Unenthused About Dawntrail

[Theox]

I think the devs relied too much on EW hype carrying next expansion. I was so surprised when I watched the trailer and saw... nothing. Nothing sold the game for me, nothing made me look forward to updates. An expansion about taking a break and go on a holiday? Really? Sounds more lame than a whole healer fight rotation. Feels like yoship took "play other games" to a new level and made a dlc dedicated to it. Or have the writers forget what makes up a good story and how to write it? Well, judging by the story in EW I wouldn't be surprised if they hired some kindergarteners to write it for them this time, since people will swallow anything up.
Well, get ready for EW 2.0 aftermath quests for how much? 30 dollars I think it was. Insane.

[Gemina]

Wasn't feeling it with EW's mini winged leopard things, and the final retro Bahamut mount was so far out the left field that I feel even more vindicated for not bothering.

The cats are actually really cool, but yeah, I'm not sure what they were thinking with the Bahamut mount holding a chair when the previous EX octo mount were always related to the type rewarded from the encounters. That one would have made more sense last expansion. I totally thought we would get a Voltron kitty, and I know Yoshi loved that cartoon as a kid. My robo-gato hopes were definitely dashed.

[angienessyo]

I think if you're not excited about it you might want to think about whether or not you want to continue playing the game in general. I don't mean this as a dismissive "if you don't like it, LEAVE!" kind of response to criticism. It's just something to consider. If you're not feeling it there's no shortage of awesome stuff to play at the moment. It's okay to just skip an expac or two or not even come back if nothing else ends up looking interesting in the future. I've actually done this with WoW throughout the years. Sometimes I come back for an expac, sometimes I don't play for two expacs and then something like Dragonflight happens where I'm like "oh that's pretty neat I'll check it out".

I'm personally looking forward to the expac but it honestly took a bit for me to get excited about it. The majority of the coverage being on the graphical update didn't exactly do a great job getting me excited and I didn't start feeling any hype until some of Yoshi P's interviews where he talked about the direction of the game in Dawntrail. I don't blame anyone for not being excited when they've spent literal hours talking about the graphics and nowhere near as much on anything else.

[xxmiamorecadenza]

I think if you're not excited about it you might want to think about whether or not you want to continue playing the game in general.

I don't think a lack of excitement = genuine dislike with the present state of the game. It's more so 'oh, there's more stuff - okay'. I wouldn't say folks who aren't excited should stop playing altogether because they aren't jumping for joy at the arrival of Dawntrail.

I'd also like to argue that there are a lack of MMO's to pick from. I assume you're recommending multi-player or single-play experiences as opposed to something akin to GW2 or Elder Scrolls.

[LittleArrow]

I am 100% in this "meh" camp. I've played this game since 1.0 beta. I remember when Yoshi was brought on. I remember filling out his survey to find out what we wanted as a playerbase. I remember him stating how it was wrong to give us incomplete races (female only miqote, male only roegadyn and highlander) and how he was going to make it right and not cut corners b/c we supported the company's reputation from being completely sullied and the game from being totally erased with our continued support. To say I'm petty, disappointed, downright angry that they still have not fixed Viera headpieces after him having them on the survey almost 10+yrs ago, being told to wait by the xiv community, then being told to just accept it, to being told wait until fem hroth gets released, wait until next expansion... yeah I'm not excited.

I've been through the ups and downs of FFXIV. I've seen Archer top the dps charts only for Mr. I'm-being-out-dps'd-on-my-blm-by-brd Yoshida nerf brd so badly it's never recovered. I've seen a lot, and I've still supported this game and Yoshida's vision until now.

F.I.X. M.Y. H.E.A.D.P.I.E.C.E.S. ...until then, I'm not excited for anything. The bad taste in my mouth from the backpedaling of a once inspired producer to a now please look forward to it producer is too much for me to get excited.

Sidenote: The gear they've shown looks very boring in the concept art, Viper looks boring, hopefully it plays better. Painter looks whatever, kawaii blm. The zones remind me of Treasures of Aht Urhgan, but without the fun characters to draw me in. I understand the story has been carefully hidden, too much imo and thus I'm not hyped. Nothing made me go wow, and I was at the NA fanfest - which is one of the biggest financial regrets I've ever made, I would never go to another it was horrible. So yeah, fix my helmets and we'll see, otherwise, meh.

Also, as a long time supporter / going through a villain arc from being betrayed with my hatless viera, I do hope I'm wrong and the expansion is great. I am not hyped and this is the first expansion in 10yrs I've not bought the deluxe edition (no clue it was so cheap normal LOL). A mount that doesn't display my character, a minion I'll NEVER bring out, and no new physical keytoken to replace my 10+ yr FFXIV 1.0 token... it's a rough time to be a crusty old veteran.

[Maltothoris]

I think another thing that hurts DT per say is that it's coming off some expansions that have lasted longer than normal per say. Shadowbringers had the misfortune of the craziness that happened during 2020 and 2021. EW then had the extended patch cycles which were also felt. Then you have the whole 8.0 where they would most likely change up the classes which makes the whole game based trilogies of it (ARR, HW. Stb) then (Shb,EW, DT).

Also being a healer nothing in that benchmark was impressive for us.

[Akonyl]

I wouldn't say I'm *hyped*, but I've gotten more excited about it as it's gotten closer. Near the start of the expac I was wondering if I even wanted to continue into 7.0 though, since I was satisfied enough by the story.

Dawntrail will probably be fun, but I don't think most people are expecting the expac to beat SHB/EW. People are really more hyped for new content, than Dawntrail specifically, from what I've seen. I hope it sets up some cool stuff for the later expacs, though.

[Rozeee]

I was pretty hyped for DT until YoshiP said in PAX East that no major job changes will be happening. As a healer main this is the most disappointing news I could hear. Throughout EW I've been trying out harder and harder healing content that I am now in a week 1 static for DT. "Go play ultimate" as YoshiP says. I did and it was more of the same broil spam. The role just does not feel good in every segment of content. Rendered useless by tank sustains in casual content and too little agency (pure healers) or too much responsibility (shield healers) for high-end content. Not to mention the absolute lack of transparency from the devs with where they are going with healers. Sage was designated as the DPS healer and multiple times we have heard "If you're bored of the glare spam play sage". Only to realize that they just made SCH 2. It never feels like we get any wins with this role.

No amount of content in DT can fix bad job design. No matter how delicious the food is, you're not eating something from a bin.

[keichirou]

im very much in the same boat, but not for MSQ reasons or story , i been playing mmorpgs for a very long time, i have been in 5 graphical updates, NOT a single one works the way intended by devs and eventually they rollback , release countless patches to fix things or simply die , so this change isnt something i wasnt looking forward, the moment they announced it , i instantly went "meh" for the expansion and even more "meh" when they released the new jobs

[Rudje]

I don't think a lack of excitement = genuine dislike with the present state of the game. It's more so 'oh, there's more stuff - okay'. I wouldn't say folks who aren't excited should stop playing altogether because they aren't jumping for joy at the arrival of Dawntrail.

This. I don't think ffxiv's going to be godawful in DT, but I also don't really see anything super exciting in what we've seen so far. The crossover holds no value to me, and the game already drained most of its possible "hey remember X" factor for me by frontloading the FF3 references and already having basically every FFV boss but the fork tower duo and necrophobe in it already so they can't really get me on that front anymore. (I'm familiar with most of the rest of the series, those two games are just the ones I mark out for out of the mainline Final Fantasys.)

I would encourage those actively not having fun anymore to take a break, though. No sense in spending a monthly sub on something you dont enjoy playing.