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

[Malthir]

Okay, this post is very long, and it's kind of obnoxious to bring and challenge points without sounding nitpicky. But there are things that are just very opinionated, he gives some claims like Alisae 100% trusting Sphene when she literally is the first one to say "Okay but we aren't really trusting her are we". This whole post reads as a rationalization of wanting the MSQ to be really, really bad, when it's really not better or worse than any early expansions.

I'm all for improving the MSQ, but to me this is all just fluff arguments over not liking a character.

You seem to be missing the point here, it's not about any individual character. You in fact just pointed out an example of the poor writing, you saying Alisae says "Okay we aren't really trusting her are we." However the actions taken by the entire group and the next few cutscenes just ignore that statement. As I said in my previous comment, one of the tells of bad writing is telling not showing. Alisae tells us how to feel instead of the story showing us how we should feel. They just blurt out emotions then act contrary to those emotions, or they just completely change in personality within the span of a cutscene. Alisae barely spent time with Wuk for example, yet is now calling her lami ti, Alisae, one of the most emotionally guarded characters just decides I'm BFF with this person I've functionally barely met and had very few scenes with.

Again this isn't about Wuk or Sphene, It's all the characters, the way the story is paced doesn't allow for any functional character development, so the writing just has characters respond to things in specific ways for the sake of this plot point, even if that response would be out of the established behaviour for the character. Bakool, is a monster for most of the story, He believe might makes right, the weak have no purpose. He's not just slightly bad, he's out right evil. He starts of with threatening the exam proctors, sabotaging rivals, then he escalates to kidnap and threating the life of his sister, then he escalates again by freeing a creature that's could wipe out thousands of people, then he finds out about his sisters bio dad reveals this to her to emotionally traumatise her and then threatens to kill the man. He then has a 2m cutscene where he explains his sad backstory and when next we see him he is willing to potentially sacrifice his life for those weaker than him...... complete 180 of the character, no arc no development no meaningful introspection. Just I had bad things happen ok I guess I'll be good now.

That's not personal taste for the character that's just poor writing. It's all over the story, Erenville and Wuk are childhood friends, really, because they certainly don't seem like it with any of the ingame actions or dialogue, other than when we're just flat told, Wuk and Erenville are childhood friends, to reiterate, you should show the audience not just tell them.

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.

You're wrong and here is why. In 1.0 FF14 had such a tiny portion of the market no where near a good level of saturation, being bad is less impactful when you're small. Also 2.0 was not amazing, it was just amazing considering what came before, don't get me wrong it was good but it was only comparatively good. They still never truly cleaned up 2.0, the low level leveling experience is still accepted to be a colossal barrier to entry. SB wasn't something they needed to salvage, some people were critical but generally it reviewed ok, by all measurable metrics SB is significantly better then DT. The difference is now, FF14 is a big guy in the world of MMO's they have achieved good market saturation, everyone has at least now heard of it. The thing they have heard of though, is it's got a well written story. Well, now being that big plays against them. Everyone who heard about the game will now also here they've released a sub par story that's poorly written. This of course damages the brand, because who as a new player wants to be told, you've just got to get through ARR MSQ, then it's good, until the latest expac and then it's not very good again. Also people are always remembered for their latest release, 6.x was not well received there were lots of complaints about the story so people start to see it as a down trend in writing standards when you release and expac that's written even worse. Then tack on that satisfaction about how the jobs play is at an all time low.

As I said they could potentially salvage some of this if the post patch is great, however their main competitor is about to drop an expac next month, FF14 has lost alot of good will with it's community over the job designs, and the bad writing, they are going to have to hit this absolutely out of the park, this is a massive up hill battle just to recover what's been lost. Damage to the brand image is not saying they are going to shut doors, what it really means is SE might start making sweeping changes or they might decide that the companies future shouldn't rely on the MMO and reduce it's budget, no one knows how the execs will respond, but there's going to be some substantial in house discussion about this.

[Absurdity]

When people see the story as a big important thing (and apparently quite a number do with all the biggering between those who liked and those who disliked the MSQ) then yes it is dramatic.

I bet that most of the FF14 players give the story quite a high priority and those who don't are in the minority.

It's fine for you to not care about the story, be it positive or negative but come on. This is FF14. There is a reason MSQ roulette has unskippable cutscenes, the expansions are ranked with the story first and the devs making such a huge deal of the expansion stories.
Most of the patch trailers have the story in the big spotlight also.

That's what they've put their focus on for the last 2 expansions and Endwalker absolutely suffered for it. I guess we will have to see how hard the player numbers drop to determine how much importance people really put on the story over everything else.

