long way. If they don't want to do it then it's fine but also lessens the chance people will take their opinion seriously.

metacritic is just having a reviewbomb of 10/10 and that is fine but having actual normal critiques that are not even a 0 are deleted and mixed review are view as positive too, hypocrites.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HighlanderClone

Keep yapping so you hit your post limit and we don't have to see your inane thoughts for the rest of the day.

---

Very civil reaction to a different opinion, thank you. Very telling that you have to resort to this instead of engaging with any of my points.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DaveFishnomer

I disagree here, what do you mean you cant give a 0/10 in good faith? I think the story is a 0/10 I decide that the story is the most important part of the game, that is, that would be what I would remmber this game for 5 years from today, even if raids are a 10/10 the total for me would still be a 0 that is not in a bad faith and the fact that you dismiss everyone else's opinions just shows who is acting in "bad faith" here

---

Name a 0/10 game you have played and explain why without using bad dev behavior outside the game as the reason.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...57/176/08e.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amh_Wilzuun

Again, you are in the minority for having the most literal interpretation of what a 10/10 is. By this definition no piece of art can be a 10/10 because no piece of art is perfect (except for Super Mario Galaxy 2). So why do people frequently say certain games are 10/10 for them? These people aren’t saying it is literally perfect and flawless.

---

...
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...57/178/df4.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maxilor

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...57/176/08e.jpg


...
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...57/178/df4.jpg

---

Chat literally what the hell did he mean by this?

If people are upset at the game and give it a 0 out of 10 for whatever reason then so be it. Same for a 10 out of 10.

Purging reviews isn't helpful because then what happens, do people just start giving 1s or 2s instead of 0s? or 8s and 9s instead of 10s? Then what we have to purge those too?

There's really no solution to user review bombing (both overly positive and overly negative). However this sort of things existed for a long time now. So we have to ask if this didn't happen for EW and SHB . . . perhaps it's fair to say this isn't as universally loved and enjoyed as the prior expansions?

It's OK to say "I really enjoyed this expansion but other people didn't".

I simply don't understand why those that did enjoy this are so adamant about hand waving away other peoples complaints and trying to marginalize the feedback.

No one is trying to take away your enjoyment of the game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KurenXIV

If people are upset at the game and give it a 0 out of 10 for whatever reason then so be it. Same for a 10 out of 10.

Purging reviews isn't helpful because then what happens, do people just start giving 1s or 2s instead of 0s? or 8s and 9s instead of 10s? Then what we have to purge those too?

There's really no solution to user review bombing (both overly positive and overly negative). However this sort of things existed for a long time now. So we have to ask if this didn't happen for EW and SHB . . . perhaps it's fair to say this isn't as universally loved and enjoyed as the prior expansions?

It's OK to say "I really enjoyed this expansion but other people didn't".

I simply don't understand why those that did enjoy this are so adamant about hand waving away other peoples complaints and trying to marginalize the feedback.

No one is trying to take away your enjoyment of the game.

---

In the end it all boils down to people getting salty that people are giving a review opposite to their opinion. That's it. Steam only has "recommended" and "not recommended," and people still rage because they see a bit of boo-boo red on their favorite game's store page, or because they see too much happy green on a game they really hate. Remove scores and people still scream "review bombing!" at every corner.

When a new game releases, it might be hard to analyze what is really going on behind the scenes. When the fifth expansion releases for an old MMO, it is actually quite easy. As you yourself say - compare to previous expansions. FFXIV expansions do not really get review bombed. Metacritic was around for a long time. Did Stormblood get review bombed? No. Did it get some bad reviews and a bit of criticism? Yes. Were the ratings as low as they are now? No. So it seems reasonable to assume that the new expansion is simply not as well received.