/r/ffxivdiscussion: Data analysis of Dawntrail negative reviews (Steam)

I thought I'd share this thread as it has some interesting statistics and analysis about DT's negative reviews on Steam. The data surrounding DT's reviews doesn't surprise me one bit. There's also good info in the thread's comments as well, so feel free to take a look at the reddit thread itself.

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Original Post:

I did a little bit of data analysis of Dawntrail negative reviews in Python using Steam API.

Dawntrail was released on the 2nd of July, 2024. Early access started a little bit earlier but I took only reviews from July 2.

Only those who bought the game on Steam were taken into account.

At the time of writing there are 1626 negative reviews to Dawntrail on Steam (given the criteria above). And since you can leave only one review for a game on Steam this is the number of players who did that.

I could fetch stats for only 40.6% (660 people) of those who left negative reviews. Usually it means that the others have private profiles. It already makes it hard to make any conclusions. There may have been an organized campaign by people with closed profiles. But you need to remember that every vote here costs 45€. I simply don't believe someone would do it at such cost even if we imagine a massive review-bomb-refund campaign.

Your playtime in FFXIV is counted only for the base game, not the expansion, so I had to go to every single user profile and fetch their playtime for FFXIV Online.

And here is the graph of playtime [URL on reddit page] (in hours) of 41% of those who left a negative review for Dawntrail in Steam since July 2nd.
81% of those have 1000+ hours in the game! [URL on reddit page] That's 534 of 660 players.

TLDR; At least 33% of those tho left a negative review to Dawntrail are veterans with 1000+ hours in the game. This is indisputable. If we assume the same distribution among those who have closed Steam profile it becomes 81%.

P.S. The code (Jupyter Notebook) is here [URL on reddit page] for anyone to use.

UPD: I used this method [URL on reddit page] to acquire playtime. It's called GetOwnedGames. The name suggests that it doesn't return those that were refunded. If that is true then we can say that all of negative reviews are genuine players who still (several months) after release own the expansion and the whole idea of review-bomb-refund campaign is busted.

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Notable Comments:

"I can't imagine anyone actually played Dawntrail and thinks a negative review is product of a "review bombing." Most of the time, people are just dissatisfied. And that's okay."

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"For those who mainly play the game for the story, something as bad as DT may just poison every other content, everything may feel souless and without purpose. I myself have 6k hours in the game and am considering canceling my sub if 7.1 does not give me some hope for the msq."

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"I don't think people being veterans matter, MSQ tourists are a big source of income for SE and if they're not happy then I expect 8.0 preorders and sales will reflect that. Dawntrail has the benefit of riding the coattails of Endwalker, I worry about whats ahead."

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"This is the first expansion where I went "Who the **** wrote this ****? Why is the story/lore so bad?" and I liked EW patch msq."

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"The problem with DT is that it tries to be every expansion at once while being terrible at all of them.

.It wants the "ANOTHER SHARD" plot line of Shb,but without any of the emotional weight or writing of It

.It attempts SB's "uniting the nation to save it" aspect,but the place was already saved and everyone gets along perfectly as is so that's moot.

.It desperately tried to make Tuliuloyal have Ishgards society schisms with the blessed siblings,as well as the other tribes,but that got solved in 5 minutes while Ishgards is still fighting it to this day(and makes Gulool look like a negligent dick).

Hell it even tried its hand at EW by making all these culminate together,but because the buildup was non-existent it comes off as half assed.It should've been a more simple ARR like story."

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"The story is legitimately poorly executed. People saying the reviews are faked or are made by some angry fringe group aren't paying attention. The ideas had potential, but they dropped the ball in pretty much every way.

Boring characters with no personality other than cringey tropes. Sudden changes of heart with 0 consequences. Plot lines that either resolve far too quickly or drag on for eternity. Erenville having like 0 reaction to learning his mom is dead?? Wuk Lamat was a really awkward caricature of the sheltered princess trope, but that's not how she was portrayed b4 the xpac launched. It's like they decided halfway through that they should make her really stupid.

The entire last zone was a lame excuse to give the villain a quick power boost so he was actually a threat. It's 2024, the hyperbolic time chamber s**t is overdone and tired. I felt 0 connection to Sphene or her people, despite them shoving it down your throat for several quest chains that shutting it down should be sad. It wasn't. At all.

People say ARR is boring, but its setup was way better than this. You could tell it was building to something interesting. All this is building to is me wondering how much more of Wuk's company I'm going to have to suffer through."

