After Dawntrails abject Failure of a Story, there need to be serious Consequences

[Kazemon15]

Very well, I can also work with statistics if you so insist.

According to the most recent article that really went into his in 2023, Final Fantasy XIV at the time had an estimated daily player count of 493,667, of which 20,014 on steam. That means that if you base yourself on the movement of the Steam numbers, we are availing ourselves of very close to 1:25 of the total population. One in every twenty-five players is part of the sample.

That is a larger sample size representation than we use for quality assurance in microchip production, automobile manufacture, polls for who is going to win the next US elections, or even nuclear safety.

So insist if you will that as far as you are concerned Steam users are too tiny a fraction of the population to treat them as a sample for trends, but you will en passant need to argue that as you are concerned almost every use of statistics underpinning our societies, science and industry means nothing.

Okay, thank you for the numbers. Would you mind linking the article? Because sometimes, articles still do not have the big picture, I would like to verify its source and what website it came from. And I would argue that in 2023, yes the playerbase was at a low, but that always happens. Post-MSQ, in-between patches are going to be at an all-time low where people are going to play other things while waiting for the next patch. It has been a thing since 2015, when HW first came out. The numbers are going to fluctuate.

According to the statistics they linked btw (https://steamcharts.com/app/39210), peak being around 94k on steam, and taking the almost 500k into account, then yeah, roughly 20% of the playerbase, as I said. So, I'm not sure I get this but, why is it okay to based statistics on 20% of the population? Please make me understand why ignoring 80% of the playerbase/population is a good statistic for things? And if that is how other companies do so as well, basing it on 20%, then yes, I will say that. Because it's largely ignoring the majority and should be looked at.

[Alchemii]

Okay, let me put that to the test.

Her power coming from nowhere? Hm... let's see. During her battle with Bakool Ja Ja, she mentioned that she has learned what was important to her and no matter what, those feelings will pull her through. What did we learn in Endwalker? Dynamis is another source of energy, another source of strength, heck the entire second half was about how Dynamis can empower people, and even limit breaks are Dynamis based. What did she use for most of the fight to defeat him? Limit breaks.

You need to put two and two together to figure that out, because they don't hold your hand to explain it to your face, which people have been complaining about by the way, but the moment they don't, it's suddenly "bad storytelling" because they don't. So which is it? Do you need it to be explained, or can you use the past story experiences and think and then apply it to the situation?

The Scions personalities are also just fine. In no way they are "cheerleaders", they are however, emotional support. We had tons of threads saying the scions overstayed their welcome and want new characters...and yet not people are mad they aren't the focus? Wuk Lamat needed to be a less developed in order to develop her in the story, which she was. Yes, her personality (which people find annoying but that isn't a character flaw, some personalities you aren't gonna mesh with) stays the same, but her naiveness and innocence slowly grew overtime, if you paid attention. You need to develop new characters when you introduce them or the story will go nowhere. But no, the scions weren't the focus this time and a new character was the main focus, because she wasn't developed yet...but last expansion, people wanted a new character to see their development and not the scions... ...Please make up your mind.

There is no evidence of anyone on the Source being able to use Dynamis like that. That entire argument is nothing but a Fanfic solution you came up with in your own head and are now trying to push as fact. Limit Break doesn't hold up either, and you know it.

Your second argument makes no sense.

Third argument starts off with you whining that people aren't ok with stuff you think is fine, then devolves into you trying to strawman and push things on me that I never said. So you can't make an actual coherent argument, and instead need to try and strawman me to push your bad taste in stories and games. Maybe you should go back to reading tumblr fanfics, those seems to be more what your looking for.

[Kazemon15]

Even Dynamis isn't that extreme...

Had to shorten the quote for limits on posting, but...
Did we not see the havoc of what the Endsinger has done? To say Dynamis isn't that extreme would be ignoring the Final Days. And to add to this why others can fail (Haurchefant), again, we seen it in Endwalker. Dynamis can be good or bad. Putting faith into strength has always been FFXIV plot point, they just gave it a tangible name. The "power of friendship" trope seen in 90% of anime, that's basically Dynamis. Are we saying 90% of the shows who use this trope are considered bad writing? As for using limit break, the Scions have time and again were able to access limit break when you play them in solo duties, so again, if they can, why can't Wuk Lamat? Not to mention, the enemies can also access Dynamis (As we saw with Endsinger/Meteion), so yeah, it really depends on who's "feelings" are strongest in that moment.

And as a major G'raha fan, I disagree. The Endless need aether to sustain themselves indefinitely. Their aether reserves were diminishing. Yes, we could have let them "die" naturally once the reserves were done, but they explicitly stated that the Mesoterminal would not be able to be accessed unless the other terminals were shut down. How would they go about accessing the terminal then? I'm pretty sure if the dynamis beings on Ultima Thule were to go after their home planet, G'raha would be destroying them as well, even if he was conflicted, but they were ultimately harmless, so they let them be and tried to understand their circumstances.

