How FFXIV state change from ShB to DT?

[Krisom]

I think the writing in general isn't what people are mad about as far as the story itself may be, but more so the departure of how amazing the character writing and direction was in Shadowbringer and Endwalker and more-so than the writing itself it's the fact that XIV's questing (the way you NAVIGATE) the MSQ in general is severely outdated and there's no pull from a foundation of mystery and resolve which Shadowbringers and Endwalker had pushing you through some of the poorly paced. XIV has always had insanely poorly paced parts in all of its expansions but this is at the forefront because you have nothing to chew on while you go through it which is inevitable to happen but at the same time you have to contend with what XIV has always have been and that's a poorly disguised VN for 90% of its runtime.
I see some people saying "Well if they get invested into the story and not feel the urge to skip some stuff maybe they'll appreciate X/Y/Z" but you can't really blame people for being disconnected when they've had several hours of doing outdated quest design and reading text as their reward. I have no issue with the text itself, I quite like it myself but you need to give people something between these.

Tell me if you've heard this story before:
Mr. Questgiver sends you out to find a single Thingamajig.
There are 3 spots you can look at, or maybe even talk to 3 people who know about the Thingamajig.
You search these 3 spots/talk to these 3 people and it's no where to be found, however suddenly out of nowhere on the map sparks up a location where the Thingamajig is, you'll likely have some text, you might be lucky to fight a mob that dies in 5 seconds or you will be greeted with a cutscene, if you're lucky it might be voiced and properly cinamatic.
This is basically 90% of the quest design in XIV, you might also follow someone twice or thrice through the MSQ, rarely you might even use the 'aiming quest' to spot stuff and once in a blue moon you'll get a solo duty.

You can't really grab someone's attention when you're giving them mundane tasks constantly.
Another fact that might be jarring to some people is the length.
Shadowbringers was around a 30+ hour MSQ, it was nice and tight. It had two very badly paced sections but what expansion doesn't?
Endwalker was around a 50+ hour MSQ, a bit long, many cutscenes but it's expected because it tries to conclude a storyline.
Dawntrail is the same length as Endwalker which makes me wonder if some sections were cut down a perhaps leaving side+ quests to let people chew into it more if they wanted perhaps it wouldn't feel so badly paced.

I enjoyed Dawntrail personally but I really can't fault anyone for not enjoying it, it was way too long for it was and it highlighted how terrible the quest design is in general and the hoops players need to get to the meaty parts.

[Jojoya]

Bullcrap. I'm so tired of this "It doesn't have enough setup!" when they could have taken their time setting it up instead of speeding through any plot points. We were told this was supposed to be a vacation. It very well could have been a low stakes, expansion long vacation, where we got to know Tural, and their people, and their culture, and then used that build up to give us a reason to care when the Alexandrian stuff happened. We didn't need to have a multi-world ending threat dropped on us at level ninety-effing-five. They took FIVE LEVELS before they threw out everything, and went "Suddenly, the fire nation attacked."

The story didn't fail because it didn't have buildup. The story failed because the F-Tier writing team couldn't be assed to build up.

Like Endwalker, it really needed to be 2 different expansions instead of one.

[Ririta]

snip

I never said that beginnings can't be good. I'm saying that SHB had more going for it than DT did. You're arguing this point as if DT can't be possibly good, as if what you decided is already a fact of life, then use a single player game that has been in development since 2015 as "evidence" as if MMOs have no narrative constraints at all.

Then you take SHB, an expansion where almost every single point of it has been built up in a previous expansion, and claim that it's self contained and would be excellent even without all the baggage, as if all the previous knowledge that we built up over how FFXIV's world works doesn't matter to put everything that happens in context. I don't even know what to say, do you seriously think the wall of piss or Elidibus' entire existence would have any impact without all the previous knowledge that we gained from the other expansions?

Arguing the way you do I can easily claim that literally everything in existence is, by objective fact, garbage.

[1313]

Just like with the healer strike, people are jumping the gun a bit imo. Here's why:

In the healer strike, people complained about stuff before they even knew what was to come in Dawntrail's dungeons, raids, and trials. Apparently its pretty rough out there, with people getting steamrolled by these 'new' mechanics. Lots of work for healers to be doing, so there's a lot less time to be bored of the 111111111111112111111111111112.

As for the story, this applies to all expansions: x1 to x0 quests are always introductions and world building, then the patches crank up the story from there. The patches are always where it gets better. So there's no good reason to be whining about a story that one hasn't even finished. You cannot judge something until you fully understand it, even Wuk Lamat knows this, yet she's naive. We've reached a whole new story, and it needs time to unfold. It's never going to be a good story right off the hop and stay that way 100% of the time.

tldr; Just be patient and enjoy the new stuff.

[Isala]

Just like with the healer strike, people are jumping the gun a bit imo. Here's why:

In the healer strike, people complained about stuff before they even knew what was to come in Dawntrail's dungeons, raids, and trials. Apparently its pretty rough out there, with people getting steamrolled by these 'new' mechanics. Lots of work for healers to be doing, so there's a lot less time to be bored of the 111111111111112111111111111112.

