Even our content creators cannot pretend to like the trashy writings of Dawntrail.

[Turtledeluxe]

No one is wrong for enjoying something that is "objectively bad", but that doesn't make the thing good. I feel like people have a lot of trouble accepting that.
At the same time, if you don't like something that's considered "objectively good", you're also not wrong. That doesn't make the thing bad.

The issue with Dawntrail is that, from what we've seen in the past, these objective quality problems were not there in past expansions. For people that are more used to noticing stuff like that, it's very glaring.

I agree that there are generally agreed upon, or in some cases indisputable rules of writing that determine whether or not a general audience will get a particular reaction. What I meant there was, as you are saying, every person's take on the story will be subjective. I'll be the first one to tell you that the consensus is what matters and obviously reviews show DT missed the mark.

The problem is as I said, Yoshi P can't really come out and apologize for the story because people who feel it was objectively good will then be invalidated. Maybe he can get away with "sorry if you were disappointed" but I just don't see that happening.

Right now I want to see all this as an experiment with fresh blood going wrong.
I still trust the devs.

Hm. It's an interesting perspective. I personally see it as symptomatic of two things-- SE's Financials and their outdated development practices. I'm not sure XIV had enough budget or time to handle a new expansion and the graphics update all at once. On top of that, CS3 is expected to also work on new games. For me the question is..Will SE finally do the right thing and allot a proper budget for this game? Can they figure out a different way to have CS3 work on new console games and the MMO at one time that allows the top creators to have an even workload? Those are my suspicions as of now and I hope we see meaningful change next time around.

[Windwalker]

Insanely boring expansion, storywise, walk there, walk back, talk talk talk, get rewarded food and a very tiny sum of XP... This expansion is marketed focusing on exploration and stuff. Were are the secret bosses, the treasures etc. FF14 is starting to get really stale.

In WoW you find treasures everywhere, secret bosses to kill for unique items, toys etc :\

Feels like FF11 did exploration better than 14.

Sure, dumbing down mechanics and putting everyone on a straight line is easier, but it loses alot when it comes to socialising, asking other players questions, watching walktroughs etc to find secret items and stuff. The overall world is really dull with nothing to do besides following the MSQ, doing dungeons, trials, raids, alliance raid the same dull system that has followed since HW. ARR experimented more when it first released "Green and Pink" items from dungeons as an example, but alot of things were removed and dumbed down over time.