Yoshi P - Your next live letter, DT msq and the damage to the brand

[DiaDeem]

[DeliNote]

This is such an absurd post it's hard to even like fully comprehend that a serious person is actually saying this stuff.

They put out 10 years of bangers, start a new story from scratch, and y'all can't even let them get past the opener before calling it a failure.

I think you all live in a little bubble where you actually believe everyone around you hated it or something. Grow up.

Pretty much what I had on my mind/wanted to convey here.

Was the story perfect? No, not really, not all characters were done right either and some choices could've been waaaay better but calling it a full failure to the point of "brand" damage is completely insane and delusional?
Just say you didn't like it, give your opinion as to why, and let them cook it up and come up with something to try to fix/steer things in a better direction.

The vast majority of people don't know what a story actually is or how it functions... this is a new entry, they're testing things, it's a new writer as well, they'll need time to analyze what the players liked, didn't like and where to go from here.

[Turtledeluxe]

Most people consider going from a 92 to a 78 MC brand damage. It's not like metacritic is the end all be all and ther can be exceptions but it seems like in the case of DT there's critical and player agreement going on that something went awry here, more than just "wow same writing quality but new!".

I think the developers being candid here would go a long way. "We were under time constraints due to x" or something. That's how it seems. Some elements of the xpac make it seem like they were in total disarray.

[OMGJesuis66]

total failure..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLylO7eDfMo

Watch Preach actual opinion about Dawntrail instead of going 'huehue, clips'.

[fioravictorine]

total failure..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLylO7eDfMo

Lol people used to watch reacts to see how good a scene is

With DT everyone is enjoying making fun and laughing at how bad those scenes are


'We've tried everything we could! Everything!'

Half the time, the camera pans at WoL and the Scions eating popcorn watching everything unfold

[Havenchild]

Yes it is long, but can you see the concept of an objective critique vs a subjective critique now?

It being poorly written doesn't mean you can't enjoy it personally. Soap opera's are generally incredibly poorly written but they are still watched by many people. The concept of this damaging the brand was about the fact that FF14's brand image is a well written story and whether you can stomach the story or not on a personal level no one can justifiably say that this was well written, which in turn damages the brand identity. Now when the post patches come out they might be able to salvage some of this and mitigate that damage. If they don't, it risks being a serious detriment to the health of the game.

The fact that people think they can't salvage anything is mind boggling.

They salvaged 1.0
They cleaned up ARR MSQ and dungeons.
They salvaged SB,
They somehow wrote a fairly cohesive story for an MMO with a bonnet by the end of Endwalker for the course of 10 years. No single MMO has EVER accomplished such a feat over that time span.

The track record of FFXIV transcends every single MMO out there, no cap. The fact that anyone has doubts against this record still is wild and delusional.
The forum community (vocal minority) is the biggest detriment the game has. Just a bunch of whining ungrateful people that don't really understand how good they have it compared to anywhere else. Voicing opinions is fine, harping constantly on rehashed points is doing nothing at this point and really only making the community look worse and not even concise enough to generate actual feedback devs can use.

There is no "brand damage". If we survived SB when arguably MSQ was at it's worst to then go to people SALIVATING over SHB and soon after EW, nah we fine, you just a doomer for the hell of it.

And still DT is looking better than SB.

[Valorak]

Well I can see that the melodramatic takes on these forums haven't died down.

[TheGrimace]

I had one or two irritations with the game's plot that definitely made me go "what, why?!" but the story, gameplay, music, and aesthetic have left me thoroughly satisfied with Dawntrail. I think that Dawntrail is a sign of good things to come from Creative Studio III.

[Voidmage]

The vast majority of people don't know what a story actually is or how it functions... this is a new entry, they're testing things, it's a new writer as well, they'll need time to analyze what the players liked, didn't like and where to go from here.

You don‘t use an expansion for such an experiment though but side story things or at most half of an expansion story.

This is something people wait 2,5 years for. In EW more or less without much content.

Doing experiments there and not communicating that the story at least has a complete different direction and narrative is just disrespectful.

They could have said beforehand „hey, this story has another character in the focus as the MC. Try it and we look how it is received“ would have at least made it so I knew what I gave my money for regarding the story. The thing I regard as the most important thing for me.

That wouldn’t have been a spoiler, they could have explained the reasoning behind that and maybe people wouldn‘t have been as disappointed (mind you there are still other issues but that is the biggest for me).

I don’t see how wanting clear communication beforehand is such a bad thing and no, that change in direction was really not to foresee. Vacation and new beginning or whatever.

[Raven2014]

The vast majority of people don't know what a story actually is or how it functions... this is a new entry, they're testing things, it's a new writer as well, they'll need time to analyze what the players liked, didn't like and where to go from here.

I have said this many time and I will keep repeating it every time I see someone say this. This is not an excuse:

- A story can be new, doesn't mean it has to be bad.

- There are many games that have self-contain, intriguing and complete story that can be told in 20-30 hour.

- it doesn't matter if it's a new story, or a continuation, or a conclusion to an old story. If you can not write a good story in 30h, your writing sucks.

- It doesn't matter if it's a new or old writers. A professional writer shouldn't need to analyze the audience to know that having one character hogging the majority of screen time or repeat 50 variation of the same line for 30h is a BAD idea.

You can try to come up with as many contexts as an excuse you could, it won't change the fact a lot of failing in the MSQ can not be excuse. Because - the failure is basically on a Writing and Literature 101 level. If you submit this story as an essay to a college writing or literature class, it will earn no more than a C. Now while that is ok for a college freshman, it's not ok for a professional writers working on the main story of one of the biggest MMO on the market that also bear the name Final Fantasy.