Are we destroying "our own" game?

[All_Nonsense]

Are here any people that actually enjoy the game? And if not.. where are they? I've heard player counts are looking good, and I tbh can imagine why.

I'll give you an answer but it requires some preamble so lemme yap for a second:

I was so far removed from the FF14 community except interactions solely in-game that I never really came to the forum except once or twice. And I don't touch the Reddit sub either. I frankly never cared, and why should I? Most people don't. But the writing in DT was so monumentally horrid that I came here to verify whether or not I had gone mentally insane or not. I've never hated the story in FF14 - I've lauded it as one of the best in the gaming industry. And that opinion has 180'd hardcore this expac. I don't care about Wuk Lamat's voice, or the fact that she's basically Jar Jar Binks, or any of that stuff. I care about writing quality. I just cannot get over how poorly written, executed, lacking of substance, and low-brow the entire DT story was. It was like the devs were intentionally trying to insult the player the entire time; I can't believe no one along the way stopped for a second to say "are we sure this is what we're doing for the story? Do we have the intended audience for this?"

Boring stories can be well written - they're called the classics, and honestly they're pretty good and I recommend them, if anything to assist with developing better reading comprehension so you can enjoy the things you read in life more. I have enough tenacity to read through a slog of a story, but I don't have patience for plot holes, over-use of lame tropes, excessive dues ex machina, or bad pacing. And so I'm here, shouting at a cloud, making no difference lol. Oh well.

The content - that is, 99.9% of our playtime in any given expac, is superb. The dungeon bosses, raids, and trials are some of the best they've put out, and the other planned content seems like it'll be very fun. That's why I'm even still here in the first place. Because the game is fun to play.

That's why we're upset and posting everywhere on this board. Not because we have a penchant for destroying the things we're purported to love, rather because we're captives here. We HAVE to experience the story in order to play the content for the rest of the expansion lifecycle. So the expectation is that it'll be GOOD story that a vast majority of players enjoy - much like it has been for most of the time FF14 has been out. Because the story has almost always been good, and because we spend a lot of money to play this game. We deserve a much higher quality product than what we got.

[SamSmoot]

The MSQ is just something I have to slog through to get some easy XP. I did watch all the cutscenes, except one that seemed to be running too long, so I skipped the remainder, which was a mistake, because it introduced a huge event in the story. "And the Land Would Tremble" in the Unending Journey.

[holydiver1286]

Can't speak for the rest of everyone else, but the only reason I'm posting here is because I hit a point with DT where I was like "This is absolutely dog water! Surely I'm not the only one that feels this way." And sure enough, people seem to agree that DT is the worst expansion we've ever had.

The people that may actually agree with this are the ones that play for the story and the story alone. The MSQ does not define an expansion.

- Heavensward had a great story. Was an average at best expansion though cause battle content was all over the place with jobs and quality of the content itself. Delete monk anyone? Alexander raids had a huge negative impact on the raiding scene for a long time. Diadem was a disaster for numerous reasons and had to be taken out of the game more than once.
- Stormblood had an average at best story and some people straight out hate it. Content though? Great expansion with the introduction of ultimate raids, 4 eureka zones, baldesion arsenal, the glamour dresser, the first area we could actually repair ourselves with the doman enclave. I'm sure there's more I could add to that list. And even if you don't play Eureka, so many people do and it has it's own fanbase that still enjoy it consistently to this day.
- Shadowbringers was kind of a great expansion all around for most people. Many Bozja enjoyers still around.
- Endwalker had a solid MSQ and brought great raids, but felt so empty outside of that. With the focus on solo gameplay and island sanctuary not living up to just about anyone's expectations, it was very easy to feel like there was nothing to do for a large part of the expansion's lifetime. If you were all leveled up and didn't raid or do something like criterion then there was next to nothing.
- Dawntrail is looking very similar to Stormblood. The MSQ is disliked by a lot of people, but the content (mainly battle only at this point) has been so good and makes a lot of things look promising for the rest of the 2 years that an expansion is current.

Long story short, judging an expansion by it's MSQ is a terrible way to look at it. You still have 2 years left of this expansion with a bunch of content yet to be added. Personally, I was ok with the story and I've been having a ton of fun between all the story dungeons, expert dungeons, extremes, chilling out with some fates, getting the mount and outfit from the world boss fates, leveling a bunch of jobs, etc. Hard disagree that it's worst expansion or that it's "dog water".

[DamianFatale]

Can't speak for the rest of everyone else, but the only reason I'm posting here is because I hit a point with DT where I was like "This is absolutely dog water! Surely I'm not the only one that feels this way." And sure enough, people seem to agree that DT is the worst expansion we've ever had.

Honestly I think it's the best. Endwalker was way too depressing. I got bored halfway through it and wanted the edge fest to just take a break. The only saving grace I found was Island Sanctuary.

[Isala]

Hard disagree that it's worst expansion or that it's "dog water".

I've posted it before, so I'll be briefer here.

This entire expansion is filled with "Yeah, but", even in the good parts. "Yeah, the sidequests are good, but there aren't enough of them." "Yeah, the combat content is better, but only the EXs and Raids, AND the Job designs still suck." "Yeah, the graphical update looks better, but it completely destroyed some player characters, doesn't work in certain zones, and destroyed performance for a lot of people" "Yeah, the zones are pretty, but they're more empty than AAAA open world games."

There is nothing in this entire expansion that elevates it above "dog water". Even the best parts of this expansions are mid compared to other expansions. DT was a depressing joke, and continues to be, especially if some of the planned Job changes go through in 7.05.

[holydiver1286]

I've posted it before, so I'll be briefer here.

This entire expansion is filled with "Yeah, but", even in the good parts. "Yeah, the sidequests are good, but there aren't enough of them." "Yeah, the combat content is better, but only the EXs and Raids, AND the Job designs still suck." "Yeah, the graphical update looks better, but it completely destroyed some player characters, doesn't work in certain zones, and destroyed performance for a lot of people" "Yeah, the zones are pretty, but they're more empty than AAAA open world games."

There is nothing in this entire expansion that elevates it above "dog water". Even the best parts of this expansions are mid compared to other expansions. DT was a depressing joke, and continues to be, especially if some of the planned Job changes go through in 7.05.

Hard disagree with a lot of that still, but you're entitled to your opinion.

[Pebeus]

The worst expansion is still Endwalker.

Yes, Endwalker not only had an aberrant story that destroyed everything the previous expansions tried to build, but it also had the worst dungeon design and bosses (except TOP) in the entire game, it homogenized jobs even more than Shadowbringers had done and also began to aggravate the constant recycling of weapons and armor, it was a horrible expansion both in story and in gameplay and content.

[Stizzle]

DT MSQ & story overall feels like you're just being dragged through someone else' bs - a someone else you really really could care less about. Wuk as a character is very meh. Often times during cutscenes I'd zone out wondering who tf is this and why are we here.
Content wise it is very engaging, including savage tier / ex etc.
Overall the best thing about this expac imo is the night music in some of the environment zones.

[Aurumis]

So many people started posting in the forums for the a lot of reasons involving DT, reason that is: healerstrike (the jobs are really need more love from devs part and they never listen, people is tired), tanks again being overpowered in this game, for Wuk Lamat which is the worst the game has offered in terms of story or characters and overall DT because it's purely shit and the problem that they fucked up with most model characters of the players and we are not really happy about it and want them to fix what they promised to fix instead of making it worse and ruin our characters.

[Raikai]

Hopefully Dawntrail follows Stormblood's steps:

Generally poorly received, but had a really amazing patch cycle, story inlcuded.