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Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscussion/comments/1fz8yev/data_analysis_of_dawntrail_negative_reviews/

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves below. Cheers.

I'm one of the private profiles that left a negative review.

Well that what you get when you sell it as story first and MMO second. If they story is not great you get what you get tbh.

1000 hours in the game isn't necessarily a veteran player. That's about 2 months of playing all day (16 hours a day). Could easily be done during a holiday, summer break or while seeking employment.

I don't think it's necessarily review bombing on Steam, but you're more likely to leave a review for a negative experience than a positive one. It's got to be extraordinarily positive (to the point of changing your view on life or something like that) to motivate you to leave a positive one usually, which to be fair, much of the story does motivate people to want to go out of their way to praise it for that, which probably explains why there are positive reviews at all.

The story in Dawntrail may not be for everyone but it's just one expansion. I don't get the people acting like it's the end of the world because one expansion didn't hit for them.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

1000 hours in the game isn't necessarily a veteran player. That's about 2 months of playing all day (16 hours a day). Could easily be done during a holiday, summer break or while seeking employment.

I don't think it's necessarily review bombing on Steam, but you're more likely to leave a review for a negative experience than a positive one. It's got to be extraordinarily positive (to the point of changing your view on life or something like that) to motivate you to leave a positive one usually, which to be fair, much of the story does motivate people to want to go out of their way to praise it for that, which probably explains why there are positive reviews at all.

The story in Dawntrail may not be for everyone but it's just one expansion. I don't get the people acting like it's the end of the world because one expansion didn't hit for them.

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1000 hours is more than three completionist runs of Tears of the Kingdom. Get real.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

1000 hours in the game isn't necessarily a veteran player. That's about 2 months of playing all day (16 hours a day). Could easily be done during a holiday, summer break or while seeking employment.

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Other games take somewhere between 6-40 hours. The MSQ of this game can be beaten in about 250-400 hours, depending on how willing you are to skip cutscenes. I'd argue that people that have played 1000 hours have seen a lot of the content in this game, and while one could argue if that makes them veterans or not, it at least shows some level of dedication to this game.

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I don't think it's necessarily review bombing on Steam, but you're more likely to leave a review for a negative experience than a positive one. It's got to be extraordinarily positive (to the point of changing your view on life or something like that) to motivate you to leave a positive one usually, which to be fair, much of the story does motivate people to want to go out of their way to praise it for that, which probably explains why there are positive reviews at all.

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Considering the reviews of the other expansions, which were much more favorable, I'm gonna say "Of all the takes you did, this is one of them."

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The story in Dawntrail may not be for everyone but it's just one expansion. I don't get the people acting like it's the end of the world because one expansion didn't hit for them.

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I don't get why you say this is people acting like the end of the world? This is just an analysis of the general opinion of the game based on public feedback. Dawntrail has its issues, especially when comparing it to the other expansions.

People have paid for a product and are entitled to an opinion. There are people that act like people disliking the current state of the game are a minority, and this post can just be taken as partial proof that the negative voices are not just naysayers, reviewbombers, Wuk Lamat haters, and "a loud but vocal minority".

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Originally Posted by ovIm

I don't get why you say this is people acting like the end of the world?

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I say that because I've seen people act like Dawntrail's MSQ being poorly regarded could be the end of the game or something (not necessarily on these forums, but generally). Of course not everyone is saying that, but my point with it is that there will be an 8.0 and a 9.0 etc. for those thinking otherwise.

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Dawntrail has its issues, especially when comparing it to the other expansions.

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Sure and I think people have pointed them out all over the internet.

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There are people that act like people disliking the current state of the game are a minority, and this post can just be taken as partial proof that the negative voices are not just naysayers, reviewbombers, Wuk Lamat haters, and "a loud but vocal minority".

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I'm not actually trying to say that the dislike of Dawntrail is a minority. It does seem like a lot of people actually. Whether it's actually a majority or not I'm just gonna leave to analysis' like this, but I do know that there are people I've talked to in the game that are alright with it. However, the dislike has been enough for Yoshi-P to acknowledge it as a general sentiment which I don't think he did for Endwalker despite certain pages-long posts in this forum.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I say that because I've seen people act like Dawntrail's MSQ being poorly regarded could be the end of the game or something (not necessarily on these forums, but generally). Of course not everyone is saying that, but my point with it is that there will be an 8.0 and a 9.0 etc. for those thinking otherwise.

