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

[Achereon]

Looking at the Metacritic User scores for all the Online Final Fantasy we have:
FFXI = 7.4; FFXIV: 1.0 - 4.0; ARR - 7.7; HW - 8.7; SB - 8.9; ShB - 9.1; EW - 8.7 and DT - 6.0

SE really will need to address this it is not 1.0 damage but it is super close

[Shinku_Tachi]

SE really will need to address this it is not 1.0 damage but it is super close

You don't know what you're talking about.
The fact that you can comfortably type that says it all.
So, respectfully.

[royox]

I'm 99% sure the MSQ would have been received a bit more positively if there was more gameplay on it. More gameplay than "go here to speak to WL, go there to keep speaking with WL, come back to the first point to speak with WL, talk to this NPC about WL, come back to WL and tell her what the NPC said..." lemme press combat buttons! Throw me into a LOT of Solo duties with my WoL and the scions. Make it like a real FF not just the visual novel part. This is FIRST a videogame and the only times the MSQ made me do things was in 4 dungeons and 3 trials...that's like 2 hours of total gameplay in a 40h MSQ. Ridiculous.

[Achereon]

You don't know what you're talking about.
The fact that you can comfortably type that says it all.
So, respectfully.

this is not comfortable typing nor me not knowing what I am talking about but what i am seeing:

the fact that people believe this game has been a massive success when the contrary is there
the fact that we all know SE is not at the best place currently as they lost 150 million USD for just the 2023-2024 Financial year.
the fact that since 2021 aside from EW they had numerous failed titles where a lot of money was sunk into.
the fact that SE stocks has fell by 27% in the last 6 months
the fact that there was mass lay offs

so, my question is do you think SE will just ignore a game that has since its restructuring not once had such a division in reviews leaving it to go unnoticed, they might not address it physically, but I am certain they will do something about it companies can only last so long if games they produce keep failing.

it is sad to write, and I don't want to ever see a repeat of what happened prior to 1.0 I also do not wish it upon anyone but just looking at what is seen on the internet going through numerous articles; videos; comments; financial records one can see SE needed DT to be a massive success.

[Aldath]

I'm 99% sure the MSQ would have been received a bit more positively if there was more gameplay on it. More gameplay than "go here to speak to WL, go there to keep speaking with WL, come back to the first point to speak with WL, talk to this NPC about WL, come back to WL and tell her what the NPC said..." lemme press combat buttons! Throw me into a LOT of Solo duties with my WoL and the scions. Make it like a real FF not just the visual novel part. This is FIRST a videogame and the only times the MSQ made me do things was in 4 dungeons and 3 trials...that's like 2 hours of total gameplay in a 40h MSQ. Ridiculous.

I think there's plenty of people who are growing tired of the narrative style of FFXIV, as in, over dependence of living expository dialogue with long stretches of walking in between... But I don't think that's ever gonna change. First, it seems that the Japanese audience has zero issues with it, and we know they're the only voice that matters. Second if CBU3 has left something clear is that they should remove the C from the company name, because they're everything but Creative. They haven't tried anything new since HW

[Zakuyia]

This is such an absurd post it's hard to even like fully comprehend that a serious person is actually saying this stuff.

They put out 10 years of bangers, start a new story from scratch, and y'all can't even let them get past the opener before calling it a failure.

I think you all live in a little bubble where you actually believe everyone around you hated it or something. Grow up.

Look everyone allowed a view if your view aligns with this person get some help and stop being on net. We need WOL not unhinged of light. If ppl dont like it ppl dont like it. You need to chill and touch some dirt.

[Shinku_Tachi]

this is not comfortable typing nor me not knowing what I am talking about but what i am seeing:

the fact that people believe this game has been a massive success when the contrary is there
the fact that we all know SE is not at the best place currently as they lost 150 million USD for just the 2023-2024 Financial year.
the fact that since 2021 aside from EW they had numerous failed titles where a lot of money was sunk into.
the fact that SE stocks has fell by 27% in the last 6 months
the fact that there was mass lay offs

so, my question is do you think SE will just ignore a game that has since its restructuring not once had such a division in reviews leaving it to go unnoticed, they might not address it physically, but I am certain they will do something about it companies can only last so long if games they produce keep failing.

it is sad to write, and I don't want to ever see a repeat of what happened prior to 1.0 I also do not wish it upon anyone but just looking at what is seen on the internet going through numerous articles; videos; comments; financial records one can see SE needed DT to be a massive success.

