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.

I've read fanfics that were better than DT, and even if they're badly written, we take solace in the fact that the people writing them are not professional writers.

Between entertained and horrified, I don't think I've had a fanfic that put me to sleep the way DT MSQ put me to sleep every 10 minutes, it was a similar experience to when I consistently fell asleep during Nero's speech in the old Prae which means I was bored out of my mind.

Even I never thought it'd flop so hard.

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Originally Posted by Rueby

I've read fanfics that were better than DT, and even if they're badly written, we take solace in the fact that the people writing them are not professional writers.

Between entertained and horrified, I don't think I've had a fanfic that put me to sleep the way DT MSQ put me to sleep every 10 minutes, it was a similar experience to when I consistently fell asleep during Nero's speech in the old Prae which means I was bored out of my mind.

Even I never thought it'd flop so hard.

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I read Hentai that had better story than this piece of crap

If it means anything at this point, I am starting to see where they might take future expansions. There are several plot devices I foresee getting a huge part in at the end of this expansion and I'm actually kind of excited for that. The thing is, I DID go into Dawntrail expecting it to be a much much slower pace. It's a fresh start after Endwalker concluded. We're just kinda there at the moment and I remember telling people that this world ending threat just isn't going to be present yet. It's going to take a long time to build to that point. Unfortunately for the people writing this game, players don't want to feel a high of literally killing god and then going back to boring escort quests.

It will get exciting again. I promise that.

One of the main reasons people stop playing this game at the start is because ARR is such a slow slog of a build up, but it does pay off towards the end. I know people will say ARR is better than DT because of nostalgic reasons, but they're really sort of the same. We are just in that slow slog again, but maybe it's cope that it will pay off at the end of Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Dastan

One of the main reasons people stop playing this game at the start is because ARR is such a slow slog of a build up, but it does pay off towards the end. I know people will say ARR is better than DT because of nostalgic reasons, but they're really sort of the same. We are just in that slow slog again, but maybe it's cope that it will pay off at the end of Dawntrail.

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ARR didn't have the majority of the cast clapping like mindless dolls as the world warps itself around a single character so that nothing can or will actually oppose them in any meaningful way.

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Originally Posted by Dastan

One of the main reasons people stop playing this game at the start is because ARR is such a slow slog of a build up, but it does pay off towards the end. I know people will say ARR is better than DT because of nostalgic reasons, but they're really sort of the same. We are just in that slow slog again, but maybe it's cope that it will pay off at the end of Dawntrail.

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Sorry but ARR was nowhere near as much of a slog as dawntrail. Dawntrail is not only a slog it doesn't give you any intrigue, it doesn't set up any interesting conflicts, it is actively a detriment to pre-existing lore, the setting it presents is incredibly uninteresting. "It's setting up stuff" is not a valid excuse. ARR gave us an introduction to a world full of mystery, it gave us interesting characters whose stories we could look forward to, it set up a mountain of interesting conflict.

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Originally Posted by Jangles

"It's setting up stuff" is not a valid excuse. ARR gave us an introduction to a world full of mystery, it gave us interesting characters whose stories we could look forward to, it set up a mountain of interesting conflict.

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But we have THE KEY now. It had the Azem symbol on it for sec. And it's THE KEY.... That will allegedly accomplish the exact same thing as any random permanent or semi permanent portal to another reflection that we keep stumbling across already do.

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Originally Posted by Jangles

Sorry but ARR was nowhere near as much of a slog as dawntrail.

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Wow; I definitely have to disagree with that. I remember ARR asking me to run and deliver pizzas to people. On foot - I had no mount. Sprint only lasted 10 seconds. Then I had to run between locations in Central Thanalan. And we all know about the titan slog. It was painful as a new player.

I stuck around for that because: I wanted to play the FF mmo anyway, I liked the bright colors of Thanalan and for some reason the gameplay of just 2 buttons on a Gladiator was nevertheless fun to me. The tease of a bigger story with Thancred and masked mages also gripped me enough.

Dawntrail in contrast took me to Kozama'uka to meet the Hanu Hanu and the Moblins, which felt good, the beautiful Urqopacha, the place where the music reminds you of a disney film (Yak T'el) where we finally see the Mamool Ja as something other than what we 1-shot in Upper La Noscea and the cool, western area Shaaloani to see duels, become embroiled in cowboy conflicts and all this ceruleum talked about in the Blue Mage quests. I didn't feel any of that was really like delivering pizza on foot.

