ARR > Dawntrail

The numbers don't lie.

https://i.imgur.com/5TBZGca.png

https://i.imgur.com/uLt41yU.png

https://i.imgur.com/zA1s1nI.png

https://i.imgur.com/aP3KYiq.png

https://www.metacritic.com/game/fina...-realm-reborn/
https://opencritic.com/game/271/fina...a-realm-reborn

I put more stock in user score than critic score. It's not exactly a secret that companies as big as SE will bribe critics(through the outlet or as individuals), and Steam's user reviews are as simple as you can get with them just being a yes/no on whether or not you'd recommend it.

Can't argue with that. While they sort of go for the same thing, Dawntrail just feels way too sanitised and Disney compared to ARR. A real shame.

1000 users giving feedback is a very low sample.

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Originally Posted by PaulH

1000 users giving feedback is a very low sample.

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But the user sample is about the same (~1000, which is not at all a "very low" sample if you know anything about statistics), and the critic reviews are also higher for ARR.

Arr while being jank. Had a much more mature story.

Twice in a row now the chapters have been almost to say a age-range lower than they used to be.

These figures are not equal.

The ARR figures are for PS4, while the Dawntrail figures are for PC. So it's not an equal comparison.

The second batch of images don't show the User Score, which is the only score worth anything. The other one is created by journalist who spend barely any time playing or understanding the game. They probably wipe to basic stuff like stack markers and then write in their little review that it's "hard".

Regardless, I think the User Score is often initially a lot of frustrated players protesting and will probably change over the long-term as the more casual players leave their reviews and balance the score. If you check back some years from now, the User Score will probably be a lot higher.

I do think the feeling of FF9's lore being trashed on will leave a poor impression to many who played it though. If they had changed the lore enough to not resemble FF9 so much, it may not have left an impression like this but unfortunately this could affect the User Score in the future as well. Nevertheless, if you can separate yourself from the references to FF9 and pretend you never played it, it's a decent expansion.

Eh. Personally I'd put them about equal. ARR has a ton of jank, a lot of slow points (the Company of Heroes, the whole Coerthas arc, etc), and absolutely abysmal English voice acting.

Personal ranking, from favorite to least: Shadowbringers, Heavensward, ARR, Dawntrail, Endwalker, Stormblood. I still really don't like Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

Arr while being jank. Had a much more mature story.

Twice in a row now the chapters have been almost to say a age-range lower than they used to be.

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100% agree. ARR definitely had its issues with fetch quests, pacing, and general jank, but the story, even though it wasn't told as well as Heavensward and Shadowbringers, was much more mature and engaging than Dawntrail's. ARR had political intrigue, relatable stakes, and diverse character behavior. Dawntrail, by comparison, feels like a cartoon. It has all the political intrigue and character growth of a couple episodes of GI Joe or maybe Captain Planet.

Now, that's not to say it should have been darker, but even a light and uplifting story has the potential to feel good and relatable. Dawntrail just felt like a fanfic.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

These figures are not equal.

The ARR figures are for PS4, while the Dawntrail figures are for PC. So it's not an equal comparison.

The second batch of images don't show the User Score, which is the only score worth anything. The other one is created by journalist who spend barely any time playing or understanding the game. They probably wipe to basic stuff like stack markers and then write in their little review that it's "hard".

Regardless, I think the User Score is often initially a lot of frustrated players protesting and will probably change over the long-term as the more casual players leave their reviews and balance the score. If you check back some years from now, the User Score will probably be a lot higher.

I do think the feeling of FF9's lore being trashed on will leave a poor impression to many who played it though. If they had changed the lore enough to not resemble FF9 so much, it may not have left an impression like this but unfortunately this could affect the User Score in the future as well. Nevertheless, if you can separate yourself from the references to FF9 and pretend you never played it, it's a decent expansion.

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Your correct. ARR on PC has a Critic rating of 83, and a user rating of 7.8

Personally I agree if we're talking about the story. For everything else I enjoy Dawntrail more.

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Originally Posted by Alchemii

Your correct. ARR on PC has a Critic rating of 83, and a user rating of 7.8

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It's interesting to me when people type up long comments but don't double check something like that. Then again that's probably why they didn't mention it in their post.

