ARR > Dawntrail

[Nitelancer]

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. ...

I don't agree at all that ARR is the worst content to date. A simple example is the environmental story telling in ARR zones. In ARR zones you can find hidden shrines to the gods like Nald below. But in Dawntrial, it does not appear the people in Tural ever had any gods or engage in any form of worship. Their culture feels small and lack a sense of history going based on the environments, whereas in ARR you can find hidden shrines to the twelve gods and other cool points of interest with meaningful lore, making the world feel more grand. Dawntrail is lacking in that and its zones feel relatively sparse.

I do think the giants (Yok Huy) in Dawntrail are interesting though. I feel they help give a sense of history to Tural, so I'll give it that.

As for context, every game is released in a different context. So should their be no comparisons on ratings? What is a rating for if not making comparisons? Ok, let's compare something close to Dawntrail. Actually, when you compare all the expansions, Dawntrail has the lowest user and critic ratings with the exception of 1.0.

[Kaurhz]

Personally, I don't put much stock into initial reviews very much, simply because the story will only be comprising a small fraction of the actual game itself.

The way I see this is that, by these metrics we could deduce that Endwalker was an amazing expansion... Which the story may have been OK, but the content was a desolate wasteland, of which had they repeated Endwalker instead of Dawntrail then the game would be in a far, far worse state than current, IMO. [Edit: To put it this way for Endwalker, for example... If you played just the story of the base-expansion, what rating would you give the game?; now the next question, if you were to review the game right the way at the end to 6.55, trying all possible content... Would that same score persist for you?]

Combat is carrying this expansion, and I would argue it will carry the entire expansion, which IMO is better than if the story were to carry the expansion. I don't think a story is ever irredeemable especially in an MMO, I think they can turn it around, and there's some clues there. I think it's a very mid story-experience, which is very much exacerbated by main character, too much of it hinged on whether you liked them or not.

[KooriGraywolf]

Dawntrail had its good moments, like the lv. 95 dungeon and the lore leading up to it, but overall I felt more engaged with ARR. My internal debate right now is whether Stormblood or Dawntrail is my personally bottom-rated story

[Coratanni]

Dawntrail had its good moments, like the lv. 95 dungeon and the lore leading up to it, but overall I felt more engaged with ARR. My internal debate right now is whether Stormblood or Dawntrail is my personally bottom-rated story

At least Stormblood had the Steppe. That's the one positive I can take from it.

[Evergrey]

At least Stormblood had the Steppe. That's the one positive I can take from it.

That was the worst one imo and I am already rating Stormblood as the worst expansion up to date.
Yes, with Dawntrail included. In fact I think Dawntrail is OK for what it is. It could be better sure, but so could any expansion.