Thanks for all the Fish

Hello everyone,

I seem to recall seeing that the dev team didn't get why Dawntrail has done so poorly, so I thought I'd write up something of an exit survey. To start, I've been playing this since the end of ARR, and I have genuinely considered this one of the best games ever made for a good portion of that time. I kept my subscription running with minimal playtime up until Dawntrail's release, because I had faith that something at least enjoyable would be offered, but after keeping it open for one more month to wait for the first patch and realizing I don't want to be a part of this story anymore, I'm calling it here.

But lets start this with Shadowbringers. I've been playing long enough to remember when holiday events were packed with people and great rewards. They were great fun, felt like a community get together. And in Shadowbringers, we all noticed that they started to get lazier. Smaller stories, lesser rewards, and not coincidently the cash shop offerings started to get bigger. But, Shadowbringers was generally wonderful. And there were very reasonable excuses for some quality dips (some larger than others), so because Shadowbringers overall was of such great quality everything was 'ok'.

Endwalker rolls around, and it's more of the same. The story is wonderful, but other things are getting lazier. Epics went from Eureka (Beautiful, open zones with semi-dodgy mechanics) to Bozja (Better mechanics with kinda dull, uninspiring, and very linear zones) to being part of a side questline that was great in part because you didn't have to interact with it if you didn't like it's brand of humor. 1-4 player mini dungeons that were 'fun' but had very limited replayability, a terrible browser game, cash shop expansion while dungeon armor is mostly recolors, another deep dungeon that goes empty almost instantly, and so on. The story is still beautiful, the music wonderful, and so we handwave the problems (mostly) because we love the game, and because there are lots of reasonable excuses. New graphics engine, lots of work on XVI, etc.

Then, after a postgame story that in retrospect was being heavily propped up by FFIV, we get Dawntrail. But this time, instead of a fantastic story with lazier design that we're willing to forgive, we get lazier design with one of the worst stories I've ever seen. None of it makes sense, and the last few zones are actively damaging to the up to this point amazing world building. The voice acting is largely bad, some due to the script quality and some due to just being bad, the dungeons are mediocre, even more cash shop - the only thing I can commend it on is Soken continuing to be amazing. I didn't need a masterpiece of writing, but I did need something that had been written by a competent writer that was aimed at adults.

1/2

2/2
Had it been a standalone game, I probably would have gone for a refund. Instead, I gave it every chance to be more than it was, and it failed at every opportunity. Maybe the writing will improve, and they'll manage to fix all the damage to the story and world this god awful story inflicted. I hope so, because I really did love this game. But I'd rather remember the wonderful story that ARR through Endwalker had been and end it there than continue to watch the bad amateur fanfic that's been added onto the end dilute what was.

So that's it. I've loved being here, but it's time to call it. Hope those of you who stick around have fun, and I'll truly miss being here.

Cheers everyone.

Can I have your stuff?

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Originally Posted by Freeflare

Dawntrail has done so poorly

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I hate to point this out, but SE is gonna look at it from a stats point of view - they just saw the highest preorders of any expansion ever, and a higher concurrent player ratio at launch (due to their work increasing server infrastructure and adding new worlds to support more players). Despite the frustrations people had with Endwalker in terms of content, jobs and the battle system; despite it not having a very exciting trailer compared to prior expansions and despite it not having a big selling point like "end of the story arc".

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I thought I'd write up something of an exit survey

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Apparently they don't have a meaningful exit survey. I wouldn't know myself, since the last time I unsubscribed was in 2015, but it's unfortunate that the only way to do it is on the forums.

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holiday events were packed with people and great rewards. They were great fun, felt like a community get together. And in Shadowbringers, we all noticed that they started to get lazier.

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I attributed this to Covid because for 2 years of that expansion there were lockdowns going on. It was reasonable to attribute it to this because they cut out low priority content that too few of the playerbase do at the time, such as Allied Beast Tribe quests and an Ultimate, to keep their bigger priorities on schedule (and they still had to delay Endwalker despite all this). The problem is, perhaps, that they continued doing it with seasonal events. Maybe because they had gradually made duties for all of them by this point and could just re-use them (such as the jump puzzle, the haunted house games and the valentione's day duty).

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Epics went from Eureka (Beautiful, open zones with semi-dodgy mechanics) to Bozja (Better mechanics with kinda dull, uninspiring, and very linear zones)

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Although I completely agree with this, if we're being fair, this was in direct response to player feedback. Most people, at the time, complained about Eureka's terrain, especially Pagos, resulting in it progressively getting more flat (Pyros into Hydatos). Personally, Anemos and Pagos were my favorites! But at the time, I was almost the only person on these forums that thought this (people seem to like Eureka now, probably because they didn't play back then or have seen the alternative). I wish they just wouldn't listen to that particular feedback and keep making it like Anemos and Pagos. Nevertheless, I thought Bozja did pretty well given these self-imposed restrictions, because I could suspend my disbelief and believe I was "in the trenches" in a war, at least in the first zone.