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Originally Posted by Nitelancer

But the user sample is about the same (~1000, which is not at all a "very low" sample if you know anything about statistics), and the critic reviews are also higher for ARR.

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It's still what is statistically called a "voluntary sample" (people choose to join the sample by submitting a rating), which is universally panned as one of the two most unreliable approaches to gathering useful data.

For the critic reviews, what I look for are reviews from the same critics. For example, PC Gamer gives ARR 79/100 vs. DT 80/100. IGN gives ARR 8.6 vs. DT 8.0.

There's also the reality of what they're following. ARR followed 1.0, which was a disaster. DT is following ShB and EW, which were high-points of the franchise. That's necessarily going to make ARR "feel better" and lead to higher ratings, while "deflating" DT. I mean, look at the ARR scores, and then compare it to how many people today point to ARR as a long slog and the infamous "the story doesn't get good until you get to HW." Which isn't to say that I think ARR was bad at all, just that its scores will be naturally inflated because it followed 1.0 (and if you read the actual ratings for it, you'll see exactly that "brought the series back to life" as a key point).

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Regardless, I think the User Score is often initially a lot of frustrated players protesting and will probably change over the long-term as the more casual players leave their reviews and balance the score. If you check back some years from now, the User Score will probably be a lot higher.

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This. Remember that the initial score people pointed out for DT was 8.6 and then as soon as that became known, it started dropping. There's no doubt in my mind the "current" score is anything resembling an actual representative sample of the playerbase. Give it time for the larger playerbase to complete the main game and post, and watch how it counters those bombing on it.

ARR is better for sure.

I'm personally very big on themes, underlying purpose and motivations alongside worldbuilding. ARR definitely had very shallow moments but even those shallow moments had purpose and that by itself makes it better than Dawntrail. The patches can change this opinion and I certainly hope they do.

This is for the story only, obviously in other aspects Dawntrail is vastly superior.

The numbers don't lie.
https://i.imgur.com/u1Z8Tq8.png
https://i.imgur.com/Vldt2gW.png

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

The numbers don't lie.
https://i.imgur.com/u1Z8Tq8.png
https://i.imgur.com/Vldt2gW.png

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I don‘t wanna be that guy but a sampling size of at least 30 is normally the minimum requirement to see a trend.

At topic:
I actually really like ARR. For me it had the best level experience to date, the best worldbuilding and was just a fun experience.
It was nice and down to earth. Kinda cozy.

I would also see the DT story behind it but I am actually not neutral in that regard.

ARR came after 1.0 so it’s hard to say how that was part of the review but on the other hand DT had the actual luck to have experienced devs behind it. ARR didn’t have that.

Hmm yeah. I put DT under ARR also.
For me the experienced Devs and the goodwill from Shb and EW give it a slight edge at having an easier time for me.
ARR didn‘t have that back then and it also had a strong competition in WoW.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

The numbers don't lie.
https://i.imgur.com/u1Z8Tq8.png
https://i.imgur.com/Vldt2gW.png

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That's only because the PS3's performance issues. Otherwise, critics rate it higher for other platforms. So yea, numbers don't lie. ;)

https://i.imgur.com/LBh0Tfb.png

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Originally Posted by Striker44

It's still what is statistically called a "voluntary sample" (people choose to join the sample by submitting a rating), which is universally panned as one of the two most unreliable approaches to gathering useful data.

For the critic reviews, what I look for are reviews from the same critics. For example, PC Gamer gives ARR 79/100 vs. DT 80/100. IGN gives ARR 8.6 vs. DT 8.0.

There's also the reality of what they're following. ARR followed 1.0, which was a disaster. DT is following ShB and EW, which were high-points of the franchise. That's necessarily going to make ARR "feel better" and lead to higher ratings, while "deflating" DT. I mean, look at the ARR scores, and then compare it to how many people today point to ARR as a long slog and the infamous "the story doesn't get good until you get to HW." Which isn't to say that I think ARR was bad at all, just that its scores will be naturally inflated because it followed 1.0 (and if you read the actual ratings for it, you'll see exactly that "brought the series back to life" as a key point).



