How FFXIV state change from ShB to DT?

[1313]

Dawntrail story is better than Shadowbringers by a landslide, but the delivery is on par with Shadowbringers. The delivery of the story in both expansion fell flat.

[Ririta]

How can story writer so perfectly in Shadowbringers to be as disappointment as we see in Dawntrail?

I was trying to compare each aspect each character each area each event each conflict..
it doesn't look like the same game!

How things can turn this bad?

It's easy when you have 6+ years of stories setting it up.
SHB wouldn't be good if ARR didn't present us the ascians and garleans (and yall love to complain about ARR)
SHB wouldn't be good if HW didn't start the multiple shard and the warrior of darkness plotline.
SHB wouldn't be good if SB didn't Varian didn't go to war in Ghimlyt Dark and state that he wants to destroy the world.

What did EW leave for DT? Nothing. It spent all of its patches telling a non-consequential (for now) void story. DT had to start everything up from scratch, something that not even ARR had to (1.0 had Bahamut bring a calamity and ARR starts there).

That DT turned out as good as it did after it had every disavantage is a miracle. DT is excellent, it not only tells us the story it set out to tell, but it also laid out a new story to explore. All that without trouncing everything that built FFXIV, like EW and SHB (to a lesser extent) did.

Look, I get it, dumping on Dawntrail's story is a popular thing to do right now and an easy way to fish for replies. You don't need to keep churning out new threads ad nauseum.

Yeah, make a main thread like we did for EW. I'm not even checking this board daily anymore because it's the same thing on loop, it's boring.

[Isala]

It's easy when you have 6+ years of stories setting it up.
SHB wouldn't be good if ARR didn't present us the ascians and garleans (and yall love to complain about ARR)
SHB wouldn't be good if HW didn't start the multiple shard and the warrior of darkness plotline.
SHB wouldn't be good if SB didn't Varian didn't go to war in Ghimlyt Dark and state that he wants to destroy the world.

What did EW leave for DT? Nothing. It spent all of its patches telling a non-consequential (for now) void story. DT had to start everything up from scratch, something that not even ARR had to (1.0 had Bahamut bring a calamity and ARR starts there).

That DT turned out as good as it did after it had every disavantage is a miracle. DT is excellent, it not only tells us the story it set out to tell, but it also laid out a new story to explore. All that without trouncing everything that built FFXIV, like EW and SHB (to a lesser extent) did.



Yeah, make a main thread like we did for EW. I'm not even checking this board daily anymore because it's the same thing on loop, it's boring.

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.

[ForteNightshade]

They knew people will buy it even if its bad because it is coming off the highs of Endwalker

I am certainly not preordering the next one if its the same DT bullshit again

To be fair, this really only hurts you if you still want to continue playing. Unlike other game where the pre-order is the more expensive "upgrade", all FFXIV does is give you five days early access and earrings to help level jobs below the new expansion's starting level. So you'd just be losing that without hurting SE in any way. Now if you were planning to quit altogether, that's a different story.

[Striker44]

True, this here is not the majority but:

This is the official place for feedback and normaly the devs look at the forum first or at least should be. Also it's not just the english forum.

I don't get your last point though. They don't have data ingame on how people liked the story. only data on how many people engage in other stuff.
The enjoymend of the story is purely subjective and you have to to it anyway.
Or was that just an overall example?

Yeah, it was just an overall example of sorts, more the idea that the dev team has far more information available to them than any of us come close to knowing about. At the end of the day, they're a corporation out to make a profit, so I'd wager if they're making certain decisions it's because the full data they have at their fingertips says it's the way to go. Combine that with human nature making people more likely to "speak up" when they have a complaint vs. when they're satisfied with something, and it's very easy to do something like look at the online forum and get a skewed view of what the actual playerbase at large really thinks.

This last part will be pure speculation, but as an educated guess I would say there could well be ways for them to estimate "liking" the story. For example, comparing characters' playtime to achievements earned based on MSQ progress could quickly identify what portion of players are skipping cutscenes (a potential indicator of dissatisfaction). Again, just speculation, but put out there as a caution against viewing what one sees on the forum as necessarily indicative of the wider playerbase.

[elioaiko]

ShB doesn't have the same constraints as EW did.

ShB basically took the WoL and isekai'd them into a different world without the baggage of the overall story.

Nothing about ARR-Stormblood matters in the First aside from Ascians and Crystal Tower. Now that might seem like a huge thing to crossover into the First but it's not.

The WoL is a stranger and a nobody in this world, having to proof their worth even though on the Source they're widely known. This makes gaining the trust of ppl feel more impactful.

The First is already on the brink of death and the threat is unlike anything we have ever faced—light. We have been fighting Ascians up until this point which is the darkness. It turns the trope of light trumps dark and flips it, allowing the player to see that there needs to be balance between the two.

The deaths and struggles of those left alive in this apocalyptic world really drives the point of desperation and despair. Because even the light can hurt you.

ShB makes for a great side story that could have easily been it's only seperate game. I honestly suspect that ShB is how they would have written the story from the beginning had 1.0's remaining baggage didn't hold them back so much. ShB is just well written all around.