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Yes but this is in regards to this post here, which is not all that? We've seen opinions on all directions, this reddit user here has done an interesting bit of analysis of the negative reviews to put things more into perspective as to where the feedback comes from.

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I'm not actually trying to say that the dislike of Dawntrail is a minority. It does seem like a lot of people actually. Whether it's actually a majority or not I'm just gonna leave to analysis' like this, but I do know that there are people I've talked to in the game that are alright with it. However, the dislike has been enough for Yoshi-P to acknowledge it as a general sentiment which I don't think he did for Endwalker despite certain pages-long posts in this forum.

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You may not, but there are people that do, and an analysis like that helps to create a more objective baseline for a discussion about the criticism the game receives.

Still though, Yoshi-P's reasoning behind his "I expected people to dislike Dawntrail" (which was, in that one interview at least, that he considers the review to be based upon the ending of the old story arc, and Wuk Lamats lack of self confidence, which are both disproven) shows an inherent misunderstanding as to why people disliked DT.
Hopefully, with time having passed between that interview and now, he and his team had a better chance of analyzing the feedback provided.

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Originally Posted by ovIm

shows an inherent misunderstanding as to why people disliked DT

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It does show a lack of understanding, but I think this is because everyone has different criticism, so from a zoomed out perspective the criticism looks all over the place. Due to that, he was probably just trying to guess the root of the criticism.

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Hopefully, with time having passed between that interview and now, he and his team had a better chance of analyzing the feedback provided.

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I hope so as well. If not, hopefully it'll eventually get through, especially given all the events he's been going to, because places like Gamescom, PAX, and so on give an opportunity to meet people in person and then he can't avoid being directly confronted with concerns like this. And even if he doesn't get the feedback directly, any of his team that go with him to these events may talk to people as well.

I think that was one of the big problems from mid-Shadowbringers and throughout Endwalker. They had to cancel meeting people in person, leaving their only source of feedback as the internet where it's easy to create an echo chamber of what you want to hear. But when going to events in person it's unavoidable to hear the most deep and heartfelt concerns people have, sometimes from journalists as well, where you sometimes see questions catch him off-guard if asked by a journalist that's in touch with community sentiment (obviously not all of them are :D).

https://i.ibb.co/51mgpXP/jarjar.webp

I dunno how the reviews are now after several months but I could tell the first couple of weeks when it was cool to bitch about Wuk, that a majority of the negative reviews were simply a review bombing campaign.

I'm still of the opinion that the expansion is fine, but its neither good or bad. It's mid.

Guess i'm one of those who really push the playtime in their reviews. Counting almost 16k hours, although most of it is standing around or roleplaying.

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Originally Posted by Lyndina

Guess i'm one of those who really push the playtime in their reviews. Counting almost 16k hours, although most of it is standing around or roleplaying.

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Not sure how much playtime I have combined since I play/ed between PS, Xbox, Steam and PC (I'm a bit nuts I know). But played very active between 2014 until 2023 ish. If I were to guess I'm probably in 30-40k hr range.

I didn't leave a review, but if I did it would have been negative. If Wuk L*mat shows up in a single patch quest I'll do it.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

I dunno how the reviews are now after several months but I could tell the first couple of weeks when it was cool to bitch about Wuk, that a majority of the negative reviews were simply a review bombing campaign.

I'm still of the opinion that the expansion is fine, but its neither good or bad. It's mid.

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People would not review bomb if they had liked what they got.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

Not sure how much playtime I have combined since I play/ed between PS, Xbox, Steam and PC (I'm a bit nuts I know). But played very active between 2014 until 2023 ish. If I were to guess I'm probably in 30-40k hr range.

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You can use the text command /playtime

thats actually great work. Have to say thank you for doing the effort

I can't leave a review since I don't play on Steam but I read the thread.

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Dawntrail's MSQ has seriously damaged my attachment to my character and my positive investment in the world. Me logging in and doing anything was, to a large degree, predicated on me adoring the games story. I associated my WoL and every location in the game with tons of positive memories and I loved being a part of something so valuable to me and my personal development as a human being. It was a huge part of my life and the life of my closest friends who all experienced this story together. Now, neither I nor my friends have logged on in like, 3 months. It's not like I've quit the game out of protest; no, it's worse than that. I've simply lost the desire to keep playing it. I mean, it's not like FFXIV ever was the best raiding MMO (probably WoW), and it's not like FFXIV ever had the most content or had the most rich goal-setting and character building (probably OSRS); my engagement with the game was predicated on what most people recognize as FFXIV's main draw and selling point - it's exceptional narrative. For as much as people say this is "Stormblood 2.0," I don't even really have that expansion's considerably more enjoyable and engaging job design to give me some intrinsic motivation on a gameplay level to keep raid logging or doing roulettes.

