Are we destroying "our own" game?

[Nasigno]

Final Fantasy XIV is no longer at its peak and Square Enix is taking the revenue to recoup their 70% loss in profits last year. It also "promoted" Naoki Yoshida and Natsuko Ishikawa to non-FFXIV projects to fix the company. So no, "we" aren't destroying FFXIV, Square Enix is. Just like so many other companies, it cut corners in its core product to save money and please shareholders. Fortunately, every other company is also in a race to the bottom and FFXIV is a tad slower than the others in its decline, so it's still worth playing. It'll soon become apparent though that the story will fail to draw new people and players won't stay excited about the new content due to floor-tanking and being clipped by lag. It's okay to enjoy the game as-is but people need realistic expectations and not to deify the devs.

That is a bit of a hot take. Albiet has some rather truth to some of the matters. I'll not apologize for Square Enix as quite a many do. Yes. Square Enix did lose a good chunk of its stock value due to poor performances. FFXVI being one of them, of which I'd say Sony had a hand in as well. I do not think 16 did as well and it was apparent which has some long term impacts that SE is now facing. Which yes, they are looking to cut corners, we all know that or should. It is a business, and when you lose 30% of your value you risk the loss of capital from outside shareholders. So yes, they have to appease them as otherwise no money = no game. Same with players, it is a win-win as long they produce quality products. Granted I do see Cloud servers and other items they have been considering as cost savers as much as releasing the game with incremental graphics updates / new combat encounter system as the stop-gap solution to release product on time and actually keep revenue coming in. Do I agree with them? Not exactly, but you have to keep the lights on and another debacle of delay like Endwalker would of caused problems.

As for FFXIV not being at its peak. Statistical data says otherwise. Dawntrail is performing better than Endwalker did. Which both represent the larger concurrent amount of users that are actively playing the game and generating revenue. Dawntrail likewise as per any metric you can actually source has already held player retention well outside of what Endwalker did in same timeframe from release. Endwalker first month saw a noticeable drop in players within the first month, we are not seeing that with Dawntrail. How long will it remain as such? Not sure, but by pure numbers Dawntrail is doing better than previous expansion.

I will however not say it is the action packed, high stakes story that everyone was apparently hoping for? I do not see how anyone expects a Shadowbringer level story with only 7.0 MSQ only. Shadowbringers had 8 years of build up and story telling to reach the point. Dawntrail is the second ARR basically. Give it time and wait for the story to build.

[Rekh]

There are a lot of locations where it is disussed though. I don't know how many times that was already said and even my tone is starting to get sharper now because this take is so often brought up and already answered.
There is the forum (english and japanese), there is reddit, there is YouTube, there is twitch, there is 4chan / 5chan and several japanese sites, there is steam, there are other mmo-forums.
The story is the big thing of this expansion being discussed with lots and lots of back and force.

There doesn't seem to be any majority on either vocal site to be found.

I get the anectodal part and players not encountering stuff (I encountered negativity ingame) and i get liking the story. that's absolutely ok and no one asks those to chnage theri opinion.

But all of you should stop already with this stupid take of only this forum being unhappy with the MSQ. It doesn't help your standpoint at all.

Edit:
After reading your other responses it's clear you are just a troll trying to get a kick of antagonising people.
Won't waste my time on you any further.

Couldn't stand to see someone liking DT msq? It's ok, you'll live.

"Feedback is expressed in all* locations where the community exists, including** in-game" which means all* locations and not limited to** in game.



and then you whittle down your orignial post, outright contradicting it to remove Steam from inclusion. Your original comment includes Steam by nature of including all communities. But you claim that your original post never included Steam. Read it again.

I'm done. As much as I'm going to miss conversing with a person who struggles to keep "haha"; "you're cluleless"; "this is hard for you to understand", out of their post, I won't.

This is you right now
You'd be a good salesman/woman of broken records since you continue to not quote my entire posts. But you do you; you think you're slick but you're not.

It's not my fault that you pretend that you know what you're reading when you're only half quoting and/or piecing together quotes in certain ways to suit your empty arguments.

[Daralii]

I will however not say it is the action packed, high stakes story that everyone was apparently hoping for? I do not see how anyone expects a Shadowbringer level story with only 7.0 MSQ only. Shadowbringers had 8 years of build up and story telling to reach the point. Dawntrail is the second ARR basically. Give it time and wait for the story to build.

Don't take this personally, but I'm so tired of seeing this argument. ARR set up the ongoing conflicts with the Ascians, Empire, beast tribes(as well as their internal issues), and ongoing political tension between the city-states as well as political tension within them. DT has nothing like that, and by the end of it everyone is completely unified behind Queen Wuk Lamat and peace and love for everyone. The hourglass/key resonating with Azem's crystal means we still haven't moved on from Amaurot and the slate hasn't been wiped clean.