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Dawntrail is not only a slog it doesn't give you any intrigue

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I was looking for the moment where it would feel like a "fantasy" story and that moment for me was entering the upper area of Urqopacha, meeting the giants and them revealing the dreams they had. To me, that was what gave it intrigue. The stuff about Krile also provided intrigue.

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it doesn't set up any interesting conflicts

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It did set them up since obviously we fought people, but didn't really set up that much for post-expansion I agree.

I think it's because SE has long been on a mission to "explain everything" and tie up loose ends. They pretty much concluded that with Endwalker and its patches, where we'd finally explored almost every piece of lore that existed and had it explained in full.

So now they create some lore, but are very quick to jump on it and explain it all. We're already quite far through Emet's bucket list (if you include the side content).

What created a lot of the intrigue for many years was that the lore remained unexplained for years, allowing for speculation and imagination.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Wow; I definitely have to disagree with that. I remember ARR asking me to run and deliver pizzas to people. On foot - I had no mount. Sprint only lasted 10 seconds. Then I had to run between locations in Central Thanalan. And we all know about the titan slog. It was painful as a new player.

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You definitely have to have a certain mindset going into XIV to get over the initial slow story hump, and of course things famously pick up immediately following the Shiva trial.

Since then, the story has had a decent enough pace, which I'm assuming most people are used to.

DT feels like a return to pre-Shiva ARR. Instead of running around delivering pizzas, you're running up and down the stairs of Tulliyolal because Lamat wants to give you 5 tours of the city. The change in pace after EW was probably too jarring for a lot of people--I get that they wanted to at least fake a beach episode expac, but instead it feels like a lazy river where someone on the shore is screaming at me the entire time.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Dawntrail in contrast took me to Kozama'uka to meet the Hanu Hanu and the Moblins, which felt good, the beautiful Urqopacha, the place where the music reminds you of a disney film (Yak T'el) where we finally see the Mamool Ja as something other than what we 1-shot in Upper La Noscea and the cool, western area Shaaloani to see duels, become embroiled in cowboy conflicts and all this ceruleum talked about in the Blue Mage quests. I didn't feel any of that was really like delivering pizza on foot.

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The locales and cultures were certainly pretty and creative, but it didn't help that they Disney-ed pretty much every single culture.

Bird people too stupid to understand their own culture, one guy who does know withholds the information because lulz?
Fakeium Goblins so one-note that I forgot about them the moment I left their level bracket?
Giants that are foreshadowed the entire time leading up to them only to seemingly exist for the sole purpose of showing us the big evil bird?
And of course, my favorite: Who is more stupid--the residents of Mamool for mass-producing miscarriages instead of, I don't know, cutting down some of the stupid trees blocking the sun, or Gulool Ja Ja, the dude from the miserable shadow land who completely forgot about the suffering of his people the moment he ascended to the throne?

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Originally Posted by Dastan

[...] The thing is, I DID go into Dawntrail expecting it to be a much much slower pace. It's a fresh start after Endwalker concluded.[...]

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That was my expectation going into the expack too and while a lot of things in how the MSQ experience changed rubbed me the wrong way it certainly wasn't that things were too low stakes.

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We're just kinda there at the moment and I remember telling people that this world ending threat just isn't going to be present yet. It's going to take a long time to build to that point.[...]

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It was that they just threw that notion out the window.
They just had to have the equivalent of Galactus crashing the beach episode after little more buildup than us being on luggage duty for the new MC up to that point.
Granted that world dimension ending threat was wrapped up during the same episode in typical Saturday morning cartoon manner but it most definitely was there.

Even if magically all my other issues with DT MSQ (which have been discussed to exhaustion) disappeared that development still wouldn't sit right with me.
I have no issue with a low stakes expansion to rediscover the joy of adventuring for the sake of adventuring. I have no problem with us discovering the next big threat of this new post-Ascian arc, we were bound to.
I absolutely take issue with them realizing they were three quarters through their airtime, instantly escalating things from zero to 100 to throw a threat on a level we haven't seen since depressed TwitterX bird our way and immediately wrapping it up in time for the credits.
If our power as the WoL/D has now escalated to the level where our casual, one-off villain of the week comes with powers to threaten the multiverse as a default I really wonder what bigger threat they can still build up to or if we're going to see future stories take place exclusively in other dimensions where they can justify a lazy power reset "because it is another dimension".

