Thoughts about the LL?

[Stormfur]

What were the housing updates they were supposed to cover? Is it a new housing area or an extension to the existing housing item limit? I think the latter but I've been a bit out of step with the news.

[caffe_macchiato]

Covid itself is not impacting the world the way it did, but the world itself has fundamentally changed and is most certainly not "back to normal".

That’s not what we were promised.

DT will have the most content we have ever had in an expansion.

Here’s a fact you might not realize: the previous “content” we got, Cosmic “Exploration”, is almost entirely botted. In fact, the whole thing can be automated from start to finish. This is intentional because the developers refuse to add an anti-cheat. So while you can do this the hard way, rest assured that you’ll be the only one. As such, we can remove that from the list. All other forms of “content” are either 10-minute one-and-done instances, like dungeons/alliance raids, or dismal failures like Chaotic (how was your Christmas?). Occult Crescent is the direction that Square Enix HAS to move toward. But it’ll be October until we get the DD or any other content lasting longer than 10 minutes. And given the latest numbers, many people aren’t waiting.



As it stands, Square Enix barely has the money to survive. They’ve cut off every other AAA and AA project they have because they are broke. We are now getting endless remake slop because re-releasing old games is literally ALL this company can afford. And that’s because their primary revenue stream, FFXIV, is failing.

So is Dawntrail still a success?

[TeresaFortell]

Here’s a fact you might not realize: the previous “content” we got, Cosmic “Exploration”, is almost entirely botted. In fact, the whole thing can be automated from start to finish. This is intentional because the developers refuse to add an anti-cheat. So while you can do this the hard way, rest assured that you’ll be the only one. As such, we can remove that from the list. All other forms of “content” are either 10-minute one-and-done instances, like dungeons/alliance raids, or dismal failures like Chaotic (how was your Christmas?). Occult Crescent is the direction that Square Enix HAS to move toward. But it’ll be October until we get the DD or any other content lasting longer than 10 minutes. And given the latest numbers, many people aren’t waiting.


As it stands, Square Enix barely has the money to survive. They’ve cut off every other AAA and AA project they have because they are broke. We are now getting endless remake slop because re-releasing old games is literally ALL this company can afford. And that’s because their primary revenue stream, FFXIV, is failing.

So is Dawntrail still a success?

In the short run, DT would be considered a success. However, when you factor in all the patches, it would not share the same amount of success as that of SHB and EW. Main concern would be the trajectory of the game itself, as it seems that a future decline would be possible given the information.

[RedLolly]

FFXIV isn't far enough gone to consider a "failure" yet despite the clear downward trend. We're currently hovering around Stormblood's numbers, which was considered a huge success in that era.

Companies globally are reconfiguring because they all hoped and prayed that the Covid boost would remain, or at least that more players would remain. The AAA gaming industry as a whole is experiencing a large downturn because the world is back to work and money and time is tighter.

Plus, ShB and EW had a massive amount of WoW players that were in a much worse position than FFXIV players are now. (Imagine three Dawntrails in a row). They've gone back to WoW after Blizzard cleaned up their act and finally got out content that's up to player's wants.

Also, as conspiracy theorist this may sound, crunch culture is slowly dying, and so much of the past content was made under that type of environment. Workers putting in 60 to 90 hour work weeks just isn't as common anymore. It's been a push in some Japanese cities to even reduce the work week to four by law because of how bad it is in Japan to work obscene hours.

You're absolutely right that SE is REQUIRED to only develop safe bets. And they are. It's just so much more than "DT bad."

[Hallarem]

When people talk about FFXIV being a failure, it's pushing it.

But I think it's wrong to give them a pass and just say "Well, they had numbers like this before, it's just the hypetrain leaving" isn't it a bit worriesome that the hypetrain IS leaving in the first place? Why don't people who usually say this WANT the game to get better or innovate? Why do people want the game to remain a stagnant blob that never evolves into anything better? Why do you people want the game to remain the exact same from patch to patch. It takes FFXIV YEARS to include any QoL that other MMO's sometimes add in the next PATCHES.

I swear it causes physical pain to Yoshi P to even talk about adding any new QoL features or fixing things such as friendslist. I can imagine him sighing to himself and drinking five glasses of wine at home if someone even mentions chat bubbles to him again. That mustve been REALLY PAINFUL for him and these devs. To actually do some work.

[Raikai]

I don't think XIV reached a dangerous low *yet*... That's boiling down to how they'll steer the game in 8.0, in every aspect. In fact, the Fanfest will be a crucial selling point to that expansion, which makes me think if this is related to not even having the Fanfest announcement yet.

If I could compare, it feels like Dawntrail is closer to WoW's Warlords of Draenor "low" than Shadowlands, which was the bottom of the barrel for that game.