As for the Levin sickness, the story is not over yet. Hell Alisaie didn't even do the Light-aspected aether sickness for Halric until the patch quests. Who's to say she won't help the levin sickness now that the dangers have passed? And as for the other things, again, the story isn't over yet. We still got the patch quests to see if the Scions try and help these issues.

[Kazemon15]

There is no evidence of anyone on the Source being able to use Dynamis like that. That entire argument is nothing but a Fanfic solution you came up with in your own head and are now trying to push as fact. Limit Break doesn't hold up either, and you know it.

Your second argument makes no sense.

Third argument starts off with you whining that people aren't ok with stuff you think is fine, then devolves into you trying to strawman and push things on me that I never said. So you can't make an actual coherent argument, and instead need to try and strawman me to push your bad taste in stories and games. Maybe you should go back to reading tumblr fanfics, those seems to be more what your looking for.

I was using a general consensus of what had happened in the past 2 years during Endwalkers massive "complaint" about the story, so not all was directed at you, but I did use them to convey my points of the general opinion of those who have complained over and over again, if that makes sense. The complaint that people don't want their hand held when plot stuff is being explained, so they don't this time, but then people can't figure it out and then complain it makes no sense. Or the complaint that people want new characters, and when they get the new characters, they still complain. And I have made my arguments clear, you just refused to take it into account. "Well that's stupid, I don't believe that", but I listed tangible reasons why, based on the storybeats of the previous expansions, because this is one long story, not separate stories that have no connection to each other. Scions used Limit breaks in their solo duty instances all the time, so it does hold up and you know it.

[Mr_Gyactus]

Another useless thread derailed.

...unless there is any indication

like, for example, an X-box version launch?
like, for example, an higher pc requirement to run the game smoothly (and graphic cards cost more than a console).

[PassinLay]

Another useless thread derailed.



like, for example, an X-box version launch?
like, for example, an higher pc requirement to run the game smoothly (and graphic cards cost more than a console).

Lmao.

Okay, thank you for the numbers. Would you mind linking the article? Because sometimes, articles still do not have the big picture, I would like to verify its source and what website it came from. And I would argue that in 2023, yes the playerbase was at a low, but that always happens. Post-MSQ, in-between patches are going to be at an all-time low where people are going to play other things while waiting for the next patch. It has been a thing since 2015, when HW first came out. The numbers are going to fluctuate.

According to the statistics they linked btw (https://steamcharts.com/app/39210), peak being around 94k on steam, and taking the almost 500k into account, then yeah, roughly 20% of the playerbase, as I said. So, I'm not sure I get this but, why is it okay to based statistics on 20% of the population? Please make me understand why ignoring 80% of the playerbase/population is a good statistic for things? And if that is how other companies do so as well, basing it on 20%, then yes, I will say that. Because it's largely ignoring the majority and should be looked at.

Its called statistics.

Another useless thread derailed.



like, for example, an X-box version launch?
like, for example, an higher pc requirement to run the game smoothly (and graphic cards cost more than a console).

Those should have got us to an increase (according to you) not a decrease, and what we got is a decrease.

Also xbox players are an extremely minuscule minority of players, go around and ask players if they are on Xbox, I'll be waiting.

And lol @ the graphic card excuse, its not that hard to get one.

[Eyrilona]

Okay, thank you for the numbers. Would you mind linking the article? Because sometimes, articles still do not have the big picture, I would like to verify its source and what website it came from.

<snip>

According to the statistics they linked btw (https://steamcharts.com/app/39210), peak being around 94k on steam, and taking the almost 500k into account, then yeah, roughly 20% of the playerbase, as I said. So, I'm not sure I get this but, why is it okay to based statistics on 20% of the population? Please make me understand why ignoring 80% of the playerbase/population is a good statistic for things? And if that is how other companies do so as well, basing it on 20%, then yes, I will say that. Because it's largely ignoring the majority and should be looked at.

Naturally. These were the sources: daily player numbers were sourced from numbers tracked by https://mmo-population.com/r/ffxiv and Steam's public information respectively, and put side by side in this article by Dexerto https://www.dexerto.com/final-fantas...-2023-2112769/

As for your second question.. I am concerned you have a fundamental misunderstanding about how statistics work and what they are. Mathematically sound, probability based methods for approximating things for a large population based on a small representative sample of that population is exactly what statistics is. If you have a sample size that is 20% of the total population, you are not ignoring the other 80%, the other 80% are represented by the 20% that you do sample. If you are not happy until you are sample size is 100% of your population size.. you are not even doing statistics anymore, that is just a head count.

