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

[Ayan_Calvesse]

I think it general MMO growth is in decline; a example would be the steam charts showing that Dawntrail did not maintain a higher peak playerbase as Endwalker; which looking at the trends since HW Steam charts have showed a increase in peak player base (Storm 25k, Shadow 38K Endwalker 95k; Dawn 91k) So just using that singular example of hard data we are seeing a decline - word of mouth deterring players from returning; keep in mind this is only Steam and technically has not been out for a month (shy by 5 days due to EA)

Source
https://steamcharts.com/app/39210

That said I think folks are leaning too much on the MSQ; as I do not have the same fond memories of ARR that everyone else does; I was here before then and honestly I didn't enjoy most the ARR storytelling and then HW kicked things into high gear...Stormblood deflated it with what felt like a "sideshow"; then Shadowbringers hooked us back into a storyline we were invested in and Endwalker brings it home.

If we follow this writing Flow then we should expect Dawntrail to introduce a LOT of characters and arcs; our HW 2 on the horizon will I suspect probably take us to Mercidia (or whatever is our Fish out of Water sort of established civilization that transformed like how Ishgard did) I think ultimately the dislike of the MSQ largely falls on how unlike ARR it really was Wuk Lamats story....right up to the incredibly disappointing Trial 3 boss fight. That said at this point there isn't really a story we are in yet - we just got a lot of world building and character introduction and by Yoshi's own admission - there isn't a story yet so I treat most of DT MSQ as filler to set up noteworthy characters. My concern only being that it felt like they tied off a LOT of loose ends by the stories end; but a few really are worth considering and I remain optimistic for what route they take with the story as we will likely now be dealing with the politics of Tuli in the wake of the events of the MSQ.

[tsuchii]

It will not be addressed.
The game is still mixed to positive reviews, and sold tons.

The forum never held any weight or merit to receive a response.

[Havenchild]

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.

Funny enough, Lyse back then was definitely railed on by the forums for being inconsiderate of peoples cultures and situations back then because she barged headfirst into every issue repeatedly without understanding. One of the biggest complaints was literally the exact same we get for Wuk now, overly present, stupid writing etc.
Wuk Lamat is actually doing the opposite of what Lyse did by trying to understand a culture before coming up with a solution etc. People here still don't like that writing either. This is why devs should not respect forum feedback, because the forums are fickle.

People here seem to have bad long term memory with regards to SB, I for one do not. The fact that we now have people defending SB writing and Lyse of all people is not only hilarious but inducing a crazy sense of whiplash.

[Nothv13]

Funny enough, Lyse back then was definitely railed on by the forums for being inconsiderate of peoples cultures and situations back then because she barged headfirst into every issue repeatedly without understanding. One of the biggest complaints was literally the exact same we get for Wuk now, overly present, stupid writing etc.
Wuk Lamat is actually doing the opposite of what Lyse did by trying to understand a culture before coming up with a solution etc. People here still don't like that writing either. This is why devs should not respect forum feedback, because the forums are fickle.

People here seem to have bad long term memory with regards to SB, I for one do not. The fact that we now have people defending SB writing and Lyse of all people is not only hilarious but inducing a crazy sense of whiplash.

Yes, Lyse was punished for her behavior and overly present. However, compared to Wuk, lyse is barely present at all. When 138 times the quest objective is "Talk to Wuk Lamat" in a single expansion they are 100% far too present. Hell at one point they had to switch it up to "Talk to Wuk Lamat again".

They don't like Wuk, because solutions always work with no hassle. There is zero reason for the extremely xenophobic, distrustful and cultlike Mamool Ja to just about face on their stances because some other nation across the salt may have plants that will work.

In essence she swings to far to the otherside of Lyse while being even more present and shoved down our throats and doesn't fail like Lyse does. We are apparently supposed to be in a mentor role, but we never act like a mentor, only a cheerleader. We should be acting more like how Hein treated Lyse, which was not simply cheering her on.

[Valorak]

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.

To re-summarize, my point was to show that literary criticism just supports a person's personal subjective opinion on a work. But it does not, and never will, make it anything beyond a subjective opinion. No matter how detailed you make your analysis of it. That was really my sole interest in the topic.

But if you're reaaaaally attempting to use popular opinion as a metric to show that a subjective opinion is more right, then I'd like to take the opportunity to remind you that, as imperfect as review sites are, Steam still has Dawntrail holding at 61% positive user reviews, and Metacritic has balanced around 52% positive, 13% mixed, and 35% negative. As well as generally favorable critical reviews. So doesn't that mean that your opinion is the one in question by your own estimations? Doesn't sound like it's being "criticized across the board" to me.

[Nothv13]

But if you're reaaaaally attempting to use popular opinion as a metric to show that a subjective opinion is more right, then I'd like to take the opportunity to remind you that, as imperfect as review sites are, Steam still has Dawntrail holding at 61% positive user reviews, and Metacritic has balanced around 52% positive, 13% mixed, and 35% negative. As well as generally favorable critical reviews. So doesn't that mean that your opinion is the one in question by your own estimations? Doesn't sound like it's being "criticized across the board" to me.