[Volgia]

You seem to be missing the point here, it's not about any individual character. You in fact just pointed out an example of the poor writing, you saying Alisae says "Okay we aren't really trusting her are we." However the actions taken by the entire group and the next few cutscenes just ignore that statement. As I said in my previous comment, one of the tells of bad writing is telling not showing. Alisae tells us how to feel instead of the story showing us how we should feel. They just blurt out emotions then act contrary to those emotions, or they just completely change in personality within the span of a cutscene. Alisae barely spent time with Wuk for example, yet is now calling her lami ti, Alisae, one of the most emotionally guarded characters just decides I'm BFF with this person I've functionally barely met and had very few scenes with.

That's just how the MSQ has always been, this isn't worse than it already was. It's kind of disingenous to say that Bakool had no redemption arc when all of the 94 questline is exactly looking how he had to uphold this supremacist ideology because if he didn't it meant that sacrificing thousands of children to make him happen was for nothing. It wasn't a 2 min cutscene, it was Wuk Lamat beating him, it was him helping bridge their people and your group, it was you, Koana and the scions helping them establish a means of economy to support their land, it was him coming to the defense of Tuliyollali and saving it's people to the soul-sucking machines.

I can say the same about Alisae, she spent ALL the expansion with Wuk, she fought shoulder to shoulder against Valigarmanda and Zoral'ja. You don't like the story because you feel like it has no subtelty or subtext then you probably shouldn't like any of the early expansions either.

Again it's easy to fall into the trap of not liking something, and rationalizing it all to be the OBJECTIVELY bad and then bouncing back and forth on posts and analysis that already agree with you, especially here in the FF Forums, there were people doing this kind of analysis to Shadowbringers and Endwalker, it seems to happen to every damn expansion.

[Voidmage]

That's what they've put their focus on for the last 2 expansions and Endwalker absolutely suffered for it. I guess we will have to see how hard the player numbers drop to determine how much importance people really put on the story over everything else.

Endwalker didn‘t suffer because the story was the focus.
We didn‘t even get less content or other stiles content because the budget went into the MSQ.
We got a shift in content from long lasting to one and done as well as a casualisation of it.

I fail to see how the story has anything to do with that tbh.

[Malthir]

That's just how the MSQ has always been, this isn't worse than it already was. It's kind of disingenous to say that Bakool had no redemption arc when all of the 94 questline is exactly looking how he had to uphold this supremacist ideology because if he didn't it meant that sacrificing thousands of children to make him happen was for nothing. It wasn't a 2 min cutscene, it was Wuk Lamat beating him, it was him helping bridge their people and your group, it was you, Koana and the scions helping them establish a means of economy to support their land, it was him coming to the defense of Tuloyali and saving it's people to the soul-sucking machines.

I can say the same about Alisae, she spent ALL the expansion with Wuk, she fought shoulder to shoulder against Valigarmanda and Zoral'ja. You don't like the story because you feel like it has no subtelty or subtext then you probably shouldn't like any of the early expansions either.

Again it's easy to fall into the trap of not liking something, and rationalizing it all to be the OBJECTIVELY bad and then bouncing back and forth on posts and analysis that already agree with you, especially here in the FF Forums, there were people doing this kind of analysis to Shadowbringers and Endwalker, it seems to happen to every damn expansion.

So I give you actual examples of poor writing and your response is "Nuh uh, that's just your opinion.". I don't feel like it has no subtlety, it has no depth, everything is 2D. You're told how to feel in direct lines to the audience, like being shown a laugh sign in a live audience show. It's a text book example of bad story telling. Also no this is not like the other expacs, the story was never hollow, characters didn't tell you how to feel, the characters grew the story developed and the audience emoted to what happened. They made their first mistake when storyboarding this expac, they added alot of different plotlines that would involve massive emotional development for various characters, but decided to resolve them all within the MSQ this creates a massive problem as you then do not have the time to establish new characters, get people emotionally invested, develop each character leading to the emotional payoff at the end of their plot, which is almost impossible to do even when you write well, you might be able to pull it off for 1 character but not for that many all at once.

To give you an actual example how this is not how it's always been, I will use Bakool again as the example. His character arc is functionally close to Gaius's in intent just delivered poorly. That's because Gaius changes over the length of several expac, it's organic, the character becomes introspective, their world view changes as they interact with different people and plot lines, he starts to change his opinions and views. DT Bakool would be if Gaius, went from loyal general to leading the revolution all within ARR.

[BokoToloko]

I agree that 7.0 story has been unenjoyable. Specially on the last zones for me. But OP is blowing things out of proportion.