[Nothv13]

As for FFXIV not being at its peak. Statistical data says otherwise. Dawntrail is performing better than Endwalker did. Which both represent the larger concurrent amount of users that are actively playing the game and generating revenue. Dawntrail likewise as per any metric you can actually source has already held player retention well outside of what Endwalker did in same timeframe from release. Endwalker first month saw a noticeable drop in players within the first month, we are not seeing that with Dawntrail. How long will it remain as such? Not sure, but by pure numbers Dawntrail is doing better than previous expansion.

Citation needed. Looking at Steamcharts, really the only place we can get numbers, Endwalker peaked higher than DT on release and DT has not been out long enough to compare to longevity. DT is in all likelihood riding on eth success of ShB and EW. Could the endgame be enough to keep more people? Potentially, but that does not mean that people don't think that the MSQ is utter crap, just means they want to get to the good part.

[Voidmage]

Couldn't stand to see someone liking DT msq? It's ok, you'll live.

Your answer clearly proved my point and showed that you never even read any of my other posts on this forum.
But it's ok, you'll live. On my ignore list.

Have a nice day.


Edit:
And he lost the argument.
Cute

[Ruris]

I am glad DT happened. It needed to happen. Cause now the only ones not stepping back and saying, "oh...wait, this is not good" we know are the ones who are either lacking knowledge in literary and narrative areas (which is perfectly fine), or just part of the foaming at the mouth fandom. And you can always tell which one is which by their responses.

This post resonates with me. I'm someone who came over for ShB and was enamoured with it. EW had a lot of high points for me, and also a lot of low points that I would have liked to have talked about. Any kind of meaningful and productive discussion but you paint the picture of the online EW fanbase presence perfectly, to a point I don't need to. I said similar on this forum a while back, that the current DT climate is also a bit of karma for the then lack of emotional regulating players showcased that didn't allow them to tolerate healthy discussion. Just remove it from their sight so no one else could see it and possibly agree with it. Reddit is still like this, though I am seeing a lot more positive Dawntrail posts get downvoted in similar fashion lately, which really is telling of how poorly Dawntrail is being received.

This is why users here who are posting threads of this nature either have no idea of how the online scene looks for this fanbase, or opting to dismiss it and try and make this place a 'sweep the negativity under the rug' too. I've seen a few posts again today of users claiming that the poor form of Dawntrail is what prompted them to post here for the first time. Including myself. I do think we get a bit hotheaded in here but I don't think for a second that hyperbolic posts such as the original purpose of this thread is something that is appreciated by people trying to give some constructive feedback.

[Rekh]

Your answer clearly proved my point and showed that you never even read any of my other posts on this forum.
But it's ok, you'll live. On my ignore list.

Another s-flake who couldn't handle the fire, of discussion, so they threw themselves out of the kitchen.
If you can't see someone enjoying DT that's an you issue.

[OvernightSiren]

The short answer is no. The long answer is also no. We're airing grievances about a product that we pay for.

This is not a free thing. The devs are not doing us a favor by developing the game. We're not honor bound to love everything they put out and to be grateful for it all to the point that we absolve them of any critique.

We are purchasing a product from them. We are paying them. If someone is not happy with something that they are A) paying for and B) have paid for faithfully for years, it's understandable to provide feedback when you dislike the current state of said product especially in an MMO where the *previous* state of the product (that you may have enjoyed more) is no longer playable due to patch updates, etc.

You need to allow space for negative opinions just as you would for positive ones because neither one is more valid than the other.

[Boblawblah]

Your answer clearly proved my point and showed that you never even read any of my other posts on this forum.
But it's ok, you'll live. On my ignore list.

Have a nice day.


Edit:
And he lost the argument.
Cute

omg, that edit lol

[Fawkes]

I never checked this froum in the past and just came here recently to look for the "community voice" but.. is it really that bad? Are people that mad about DT or was it always like that in the forum? Maybe someone that observed the forum for a few years can tell me.

There was a noticeable increase in negative nancys post-shadowbringers.

They've got a huge thread about Endwalker's story being bad, so it's more than likely that some of the hate you're seeing is overblown by people who just want to be mad.


That said, I think Dawntrail is definitely worse. It feels like a return to Stormblood quality to me. The scions are dumb again, none of the dialogue choices matter at all, the stuff I felt like Shadowbringers/Endwalker had fixed about the MSQ seems like it was reverted.