Unenthused About Dawntrail

[Swordsman]

I'm absolutely certain that a majority of folks are hyped for Dawntrail which is great and well-deserved.

But I'm curious about folks who are actively going 'meh' about it's arrival.

Personally, I'm only looking forward to Female Hrothgar. But nothing particularly intriguing sticks out to me. I've yet to be properly hooked like I was for Endwalker. The trailer didn't excite me - the new jobs are alright but nothing eye catching - I don't really care about the graphics update - and I'm taking the promise of more content with a grain of salt.

For my fellow denizens of this forum who aren't terribly hyped or even moderately excited over the upcoming patch 7.0 - may I ask why?

I'm kinda "meh" about DT too, but I'm going to at least play through MSQ. There's no way they can mess it up like they did Endwalker's MSQ (I hope). Also the environment in the graphics update looks great, and I look forward to seeing that as well.

[fulminating]

Zodiark as 83 trial was telegraphed pretty heavily since 5.3 - given that elidibus was repeatedly mentioned as the pilot, either someone else had to take control or it'd have to be fought empty.

It's like how with dawntrail, you can have a reasonable estimate that (rot13) gur zvffvat 4gu pbagraqre naq ohaalobl ner bar naq gur fnzr, gung rvgure ur be jhx ynzng vf tbvat gb qvr naq zbgvingr gur bgure gb pynvz gur guebar, gung gur guebar vf urnivyl gvrq gb ybfg grpuabybtl bs tencuvppneq pvgl naq fb ba. Lbh pna nyfb thrff gung tencuvppneq pvgl vf napvrag eryngrq, tvira gur fbat funerf zbgvsf jvgu gur znpneran natyr naq n fvta ernqf "fbhy fhccbfvgbel". Whether or not this is the case, it feels predictable - which when it turns out to be completely different allows my no expectations to be pleasantly subverted. Dawntrail also not being marketed as the decade culmination seemingly has rather less lofty goals, which tempers things somewhat.

edit: that said, my gut feeling is the msq won't be able to leave the ascians alone for even an expansion.

Personally I quite like the exploration side, and while no expansion has given the freedom to roam of arr, the novelty of poison swamps & across the andes by frog: the expansion promises a smaller scale world than the scattershot of endwalker.

[Daralii]

Zodiark as 83 trial was telegraphed pretty heavily since 5.3 - given that elidibus was repeatedly mentioned as the pilot, either someone else had to take control or it'd have to be fought empty.

And Fandaniel doing it so early on with his goal being what it was felt like an attempt at subverting expectations for its own sake. One of the first monologues Zenos had after his return was about taking control of a god among gods, forcing the WoL to do the same, and getting to experience a battle that could never be topped. It probably would've felt like a repeat of the end of Stormblood(Hydaelyn would probably just funnel everything she was into the WoL, so we wouldn't be piloting her or anything), but I would've taken that over the goofy MGS4-style fist fight at the end of the solo duty.

[Sjol]

I am also unenthused about Dawntrail. For me, the trailer did the opposite of what a good trailer should do. I have no real opinion on the jobs as it really comes down to their rotations to determine if I'll like them or not.

Endwalker's story left a bad taste in my mouth and there doesn't seem to be any commitment to creating a solid set of "physics" and metaphysics in their universe, anymore. I'm also left to wonder how you have emotion and memory as different mutually destructive energies.

I'm left to wonder how much stagnancy is due to the massive amount of technical debt they have. I imagine most of the stuff they want to do just takes too long because of all that technical debt. So, we just end up with what they've already done in the past because it's the only things that works within their existing infrastructure.

I would love it if the overworld became more interesting. Honestly, the overworld is one of the more boring experiences I've seen in an MMO. FATEs are too grindy and unvaried, and combat is too constrained to really grab a ton of mobs and drop them. I had fun in other games pushing myself to see how many mobs I could kite and survive. It's basically impossible to do that here as the mobs will reset.

Additionally, this is the only game I've seen where harvestable resources in the world aren't actually rendered. They did do it in Island Sanctuary, but it's not done in the overworld. Also, given the static placement of the resources it gets very repetitive quickly. Honestly, there's really nothing to discover in the overworld. There's nothing hidden, nothing that pops up to excite or fight over. It makes the world feel very stale, static and uninteresting.

