ARR > Dawntrail

[Maxilor]

ARR gave us the greatest voice acting moment of all time and I'm tired of pretending it wasn't peak:

https://youtu.be/bj6eQ7oitJo

[Themarvin]

if you play just for the story only, then you can't use it for much, the rest of it is the actual game.

[Carolingian]

if you play just for the story only, then you can't use it for much, the rest of it is the actual game.

While I agree that it's silly to write off the whole expansion based on just the story, it's not like a lot of other things in this expansion aren't pretty dire either. The levelling experience is still really boring, with the same "talk to 3 people" quests and silly fetch quests all over the place (and a couple of escort and sneak quests that many people hate). The zones, while beautiful, still don't have much to do in them. Fates are still all the same "kill X amount of Y" nonsense that don't scale properly. Jobs are more homogenised and boring (especially healers and tanks) than they've been in a long time. Glamour gets more annoying with every job that gets added due to not having enough Plates or inventory space, And in general everything is just more of the same predictable things with zero surprises that we've had for a decade now.

The only big positive thing I've seen people mention is that the instanced content (raids, dungeons, Extremes) are better than they've been for quite some time. Which is great but it's far from "the rest of the game".

[Striker44]

While I agree that it's silly to write off the whole expansion based on just the story, it's not like a lot of other things in this expansion aren't pretty dire either.

The only big positive thing I've seen people mention is that the instanced content (raids, dungeons, Extremes) are better than they've been for quite some time. Which is great but it's far from "the rest of the game".

Except the instanced content you've mentioned is the other huge part of the expansion itself (things like leveling aren't going to change much from installment to installment). Destiny 2 is a great example right now as the "opposite" of DT. It's current installment that just released around early June is the equivalent of EW in being the culmination of their long storyline. Their "MSQ" has been widely praised...but the post-MSQ content has been a disaster and the game has seen daily logins drop almost 75% since then.

Aside from just the usual "complaints" that don't tend to amount to anything, the only "iffy" part of DT has been its MSQ, and even that isn't anywhere near "dire" once you get out of the bubble that is this forum. It's getting a rather positive reception in most other places, and the post-MSQ instanced content being solid will be huge to its overall success and staying power.

[Swad]

if you play just for the story only, then you can't use it for much, the rest of it is the actual game.

XIV dosen't do much well to be honest. The open worlds the worst out of any MMO, fates are just facesmash with random people you never talk to and hunts are lead by people who are mentally insane control freaks and attention whores. Crafting/gatherings just bots or macro spam, even bots can do big fishing. Gears just boring get more crit and hit harder with boring acquisition. Dungeons are cool the first time but overrated, 4 or 5 bosses out of 27ish is not good design and trash is even worse this expansion with 0 chances to pull 4+ packs. Housings a horrible mess unless you do glitches and I have a large on my main and a small(gridania 29) on this guy. The positives could be considered combat but the games got such robust cheating tools who knows if half your group who always parses 99s are bots who have cheats that auto figure out mechanics for you, PVP is no better full of cheaters. Games total shit outside of story unless you play it to second life sim with lonely men.

[LilaIronman]

XIV dosen't do much well to be honest. The open worlds the worst out of any MMO, fates are just facesmash with random people you never talk to and hunts are lead by people who are mentally insane control freaks and attention whores. Crafting/gatherings just bots or macro spam, even bots can do big fishing. Gears just boring get more crit and hit harder with boring acquisition. Dungeons are cool the first time but overrated, 4 or 5 bosses out of 27ish is not good design and trash is even worse this expansion with 0 chances to pull 4+ packs. Housings a horrible mess unless you do glitches and I have a large on my main and a small(gridania 29) on this guy. The positives could be considered combat but the games got such robust cheating tools who knows if half your group who always parses 99s are bots who have cheats that auto figure out mechanics for you, PVP is no better full of cheaters. Games total shit outside of story unless you play it to second life sim with lonely men.

I personally fall asleep when I enter a dungeon or a roulette. That is do be said that they can't even make a good randomizer. In Leveling you always
get Sastasha or other low level dungeons regardless of if you are wanting to level your lvl 90 warrior or go for tomes with your 100 picto where you don't even have AOE in low level dungeons, which also applies to most classes. Expert Roulette you only get the annoying dungeons which for me rn is the fucking circus first boss, its not hard per se.. just annoying.. but then none of the new dungeons are hard after running them a first time... Normal raid you get Alexander and Alliance WoD STILL MOST OF THE TIME very very very Sludge game design

[Merrigan]

Above all, don't take into account the release context of each extension! That might show that the figures vary greatly depending on expectations, the era, and the age of the MMORPG

[Wilford111]

It's really sad that people have kneejerk reviews based on the story alone and don't take into account the amazing content.

[Isala]

It's really sad that people have kneejerk reviews based on the story alone and don't take into account the amazing content.

When the story makes you want to quit, or actually quit, who's getting to the good content? The leveling dungeons are the same snoozefest they always have been.

[Naoki34]

The numbers don't lie.

But, you're lying about the context.

It's not the same situation at all.



ARR came after the failure that was 1.0, ARR is the remake version of 1.0 by Yoshi-P who saved FFXIV without which, we probably wouldn't still be playing it today.

But the fact remains that ARR is stuffed to the gills with crappy questing: fed-ex quests, pointless back-and-forth, and you had the ridiculous quest series where you had to earn your way to saving the island of Vylbrand (I thought you were in danger, so it can really wait until you go around the world and prove a blind man, a desert tribesman, etc.). To avoid Titan's awakening? Seriously?)

ARR is the worst content to date, if you take all the expansions into account.

___
As for Dawntrail, it's new content after a cycle, and it came after the excellent ShB and Endwalker. Aside from that, Dawntrail is really rotten from the point of view of MSQ epic, last zone, revelation and final battle.

In my opinion, it's a filler expansion for the patient, full of fan service and relatively useless characters. And the main antagonist and Wuk Lamat are both a problem in terms of giving us the epic feel that the previous 2 expansions had.

And even the raid story is laughable compared to Eden and Pandaemonium. I still look back with nostalgia and fond memories at the conclusion of Pandaemonium, and see again one of my favorite FFXIV characters since ShB and appearing long before.


--> Context is important, otherwise... Your info is biased.
And your post sounds like a troll with a healthy dose of denial and hypocrisy.



Ps: I didn't feel any of the emotions during Dawntrail's final fight and cinematic as I listen and replay over and over again via the diary of ShB's cinematic and key moments, Endwalker. --> I was entering the Ewww and Meh at the end of Dawntrail MSQ and the story of its 8-player raid.

Even SB and HW gave me better memories than my ranking of expansions without Dawntrail, and that's a matter of personal taste and preference:

Endwalker > ShB >> SB > HW >> (Dawntrail >) ARR

Many people put HW first and that's personal.

This is completely from an MSQ point of view.


Otherwise, Dawntrail is incredible in terms of PvE gameplay feel.

For Dawntrail OST in my opinion, Endwalker and Shadowbringer still stick in my head and I listen to them regularly. There's not much from Dawntrail that makes me want to listen, I turn off the music at Tuli-Jazz, it's out of context for a South American inspired city.

And the Smile theme... Is a problem for me, it's as cliché as it gets. And it doesn't sound South American to me, maybe more African. If I'm wrong, sorry.