/r/ffxivdiscussion: Data analysis of Dawntrail negative reviews (Steam)

[ovIm]

1000 hours in the game isn't necessarily a veteran player. That's about 2 months of playing all day (16 hours a day). Could easily be done during a holiday, summer break or while seeking employment.

Other games take somewhere between 6-40 hours. The MSQ of this game can be beaten in about 250-400 hours, depending on how willing you are to skip cutscenes. I'd argue that people that have played 1000 hours have seen a lot of the content in this game, and while one could argue if that makes them veterans or not, it at least shows some level of dedication to this game.

I don't think it's necessarily review bombing on Steam, but you're more likely to leave a review for a negative experience than a positive one. It's got to be extraordinarily positive (to the point of changing your view on life or something like that) to motivate you to leave a positive one usually, which to be fair, much of the story does motivate people to want to go out of their way to praise it for that, which probably explains why there are positive reviews at all.

Considering the reviews of the other expansions, which were much more favorable, I'm gonna say "Of all the takes you did, this is one of them."

The story in Dawntrail may not be for everyone but it's just one expansion. I don't get the people acting like it's the end of the world because one expansion didn't hit for them.

I don't get why you say this is people acting like the end of the world? This is just an analysis of the general opinion of the game based on public feedback. Dawntrail has its issues, especially when comparing it to the other expansions.

People have paid for a product and are entitled to an opinion. There are people that act like people disliking the current state of the game are a minority, and this post can just be taken as partial proof that the negative voices are not just naysayers, reviewbombers, Wuk Lamat haters, and "a loud but vocal minority".

[Jeeqbit]

I don't get why you say this is people acting like the end of the world?

I say that because I've seen people act like Dawntrail's MSQ being poorly regarded could be the end of the game or something (not necessarily on these forums, but generally). Of course not everyone is saying that, but my point with it is that there will be an 8.0 and a 9.0 etc. for those thinking otherwise.

Dawntrail has its issues, especially when comparing it to the other expansions.

Sure and I think people have pointed them out all over the internet.

There are people that act like people disliking the current state of the game are a minority, and this post can just be taken as partial proof that the negative voices are not just naysayers, reviewbombers, Wuk Lamat haters, and "a loud but vocal minority".

I'm not actually trying to say that the dislike of Dawntrail is a minority. It does seem like a lot of people actually. Whether it's actually a majority or not I'm just gonna leave to analysis' like this, but I do know that there are people I've talked to in the game that are alright with it. However, the dislike has been enough for Yoshi-P to acknowledge it as a general sentiment which I don't think he did for Endwalker despite certain pages-long posts in this forum.

[ovIm]

I say that because I've seen people act like Dawntrail's MSQ being poorly regarded could be the end of the game or something (not necessarily on these forums, but generally). Of course not everyone is saying that, but my point with it is that there will be an 8.0 and a 9.0 etc. for those thinking otherwise.

Yes but this is in regards to this post here, which is not all that? We've seen opinions on all directions, this reddit user here has done an interesting bit of analysis of the negative reviews to put things more into perspective as to where the feedback comes from.

I'm not actually trying to say that the dislike of Dawntrail is a minority. It does seem like a lot of people actually. Whether it's actually a majority or not I'm just gonna leave to analysis' like this, but I do know that there are people I've talked to in the game that are alright with it. However, the dislike has been enough for Yoshi-P to acknowledge it as a general sentiment which I don't think he did for Endwalker despite certain pages-long posts in this forum.

You may not, but there are people that do, and an analysis like that helps to create a more objective baseline for a discussion about the criticism the game receives.

Still though, Yoshi-P's reasoning behind his "I expected people to dislike Dawntrail" (which was, in that one interview at least, that he considers the review to be based upon the ending of the old story arc, and Wuk Lamats lack of self confidence, which are both disproven) shows an inherent misunderstanding as to why people disliked DT.
Hopefully, with time having passed between that interview and now, he and his team had a better chance of analyzing the feedback provided.

[Jeeqbit]

shows an inherent misunderstanding as to why people disliked DT

It does show a lack of understanding, but I think this is because everyone has different criticism, so from a zoomed out perspective the criticism looks all over the place. Due to that, he was probably just trying to guess the root of the criticism.

Hopefully, with time having passed between that interview and now, he and his team had a better chance of analyzing the feedback provided.

I hope so as well. If not, hopefully it'll eventually get through, especially given all the events he's been going to, because places like Gamescom, PAX, and so on give an opportunity to meet people in person and then he can't avoid being directly confronted with concerns like this. And even if he doesn't get the feedback directly, any of his team that go with him to these events may talk to people as well.

I think that was one of the big problems from mid-Shadowbringers and throughout Endwalker. They had to cancel meeting people in person, leaving their only source of feedback as the internet where it's easy to create an echo chamber of what you want to hear. But when going to events in person it's unavoidable to hear the most deep and heartfelt concerns people have, sometimes from journalists as well, where you sometimes see questions catch him off-guard if asked by a journalist that's in touch with community sentiment (obviously not all of them are ).