This. Remember that the initial score people pointed out for DT was 8.6 and then as soon as that became known, it started dropping. There's no doubt in my mind the "current" score is anything resembling an actual representative sample of the playerbase. Give it time for the larger playerbase to complete the main game and post, and watch how it counters those bombing on it.

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All survey responses are voluntary. Can't force someone to take a survey or give a rating. But it's true that there is a question of how representative the sample is of the population in question. However, that would depend on additional characteristics of those who gave a rating, such as their age, income, behaviors, etc. The proportion of these characteristics might not perfectly reflect of the proportions that would be found in the whole NA XIV population. We can't really know, but I would think that now with a sample of 1000, the sample would more closely resemble the population than when the score was 8.6 and the sample was smaller. I think user reviews do count for something, otherwise, there would be no point to having them.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

The numbers don't lie.
https://i.imgur.com/u1Z8Tq8.png
https://i.imgur.com/Vldt2gW.png

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That's actually a bit more damning, really... A decade of experience, and even the best comparison is still equal to the game they literally had to save from shutting down.

ARR gave us the greatest voice acting moment of all time and I'm tired of pretending it wasn't peak:

https://youtu.be/bj6eQ7oitJo

if you play just for the story only, then you can't use it for much, the rest of it is the actual game.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

if you play just for the story only, then you can't use it for much, the rest of it is the actual game.

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While I agree that it's silly to write off the whole expansion based on just the story, it's not like a lot of other things in this expansion aren't pretty dire either. The levelling experience is still really boring, with the same "talk to 3 people" quests and silly fetch quests all over the place (and a couple of escort and sneak quests that many people hate). The zones, while beautiful, still don't have much to do in them. Fates are still all the same "kill X amount of Y" nonsense that don't scale properly. Jobs are more homogenised and boring (especially healers and tanks) than they've been in a long time. Glamour gets more annoying with every job that gets added due to not having enough Plates or inventory space, And in general everything is just more of the same predictable things with zero surprises that we've had for a decade now.

The only big positive thing I've seen people mention is that the instanced content (raids, dungeons, Extremes) are better than they've been for quite some time. Which is great but it's far from "the rest of the game".

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I don‘t wanna be that guy but a sampling size of at least 30 is normally the minimum requirement to see a trend.

At topic:
I actually really like ARR. For me it had the best level experience to date, the best worldbuilding and was just a fun experience.
It was nice and down to earth. Kinda cozy.

I would also see the DT story behind it but I am actually not neutral in that regard.

ARR came after 1.0 so it’s hard to say how that was part of the review but on the other hand DT had the actual luck to have experienced devs behind it. ARR didn’t have that.

Hmm yeah. I put DT under ARR also.
For me the experienced Devs and the goodwill from Shb and EW give it a slight edge at having an easier time for me.
ARR didn‘t have that back then and it also had a strong competition in WoW.

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This one doesn't get it.

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Originally Posted by Nitelancer

That's only because the PS3's performance issues. Otherwise, critics rate it higher for other platforms. So yea, numbers don't lie. ;)

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This one doesn't get it.

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Originally Posted by Isala

That's actually a bit more damning, really... A decade of experience, and even the best comparison is still equal to the game they literally had to save from shutting down.

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This person gets it.

Above all, don't take into account the release context of each extension! That might show that the figures vary greatly depending on expectations, the era, and the age of the MMORPG ;)

It's really sad that people have kneejerk reviews based on the story alone and don't take into account the amazing content.

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Originally Posted by Carolingian

While I agree that it's silly to write off the whole expansion based on just the story, it's not like a lot of other things in this expansion aren't pretty dire either.

The only big positive thing I've seen people mention is that the instanced content (raids, dungeons, Extremes) are better than they've been for quite some time. Which is great but it's far from "the rest of the game".

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Except the instanced content you've mentioned is the other huge part of the expansion itself (things like leveling aren't going to change much from installment to installment). Destiny 2 is a great example right now as the "opposite" of DT. It's current installment that just released around early June is the equivalent of EW in being the culmination of their long storyline. Their "MSQ" has been widely praised...but the post-MSQ content has been a disaster and the game has seen daily logins drop almost 75% since then.

Aside from just the usual "complaints" that don't tend to amount to anything, the only "iffy" part of DT has been its MSQ, and even that isn't anywhere near "dire" once you get out of the bubble that is this forum. It's getting a rather positive reception in most other places, and the post-MSQ instanced content being solid will be huge to its overall success and staying power.

