Are we destroying "our own" game?

I think like all expansions there are good things and there are bad things, there are a lot of good things in this expansion that I enjoy, but the story is so disagreeable with me that I want to never experience it ever again. I left that MSQ feeling disgusted with the overall choices my WoL was party to. I am now anxious about how they do the FFXI raid story (as that is what I have been most excited about with this expansion). That being said, I also don't go off in game and make every one else's experience awful just because I completely hated the story. I also don't make a point to tell all my friends they are wrong if they enjoy it. The world sucks right now, let people enjoy their escapism. But that doesn't mean that if we don't like choices made in this expansion we should be quiet, it's our disposable income too, just maybe don't act like a psychopath if someone disagrees with you.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

You're clueless if you think gam devs make their msq/story content based on twitch.


Steam reviews mean nothing in this day and age. Games like Elden Ring's DLC was "mixed" for a while because the game was "too hard" for the underdeveloped brain players. What ultimately matters in mmos in this day and age is the long term content; the real question is what will people do post msq until the next expansion? Will we have to wait until 7.3 for relics to give us long term content? Will 7.1 be devoid of long term playable content? That's what actually matters in mmos. square enix can't win when it comes to msq, there will always be some haters one way or the other; they shouldn't even care.

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So you're saying neither the forum opinions, the influencer opinions nor the steam reviews matter. What feedback do YOU think should matter to the devs, then?
If you don't care about the MSQ, then don't come complain about it. Let the people that care do, and go make your own thread about relics or whatever.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

Steam reviews mean nothing in this day and age. Games like Elden Ring's DLC was "mixed" for a while because the game was "too hard" for the underdeveloped brain players. What ultimately matters in mmos in this day and age is the long term content; the real question is what will people do post msq until the next expansion? Will we have to wait until 7.3 for relics to give us long term content? Will 7.1 be devoid of long term playable content? That's what actually matters in mmos. square enix can't win when it comes to msq, there will always be some haters one way or the other; they shouldn't even care.

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"Steam reviews mean nothing"

Your original claim was that these forums were the only place that was producing negative feedback. Now, it's "this other place producing negative feedback doesn't actually matter because x reason"

Which argument is it? Fortunately I'm not that clueless to not spot the shift in the goalposts.

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Originally Posted by Ruris

"Steam reviews mean nothing"

Your original claim was that these forums were the only place that was producing negative feedback. Now, it's "this other place producing negative feedback doesn't actually matter because x reason"

Which argument is it? Fortunately I'm not that clueless to not spot the shift in the goalposts.

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Yes, yes you are clueless

You're creating your own goalposts and moving them yourself and then accusing me of moving it. Nice try.
My original statement was an observation between forum and ingame; nowhere was it about steam/other locations. The steam statement was in regards to someone bringing up steam after the fact. If you can't follow a discussion and the sequence thereof then there's some issues you need to look into there haha.

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

So you're saying neither the forum opinions, the influencer opinions nor the steam reviews matter. What feedback do YOU think should matter to the devs, then?
If you don't care about the MSQ, then don't come complain about it. Let the people that care do, and go make your own thread about relics or whatever.

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Who are you talking to? I loved the DT MSQ.

Furthermore, no, when it comes to MSQ they shouldn't care, there's no way to please what everyone's looking for in an msq. Scientifically msq will always be "mixed reviews" with only the outliers being "mostly positive." The only type of feedback they should care about is what occupies 80% of the game's playtime, which is battle content, housing, and the other miscellaneous content types. Those types of content is what keeps your customers subbed. MSQ-only enjoyers are not long term subscribers. They'll always buy your initial expansion no matter what since they're story lovers. Yes, they might resub for 1 month 6 months later, but is that really your bread and butter subscriber as a company? I'd say no. If you're a msq enjoyer but you also stay subbed for other content then you prove my point that the devs shouldn't care about msq feedback and focus more on battle content/other type of content feedback which are more crucial/high priority.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

Who are you talking to? I loved the DT MSQ.

Furthermore, no, when it comes to MSQ they shouldn't care, there's no way to please what everyone's looking for in an msq. Scientifically msq will always be "mixed reviews" with only the outliers being "mostly positive." The only type of feedback they should care about is what occupies 80% of the game's playtime, which is battle content, housing, and the other miscellaneous content types. Those types of content is what keeps your customers subbed. MSQ-only enjoyers are not long term subscribers. They'll always buy your initial expansion no matter what since they're story lovers. Yes, they might resub for 1 month 6 months later, but is that really your bread and butter subscriber as a company? I'd say no. If you're a msq enjoyer but you also stay subbed for other content then you prove my point that the devs shouldn't care about msq feedback and focus more on battle content/other type of content feedback which are more crucial/high priority.

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You "loved the MSQ", yet you say the only content that MATTERS is everything else. So, no, I don't think you CARE about the MSQ. If you did, you would know how valuable feedback is, and would be able to at least understand where it comes from.

Final Fantasy XIV is no longer at its peak and Square Enix is taking the revenue to recoup their 70% loss in profits last year. It also "promoted" Naoki Yoshida and Natsuko Ishikawa to non-FFXIV projects to fix the company. So no, "we" aren't destroying FFXIV, Square Enix is. Just like so many other companies, it cut corners in its core product to save money and please shareholders. Fortunately, every other company is also in a race to the bottom and FFXIV is a tad slower than the others in its decline, so it's still worth playing. It'll soon become apparent though that the story will fail to draw new people and players won't stay excited about the new content due to floor-tanking and being clipped by lag. It's okay to enjoy the game as-is but people need realistic expectations and not to deify the devs.