First off, I said what I said because you said Dawntrail is "super close" to 1.0 damage. It's not even close. Anyone who was around back then knows better.

Secondly, regarding the "the fact that" stuff, Eurogamer just released an article stating that despite the issues in other sectors, the MMO sector saw a rise in sales and profits.

As for your question to me, that depends more on player data and player retention. Dawntrail and Wuk Lamat hate threads and angry user reviews can be posted till the cows come home, but unless the player data corroborates that, it means nothing. While Dawntrail isn't as beloved as Heavensward or Shadowbringers, the Dawntrail doomsday narrative is nonsense, reviews from games press are generally favorable and user reviews are more mixed.

So, if you're sad, turn that frown upside down. While it may not be ideal for you now, 14 isn't falling apart, and we're not anywhere near a 1.0 crisis, not by a country mile.

[Turtledeluxe]

Irrespective of of how SE is doing, it's interesting to look at player trends on Steam (which can undoubtedly be used to roughly extrapolate general subscribers) and see that the game hits high points on expansion release months, ans then downtrends in the months afterward. DT is doing pretty normally and even at its weakest, is outdoing any given middle of patch period in active players. So yeah, it's no wonder SE isn't rushing to do anything to do anything much about the game. From their perspective DT did a decent job bringing back most of EW fans. That said, it's also a strong reason why you should vote with your wallet if you don't like the direction the game is going.

[Naoki34]

I haven't played DT yet. But didn't SB have a strong female leader also? I don't recall anyone making star wars comparison or crying 'woke.'

You didn't play it, so don't talk about woke... Because it's off-topic. And you've got to stop with all this woke talk...

The problem with Wuk Lamat isn't a woke problem, after the 1st part of the story, she becomes a powerful character, but that's not the problem.

She's an inconsistent character, absolutely too good for her own good and badly written.

The scions are “divided” and we find ourselves following a princess who knows nothing about life, we babysit the 1st part of MSQ and for the 2nd part, she's just too nice for her own good against all logic.

Everyone says “Wuk Lamat must die” but the problem isn't just about her. When you come out of a ShB and EW, it just sucks. The normal 8-story raid sucks, the last zone well, you don't get the wow effect of previous expansions. There are people who loved it, but there are also a lot of people who hated it, just look at the Metacritic rating from players, not the rating from the so-called pro media.

___
Removing all that, dungeons require “a little” more skill, and so all the casuals crying “PvE too hard” is a Skills Issues problem, nothing else. Oh yes, people are crying because they can't do their dungeons with their hands down their pants.

You just have to be vigilant, or you can die over and over again, just like on content that requires a little vigilance, nothing insurmountable, but people exaggerate.

PvE content is cool, at least I'm having fun, but that's all there is. It's just tasteless Gear that doesn't make you want to farm for it. And so we're left to make do with 2-color dyeing with Job Relics and Cashop's outfit, to make ourselves look good.

___
Anyway forgettable MSQ, forgettable zone, I only liked Yak'Tel's BGM, I'm avoiding the new Tuli-Jazz capital whose BGM is so irrelevant, too bad... If SE had put Yak'Tel day's BGM, it would have been perfect at least. I sometimes hang out at Solution Nine, but that's about it.

I don't have the WoaW effect of Elpis, Ultima Thule, Old Sharlayan, Moon. at ShB once the MSQ was over, I used to hang around the zones quite a bit for the atmosphere and the BGM, here... I'm going back to the old expansion zones. And I turn off BGM in Tuli-Jazz and Raid normal (Arcadion).

And we've got a typical "save Afrika" BGM (I say that because it reminds me of We're the world - USA for Afrika from the '80s) with “Smile” used at times that really don't match the moment ever.
We're building a bomb to blow something up, everyone comes to help, and we get this “Smile” track that makes it feel like it's my party, the world is wonderful, it's even the final theme of Dawntrail, a far cry from EW's Flow or ShB's Tomorow to Tomorow.

Yes, some people find DT grandiose for the zones, but not for me...

[IvoryHawk]

With WoW's new expac coming out in like 5 days instead of the usual within the same time as FFXIV's expansions/patches (which i think would have been terrible for FFXIV this time around if that did happen) it'll be interesting to see the drop off, i know a lot of people i play with ditching 14 for it.