EW story was fine IMO but it's pretty clear that the devs want to move on from the original plotline.

DT is their first xpac where they get to make the story without the original plot trying to interfere.

So far I've been disappointed but it does leave room for growth.

[Ririta]

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.

But that's literally what they did... I mean, there were people on this very board complaining that it spent too much time with the low stakes setup of Tural before the Alexandria stuff started, to the point where they'd compare it with ARR.

[ForteNightshade]

What did EW leave for DT? Nothing. It spent all of its patches telling a non-consequential (for now) void story. DT had to start everything up from scratch, something that not even ARR had to (1.0 had Bahamut bring a calamity and ARR starts there).

That DT turned out as good as it did after it had every disavantage is a miracle. DT is excellent, it not only tells us the story it set out to tell, but it also laid out a new story to explore. All that without trouncing everything that built FFXIV, like EW and SHB (to a lesser extent) did.

If this is the case, why did FFXVI not completely fail? After all, it had to tell a completely original tell, do all the setup for itself and build brand new characters. All while, coincidentally, has several of the FFXIV staff team and writers.

Could it be those writers were simply better and the person/team they assigned to Dawntrail was mediocre at best? By your line of logic, no beginning book in a trilogy could ever be good since it has to do all the legwork of setting up future sequels. Ironically, a lot of Shadowbringers works because Ishikawa made several retcons to fix some rather poor decisions previously expansions made. A prime example being both Lahabrea and Elidibus. Neither were remotely the characters they wound up being when first introduced but she was given free reign to alter them. Which speaks to their confidence in her writing talent because they already attempted that with Lyse to mixed reception.

Dawntrail didn't need setup to tell a good story, especially because it wasn't trying to be a continuation like Shadowbringers and Endwalker were. It needed a good writer to craft a cohesive narrative that was mostly resolved by the end. In other words, Dawntrail was more like a single player game since we don't necessarily know if they're planning to do another drawn out arc or stick to more self contained, shorter stories. Regardless, Dawntrail failed spectacularly in that objective. The pacing is completely horrendous even within its own structure, nothing of note happens for several hours worth of gameplay and virtually every character not named Wuk Lamat is rendered a hollow shell of themselves only there to prop up the clear "main character" who hogs the spotlight to the point of strangling it.

Shadowbringers would still be a good, if not an excellent story even without any previous setup whatsoever. Things would have to change to better accommodate that direction but the core aspect of its narrative are relatively self contained. Conversely, Dawntrail is a weak story made weaken by how little desire or respect it seemingly has for any previous character.

[Tunda]

it is so disrespectful to even compare the GOAT ShB with Dawntrial story wise

anyone who thinks Dawntrail is somewhat better or even comparable is so delusional and have very bad taste..

Shadowbringers could be standalone game with no need to know anything before it to enjoy the excellent writing and interesting characters and emotional moments..
speaking of emotional I just skipped story after Gulool Ja Ja died because it is the ONLY character that is somewhat decent in this expansion

just to continue it again to watch my self taking bad decisions again sphene and Wuk story ark is latterly from teletubbies I didn't even have emotion just watching for the sake of FFXIV ShB and Endwalker lagacy

[Voidmage]

Yeah, it was just an overall example of sorts, more the idea that the dev team has far more information available to them than any of us come close to knowing about. At the end of the day, they're a corporation out to make a profit, so I'd wager if they're making certain decisions it's because the full data they have at their fingertips says it's the way to go. Combine that with human nature making people more likely to "speak up" when they have a complaint vs. when they're satisfied with something, and it's very easy to do something like look at the online forum and get a skewed view of what the actual playerbase at large really thinks.

This last part will be pure speculation, but as an educated guess I would say there could well be ways for them to estimate "liking" the story. For example, comparing characters' playtime to achievements earned based on MSQ progress could quickly identify what portion of players are skipping cutscenes (a potential indicator of dissatisfaction). Again, just speculation, but put out there as a caution against viewing what one sees on the forum as necessarily indicative of the wider playerbase.

Hmm yeah ok, I understand.
truth is I don't think they do that kind of deep data sampling or that it is reliable because too many factors go in (players taking a reak but liking a story, players not skipping but fast reading, etc.) but maybe they have some kind of way.

As someone who has to do with customers in a big setting like with Porsche and Apple I have to say though negative feedback is very important, maybe even more important then positive feedback.
The ones being positive come back the ones that are negative may leave. That happens and is nothing new, sure and is not that "bad" for lack of a better word. But the louder and bigger the negative feedback get's the more dangerous it becomes.
I really don't see this reception of Dawntrail as a small minority. A minority sure but if we take playerscores, Content creators, different social media gatherings and gaming magazines in consideration its probably more around 30-40%. That's quite large.
Square has now the risk of losing those players and as bad as that would be they already may have a problem with pr right now.
DT had a mixed reception no matter the end numbers of happy players. That's a score that will stay on the internet and it is a "stain".

I agree with you that this here is probably not changing the minds of Square but I would bet money that they definitely have some meetings right now regarding all that.

Sorry for the long post. The second part was mostly just my mumbling.