JP Official Forums are also criticizing the Dawntrail MSQ.

[KurenXIV]

Except the game is massively popular in all regions. Before early access, we were at ~1.1 MILLION players, split fairly equally between DP, NA, and EU. It's only spiked significantly since then with the release of early access and then DT. With that many people playing, two things will be true:

A.) You will find people supporting any position on any topic.

B.) People with complaints are more likely to "voice" their opinion, especially on something like a casual video game, than people who are satisfied.

"There's people on JP saying they don't like it" means, well, nothing. It doesn't "debunk" anything. It's about as mature a take as the people thinking they have some right to "demand" the developers do certain things. It's their game. They make the product; you choose whether to purchase it. End of story.

"End of story" would be FFXIV 1.0 if SE chose to not listening to players.

You can be vocal about disliking aspects of a long running MMO/Live Service game; it doesn't mean the entire games bad nor does it mean people will immediately stop subbing or paying for the next expansion . . . but it will eventually have an impact.

Feedback doesn't mean "nothing", it means people are unhappy with an aspect of the product. In this case it's an aspect of the product which is the main selling point of said product.

Yes, there are plenty of people who play the game. Yes there are plenty not voicing their opinion but the game is absolutely shaped based on feedback. Job design, encounter design, world mechanics and many other aspects have all changed due to player feedback.

So they clearly are listening to some degree.

All in all the more people who complain, upvote, etc the more likelihood that they will get the message.

Otherwise people will eventually stop purchasing the product.

[Karkarov]

I mean it isn't that hard to salvage the story of Dawntrail. Just put wuk lamat on a chair in tuliolal, and let her sit there for the rest of eternity and never speak again. Then for whatever plot comes next let my character actually do something alone sometimes, no erenville, no scions, just me doing something alone. Then stop giving me a dialog with 3 choices that are all saying the same thing in slightly different ways, and make the npcs do more than stare at me, blink, then continue their conversation as if I didn't speak at all when I pick my option.

[ThorneDynasty]

I mean it isn't that hard to salvage the story of Dawntrail. Just put wuk lamat on a chair in tuliolal, and let her sit there for the rest of eternity and never speak again. Then for whatever plot comes next let my character actually do something alone sometimes, no erenville, no scions, just me doing something alone. Then stop giving me a dialog with 3 choices that are all saying the same thing in slightly different ways, and make the npcs do more than stare at me, blink, then continue their conversation as if I didn't speak at all when I pick my option.

Honestly it's bordering on them needing to do the first proper MSQ overhaul patch since ARR content.

I know it's impossible to rewrite the whole thing, but it would go a long way if they just slightly altered the scenes so WoL and the Scions aren't just hapless wallflowers. Like have it be a conscious choice to let Wuk Lamat prove herself - Have WoL cross their arms and stare at her expectantly instead of pulling out their weapon and then being told to sit down like a dog. Don't have the Scions sit around doing nothing when a suspicious stranger obviously just lured away a high value political target. Don't zoom in on a "defeated" villain clearly about to resurrect on go super-sayan while our characters are few feet away standing like idiots not seeing it coming - make the second wind look more surprising and maybe have something preoccupying our heroes, like simple distance at least.

So much of what feels so bad about the story could be hugely mitigated by better story boarding. It wouldn't fix everything, but it would help.

Heck, they even do a similar "villain is right there but WoL can't act because civilians/hostages" scene in the role quests - And it feels perfectly fine because it's actually WoL who uses body language to stop the more hot-headed younger warrior from escalating. Almost like the mentor we are supposed to be in the MSQ.

[Shurrikhan]

Have to stalk people's post history to make fun of them. What are you, 5?

Hardly "stalking". She just happens to have trolled (or, if you prefer a stricter definition of "trolling" -- the likes of having repeatedly berated posters alongside a hefty dose of ad hominens, strawmen, purposeful removal from context, etc.) the OP's threads and said OP happened to have a memory lasting more than a couple hours. Frankly, of the two, the OP isn't the odd one. /shrug

[Voidmage]

It's their game. They make the product; you choose whether to purchase it. End of story.

If you ignore the feedback of your customers then you already failed not just as a developer.
This is not a small fanfiction, this is a long lasting product.

That's not how the marked works.
You make a product, you gather feedback you try to make the produkt better first to take in more customers and to keep your customers.

If you go around with the attitude "Well deal with it, we don't care for your feedback" that's a big red flag right there.
MMO's the most of all genre live from the satisfaction of the players. Single player games only have to sell one time.
Feedback was the erason we got the really good dungeons this time and the facewear glamour. Without it you would still be clunking in ARR style fights.

I really wonder what your goal is with that take. You are actually implying to not give feedback or criticism.

[Vahlnir]

That's not how the marked works.
You make a product, you gather feedback you try to make the produkt better first to take in more customers and to keep your customers.

If you go around with the attitude "Well deal with it, we don't care for your feedback" that's a big red flag right there.

The WoW developers went down this road for a while and the game still hasn't fully recovered from it. I see similar writing on the wall with FF XIV and it's a shame so many are stuck blindly worshipping FF XIV, Yoshi P and SE as if they can do no wrong.

[ViaDesperare]

Kind of like a Cult? I think the fanbase is pretty mad and attacking people who don't like the MSQ, including the content creators, and game design choices, like the healers on strike. It's like they just want an Echo chamber of positivity only, but that just means SQX won't innovate to beat games like Genshin, which SQX is pretty jealous about.

[fioravictorine]

Speaking of Genshin, they pump out 4-6 hours of fully voiced MSQ and side events every 5 weeks (in multiple languages no less)

Meanwhile Square Enix is struggling to voice most cutscenes in....2 years.

Granted Hoyoverse has unlimited money, and today is far bigger and richer than Square Enix. But still

[Malthir]

The WoW developers went down this road for a while and the game still hasn't fully recovered from it. I see similar writing on the wall with FF XIV and it's a shame so many are stuck blindly worshipping FF XIV, Yoshi P and SE as if they can do no wrong.

It's literally the exact same thing, when people started trying to call out problems in wow they were shouted down as heretics, told to just quit if you don't like it etc etc. Happens in alot of fanbases, MMO's just tend to have more of it.

[PaleYonder]

Yeah, and ths degree of substantial negative feedback is a warning to the developers that at least parts of the customer base may not purchase the product anymore. A developer that wants to continue to sell should listen to that. This isn't one-sided entitlement; we want a good product for the money we spend or we won't spend the money anymore, and the developer wants our money. Who does it help if we just leave quietly instead of things being rescued and improved? Neither side.

There's also the fact that FF14 has spread a whole lot via word of mouth, people recommending it to others who may have been hesitant (Isn't that too anime? Isn't there too much content to get through till endgame? And so on), and those who gave it a chance being won over by the story. How often do you hear that? You had to coax people past ARR sometimes, and sometimes past Stormblood. Now you have this.
If someone is in it for the story, and dislike it so much this time around, can they seriously recommend the game anymore? In the past, I could say, "if you're not into the anime style or whatever, that's cool, but the story is really good", whereas now the most I could recommend to someone new is, expect to play till Endwalker, and then if you've got other stuff you enjoy, cool, but the story gets painful after that, and we don't know if this is just the way it's going to be now. So it may well be a finite experience.
That's the worst word-of-mouth for a game that used to rely on its story so much.

I also hardly think that this direction is some highly artistic choice that's essential to a writer's spirit as an auteur. It's all simply way too incompetent and unartistic for that. So they have no reason to keep going with this despite bleeding their customer base.