Players are already lowering their bar for Downtrail

[Noumenon]

you know, shb was a build-up story that within its base game still managed to be an emotionally charged and powerful story connecting some of the few loose threads from HW and also opening up a brandnew story on the ascians. we shouldnt assume dawntrail cant still be good or pull that off.

Of course, Downtrail will be good, it will be full of cutscenes with G'raha Tia eating tacos, Y'shtola lore dumping and explaining everything for us, Urianger quoting weird archaic poems, and Estinien saying "Hmph" for the fiftieth time. Oh, one simply cannot wait for these top-notch storytelling sequences.

[Aword3213]

Of course, Downtrail will be good, it will be full of cutscenes with G'raha Tia eating tacos, Y'shtola lore dumping and explaining everything for us, Urianger quoting weird archaic poems, and Estinien saying "Hmph" for the fiftieth time. Oh, one simply cannot wait for these top-notch storytelling sequences.

As long as it motivates you to create an army to entertain us, I'm in

[Turtledeluxe]

The stakes were never really that high until Shadowbringers. I don't know why people talk about stakes as though it's the end all be all of any story. It's not like the war of man and dragon was universe ending. Liberating Doma wasn't world ending. The constant parroting of stakes feels like this "mic drop" thing that doesn't really work, like at all. Stories are either compelling or they aren't. DawnTrail's promo doesn't give the average person any reason to be particularly excited and that's where the feedback of lowering expectations is coming from, not the fact it's post Endwalker. Plenty of games and anime have tone shift arcs that have their own stakes and are still interesting.

Maybe 7.0 is amazing it's just that the team doesn't seem confident about it via marketing so far. And no it isn't just because it's a teaser either. And it undoubtedly has tons of content. So I am mentally preparing myself for the "XIV was always about it's gameplay and never story" defenses i.e. the polar opposite of the defenses today.

[Absimiliard]

The stakes were never really that high until Shadowbringers. I don't know why people talk about stakes as though it's the end all be all of any story. It's not like the war of man and dragon was universe ending

The Warring Triad were an existential threat to the entire planet. Even weakened by their containment, all three of them going free at once would in all likelihood have meant the end of the world.

[Jojoya]

Maybe 7.0 is amazing it's just that the team doesn't seem confident about it via marketing so far. And no it isn't just because it's a teaser either. And it undoubtedly has tons of content. So I am mentally preparing myself for the "XIV was always about it's gameplay and never story" defenses i.e. the polar opposite of the defenses today.

The marketing is happening the same way it was happening pre-COVID.

NA FanFest announces the title and tosses out some generic teasers but little in the way of solid information.

EU FanFest gets a little more tacked onto the teaser trailer, usually with title music finished but lacking lyrics and/or final vocalist. One of the jobs gets positively identified while the other job(s) have hints revealed. If there's a new race, that's shown. We start getting more screenshots of environments and maybe a few boss names. We'll get a couple of samples of zone music.

JP FanFest unleashes the flood of what information they plan to share (other than job design and battle systems, which is media tour). We get the completed trailer, information about whatever jobs weren't already revealed, screenshots from zones not already revealed except the final zone and any other zone they consider too spoilery. More music samples.

If you're finding the teaser unsatisfactory, that should be pointed toward the cinematics team and those who were giving that team the story info. I will say that I'm not overly impressed by what's been shown so far, and I really wasn't all that impressed by the EW teaser either once it got past the initial moon pics. I know part of it is because SE reorganized their cinematics department some years back so those who worked on the EW/DT trailers aren't the same ones who worked on the SB/ShB trailers. Everything in the EW trailers felt a little bit off because of the slight difference in character models. Maybe the current team handling cinematics doesn't have the same touch as the old one?

I'm still going to wait until we have the final reveals at the JP FanFest before I try to form my initial opinion of what Dawntrail will be like. We don't have enough information at this point.

[Turtledeluxe]

The marketing is happening the same way it was happening pre-COVID.

I'm still going to wait until we have the final reveals at the JP FanFest before I try to form my initial opinion of what Dawntrail will be like. We don't have enough information at this point.