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Originally Posted by Akari-skts

Browsing through the forum here and watching Youtube videos I clearly see how people seem super unhappy with the new Expansion.
Playing the game for myself and also in my fc and social groups I did not experience that feedback for quite a while.
I never checked this froum in the past and just came here recently to look for the "community voice" but.. is it really that bad? Are people that mad about DT or was it always like that in the forum? Maybe someone that observed the forum for a few years can tell me.

I personally think DT is fine story wise.. sure it may not be peak epic but I feel like it is quite good. I was entertained especcially for the last part of it.

The content imo is great. It is more entertaining than in the past and we now even can wipe here and there, which is often funny. People are saying it is too hard but idk isnt it exciting to have a look at the boss while doing roulettes? (talking about dungeons)

For the raids it is kind of the same. I dont feel like they are particulary harder than - for example - ShB Normal Raids?

Are here any people that actually enjoy the game? And if not.. where are they? I've heard player counts are looking good, and I tbh can imagine why.

It makes me kind of sad hearing all that stuff about "dungeons too hard for me" "raids too easy for me" "story is bad" "bring back stormblood", I have the feeling people are more and more driven into the mindset "Well if everyone says it is bad.. then it must be bad!" until they actually feel that way.

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There's a reason that a lot of those threads are getting heavily dissenting voices. Historically a lot of people have ignored the forums as it's something of an archaic method of communication in modern society, kind of a relic of bygone times. However, Shadowbringers and Endwalker brought a bunch of changes that most people never wanted or asked for, and eventually SE stated that they are focusing on the forums for feedback. There are some very loud individuals with some really awful takes claiming to represent the community at large. All the conflict you are seeing is largely just because the player base is sick and tired of being misrepresented by the people claiming to 'represent the casual community' with their anecdotal experiences and individual preferences. There are many people that are enjoying the content of the game, it's just hard to see that because there's also a battle going on against the people that would squander all the good that has come out of this expansion. Essentially we are no longer letting people get away with sabotaging the game.

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

You "loved the MSQ", yet you say the only content that MATTERS is everything else. So, no, I don't think you CARE about the MSQ. If you did, you would know how valuable feedback is, and would be able to at least understand where it comes from.

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I sincerely hope you understand that no story whether in a book, movie, or video game will appeal to everyone, right? The main difference in xiv is that it's an mmo and by its nature mmos don't ride out a story between content patches. You can't msq your away from july 23, 2024 until whenever 7.1 comes out which is most likely late this year. If this was a single player game like FFXVI then railing against the msq/story and giving feedback on it would be valuable, but in an mmo you will always get mixed reviews when it comes to that, specially the bigger the mmo becomes.

square enix knows what will hold dawntrail together will be all content outside of msq, as it's an mmo at the end of the day.

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Originally Posted by yoshinoharu

There's a reason that a lot of those threads are getting heavily dissenting voices. Historically a lot of people have ignored the forums as it's something of an archaic method of communication in modern society, kind of a relic of bygone times. However, Shadowbringers and Endwalker brought a bunch of changes that most people never wanted or asked for, and eventually SE stated that they are focusing on the forums for feedback. There are some very loud individuals with some really awful takes claiming to represent the community at large. All the conflict you are seeing is largely just because the player base is sick and tired of being misrepresented by the people claiming to 'represent the casual community' with their anecdotal experiences and individual preferences. There are many people that are enjoying the content of the game, it's just hard to see that because there's also a battle going on against the people that would squander all the good that has come out of this expansion. Essentially we are no longer letting people get away with sabotaging the game.

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Great points; and I have to agree; it takes a nuanced and objective approach to really tackle Endwalker, the issues with it and the release of Dawntrail as its own product and the separation between content types and how they measure up.

I had rarely visited the forums in the past, and then like a lot of people ended up here after Dawntrail's MSQ as a sanity checking exercise. "I can't be the only one who thought that was kinda bad, right?"

FWIW I am enjoying the battle content and do think that's a step up. Long term I need the story to be better too, but short term things like Strayborough, Valigarmanda EX, and that second normal mode raid are keeping me happy.

@OP: Based on my few visits here, I really wouldn't take the tone of the forums to heart.

It's clear that the story isn't as well liked as ShB or EW, which was kind of a given, but the forums seem to be hugely over dramatic about it. Just look at some of the biggest negative threads though and you'll see that the sample size of the forums is absurdly small. The biggest one has nearly 2000 posts, but it only has about 200 likes on the first post. That's a comically small amount of unique likes for a topic that large.

Steam and Metacritic which are holding slightly above 60% positive and 50% positive, give a better indication because they're at least individual reviews, though you'd have to account for the fact that people are far more likely to complain about things that they don't like than to post about things that they do, and also factor in the effects of review bombing and the imperfect efforts to combat it by rating sites. Also some of the negativity is from politically-charged idiots who were always going to just try to slam the game with negative reviews no matter what.

All in all it's really hard to say anything beyond that the majority is some kind of positive towards the game and there are at least a decent amount of people that are negative towards it. By how much, and to what degree, it's likely impossible to really know thanks to the nature of the internet.