All-in-all FFXIV has been lacking in the variability and randomness that allows for increased playability. It seems much more focused on memorization than adaptability and I don't see that changing.

So, what I'm very much hoping to see is a lot of QoL improvements, pre-Endwalker quality writing, and more to do in the overworld. I'm very much afraid I won't get much of any of that.

[FakeCirka]

Oh I am. We will see if it becomes a permanent one.

Maybe, but sometimes taking a break helps. Could always pop back in if you see something changed/added that grabs your attention again. I've taken a lot of breaks from "that other MMO" throughout the years, and while it may never be my main or favorite MMO ever again, I can still find enjoyment out of it every now and then.

[Rudje]

Zodiark as 83 trial was telegraphed pretty heavily since 5.3 - given that elidibus was repeatedly mentioned as the pilot, either someone else had to take control or it'd have to be fought empty.

As a fight, yes, but as the 83 trial specifically? No. If they actually had the space for the stories 6.0 was trying to tell, they would have had a lot more time before Fandaniel got in the primalbot rather than showing off the shiny new clown and then tossing him off the stage just as he started getting into his act, leaving the villain seat in the hands of a character who is consistently extremely reactive across multiple expansions (while I like him a lot and think it works for his personality, it makes him a weak choice as sole antagonist—he needs more proactive coantagonists to shine) and a bird from space who hadn't even been hinted at before that point and barely shows up until the reveal of who she is (and thus also works very poorly as the main antagonist). It's a recurring issue in 6.0 that they do not have the space to cash the checks they're writing.

[FakeCirka]

and a bird from space who hadn't even been hinted at before that point and barely shows up until the reveal of who she is (and thus also works very poorly as the main antagonist). It's a recurring issue in 6.0 that they do not have the space to cash the checks they're writing.

I mean "technically" there was the ARR morse code from the Crystal Tower 8)

[fulminating]

As a fight, yes, but as the 83 trial specifically? No.

I remember in the run up to endwalker, zodiark as the 83 trial being a super common theory because of what I already mentioned and the some meta speculation from the trailer. (the moon and zodiark being shown indicating they would not be the climax of the story, the weird red buildings in ancient style that turned out to be elpis etc)

[nia_saeli]

I'm absolutely certain that a majority of folks are hyped for Dawntrail which is great and well-deserved.
But I'm curious about folks who are actively going 'meh' about it's arrival.
[snip]
For my fellow denizens of this forum who aren't terribly hyped or even moderately excited over the upcoming patch 7.0 - may I ask why?

Half of it is that Endwalker has mostly been a dud on the content side for me. For what it's worth, Shadowbringer was too, but I ended up skipping that whole expasion cycle after finishing the MSQ so it's not really as relevant. Anyways, during Endwalker the bulk of my playtime has been split between Eureka (to a lesser extent bozjia) and attempting to solo clear the various deep dungeons or just playing around with BLU here and there. With this in mind, the prospect of more content that likely won't appeal to me is nothing to get excited about. Then, when I consider how much content that I do enjoy is actually level synced, the prospect of new job actions leads me to worry "Is X job going to feel worse at 60/70?" rather than excitedly think "Oh I wonder what Paladin gets!". Having my main suddenly reworked underneath me (paladin) was also not something that I appreciated, but what is done is done and I can only hope that they improve it in DT.

The other half of the problem is that while 6.0 was a really good MSQ (it has it's issues, but none of them were deal breakers for me), the post patch 6.1-6.5 were bad enough that it retroactively made certain writing decisions in 6.0 (specifically regarding how they dealt with Garlemald) considerably more questionable and dissatisfying. When coupled with 6.55 trying it's hardest to over-complicate a simple call to adventure, it leaves me with the sense that I'm better off just "getting to endgame" in Dawntrail so I don't have to feel like I wasted my time getting invested in a story that ended up being a waste (probably in a similar way to how 6.X left me feeling).

TL;DR: I didn't care much for the patch content of Endwalker (both battle and story) and I don't see SE taking the risks needed to make me excited. I'm open to it being good, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Yeol]

For the first time, I'm skipping MSQ. I disliked almost everything that came after 5.0 (5.X - 6.55)
I look forward to leveling and clearing new content.