The hell were they thinking when doing "Newfound adventure" back on 6.1???

[Aniya_Estlihn]

It was one probably light-hearted statement amid a whole presentation of what we would actually be doing and seeing there. People for some reason have seized on it as if he walked on stage, said "we're off to the beach!" and showed nothing but shots of the Scions doing tourist stuff.

Except, he's had interviews after fanfest where he's said it is a vacation arc, the 6.5 MSQ has told us we need to take vacation three times, and he recently said they want to provide players with the "ultimate catharsis" after Endwalker finished the previous arc. By all accounts, 7.0 isn't going to be that serious and anyone expecting it to be are setting themselves up for a major disappointment when the narrative turns out to be super self contained with little to no stakes that linger afterwards. Will there be a villain and conflict? Always, he even said as much at fanfest that while it's a vacation story, its still an FFXIV expansion. Obviously though, with his catharsis and lowering the stakes comments, it's not going to be world ending, it's not going to even be high stakes. I suspect it'll be something relating to the Rite of Succession and some mustache twirling doof is going to pop up, screw up what's going on by trying to unearth/awaken an ancient evil to conquer Tural and we'll take that down near the end; probably in the city of gold.

That said, I find it sad that many are starting to discredit everything that's been said about Dawntrail's narrative; he's said a lot, is foolish and only this playerbase would willingly do so because they've convinced themselves that SE lies about the game all the time. I don't believe this is the case with your statement, to clarify, I'm just bothered by the sudden negativity and lack of trust they have for a dev team and director/producer who have an incredibly solid track record of not blowing smoke up our behinds.

Either way, its far more than one statement at fanfest and more like a dozen-plus across fanfest and various interviews afterwards. Its not a one-off statement in the slightest.

[Iscah]

he even said as much at fanfest that while it's a vacation story, its still an FFXIV expansion.

That right there is why I am not bothered by the "beach vacation" thing. It's still an FFXIV expansion – visiting interesting settings and dealing with local goings-on in each of those locations. I'm not at all in denial that the overarching plot will likely be lower stakes than the preceding expansions; I'm just not bothered by that prospect.

At the same time, the fact that it is an FFXIV expansion means that the plot is going to be something more complex and engaging than ten levels of "relax on the beach", which seems to be what people are picturing when they object to the base concept of the game as shown thus far.

As for your final paragraph, I've read it several times and I'm still not sure exactly who you're calling foolish or whether you're including me in "the playerbase" as if everyone who plays the game has the same take on things.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

As for your final paragraph, I've read it several times and I'm still not sure exactly who you're calling foolish or whether you're including me in "the playerbase" as if everyone who plays the game has the same take on things.

Generalized statement, not directed at you, no. My apologies. A bit of venting due to the mass amounts of negativity and naysaying or people suddenly acting like Yoshida is the devil incarnate because sometimes he misspeaks, things are lost in translation or get pushed back. A bit of a knee-jerk addition to my reply that wasn't really all that necessary, so again, my apologies. Not directed at you at all and more just a generalized "rebuke" of current prevailing trends among more vocal facets of the playerbase. Edit: I've added something akin to what I just said here to my previous post. Sorry for the confusion or implied aggression you might have felt from me, not my intent at all.

I do agree that the 'relax on the beach' vibe is a bit weird from people. Surely there will be instances where our character does relax, as they've implied it, but that's likely going to be reserved for moments of levity between each major story beat akin to how we had a massive dinner with the Scions in Endwalker.

[Volgia]

I kind of wanted the scions to take a break, have us meet new people and have new character dynamics, and maybe meet them later to see what they were doing. But it seems it's headed to the same main cast. It makes me have this feeling of "wow, they really can't think of anything new can they", but idk sniffing all that copium rn and hoping they surprise me.