Those are absolutely horrendous scores for a video game. Particularly one that has been pulling mid to high 80's since 2.0 including the expansion that was considered to be bad (SB). The only thing saving the score from being lower is that the new jobs are good, combat design is good and music for the most part is good. Hell I've read quite a few reviews calling the game good while mentioning how absolutely horrid the story is, they just place less value on the story.

[Raven2014]

But if you're reaaaaally attempting to use popular opinion as a metric to show that a subjective opinion is more right, then I'd like to take the opportunity to remind you that, as imperfect as review sites are, Steam still has Dawntrail holding at 61% positive user reviews, and Metacritic has balanced around 52% positive, 13% mixed, and 35% negative. As well as generally favorable critical reviews. So doesn't that mean that your opinion is the one in question by your own estimations? Doesn't sound like it's being "criticized across the board" to me.

And ... you are aware that all of those numbers are much lower than all previous entries on the same platform across the board ... right? If you run a business that has been enjoying 8 to 10 rating for a decade, and now you get hit by a 5 or a 6 ... do you really think anyone gonna say "well it's ok because that's still above average" is providing a ... sensible defense? Like ... really?

I still don't get your point beside just waxing pointless philosophy. If you have product that went from a 9;10/10 down to 5;6/10, THAT - in itself is a problem. That's not a subjective, that's objective because guess what, it's just simple math, it's number. So the claim that DT has a problem is not subjective, it's objective. What you're demonstrating is a lack in understanding quantitative literacy. The negation of "everything" is not "nothing", or vice versa. If almost everyone liked it before, you don't have to wait until no one like it any more to conclude you have a problem. No one, in no field being marketing, politic, activism, economy .etc. gonna say having a positive opinion (yes, even if it's just opinions) going from a super majority down to barely a simple majority as not an issue. Managers and campaign staffs would be fired for less.


And those who try to debate it as "oh it's still majority" - well, they have a denial problem.

[Xellith]

Steam still has Dawntrail holding at 61% positive user reviews.

It's actually at 60% at the moment. I suspect it will settle at 58% and then rise slightly if the patch content is good.

[Valorak]

Those are absolutely horrendous scores for a video game. Particularly one that has been pulling mid to high 80's since 2.0 including the expansion that was considered to be bad (SB). The only thing saving the score from being lower is that the new jobs are good, combat design is good and music for the most part is good. Hell I've read quite a few reviews calling the game good while mentioning how absolutely horrid the story is, they just place less value on the story.

And I've read a number of reviews that say they don't really care about the story but they're tired of the gameplay loop remaining unchanged, or are unhappy with graphics changes, or yadda yadda yadda. Not to mention that we could also factor in that more people come online to complain than they do to say positive things. Or that you're more likely to find a certain kind of person on forums/review sites. There are numerous factors on both sides that could be having an effect. I have zero interest in attempting to analyze those things down to singular points of data though.

If someone wants to neck beard that hard over trying to prove that a game's story is "bad" or not, then feel free. Someone will always be able to poke holes in your data thanks to the fact that you're getting it from the internet, though. And since this is all subjective, I also have no ability or interest in trying to claim that the story is objectively good, nor the desire to hang around here talking all day.

Just wanted to point out to Raven that more people still seem to like it than to dislike it since he brought up using popular opinion to determine the quality of a subjective topic.

[Valorak]

And ... you are aware that all of those numbers are much lower than all previous entries on the same platform across the board ... right? If you run a business that has been enjoying 8 to 10 rating for a decade, and now you get hit by a 5 or a 6 ... do you really think anyone gonna say "well it's ok because that's still above average" is providing a ... sensible defense? Like ... really?

I still don't get your point beside just waxing pointless philosophy. If you have product that went from a 9;10/10 down to 5;6/10, THAT - in itself is a problem. That's not a subjective, that's objective because guess what, it's just simple math, it's number. So the claim that DT has a problem is not subjective, it's objective. What you're demonstrating is a lack in understanding quantitative literacy. The negation of "everything" is not "nothing", or vice versa. If almost everyone liked it before, you don't have to wait until no one like it any more to conclude you have a problem. No one, in no field being marketing, politic, activism, economy .etc. gonna say having a positive opinion (yes, even if it's just opinions) going from a super majority down to barely a simple majority as not an issue. Managers and campaign staffs would be fired for less.


And those who try to debate it as "oh it's still majority" - well, they have a denial problem.

Oh boy. I think you're really confusing yourself on what I was posting about, which was that literary criticism doesn't equate to objective truth about the quality of a story. That was the avenue that poster I responded to was attacking the story on. If you don't understand why I was making that post then don't bend yourself out of shape about it. It wasn't aimed at you.

I don't really care at all about the fact that the story is divisive and that there are people that don't like it. They're free to. And you're free to try to point out where I said that it wasn't divisive, or that negative opinions of the story don't count for anything, or that Square shouldn't pay attention, or blah blah blah, but good luck on that journey.