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Wow; I definitely have to disagree with that. I remember ARR asking me to run and deliver pizzas to people. On foot - I had no mount. Sprint only lasted 10 seconds. Then I had to run between locations in Central Thanalan. And we all know about the titan slog. It was painful as a new player.

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I will add to this, I started playing after they trimmed down ARR during EW, it was still miserable and you couldn't pay me to replay ARR, what kept me going was a mix of the promise it gets better with ever-increasing sunk cost fallacy, I legitimately cannot understand how anyone could think otherwise, unless they have played ARR so long ago you developed rose-tinted glasses for the crumbs of good that are in that vast sea of misery.

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Originally Posted by Astrus

Even if magically all my other issues with DT MSQ (which have been discussed to exhaustion) disappeared that development still wouldn't sit right with me.
I have no issue with a low stakes expansion to rediscover the joy of adventuring for the sake of adventuring. I have no problem with us discovering the next big threat of this new post-Ascian arc, we were bound to.
I absolutely take issue with them realizing they were three quarters through their airtime, instantly escalating things from zero to 100 to throw a threat on a level we haven't seen since depressed TwitterX bird our way and immediately wrapping it up in time for the credits.
If our power as the WoL/D has now escalated to the level where our casual, one-off villain of the week comes with powers to threaten the multiverse as a default I really wonder what bigger threat they can still build up to or if we're going to see future stories take place exclusively in other dimensions where they can justify a lazy power reset "because it is another dimension".

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Can you even really call it a post-Ascian arc when the only thing of importance in 7.0 is an Amaurotine hourglass? I won't be surprised if the other Sphene is one of the remaining Sundered either.

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Originally Posted by Jangles

Sorry but ARR was nowhere near as much of a slog as dawntrail. Dawntrail is not only a slog it doesn't give you any intrigue, it doesn't set up any interesting conflicts, it is actively a detriment to pre-existing lore, the setting it presents is incredibly uninteresting. "It's setting up stuff" is not a valid excuse. ARR gave us an introduction to a world full of mystery, it gave us interesting characters whose stories we could look forward to, it set up a mountain of interesting conflict.

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I can't change your opinion of the story, but I will disagree with you about ARR. It's the main reason why people end up quitting the game and still is. The pacing is way too slow for newer people, especially those new to mmos, on top of the combat and back and forth quests. It is the biggest slog in the game by far. But like I said, if you stick with it, it does pay off towards the end of that story and sets up both Heavensward, and later Stormblood, very nicely.

I did enjoy Dawntrail. There was intrigue for me seeing a new continent, there were scenes where it made me cry, and while the setting isn't near anything like ShB and EW, I still think it's a good story with a lot of potential. It just seems to me, a lot of you got really spoiled by what came before. You came in expecting this grandiose thing only to set yourself up for disappointment. I don't know what to tell you other than if you seem to not like where the game is going story-wise, then there are other stories out there. Dawntrail does have characters that I am invested and interested in to see what happens to them. I'm mostly curious to see what an interconnected multi-dimensional world looks like when that bridge opens up. Our WoL can freely travel between them, sure, but we haven't seen a situation where the entire people from one shard are freely able to go to another with no issue or wall between them, setting up a lot of potential, inter-dimensional relations with other shards. Dawntrail is a complete change of narrative, and maybe that's why some people don't really like it. I can see that.

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Originally Posted by Jangles

Sorry but ARR was nowhere near as much of a slog as dawntrail. Dawntrail is not only a slog it doesn't give you any intrigue, it doesn't set up any interesting conflicts, it is actively a detriment to pre-existing lore, the setting it presents is incredibly uninteresting. "It's setting up stuff" is not a valid excuse. ARR gave us an introduction to a world full of mystery, it gave us interesting characters whose stories we could look forward to, it set up a mountain of interesting conflict.

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I'm not defending Dawntrail, but I think people have some serious rose-colored nostalgia glasses on for ARR storyline, either that or they're desperate to put yet another plotline above Dawntrail's. ARR was bad enough that the devs themselves had to go in and cut quests because it DRAGGED. I was watching some FFXIV newbies streaming ARR recently and boy even with the cuts so much of those questlines don't really matter at all until you hit a few notable plot moments. I mean "pray return to the waking sands" meme exists for a reason. I'd also argue that plenty of the main characters weren't interesting in ARR but improved in later expansions, but if I were to judge them purely off of ARR on its own there were a lot of forgettable ones.
The world itself and the lore? Interesting stuff, for sure. But the PLOT with the mustache-twirling Kingdom Hearts-style Ascians (before they were retconned to have different goals and motivations), the mountain of fetch quests, and the overall pacing issues with the storyline? It's really not that great.

