ARR > Dawntrail

[Themarvin]

if you play just for the story only, then you can't use it for much, the rest of it is the actual game.

[Carolingian]

if you play just for the story only, then you can't use it for much, the rest of it is the actual game.

While I agree that it's silly to write off the whole expansion based on just the story, it's not like a lot of other things in this expansion aren't pretty dire either. The levelling experience is still really boring, with the same "talk to 3 people" quests and silly fetch quests all over the place (and a couple of escort and sneak quests that many people hate). The zones, while beautiful, still don't have much to do in them. Fates are still all the same "kill X amount of Y" nonsense that don't scale properly. Jobs are more homogenised and boring (especially healers and tanks) than they've been in a long time. Glamour gets more annoying with every job that gets added due to not having enough Plates or inventory space, And in general everything is just more of the same predictable things with zero surprises that we've had for a decade now.

The only big positive thing I've seen people mention is that the instanced content (raids, dungeons, Extremes) are better than they've been for quite some time. Which is great but it's far from "the rest of the game".

[Chasingstars]

I don‘t wanna be that guy but a sampling size of at least 30 is normally the minimum requirement to see a trend.

At topic:
I actually really like ARR. For me it had the best level experience to date, the best worldbuilding and was just a fun experience.
It was nice and down to earth. Kinda cozy.

I would also see the DT story behind it but I am actually not neutral in that regard.

ARR came after 1.0 so it’s hard to say how that was part of the review but on the other hand DT had the actual luck to have experienced devs behind it. ARR didn’t have that.

Hmm yeah. I put DT under ARR also.
For me the experienced Devs and the goodwill from Shb and EW give it a slight edge at having an easier time for me.
ARR didn‘t have that back then and it also had a strong competition in WoW.

This one doesn't get it.

That's only because the PS3's performance issues. Otherwise, critics rate it higher for other platforms. So yea, numbers don't lie.

This one doesn't get it.

That's actually a bit more damning, really... A decade of experience, and even the best comparison is still equal to the game they literally had to save from shutting down.

This person gets it.

[Merrigan]

Above all, don't take into account the release context of each extension! That might show that the figures vary greatly depending on expectations, the era, and the age of the MMORPG

[Wilford111]

It's really sad that people have kneejerk reviews based on the story alone and don't take into account the amazing content.

[Striker44]

While I agree that it's silly to write off the whole expansion based on just the story, it's not like a lot of other things in this expansion aren't pretty dire either.

The only big positive thing I've seen people mention is that the instanced content (raids, dungeons, Extremes) are better than they've been for quite some time. Which is great but it's far from "the rest of the game".

Except the instanced content you've mentioned is the other huge part of the expansion itself (things like leveling aren't going to change much from installment to installment). Destiny 2 is a great example right now as the "opposite" of DT. It's current installment that just released around early June is the equivalent of EW in being the culmination of their long storyline. Their "MSQ" has been widely praised...but the post-MSQ content has been a disaster and the game has seen daily logins drop almost 75% since then.

Aside from just the usual "complaints" that don't tend to amount to anything, the only "iffy" part of DT has been its MSQ, and even that isn't anywhere near "dire" once you get out of the bubble that is this forum. It's getting a rather positive reception in most other places, and the post-MSQ instanced content being solid will be huge to its overall success and staying power.

[Naoki34]

The numbers don't lie.

But, you're lying about the context.

It's not the same situation at all.



ARR came after the failure that was 1.0, ARR is the remake version of 1.0 by Yoshi-P who saved FFXIV without which, we probably wouldn't still be playing it today.

But the fact remains that ARR is stuffed to the gills with crappy questing: fed-ex quests, pointless back-and-forth, and you had the ridiculous quest series where you had to earn your way to saving the island of Vylbrand (I thought you were in danger, so it can really wait until you go around the world and prove a blind man, a desert tribesman, etc.). To avoid Titan's awakening? Seriously?)

ARR is the worst content to date, if you take all the expansions into account.

___
As for Dawntrail, it's new content after a cycle, and it came after the excellent ShB and Endwalker. Aside from that, Dawntrail is really rotten from the point of view of MSQ epic, last zone, revelation and final battle.