For example, the FDA approved 55 new medicines in 2023. Each of those medicines comes with whole sheets of numbers, like, "The chance of this or that side effect is 4%". Did you personally take each of those 55 medications, for their intended treatment duration? No? Then you must not have been in the tested sample. In fact, out of over 8 billion people on this planet, over 8 billion people were not part of the test group. Only a few hundred or thousand were. Did the FDA do an incredibly shoddy job ignoring over 99.9% of the population? No, the whole point is that by testing on a smaller volunteer group roughly representative of the general population, you already get a pretty good indication of what the stochastic probabilities are. You don't need to involve the entire planet's population in the test just to know that something is going to happen in around 4% of cases.

But please consult an impartial source for that as well - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics and https://www.fda.gov/media/175253/download?attachment

[Gaddes]

Had to shorten the quote for limits on posting, but...
Did we not see the havoc of what the Endsinger has done? To say Dynamis isn't that extreme would be ignoring the Final Days. And to add to this why others can fail (Haurchefant), again, we seen it in Endwalker. Dynamis can be good or bad. Putting faith into strength has always been FFXIV plot point, they just gave it a tangible name. The "power of friendship" trope seen in 90% of anime, that's basically Dynamis. Are we saying 90% of the shows who use this trope are considered bad writing? As for using limit break, the Scions have time and again were able to access limit break when you play them in solo duties, so again, if they can, why can't Wuk Lamat? Not to mention, the enemies can also access Dynamis (As we saw with Endsinger/Meteion), so yeah, it really depends on who's "feelings" are strongest in that moment.

I don't actually recall a solo duty with a Scion where they can solo LB... the Scions often have their own fancy version of existing moves that they can do in instances, but usually if anyone does something akin to an LB there are at least a couple other npcs/player involved in that instance. Remember even the Warrior of Light, arguably the strongest non-boss individual in the game, cannot LB solo. Having a character not only solo LB but do it multiple times is a little unnatural.

And as a major G'raha fan, I disagree. The Endless need aether to sustain themselves indefinitely. Their aether reserves were diminishing. Yes, we could have let them "die" naturally once the reserves were done, but they explicitly stated that the Mesoterminal would not be able to be accessed unless the other terminals were shut down. How would they go about accessing the terminal then? I'm pretty sure if the dynamis beings on Ultima Thule were to go after their home planet, G'raha would be destroying them as well, even if he was conflicted, but they were ultimately harmless, so they let them be and tried to understand their circumstances.

The problem is that there's barely if any discussion amongst the Scions about the right way to go about things in the Living Memory. In any other expansion, we would've gotten a real sit-down moment where they discuss what they could do and if they should even do it. But not here, where the plot basically just keeps shoving everyone along. No time to experiment or try things, no looking into how Endless are stored or if there was a way to divert archived people elsewhere, no debate about whether they're even alive. Everyone is just treated like they're along for the ride; Cahciua tells us they're not alive and just shut everything down and we just do it. The Scions we've come to know and love are always thorough, always exhaust all possible options, try to see things from many points of view. They often can accomplish what others thought impossible. But here they just nod and mindlessly go from one spot to the next without doing any of that, and that's what so many people are taking issue with. The Scions are known for challenging things, and they don't challenge anything here. They are shades of the Scions we know. People often cite the G'raha gondola scene as maybe one of the few times a Scion feels/acts like they did before, but it's too few and far between.

As for the Levin sickness, the story is not over yet. Hell Alisaie didn't even do the Light-aspected aether sickness for Halric until the patch quests. Who's to say she won't help the levin sickness now that the dangers have passed? And as for the other things, again, the story isn't over yet. We still got the patch quests to see if the Scions try and help these issues.

There's a lot riding on post-patch MSQ to address/fix issues, so yeah, that remains to be seen. If the Scions don't deal with levin sickness in it, however, I think that'll be a massive failing on the part of the writers, because that issue is practically screaming for the Scions to fix.

[Ryaze]

Naturally. These were the sources: daily player numbers were sourced from numbers tracked by https://mmo-population.com/r/ffxiv and Steam's public information respectively, and put side by side in this article by Dexerto https://www.dexerto.com/final-fantas...-2023-2112769/

Bro, MMO-population uses social media activity as a source for their numbers. That is horrible methodology. While determining the daily player populations in MMOs or any other game is extremely difficult, their metrics leave much to be desired. This is the same site that infamously had Wildstar at 80k players, several years AFTER the Wildstar servers were shut down (and no private Wildstar servers exist).

[Catwho]

Hard disagree.
The story was not only bad, the longer you think about it, the more plotholes and contrivences you notice.
At least the writers need to go.

If you just accept this supbar quality, you have no right to complain when the story get's actually bad.

Actually, other way around. I've been watching the GG replay of MSQ and they just got to THAT SCENE earlier this week.

And after watching it, I went, "Huh. That didn't happen the way I remembered it."

There's still a few small tweaks that could have made the scene better for us, the WoL, and my overall critique of "we didn't do enough mentoring" still stands, but the story actually did make more sense watching someone else play through it, knowing what comes later.