ARR base wasn't a slog at all and had decent pacing.

ARR post game needed a lot of pruning, because there was no set cycle nor formula for FFXIV yet, and so they were just making stuff up and biding time as they worked on Heavensward, which they didn't even expect to be greenlit for an expansion, so you know...

Completely different circumstances. Also the setting and Ascians still had mystery then, so the Ascians could twirl their moustaches all they wanted and still be interesting, because they had intrinsically interesting questions revolving around them (Their having The Echo, Speaking The Original Language, Who is Zodiark?, How come they know true summoning?, How come they don't stay dead?)

And you could also argue the point around. While there were originally like 110 quests between 2.0 base end and 2.55 end originally (or something like that), the reason they were viewed unfavorably wasn't due to being bad or unnecessary storyline wise, but due to being too much, too many quests. Basically being in the way of new players and the road to endgame. Low investment/engagement because many many quests that were just spinning the wheels.

Dawntrail doesn't have that excuse. Dawntrail's excuse was purposely set up to be, "Well, we're having to follow a forced finale of a 10 year arc, so you gotta bear with us as we try to start up a new storyline..." This falls flat immediately to anyone with any amount of perception. Because:

1) They're calling back to Ascians and Amaurot still.

2) Endwalker didn't have to be the conclusion expansion. They could have easily gone with a Garlean buffer expansion. They weren't sure they could follow Shadowbringers' unexpected success levels, so they played to the hype train and the easiest way to make something hype is to make it the finale.

3) ARR's start came off the heels of 1.0 as a rebirth for the game, and was a new storyline using 1.0's lore. It was gripping enough to relaunch the game into a long term success. In spite of being the same sort of, "new beginning" as Dawntrail. We have to face reality here and realize that they didn't really write us a good story with good villains nor good adversity nor mystery. What's the hook? See #1.

Can I have your stuff?

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

ARR base wasn't a slog at all and had decent pacing.

ARR post game needed a lot of pruning, because there was no set cycle nor formula for FFXIV yet, and so they were just making stuff up and biding time as they worked on Heavensward, which they didn't even expect to be greenlit for an expansion, so you know...

Completely different circumstances.

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Agree to disagree I guess, I always felt the pacing for ARR wasn't the best. Also, remember that what they put out was still a product that should be evaluated on its own merits, just like any other game. I disagree with giving it a pass because of behind-the-scenes circumstances. Plenty of games have problems in development behind the scenes and they don't get that kind of leeway. If something is completed and released, then it deserves to be reviewed based on what was released. And again, I'm not comparing it to Dawntrail, I'm giving my thoughts on ARR on its own.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

ARR base wasn't a slog at all and had decent pacing.

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This is an outright lie.

There are several points in ARR where I felt my skin going through so atrocious the pacing is, and this is after the pruning that came during EW, the entire segment with the Company of Heroes pre-Titan, everything in Coerthas where you just run around doing the literal most menial tasks that while important to establish your connection to Haurchefant is still horrible to go through, the entire Corrupted Crystal sequence pre-Garuda, and then there is how "Pray Return to the Waking Sands" is a meme because it so obviously exists purely to waste your time, there isn't even a lore explanation there, quite the opposite, the Scions could fully well run their entire operation remotely by using Linkpearls so you don't need to go see Minf face to face to get your orders, with Waking Sands existing as an HQ where they can rest and resupply if they chose to, but no, they felt the need to pad things, so they force you to haul ass to a town in the middle of nowhere every time, and while the Vesper Bay Aetheryte Tickets diminished the issue to non-existence, the fact remains the game existed for 7 years with that particular issue.

ARR is like a litmus test to how much bullshit you can put up for this game, if you make it to The Praetorium, that's it, you made it, you can endure anything this game throws at you, and the worst part is that while not spectacular, I actually think ARR has a decent plot, if a little too bog-standard Final Fantasy, it's just marred with absolute nuclear bad storytelling.

ARR, Decent pacing...?????

Pick one LOL

ARR had some good moments where a lot was going on, but it was still a slog.

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Originally Posted by Gaddes

Agree to disagree I guess, I always felt the pacing for ARR wasn't the best.

