Dawntrail, Endwalkers, and the Death of 2.0

[Prestoalto]

as @Aldath has perfectly analyzed, FFXIV is dying. look at the number of topics open, there have never been so many for an expansion release. of course there are the critics, but if you look closely, everyone is trying to express their dismay, their discontent, their disappointment, their fear of losing their avatar... with chosen words, without aggression. "It's the fish on the bank that doesn't want to die".

DT will be the gravedigger of FFXIV.

[koko-on-da-forumz]

Funny that the foundations for the lore they created for 2.0 onwards wasn't even built by Yoshida's team. They just borrowed what was there and modified or built on top of it. The moment they had to make a new saga from scratch it turns out to be like disney movie aimed exclusively at kids and riddled with inconsistencies.

This is not really true.

Contrary to what people seem to believe (maybe because of Endwalker's marketing and presentation), there was never a "10 year long saga". There is very little common thread through any expansion, save for Endwalker being a direct sequel to Shadowbringers. Really, the only common themes have been "mysterious Ascians exist" (they've gone on record saying that they completely rewrote the lore for these guys to make ShB work), and "Garlemald", who presents in very different ways in each expansion.

Dawntrail's story is atrocious, but it's not their first time writing an original story. Just first time with this writer at the helm.

as @Aldath has perfectly analyzed, FFXIV is dying. look at the number of topics open, there have never been so many for an expansion release. of course there are the critics, but if you look closely, everyone is trying to express their dismay, their discontent, their disappointment, their fear of losing their avatar... with chosen words, without aggression. "It's the fish on the bank that doesn't want to die".

DT will be the gravedigger of FFXIV.

lol, why are you talking like a jrpg villain?

FFXIV is more popular and more successful than it has ever been, save for the launch of Endwalker. "The anime game where I don't have to think" is a better sell than "A great MMORPG", I imagine future expansions are just going to plateau at the EW/DT levels and stick there until it's time for a new game.

[genuine_stranger]

as @Aldath has perfectly analyzed, FFXIV is dying. look at the number of topics open, there have never been so many for an expansion release. of course there are the critics, but if you look closely, everyone is trying to express their dismay, their discontent, their disappointment, their fear of losing their avatar... with chosen words, without aggression. "It's the fish on the bank that doesn't want to die".

DT will be the gravedigger of FFXIV.

I don't think it'll happen this expansion if the content in the 7.x patches will be good.
Coming next expansion, however, it might be the case if they don't change things up. The stale formula, the homogenization of jobs, the lack of engaging gameplay during the MSQ and the same mechanics in battle content. The shiny paint begins to peel off for many.

[DisgracedDairy]

Am I being unrealistic in thinking it's unkind to expect 1 to 2 years of my life in order to course correct and fix this mess before 8.0?

Sivante had it spot on. They won't fix anything with 7.x because... I mean, was the last time they did that? And even then, no matter how good those quests are, they'd have to make up for miles and miles worth of exceptionally poor MSQ. And yes, it IS wrong to expect 1-2 whole years of the human lifespan to fix this. And that's on top of the FFXIV subscription fee.

[DonutSteel]

I find it ironic that Endsinger summarizes Endwalkers so well.

"And when one asked, 'What is the point?' there were none left to answer."

I find it even more ironic that you can look at ending of that entire segment of the Dead Ends as a metaphor for Endwalkers itself, taking a hammer to all the carefully laid groundwork placed before it with reckless abandon, leaving nothing but ashes of a realm reborn for anyone to engage with.

It's so deflating to watch the setting be stripped of anything to do or believe in. One of the reasons Dawntrail feels so bleak to me is because... It really just is. It has nothing to do with its original characters or setting.

For further listening on Myths of the Realm, I've always agreed with Echoes of Etheirys' aptly titled "Lore Chat: Myths of the Realm" on the subject matter, which I will link to here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reFKmiBAva4

Doing that one part of the questline with Menphina as a long-time Mooncat just straight up felt like a kick in the teeth considering the lore of Keepers of the Moon.

Having her theme be based off a Keeper folk song will never make up for it.

[angienessyo]

as @Aldath has perfectly analyzed, FFXIV is dying. look at the number of topics open, there have never been so many for an expansion release. of course there are the critics, but if you look closely, everyone is trying to express their dismay, their discontent, their disappointment, their fear of losing their avatar... with chosen words, without aggression. "It's the fish on the bank that doesn't want to die".

DT will be the gravedigger of FFXIV.

I mean, a lot of people hate on Stormblood to this day and that was when the player base started to increase. If the quality for the actual gameplay remains to be high, I don't think it's going to lose all that many players. And WoW still exists despite like 8 billion people complaining about that game on their official forums every day. (and they actually did lose a lot of players after Cata, but the game is still around like 13 years later)

[koko-on-da-forumz]

If the quality for the actual gameplay remains to be high

wait, there's a human alive who thinks the quality of ffxiv's gameplay is 'high'?

[Boblawblah]

wait, there's a human alive who thinks the quality of ffxiv's gameplay is 'high'?

What's your favorite part of FFXIV?

[koko-on-da-forumz]

In 2024? The fact that my friend of ten years still plays it and refuses to play anything else.

The stories have had highs, the battle system has had highs, the community has had highs, but all of those are far in the rear view mirror at this point.

[kaynide]

I mean, let’s talk realistically.

Most people can burn through the release MSQ in say, a month. The story is a big part of the game for me, but it’s only really there for that one month give or take my own theorycraft/musings. The rest of that is going to be what else we get to do. Each expansion had certain highs or lows, and really not until Endwalker did I feel a single expansion was subpar.

For HW, it was all still new and fresh, so almost anything was at least interesting. This is where deep dungeon/treasure maps came out. Hunts!

SB, the story was pretty bad, but the side content/mechanics/etc were really good. Love it or hate it, we got Eureka. That was a pretty big chunk of content many players probably even now haven’t touched. (Please update Eureka to allow Blu to farm skills there! Or Beastmaster)

ShB released a great story imho, but the content part was…just fine..I guess. Kinda stale, but fine. We also got Bozja, which was…ehh fine for me.

Theeeen we got Endwalker, which for me was pretty bad storywise, and near a year into it I really just didn’t have anything I wanted to do. Even island sanctuary was kinda…sure grind it out and now. There just wasn’t anything compelling (to me, personally) about Endwalker, or anything that drew me into wanting to play regularly.

Now, with Dawntrail, I’d say I loved about 1/2 of the story. It’s hard to judge it yet because we’ve still got 2 years to wait for it to wrap up….I’m just not sure I personally want to give it 2 whole years of my money if there’s nothing really compelling I want to do.


At this point I really only play because it’s something my wife and I like to do together. But she’s also not very interested these days (she just reached the moblin village in the MSQ, a month into the game).