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Originally Posted by Nitelancer

The numbers don't lie.

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But, you're lying about the context.

It's not the same situation at all.



ARR came after the failure that was 1.0, ARR is the remake version of 1.0 by Yoshi-P who saved FFXIV without which, we probably wouldn't still be playing it today.

But the fact remains that ARR is stuffed to the gills with crappy questing: fed-ex quests, pointless back-and-forth, and you had the ridiculous quest series where you had to earn your way to saving the island of Vylbrand (I thought you were in danger, so it can really wait until you go around the world and prove a blind man, a desert tribesman, etc.). To avoid Titan's awakening? Seriously?)

ARR is the worst content to date, if you take all the expansions into account.

___
As for Dawntrail, it's new content after a cycle, and it came after the excellent ShB and Endwalker. Aside from that, Dawntrail is really rotten from the point of view of MSQ epic, last zone, revelation and final battle.

In my opinion, it's a filler expansion for the patient, full of fan service and relatively useless characters. And the main antagonist and Wuk Lamat are both a problem in terms of giving us the epic feel that the previous 2 expansions had.

And even the raid story is laughable compared to Eden and Pandaemonium. I still look back with nostalgia and fond memories at the conclusion of Pandaemonium, and see again one of my favorite FFXIV characters since ShB and appearing long before.


--> Context is important, otherwise... Your info is biased.
And your post sounds like a troll with a healthy dose of denial and hypocrisy.



Ps: I didn't feel any of the emotions during Dawntrail's final fight and cinematic as I listen and replay over and over again via the diary of ShB's cinematic and key moments, Endwalker. --> I was entering the Ewww and Meh at the end of Dawntrail MSQ and the story of its 8-player raid.

Even SB and HW gave me better memories than my ranking of expansions without Dawntrail, and that's a matter of personal taste and preference:

Endwalker > ShB >> SB > HW >> (Dawntrail >) ARR

Many people put HW first and that's personal.

This is completely from an MSQ point of view.


Otherwise, Dawntrail is incredible in terms of PvE gameplay feel.

For Dawntrail OST in my opinion, Endwalker and Shadowbringer still stick in my head and I listen to them regularly. There's not much from Dawntrail that makes me want to listen, I turn off the music at Tuli-Jazz, it's out of context for a South American inspired city.

And the Smile theme... Is a problem for me, it's as cliché as it gets. And it doesn't sound South American to me, maybe more African. If I'm wrong, sorry.

Personally, I don't put much stock into initial reviews very much, simply because the story will only be comprising a small fraction of the actual game itself.

The way I see this is that, by these metrics we could deduce that Endwalker was an amazing expansion... Which the story may have been OK, but the content was a desolate wasteland, of which had they repeated Endwalker instead of Dawntrail then the game would be in a far, far worse state than current, IMO. [Edit: To put it this way for Endwalker, for example... If you played just the story of the base-expansion, what rating would you give the game?; now the next question, if you were to review the game right the way at the end to 6.55, trying all possible content... Would that same score persist for you?]

Combat is carrying this expansion, and I would argue it will carry the entire expansion, which IMO is better than if the story were to carry the expansion. I don't think a story is ever irredeemable especially in an MMO, I think they can turn it around, and there's some clues there. I think it's a very mid story-experience, which is very much exacerbated by main character, too much of it hinged on whether you liked them or not.

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

It's really sad that people have kneejerk reviews based on the story alone and don't take into account the amazing content.

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When the story makes you want to quit, or actually quit, who's getting to the good content? The leveling dungeons are the same snoozefest they always have been.

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Originally Posted by Naoki34

But, you're lying about the context.

It's not the same situation at all.



ARR came after the failure that was 1.0, ARR is the remake version of 1.0 by Yoshi-P who saved FFXIV without which, we probably wouldn't still be playing it today.

But the fact remains that ARR is stuffed to the gills with crappy questing: fed-ex quests, pointless back-and-forth, and you had the ridiculous quest series where you had to earn your way to saving the island of Vylbrand (I thought you were in danger, so it can really wait until you go around the world and prove a blind man, a desert tribesman, etc.). To avoid Titan's awakening? Seriously?)