[SWATomega]

The reason why the game feels like it this is where we just came from. Int he Shadowbringer and Endwalker the game was hype, we were getting to and did the climax of the story for over 10 years. The problems we have with the game (housing, QoL, jobs feeling the same, etc.) were there; we just talked about the MSQ, this or that, and pushed the problems in the background. We were having fun on the rollercoaster.

When DT launched, we got new characters, a new story, and the whole pace of the game slowed down. Dawntrail is some people's very first MMO story reset. When the game pace slows down to begin the new story for the next X amount of years. And... we got nothing to talk about it, so we talk about something else.

Remember all those problems we had with the game in ShadowBingers and Endwalker, they are now FRONT AND CENTER! We got X,Y,Z wrong, people saying dead game, too long patch cycles (i watched the Live letter when they announced that they would ge to from 4 to 4,5 months, and people seemed okay with it in chat), ect, ect.

Dawntrail is, unfortunately, the expansion people will hate the most, even though honestly, it has some of the best content, good raids, good dungeons (not you deadwalk), casual and midcore content, and quite a bit of QoL and system improvements.

But with the MSQ being the first impression and loud ones saying it was bad, it's going to have a bad reputation because of it, but it is better to judge it after 7.5 or 7.55 when all the content is out to see how it is.

[Hallarem]

I don't think XIV reached a dangerous low *yet*... That's boiling down to how they'll steer the game in 8.0, in every aspect. In fact, the Fanfest will be a crucial selling point to that expansion, which makes me think if this is related to not even having the Fanfest announcement yet.

If I could compare, it feels like Dawntrail is closer to WoW's Warlords of Draenor "low" than Shadowlands, which was the bottom of the barrel for that game.

Comparing to WoW is a bad metric in terms of subscriber numbers. Even on it's ABSOLUTE WORST year, WoW still had more subscribers than probably the peak of 14

But spiritually I agree, Dawntrail is the Shadowlands of 14. Endwalkers rush job started the downfall imo. They just don't have enough patience to focus on a solid expansion anymore, they need to make it a forced two-parter rush job with a very divided story.

[Atma]

Comparing to WoW is a bad metric in terms of subscriber numbers. Even on it's ABSOLUTE WORST year, WoW still had more subscribers than probably the peak of 14

Depends on if you're talking subs or active players. During WoW's darkest times of Shadowlands and one of FFXIV's brightest periods of ShB, they surpassed WoW as the the MMO with the most active players. WoW 'cheats' in this regard by selling 6 month subs with special mounts/etc to get people to pay for subs even if they are not actively playing, or do not play for the entire timeframe.

But spiritually I agree, Dawntrail is the Shadowlands of 14. Endwalkers rush job started the downfall imo. They just don't have enough patience to focus on a solid expansion anymore, they need to make it a forced two-parter rush job with a very divided story.

Dawntrail is more the Warlords of Draenor of 14. We need a Shadowlands of 14. Wait, I know what you're already typing, but hear me out.

While Shadowlands was incredibly poorly implemented, it was what WoW rather fundamentally needed - they needed to break things, shatter molds, redesign entire systems from the ground up. This is what is desperately needed for 14 right now - an expansion where the developers unabashedly say "Things are going to break. Things are going to not work out the way we intended. Class balance might be trash for a while. But things are going to get different - so that they can get better."

WoW did that and re-emerged with Dragonflight, one of it's best received expansions in ages. Had they not done so, WoW would be in an equally dire state as FFXIV is in right now. We NEED a Shadowlands (but... y'know... not as bad. please...)

[TeresaFortell]

Depends on if you're talking subs or active players. During WoW's darkest times of Shadowlands and one of FFXIV's brightest periods of ShB, they surpassed WoW as the the MMO with the most active players. WoW 'cheats' in this regard by selling 6 month subs with special mounts/etc to get people to pay for subs even if they are not actively playing, or do not play for the entire timeframe.



Dawntrail is more the Warlords of Draenor of 14. We need a Shadowlands of 14. Wait, I know what you're already typing, but hear me out.

While Shadowlands was incredibly poorly implemented, it was what WoW rather fundamentally needed - they needed to break things, shatter molds, redesign entire systems from the ground up. This is what is desperately needed for 14 right now - an expansion where the developers unabashedly say "Things are going to break. Things are going to not work out the way we intended. Class balance might be trash for a while. But things are going to get different - so that they can get better."

WoW did that and re-emerged with Dragonflight, one of it's best received expansions in ages. Had they not done so, WoW would be in an equally dire state as FFXIV is in right now. We NEED a Shadowlands (but... y'know... not as bad. please...)

We don't need an SL or even WOD. What is required is a quality that can match that of WOTLK, which was something that SHB offered. It brought people into the game because there was a fantastically written story that drew people in. Granted, there were changes such as removing TP which was a good choice, but the story, in this regard, was the main focus and draw that caused a larger playerbase.