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I've replayed the ARR post patches recently, and what I can say is: The pacing was sometimes fine, sometimes very long winded, BUT, and that's the most important thing for me, the story made sense, and our actions always seemed to have purpose.

Meanwhile, playing through Dawntrail had me feeling like the writers themselves had no clue where this is going, the story structure and script quality was overwhelmingly bad, explanations and actions illogical and I felt incredibly out of touch with what was happening in the story. This was a first for me, and this is worrisome.

Personally I'm willing to see if they truly understand our feedback (which I'm really doubtful about judging by Yoshi-P's interviews) for some time longer, but if the story doesn't improve after 7.3, I don't know if I'll be back for 8.0 and beyond.

ARR story can't be judged as the whole piece, imo. It has very different components. 2.0 story wasn't the best and was full of mindless, boring quests designed just to waste your time or give you enough exp to level (the corrupted crystal storyline is one of the examples). I've been playing since 2013, and I remember quite well that I wasn't fond of the story, but I liked the world, characters, and PvE, so I stayed. 2.1 was horrible (does anyone remember repairing Minfilia's earring or gathering tea leaves in Coerthas?). 2.2 got somewhat better, and since about the middle of 2.3, the story improved greatly. It became coherent and engaging; the pacing was good with the pinnacle, which was the Bloody Banquet.

It's a pity SE removed one of my favourite dialogues in the game, though.
(ARR spoilers)
(when WoL is looking for the merchant stirring people up in Ul'dah)
https://i.imgur.com/BnahLuC.png

Crazy how Dawntrail's abysmal story sorta jogged people awake to all the problems this game has had this entire time. I've complained about so many of these issues for years only to have people tell me I was overreacting or being negative for no reason or whatever, and I guess it really was just because the story was good enough to sort of ... disguise all those flaws, maybe? On the MSQ front alone, I've always hated the presentation behind it. Cutscenes are unvoiced more often than not, with stiff vaguely gesturing animations that loop while Machinations or some other ARR/early HW song plays in the background. The quests cycle between "talk to X number of people" "go to Y location and wait" and occasionally, if you're lucky, "go to Z location and kill a monster" and that's about it. That variation of quest objectives, on loop, for at least 20 hours. Broken up occasionally by a dungeon where you run down two hallways of trash mobs, kill a boss, and then repeat that cycle three times. Anytime 8 people appear, a trial is near. If your quests are at a certain level, you already know you're about to head into a trial or a dungeon soon. Nothing dynamic ever happens in cutscenes, even the battles are boring to watch. Our character rarely interferes. Dialogue options mean absolutely nothing and might as well not exist. It's unenthusiastic and boring as hell to me, and has been for years. I only really enjoyed ShB because it took us away from the world that I'd long since stopped caring about. But even ShB had insane pacing issues: after that high point leading into holminster switch, the story slows down like crazy until Emet rolls up with a pistol. Anyone else remember slogging through a trainyard? I don't even remember the specifics of it, but I remember being bored as hell. Then the post game would release at a slow pace of like 3-4 months per patch and barely anything to show for it.

Anyway, I'd complain about all manner of that kind of thing back then and people would tell me I was insane, or in some cases they'd insinuate I had literal ADHD for just wanting voiced cutscenes in a video game in 2024. Game reviewers would call the story legendary. It'd win awards. People couldn't stop glazing this game that had content drops less often than a f2p game run by a skeleton crew. Folks would literally say verbatim "ShB was the best story I've ever seen, period" even though it was like baby's first sympathetic villain tier of writing. But now that DT is so in-your-face about being dogshit, suddenly everyone's finally waking up to the fact that the story's told in a boring way and the content rollouts are slow as hell. I can't imagine what the DT writer must be feeling. Imagine crafting a story so bad that it shakes the community out of their collective stupor and makes them realize the delicacy they've been eating for years has been garbage the entire time.

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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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This is exactly what I thought, until I read Veya's lovely post lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

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:



It's a great book.

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I mean ppl can say can I have your stuff all they want. But assuming this is a real tangible statement this is another subscription gone and this is more money to s.e lost. And whole 1 may not seam alot. It's 1 more than the 30% we've already lost. And not only that but it's a departure on a sour note. Wanting to stay but feeling like there's nothing to stay for and that the community doesn't respect the investment they gave. Xiv will be lucky if it ever wins best community again after this whole thing is over with, zepla already exposed the play another game mentality so it's no kept secret