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This comment sums up how I feel about the game, with the addition that I also no longer have a character design I enjoy (thanks to the graphics update) that would motivate me to collect glamour, take screenshots and do new game plus.

Yup, I'm someone who enjoyed all of the MSQ, ARR through EW, some I liked more than others. I honestly loved SB too. Even when people complained about the EW patches story, I genuinely enjoyed it, I liked Zero as a character and her journey. I liked Wuk Lamat's introduction even. Liked her on the boat scene at the start of 7.0.

But... just, DT MSQ is such utter drivel, I can't even... I'm of the opinion that it's worse than ARR by alot.

But also, one bad expansion isn't necessarily the death of the game, continued bad expansions will be.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

I dunno how the reviews are now after several months but I could tell the first couple of weeks when it was cool to bitch about Wuk, that a majority of the negative reviews were simply a review bombing campaign.

I'm still of the opinion that the expansion is fine, but its neither good or bad. It's mid.

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Same here. For me it sits in a 'grey area' of sorts. I enjoyed it - not to the same degree as I enjoyed Shadowbringers & Endwalker, and I'd never argue that it didn't have some glaring faults, but on the whole I can't say I regret paying for/playing it.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

1000 hours in the game isn't necessarily a veteran player. That's about 2 months of playing all day (16 hours a day). Could easily be done during a holiday, summer break or while seeking employment.

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Depends on who you consider a veteran, I guess. I've been around for almost 3 years now and I have about 2100 hours on record. I played a LOT when it was a new and shiny game but I have long periods of raidlogging because there's no content that appeals to me for months at a time.

I have the disputable benefit of having experienced the MSQ in one big chunk from the start until the end of 6.0. It took me months to get through Stormblood because I was bored out of my mind, same with Endwalker. I did not understand why the heck it got so much praise. The patch MSQ was even worse. I had high hopes for DT. I was disappointed in every way imaginable with the only redeeming thing being the combat content, which is being drip fed to us.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

I dunno how the reviews are now after several months but I could tell the first couple of weeks when it was cool to bitch about Wuk, that a majority of the negative reviews were simply a review bombing campaign.

I'm still of the opinion that the expansion is fine, but its neither good or bad. It's mid.

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I'm not sure about Steam, but the review score on Metacritic has continued to slowly go down since the release of DT, as more and more people finish the MSQ. Personally, I didn't feel the need to leave a review until DT. I only tend to review games that are either exceptionally good or exceptionally bad and found FFXIV to be neither. I was already on the fence in Endwalker and Dawntrail really pushed me in the direction of thinking the MSQ was terrible. It's frustrating because the themes they went with are fine, it's just that they're handled in the worst possible way. Same with characters - the ideas of them are fine, but they end up flat and one-dimensional. They feel like someone's first RPG character.

Edit: Just went and checked. The Metacritic scores started out at 7.4 and are now sitting at 5.3. I checked about a month ago and they were still at 6.0. I would hardly call people leaving negative reviews months after an expansion launches and people have had the chance to really experience it "review bombing". A lot of us just didn't like DT and that's it. If you did, good for you, I wish I had liked it as well but alas.

I just wanted to offer an additional viewpoint on the 1,000 hour discussion.

On the 1st character that I had a few years ago, I did hit over 1,000 hours before even starting Heavensward. At that point, I wanted to experience every little niche of what the game had to offer, and I'm sure there are other players that have a similar desire. It wasn't that difficult to hit, either - I got all classes to 50 so that I could get a feel for them, and outfitted them all with Ironworks gear. I also did a lot of crafting/gathering and got the Mor Dhona gear, and relic quests, too, which easily take hundreds of hours on their own.

It definitely wasn't required, but increased my enjoyment of the game as a completionist.

It did give me a very good feel for the game, but I didn't consider myself a veteran by any means, not even making it to endgame content yet by that point.

Just something to consider for the data. :)

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Originally Posted by Erzaa

Yup, I'm someone who enjoyed all of the MSQ, ARR through EW, some I liked more than others. I honestly loved SB too. Even when people complained about the EW patches story, I genuinely enjoyed it, I liked Zero as a character and her journey. I liked Wuk Lamat's introduction even. Liked her on the boat scene at the start of 7.0.