In my opinion, it's a filler expansion for the patient, full of fan service and relatively useless characters. And the main antagonist and Wuk Lamat are both a problem in terms of giving us the epic feel that the previous 2 expansions had.

And even the raid story is laughable compared to Eden and Pandaemonium. I still look back with nostalgia and fond memories at the conclusion of Pandaemonium, and see again one of my favorite FFXIV characters since ShB and appearing long before.


--> Context is important, otherwise... Your info is biased.
And your post sounds like a troll with a healthy dose of denial and hypocrisy.



Ps: I didn't feel any of the emotions during Dawntrail's final fight and cinematic as I listen and replay over and over again via the diary of ShB's cinematic and key moments, Endwalker. --> I was entering the Ewww and Meh at the end of Dawntrail MSQ and the story of its 8-player raid.

Even SB and HW gave me better memories than my ranking of expansions without Dawntrail, and that's a matter of personal taste and preference:

Endwalker > ShB >> SB > HW >> (Dawntrail >) ARR

Many people put HW first and that's personal.

This is completely from an MSQ point of view.


Otherwise, Dawntrail is incredible in terms of PvE gameplay feel.

For Dawntrail OST in my opinion, Endwalker and Shadowbringer still stick in my head and I listen to them regularly. There's not much from Dawntrail that makes me want to listen, I turn off the music at Tuli-Jazz, it's out of context for a South American inspired city.

And the Smile theme... Is a problem for me, it's as cliché as it gets. And it doesn't sound South American to me, maybe more African. If I'm wrong, sorry.

[Kaurhz]

Personally, I don't put much stock into initial reviews very much, simply because the story will only be comprising a small fraction of the actual game itself.

The way I see this is that, by these metrics we could deduce that Endwalker was an amazing expansion... Which the story may have been OK, but the content was a desolate wasteland, of which had they repeated Endwalker instead of Dawntrail then the game would be in a far, far worse state than current, IMO. [Edit: To put it this way for Endwalker, for example... If you played just the story of the base-expansion, what rating would you give the game?; now the next question, if you were to review the game right the way at the end to 6.55, trying all possible content... Would that same score persist for you?]

Combat is carrying this expansion, and I would argue it will carry the entire expansion, which IMO is better than if the story were to carry the expansion. I don't think a story is ever irredeemable especially in an MMO, I think they can turn it around, and there's some clues there. I think it's a very mid story-experience, which is very much exacerbated by main character, too much of it hinged on whether you liked them or not.

[Isala]

It's really sad that people have kneejerk reviews based on the story alone and don't take into account the amazing content.

When the story makes you want to quit, or actually quit, who's getting to the good content? The leveling dungeons are the same snoozefest they always have been.

[Nitelancer]

But, you're lying about the context.

It's not the same situation at all.



ARR came after the failure that was 1.0, ARR is the remake version of 1.0 by Yoshi-P who saved FFXIV without which, we probably wouldn't still be playing it today.

But the fact remains that ARR is stuffed to the gills with crappy questing: fed-ex quests, pointless back-and-forth, and you had the ridiculous quest series where you had to earn your way to saving the island of Vylbrand (I thought you were in danger, so it can really wait until you go around the world and prove a blind man, a desert tribesman, etc.). To avoid Titan's awakening? Seriously?)

ARR is the worst content to date, if you take all the expansions into account. ...

I don't agree at all that ARR is the worst content to date. A simple example is the environmental story telling in ARR zones. In ARR zones you can find hidden shrines to the gods like Nald below. But in Dawntrial, it does not appear the people in Tural ever had any gods or engage in any form of worship. Their culture feels small and lack a sense of history going based on the environments, whereas in ARR you can find hidden shrines to the twelve gods and other cool points of interest with meaningful lore, making the world feel more grand. Dawntrail is lacking in that and its zones feel relatively sparse.

I do think the giants (Yok Huy) in Dawntrail are interesting though. I feel they help give a sense of history to Tural, so I'll give it that.

As for context, every game is released in a different context. So should their be no comparisons on ratings? What is a rating for if not making comparisons? Ok, let's compare something close to Dawntrail. Actually, when you compare all the expansions, Dawntrail has the lowest user and critic ratings with the exception of 1.0.