No they're not. The same skillless players are getting flattened by the same stuff they've been getting flattened by since ARR, but anyone with a bare minimum of skill is still bored.

[4clubbedace]

for what? all projects of square enix are failing other than ffxiv and ff7 remake

managerial and administrative rols pay more than writing roles,

[ForteNightshade]

I never said that beginnings can't be good. I'm saying that SHB had more going for it than DT did. You're arguing this point as if DT can't be possibly good, as if what you decided is already a fact of life, then use a single player game that has been in development since 2015 as "evidence" as if MMOs have no narrative constraints at all.

I'm doing no such thing. You completely misunderstood both my both point and the comparison I made. I, in fact, implied the precise opposite: that Dawntrail's issue was a poor writer. Nowhere did I suggest Dawntrail was doomed to fail. What I did say is the story we got was a failure because I believe it was. You're, of course, welcome to disagree but please don't put words in my mouth.

As for the comparison with FFXVI. Did you just... completely ignore why I made that specific comparison? Like I said, XVI has several members of XIV's staff working on it. They had to craft an entirely new storyline with zero prior build up. The insinuation here is Square clearly has talented writers who could have made Dawntrail work as the separate storyline it set out to be but their choice of writer is what ultimately led to such a mixed reception. Put bluntly, I've refuting your stance Dawntrail was at any disadvantage compared to prior expansions due to lacking setup and entirely putting blame on poor writing decisions.

Then you take SHB, an expansion where almost every single point of it has been built up in a previous expansion, and claim that it's self contained and would be excellent even without all the baggage, as if all the previous knowledge that we built up over how FFXIV's world works doesn't matter to put everything that happens in context. I don't even know what to say, do you seriously think the wall of piss or Elidibus' entire existence would have any impact without all the previous knowledge that we gained from the other expansions?

You don't know what to say because you're not actually reading my response and simply erecting a strawman.

Shadowbringers, at its core narrative is about a world on the very brink of annihilation; saved by a hero from out of time and space. It's primary characters are established almost entirely within the expansion itself, namely Emet Selch and the Crystal Exarch. Even Elidibus gets a fairly substantial retcon to better suit the new narrative Ishikawa wants to craft since his previous iteration was fairly one note. Now obviously without the prior expansions setting up the Warriors of Darkness and giving us tidbits on the Ascions, all of this would have to be developed within Shadowbringers but it's hardly a stretch to argue this wouldn't be a difficult undertaking since said setup is fairly small to begin with. We actually don't spend very much time with the Warriors of Darkness, and only Ardbert has any actual character. And like the others mentioned above, his is largely expended upon in Shadowbringers.

Regardless, I literally said all of this. To quote myself, "things would have to change to better accommodate that direction but the core aspect of its narrative are relatively self contained."

Once again, put simply, Shadowbringers didn't need the setup and could have told near identical story within itself, albeit with some necessary changes. Maybe they trim a little of the fat to add these new elements or simply lengthen the MSQ. Either way, the core aspects of the story being told are there without needing Heavensward or Stormblood. It simply benefits from them. On the other hand, Dawntrail didn't have any previous lore restrictions to write around or any necessary retcons yet still managed to trip over itself.

[Ayer2015]

This was by far the worst MSQ writing for this game by far. Initially I thought I possibly was being too negative while playing through it, but seeing the reactions of others playing it has just reinforced that the story was just bad.

[Lollerblades]

My view on the DT story is that we as the WoL, really didn't bring anything to the story. We are just kind of there, and in the moments we did get to make an impact we are heavily overshadowed by Wuk Lamat. I appreciate that the story was centred around her journey and character, but my god she irritated me a lot more in the later half of the expansion.
DT whilst presented as a vacation for our characters was great in theory, putting us on the back burner in regards to story writing, not so much.

[1313]

My view on the DT story is that we as the WoL, really didn't bring anything to the story. We are just kind of there, and in the moments we did get to make an impact we are heavily overshadowed by Wuk Lamat. I appreciate that the story was centred around her journey and character, but my god she irritated me a lot more in the later half of the expansion.
DT whilst presented as a vacation for our characters was great in theory, putting us on the back burner in regards to story writing, not so much.

I was really cool with the idea of taking the grand tour of the new area, as a tourist on vacation, lending my strength to assist Wuk. It was really nice change of pace from the rest of the game, that I have completed from lvl 0-90 msq at least a dozen times. It's kinda nice to be able to be responsible for big things, but from the shadows where we aren't getting brown nosed by every Tom, Dick, and Harry. It is so tiring to be the center of attention 24/7, to be overly worshipped 24/7, to have to be everyone's savior and fix everyone's problems all the time always forever until the end of time. The old way needed to be moved away from after 10 years. It's really long overdue.