But... just, DT MSQ is such utter drivel, I can't even... I'm of the opinion that it's worse than ARR by alot.

But also, one bad expansion isn't necessarily the death of the game, continued bad expansions will be.

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Even if ARR was a fairly cookie cutter JRPG with a lot of padding, it at least had had a setting that was fleshed out and interesting with a lot of tension even among allies. DT is just a void comparatively.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

I can't leave a review since I don't play on Steam but I read the thread.



This comment sums up how I feel about the game, with the addition that I also no longer have a character design I enjoy (thanks to the graphics update) that would motivate me to collect glamour, take screenshots and do new game plus.

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This is the same for me. I'm okay with one bad expansion. I'm okay with the WoL not being the center of attention. I'm not okay with losing my WoL so bad that I can't go back and play the old expansions or take screenshots.

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Originally Posted by Tint

You can use the text command /playtime

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I'm aware. If I were still playing the game.

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Originally Posted by Tint

People would not review bomb if they had liked what they got.

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Which is fair, but it felt like a review bomb campaign when 90% of the reviews was just bashing on 1 character. I wouldn't say 1 NPC ruined the whole expansion. That's just petty and silly to me. You're free to disagree.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

I'm not sure about Steam, but the review score on Metacritic has continued to slowly go down since the release of DT, as more and more people finish the MSQ. Personally, I didn't feel the need to leave a review until DT. I only tend to review games that are either exceptionally good or exceptionally bad and found FFXIV to be neither. I was already on the fence in Endwalker and Dawntrail really pushed me in the direction of thinking the MSQ was terrible. It's frustrating because the themes they went with are fine, it's just that they're handled in the worst possible way. Same with characters - the ideas of them are fine, but they end up flat and one-dimensional. They feel like someone's first RPG character.

Edit: Just went and checked. The Metacritic scores started out at 7.4 and are now sitting at 5.3. I checked about a month ago and they were still at 6.0. I would hardly call people leaving negative reviews months after an expansion launches and people have had the chance to really experience it "review bombing". A lot of us just didn't like DT and that's it. If you did, good for you, I wish I had liked it as well but alas.

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I haven't checked Metacritic since I thought I was clear about talking about Steam (maybe I wasn't enough clear on that, I only refered to Steam reviews).
It is interesting if the overall score for the game (I assume?) dipped so hard, it sounds like its a lot of negative reviews just based on Dawntrial, no?

Another observation, and maybe I'm a minority, it seems user reviews is based on almost only the MSQ and not the overall experience. It would be interesting to see if it improves as patches is being released or I'm just alone in thinking the expansion is fine, and not a 1/10 as I know many set it as.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

1000 hours in the game isn't necessarily a veteran player. That's about 2 months of playing all day (16 hours a day). Could easily be done during a holiday, summer break or while seeking employment.

I don't think it's necessarily review bombing on Steam, but you're more likely to leave a review for a negative experience than a positive one. It's got to be extraordinarily positive (to the point of changing your view on life or something like that) to motivate you to leave a positive one usually, which to be fair, much of the story does motivate people to want to go out of their way to praise it for that, which probably explains why there are positive reviews at all.

The story in Dawntrail may not be for everyone but it's just one expansion. I don't get the people acting like it's the end of the world because one expansion didn't hit for them.

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I've been playing since 2 0 Beta. The games pacing and lack of content is frustrating for someone who has invested literally 1/3 of their lifetime playing it.. that is probably why some people are so passionate and take the issues so personally
and want the devs to address the issues and want to see them fixed. I think they just want the devs go take the game somewhat seriously and not produce garbage. Which is what we have here.

I don't think I would just instantly classify everyone who hits 1000 hours as a veteran in a 10 year old MMO, that's like maybe two years of casual gameplay. It's a lot for a single player game but not for an MMO.

If you didn't play through the original ARR patch quests before it was trimmed I'm not going to consider you a veteran until you have 365 days of playtime.

Ah dang my review made in early access didn't count for this, off by one day. Overall I still agree with my review that the pacing and characters were far below average and while the instances are fantastic I would wait for whatever content you want to be released before purchasing the game or if you are curious catching the expansion on sale.

I find the methodology flawed.