This all sounds very reasonable but I don't really think Endwalker is good comparison. Endwalker is a bit of a wildcard as it has references to 8 years of story we are already familiar with, even in the initial 3 minute teaser. It was clear it was a conclusion to the major ongoing plot. I'm not sure it honestly mattered what was in the Endwalker trailer.

That said if the cinematics team is getting story info and interpreting it, yes it could mean they are doing a poor job. Or it could mean the story they're being fed just isn't interesting. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say you weren't impressed with the Endwalker teaser. Endwalker had a 3 minute teaser just like DawnTrail and it showed myriad different situations/plot lines, characters doing different things, antagonists, etc. It definitely wasn't just the moon (although the paladin on the moon is regarded as pretty iconic). Taking many many months to drip feed the content is certainly a strategy and it has worked for them for some time. I just think given the state of the game right now with so much of the player base taking a break (which is happening, at a higher rate than any other expansion, but people don't want to admit it) because nothing in the game is holding their attention (due to poorly received patch content but again, people won't admit that as it is "being completed"), it's a really rough time for this drip feed strategy and a teaser that honestly, has already been forgotten hype wise (from my own network and what I've observed online). I think the teaser was generally well received because it is new content but I don't see people super motivated by it or obsessing over it. It's just okay -- it's something new. It just seems counter to retaining players and counter to SE's desire to grow this game, doing something super safe with the same old same old delivery.

After all the team is hellbent on simplifying jobs, making things solo play, downscaling group play (dungeons vs exploratory), handing out free relics, etc. etc. and they say "great people are doing this" yet they still want to use marketing models from 10 years ago with underwhelming teasers...? That's not really what gaming is about today imo. It feels very outdated, just a general observation I would note.

[Raven2014]

The Warring Triad were an existential threat to the entire planet. Even weakened by their containment, all three of them going free at once would in all likelihood have meant the end of the world.

and here is one of the area I have issue with FF14's narrative. Outside of the MSQ, most of the side quest content receive very small amount of narrative that undersell them by a lot.

Think about the primal in 2.0, the majority of them had a large scale mobilization to confront or contain the threat. Like Irift had the whole Immortal Flame mobilized, Levi saw the Mealstrom pour their resource to create the platform, Shiva pretty much had the whole Isghard army at her door. Sure, in the end if it's up to the WoL, but at least you see the stake and the effort in setting the stage.

But ever since, outside of the story boss (like Step of Faith or Zodiac), pretty much all trials are very ... low key. Most of time it's just one of the "scion specialists" show up, do some investigation, hit a few random button on an Allagan panel and in we go, squash them like a bug. It doesn't feel like we're stopping some kind world ending threats, rather just putting down some local gangs that misbehave at best. It's hard to sale the "world ending threat" pitch when we can pretty much solo them down without much of a support, logistic or organization w/o.


This is an issue with the power creep in the narrative and overselling the encounters.

[Jojoya]

After all the team is hellbent on simplifying jobs, making things solo play, downscaling group play (dungeons vs exploratory), handing out free relics, etc. etc. and they say "great people are doing this" yet they still want to use marketing models from 10 years ago with underwhelming teasers...? That's not really what gaming is about today imo. It feels very outdated, just a general observation I would note.

Oh, I can definitely agree they're behind the times with the way they do things. The contortions people have to go through to buy the game if not using PSN or Steam, the look of the Lodestone and the forums, the look of the launcher (which is at least an improvement over the old launcher but still). FFXIV has been my only experience with a JP gaming company but other players have told me it's not that unusual for JP to be behind what NA/EU companies are doing.

If marketing is what gaming is about these days, it goes far in showing why we've been getting a flood of bad games. Companies are paying more attention to how they sell a game than how they make it. Time for gamers to start putting more stock into the games they play and enjoy instead of falling for marketing hype and spending money on games that just aren't satisfying to them in the end.

[Kaliesto]

All I can say is if Dawntrail repeats the same kind of pattern like previous expansions.

Then we got a problem.

[Rithy255]

I'm not "lowering my bar" personally I'm just ready to expect not a lot really.

I like to play the game more for social aspects at this point anyway, so if anything noteworthy or good coming from it then great, it's not the only game or thing i look forward to anymore so i can happily accept that, yeah im disappointed with the current game but it's not my life lol.