ARR is the worst content to date, if you take all the expansions into account. ...

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I don't agree at all that ARR is the worst content to date. A simple example is the environmental story telling in ARR zones. In ARR zones you can find hidden shrines to the gods like Nald below. But in Dawntrial, it does not appear the people in Tural ever had any gods or engage in any form of worship. Their culture feels small and lack a sense of history going based on the environments, whereas in ARR you can find hidden shrines to the twelve gods and other cool points of interest with meaningful lore, making the world feel more grand. Dawntrail is lacking in that and its zones feel relatively sparse.

I do think the giants (Yok Huy) in Dawntrail are interesting though. I feel they help give a sense of history to Tural, so I'll give it that.

As for context, every game is released in a different context. So should their be no comparisons on ratings? What is a rating for if not making comparisons? Ok, let's compare something close to Dawntrail. Actually, when you compare all the expansions, Dawntrail has the lowest user and critic ratings with the exception of 1.0.

https://i.imgur.com/RfVPOWF.png

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

if you play just for the story only, then you can't use it for much, the rest of it is the actual game.

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XIV dosen't do much well to be honest. The open worlds the worst out of any MMO, fates are just facesmash with random people you never talk to and hunts are lead by people who are mentally insane control freaks and attention whores. Crafting/gatherings just bots or macro spam, even bots can do big fishing. Gears just boring get more crit and hit harder with boring acquisition. Dungeons are cool the first time but overrated, 4 or 5 bosses out of 27ish is not good design and trash is even worse this expansion with 0 chances to pull 4+ packs. Housings a horrible mess unless you do glitches and I have a large on my main and a small(gridania 29) on this guy. The positives could be considered combat but the games got such robust cheating tools who knows if half your group who always parses 99s are bots who have cheats that auto figure out mechanics for you, PVP is no better full of cheaters. Games total shit outside of story unless you play it to second life sim with lonely men.

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Originally Posted by Swad

XIV dosen't do much well to be honest. The open worlds the worst out of any MMO, fates are just facesmash with random people you never talk to and hunts are lead by people who are mentally insane control freaks and attention whores. Crafting/gatherings just bots or macro spam, even bots can do big fishing. Gears just boring get more crit and hit harder with boring acquisition. Dungeons are cool the first time but overrated, 4 or 5 bosses out of 27ish is not good design and trash is even worse this expansion with 0 chances to pull 4+ packs. Housings a horrible mess unless you do glitches and I have a large on my main and a small(gridania 29) on this guy. The positives could be considered combat but the games got such robust cheating tools who knows if half your group who always parses 99s are bots who have cheats that auto figure out mechanics for you, PVP is no better full of cheaters. Games total shit outside of story unless you play it to second life sim with lonely men.

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I personally fall asleep when I enter a dungeon or a roulette. That is do be said that they can't even make a good randomizer. In Leveling you always
get Sastasha or other low level dungeons regardless of if you are wanting to level your lvl 90 warrior or go for tomes with your 100 picto where you don't even have AOE in low level dungeons, which also applies to most classes. Expert Roulette you only get the annoying dungeons which for me rn is the fucking circus first boss, its not hard per se.. just annoying.. but then none of the new dungeons are hard after running them a first time... Normal raid you get Alexander and Alliance WoD STILL MOST OF THE TIME very very very Sludge game design

Dawntrail had its good moments, like the lv. 95 dungeon and the lore leading up to it, but overall I felt more engaged with ARR. My internal debate right now is whether Stormblood or Dawntrail is my personally bottom-rated story

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Originally Posted by KooriGraywolf

Dawntrail had its good moments, like the lv. 95 dungeon and the lore leading up to it, but overall I felt more engaged with ARR. My internal debate right now is whether Stormblood or Dawntrail is my personally bottom-rated story

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At least Stormblood had the Steppe. That's the one positive I can take from it.

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Originally Posted by Coratanni

At least Stormblood had the Steppe. That's the one positive I can take from it.

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That was the worst one imo and I am already rating Stormblood as the worst expansion up to date.
Yes, with Dawntrail included. In fact I think Dawntrail is OK for what it is. It could be better sure, but so could any expansion.