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to being part of a side questline

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To be fair, that IS changing back in Dawntrail where the relics are associated with the Field Operation again. They tried something risky in Endwalker to see if tomestones would finally "satisfy everyone and allow them to choose the content to grind" and it obviously wasn't received well because it acted like we aren't capped on tomestones already from capping weekly tomestones via expert or hunt trains.

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cash shop expansion while dungeon armor is mostly recolors

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They said they are increasing the development of rewards, which should include gear. I don't really pay attention to gear because I'm not into glam. Have they increased the amount of brand new gear so far?

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another deep dungeon that goes empty almost instantly

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To be fair, a lot of players were requesting this... but then we ALL noticed it was dead on arrival. They noticed this and are going to try and make it different somehow rather than a copy+paste.

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we handwave the problems (mostly) because we love the game, and because there are lots of reasonable excuses. New graphics engine, lots of work on XVI, etc.

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I don't actually think these are reasonable excuses. XVI had a separate team that had been built up since Heavensward and the development was clearly mostly done by Endwalker release, and certainly entirely done a year after Endwalker release. The bulk of development was probably done before Endwalker release given they had detailed gameplay and story footage to show us in 2020 all of which made it to release and that the original release date was half a year earlier and that you'd usually be mostly done months before release, with the last months just being QA and a marketing. They've consistently denied it affected FFXIV development as well.

Graphics could take resources away from regular graphics work, but they have actually been hiring lots of people to their graphics team according to jobs I saw going and the subsequent credits (unsurprising).

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we get lazier design with one of the worst stories I've ever seen. None of it makes sense, and the last few zones are actively damaging to the up to this point amazing world building. The voice acting is largely bad, some due to the script quality and some due to just being bad, the dungeons are mediocre, even more cash shop - the only thing I can commend it on is Soken continuing to be amazing.

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Hmm only parts of this I could agree with are that the quest design could include more gameplay (with actual voice acting), the story could use more conflict (for example, Steiner and Garnet's rocky relationship in FF9 is a great example they could learn from) and the music is great. I don't mind the story so much as that the cyberpunk stuff overdid it for me but I'm trying to make the most of it. I was more concerned with how it destroyed FF9 lore than FF14 lore, but I've been slowly getting over it.

I find the dungeons great on an aesthetic and mechanical level, personally, but they of course follow the standard format of 3 bosses and some trash so people who don't like it sticking to a formula obviously won't be happy. And I found the voice actors all very fitting, personally.

Me thinking this post was going to be about an angry Fisher cuz they didn't add more even more fishes

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Originally Posted by WantlessYoYo

Me thinking this post was going to be about an angry Fisher cuz they didn't add more even more fishes

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It's a reference to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where dolphins are an advanced alien race that happened to settle on Earth, when the Earth was set to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, they left the planet, their last attempt to communicate being "So long, and thanks for all the fish". Here's the full excerpt, in case anyone haven't read it:

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Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending demolition of Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger. But most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs, or whistle for titbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means - shortly before the Vogons arrived. The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double backwards somersault through a hoop, whilst whistling the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’. But, in fact, the message was this “So long and thanks for all the fish”.

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It's a great book.

And in the movie it was a catchy song

https://youtu.be/N_dUmDBfp6k?si=zAp8x9GmBg073L_1

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

[...]
Apparently they don't have a meaningful exit survey. I wouldn't know myself, since the last time I unsubscribed was in 2015, but it's unfortunate that the only way to do it is on the forums.[...]

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Their "exit survey" lets you pick one option out of a handful of statements, like "monetary reasons" "I want to play a different game" and so on, all general enough to be utterly useless.
I didn't see a text input field to give them more detailed feedback and needless to say "I am unhappy about the game's recent direction" or "MSQ quality fell off a cliff" are not options.
You also only get it when you actively cancel, not when you let a non-recurring sub lapse (like using GTCs, or not having enough Crysta to auto-renew).

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

[...]
They said they are increasing the development of rewards, which should include gear. I don't really pay attention to gear because I'm not into glam. Have they increased the amount of brand new gear so far?[...]

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This is the expansion with two dye channels on gear as a selling point, the newest dungeon gear has zero. Make of that what you will.

Honestly my biggest problem is their scheduling more than anything.

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Originally Posted by Freeflare

....we get Dawntrail. But this time, instead of a fantastic story with lazier design that we're willing to forgive, we get lazier design with one of the worst stories I've ever seen. None of it makes sense, and the last few zones are actively damaging to the up to this point amazing world building. The voice acting is largely bad, some due to the script quality and some due to just being bad, the dungeons are mediocre, even more cash shop - the only thing I can commend it on is Soken continuing to be amazing. I didn't need a masterpiece of writing, but I did need something that had been written by a competent writer that was aimed at adults.

1/2

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I agree with most of this, aside that I really loved the last zone in DT. My only complaint is that I felt the Wild West zone / American accents and Cyberpunk zones feel jarring and out of place for Tural. I would have preferred Alexandria with victorian / fantasy dressed characters that have the inhibitors, rather than an overdone Cyberpunk theme that feels just so off.

The only character in the expansion I liked was Sphene - but she's already back and I'm afraid the post-release story will just ruin how I felt about her with unnecessary exposure.