As important as MSQ is in FFXIV, the game doesn't hinge on content that's pretty much one and done. If the PvE is lacking (because, at this point, MSQ is little more than a glorified visual novel), however, the game is certainly doomed. Which is why SB didn't bomb at its stime.

What I do wish is that the concerns regarding the amount of cutscnes vs the amount of engagement with the player, meaning getting to do mora than just scrolling through text, were adressed. The MSQ could be a masterpiece for all I care but, if 80% of it is reading text and watching cutscenes, people get very little incentive to actually go through with it instead of simply watching a playthrough in YT.

[Valorak]

So I give you actual examples of poor writing and your response is "Nuh uh, that's just your opinion.". I don't feel like it has no subtlety, it has no depth, everything is 2D. You're told how to feel in direct lines to the audience, like being shown a laugh sign in a live audience show...

I mean, you're trying to pass it off as objectively bad by using aspects of literary theory and criticism. But nothing about literary criticism is objective and it never has been.

Literary standards have changed multiple times over the centuries. Some things that were once accepted as the "right way" to do things have fallen out of favor, and things that were once considered average, controversial, or bad, are now hailed as cornerstones of literature. Not to mention the fact that for every "rule" that there is about good writing, it can be subverted by someone that decides to purposefully break convention.

I'm not saying that I view Dawntrail as a literary masterpiece or anything like that and I think that most people would agree with that, but using literary analysis doesn't mean that your viewpoint suddenly becomes objective. It's still ultimately, just an opinion. Pacing, characterization, subtext, prose; those are all things that people will not necessarily agree upon. Just because you interpreted the characterization as flat, that does not mean that everyone will.

I'm not here to change your opinion, because I don't really care to do so. But just as an example to show how subjective opinions like that are, I'll pick on the "Wuk Lamat and Erenville are childhood friends" bit you posted earlier. From my standpoint, I'm wondering why you need some sort of overt gesture in game to show you that? And why do you think the dialogue doesn't show it?

I think that it's very clearly shown in the way that they speak to each other, and in their presence around each other despite their different personalities. I have outwardly mismatched friends just like that IRL, and we have had, and will continue to have very similar interactions to the ones that Wuk Lamat and Erenville have. I found their rapport with each other to be immediately relatable and fitting for their personalities, so I don't need a character arc just to convince me that they're old friends. I would have viewed that as kind of redundant and may have wondered why we needed that to be reinforced when it was already so obvious.

[Havenchild]

You're wrong and here is why. In 1.0 FF14 had such a tiny portion of the market no where near a good level of saturation, being bad is less impactful when you're small. Also 2.0 was not amazing, it was just amazing considering what came before, don't get me wrong it was good but it was only comparatively good. They still never truly cleaned up 2.0, the low level leveling experience is still accepted to be a colossal barrier to entry. SB wasn't something they needed to salvage, some people were critical but generally it reviewed ok, by all measurable metrics SB is significantly better then DT. The difference is now, FF14 is a big guy in the world of MMO's they have achieved good market saturation, everyone has at least now heard of it. The thing they have heard of though, is it's got a well written story. Well, now being that big plays against them. Everyone who heard about the game will now also here they've released a sub par story that's poorly written. This of course damages the brand, because who as a new player wants to be told, you've just got to get through ARR MSQ, then it's good, until the latest expac and then it's not very good again. Also people are always remembered for their latest release, 6.x was not well received there were lots of complaints about the story so people start to see it as a down trend in writing standards when you release and expac that's written even worse. Then tack on that satisfaction about how the jobs play is at an all time low.

As I said they could potentially salvage some of this if the post patch is great, however their main competitor is about to drop an expac next month, FF14 has lost alot of good will with it's community over the job designs, and the bad writing, they are going to have to hit this absolutely out of the park, this is a massive up hill battle just to recover what's been lost. Damage to the brand image is not saying they are going to shut doors, what it really means is SE might start making sweeping changes or they might decide that the companies future shouldn't rely on the MMO and reduce it's budget, no one knows how the execs will respond, but there's going to be some substantial in house discussion about this.

The fact that they even could salvage 1.0 is amazing and SB proves my point though. SB received the EXACT complaints DT has and probably even worse (general consensus on forums was people didn't like EITHER Ala Mhigo or Orthard). Forget Lyse versus Wuk Lamat, MOST people here and in-game hated Lyse. We are not about to try and rewrite history to try and engage the hate parade for DT. The only saving grace of SB at the time was battle design of raids and after a time but not initially, job balance. For jobs specifically, several people had issues with how they neutered everyone's kits especially the removal of synergy throughout the jobs. It was only during the Kefka raiding era that SB really started coming into its own with battle content, story MSQ and job balance that everyone more fondly refers to. 6.0 overall is reflected on extremely well in the community including the 6.X series. If you are consistently only on the forums, then yeah you would not get that feeling cause these forums are toxic af and ONLY trend negative.