MANY of the negative reviews over the last month.... have zero to do with Dawntrail.

not saying that DT is the most awesome release ever.. but the OP is again posting rancid bait from Reddit without checking it themselves. is DT lack of story responsible for the game not being available on Steamdeck? is it responsible for account issues? is it remotely connected to people saying DONT BUY IT ON STEAM?

no. so.. my thinking is flawed methodology means a flawed subject and bait post. (as the OP is prone to do with never having their own opinion but just reposting reddit garbage)

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

Another observation, and maybe I'm a minority, it seems user reviews is based on almost only the MSQ and not the overall experience. It would be interesting to see if it improves as patches is being released or I'm just alone in thinking the expansion is fine, and not a 1/10 as I know many set it as.

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Makes sense to me, as FFXIV is marketed as story-first. Most negative reviews I've seen praise the battle content while criticising the MSQ. Patch content could indeed salvage the situation but they need to finally release some. The incredibly long patch cycle isn't doing the game any favors. The fact that field operations have been pushed to something like 7.3 is dire. Most people from my FC subbed for a month and they're off playing other games because there is only so much to do in DT unless you're a Savage raider.

Wow the review I made for early access they didn't count. I know it was a very bad review. Same with 1.0 beta review I did.

I'd love to see a similar breakdown of reviews from metacritic, although that makes it much harder to verify "real" players and hours played.

As sad as it is to see a game I love get bad reviews, it also deserves it. Dawntrail is just not good, and the longer time passes since its release, the clearer it becomes that this isn't just review bombing, a lot of people (like me) are very unsatisfied with this expansion and the state of the game. Every previous expansion to me has been between a 7/10 and 9/10. Never in my wildest dreams before Dawntrail released did I ever think I would give a FFXIV expansion a lower score than that. But here I am now with Dawntrail being a 4/10 for me. Even now, over three months later, I am still sometimes in shock by just how truly wretched the story, setting, and characters were.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

Makes sense to me, as FFXIV is marketed as story-first. Most negative reviews I've seen praise the battle content while criticising the MSQ.

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All fair and good. I must be in a minority that doesn't think the story is 0 or 1/10 like most negative reviews I saw on Steam at least. It's not like I actively read reviews for a game I was actively playing.

Some of those make solid points, like how the expansion was trying to emulate concepts from past expansions but doing it very badly. It's because none of those concepts were given the necessary time to develop so they didn't have the impact the same concepts had in previous expansions because of it. That could be writer inexperience, but I hope they've realized now that if that is the case, their new writers need more veteran oversight.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Some of those make solid points, like how the expansion was trying to emulate concepts from past expansions but doing it very badly. It's because none of those concepts were given the necessary time to develop so they didn't have the impact the same concepts had in previous expansions because of it. That could be writer inexperience, but I hope they've realized now that if that is the case, their new writers need more veteran oversight.

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Hiroi's been a lead writer for side content since 3.0. He is far from inexperienced, but a 20-30 hour MSQ storyline was very obviously beyond him. That said, there are many people above him that should have rejected what he and the other writers put forward.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Some of those make solid points, like how the expansion was trying to emulate concepts from past expansions but doing it very badly. It's because none of those concepts were given the necessary time to develop so they didn't have the impact the same concepts had in previous expansions because of it. That could be writer inexperience, but I hope they've realized now that if that is the case, their new writers need more veteran oversight.

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That's what really makes me scratch my head and think there must have been something more going on here. Hiroi has been around since ARR. Kawasaki and Onozuka have been around since SB and ShB. Hiroi is no Ishikawa, sure, but I've never flat out hated what he wrote before this. Most of these writers have written okay to pretty good content before. So WTF happened?

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

That's what really makes me scratch my head and think there must have been something more going on here. Hiroi has been around since ARR. Kawasaki and Onozuka have been around since SB and ShB. Hiroi is no Ishikawa, sure, but I've never flat out hated what he wrote before this. Most of these writers have written okay to pretty good content before. So WTF happened?

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I believe there has been meddling in the story from higher up or from a third party. This team takes literally years to write and polish the story but at many places, it feels like there were last minute edits as the story didn’t flow smoothly.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

That's what really makes me scratch my head and think there must have been something more going on here. Hiroi has been around since ARR. Kawasaki and Onozuka have been around since SB and ShB. Hiroi is no Ishikawa, sure, but I've never flat out hated what he wrote before this. Most of these writers have written okay to pretty good content before. So WTF happened?

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Hiroi has been credited on some of my favorite side content. But unless the writers had assisted previously on the main story, then they could have inexperience with something of that magnitude. And it does feel like they didn't have the necessary oversight from the more veteran writers.