FFXIV does not have a main competitor. People who play WoW largely still play WoW. Very few if ANY actually quit forever. They generally touch two different markets of players and while there is some overlap, there are far more exclusive advantages of either. FFXIV has also not "lost alot of goodwill" Get off the forums first off. If anything, the fact that a lot of people were hype about the battle design and raids goes to show that they have in fact, re-ignited a good chunk of hardened players that felt the game had become too casual.

Lastly, it's ok if DT isn't for you. That's fine. Not every piece of content, whether MSQ / Raids / Extremes / other random content, is going to be perfection throughout. It never has been the case. But we not gonna sit here and try to make sweeping comments as if the whole thing is bad. Even comments in this thread and places like steam reviews, people can rate the MSQ down, but almost seem to unanimously enjoy where the battle content is right now, which is literally majority of the game.

Thus the game will be fine. You can doomer all you want but you wouldn't be the first or the last person to do it. People like yourself have shown up on these forums ever since ARR for literally every expansion to announce how the game is failing, will end etc and like those in the past, you will inevitably be proven wrong and delusional.

We can put every single SE property right now against FFXIV and can still confirm, none of them will outlast XIV, the main cash cow for the company. For XIV to fall, the company itself will have to go under which is nowhere on the horizon.

[Nothv13]

The fact that they even could salvage 1.0 is amazing and SB proves my point though. SB received the EXACT complaints DT has and probably even worse (general consensus on forums was people didn't like EITHER Ala Mhigo or Orthard). Forget Lyse versus Wuk Lamat, MOST people here and in-game hated Lyse. We are not about to try and rewrite history to try and engage the hate parade for DT. The only saving grace of SB at the time was battle design of raids and after a time but not initially, job balance. For jobs specifically, several people had issues with how they neutered everyone's kits especially the removal of synergy throughout the jobs. It was only during the Kefka raiding era that SB really started coming into its own with battle content, story MSQ and job balance that everyone more fondly refers to. 6.0 overall is reflected on extremely well in the community including the 6.X series. If you are consistently only on the forums, then yeah you would not get that feeling cause these forums are toxic af and ONLY trend negative.

SB reviewed, even at its release, far better than DT among both users and critics. Most common issues of DT dragging down the score is the story and Wuk. People hated Lyse, but we were not attached to the hip of her like we are Wuk despite being the focus, and Lyse actually had failures and wasn't forced to be loved. She ultimately had to earn her leadership position through failures and even at the end she wasn't beloved by her people. Wuk on the other hand leads us around like we are a little puppy dog and everyone just universally likes her, able to reverse potentially centuries of xenophobic cult like behavior with simple speeches. We aren't even allowed to be indifferent to her as the few time we get options to respond in such a way, another pipes in saying that the WoL doesn't actual feel such.

[Raven2014]

I mean, you're trying to pass it off as objectively bad by using aspects of literary theory and criticism. But nothing about literary criticism is objective and it never has been.

Literary standards have changed multiple times over the centuries. Some things that were once accepted as the "right way" to do things have fallen out of favor, and things that were once considered average, controversial, or bad, are now hailed as cornerstones of literature. Not to mention the fact that for every "rule" that there is about good writing, it can be subverted by someone that decides to purposefully break convention.

And ... what is exactly the point you're trying to make? Even if thing is not absolutely objective, that doesn't mean subjective is the one free get out of jail card. It's the same thing with "opinion". Sure, you can have any opinion you want, but what you cann't do is demand the opinion to be respected if it fails to stand up to merit.

- I hate anything Shakespeare and I can give a list of why I think its stupid. That won't change the fact his works is universally hold in high-regard.

- You can say the 5$ BigMac taste better than a craft-burger made from the finest cut of NewYork steak, and that's fine. But it won't change the fact the latter is much higher quality.

- You can claim your schoolband sounds 10x better than the performance of the Tokyo ochestra. And that's fine, maybe that's really true to you, but I hope you won't believe that you can convince anyone of that.

The point is, EW was hold to high esteemed universally while DT is criticized across the board. Sure, it may not be an scientifically and objectively fact and it's completely fine even if someone prefer DT over EW. But to defend DT's from an "objective" argument is a bit of a disillusion argument. To you, maybe a cheap patty does taste better than a cut of New York steak, but trying to make an objective/subjective argument out of it is really just waxing philosophy.