Is 7.2 the last patch to even save Dawntrail at this point?(SPOILERS AHOY)

[Lilapop]

Said it before, I'll say it again. Relying on one patch to save DT is insane. Diadem with a space skin won't save a darn thing. Reskinned Bozja/Eureka won't either. Releasing them both around the same time won't either. Why? It won't change ANYTHING that came before it that people don't like.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Hoping these zones are fun so I'm excited for them.

That won't suddenly make DT's story good. It was terrible. It's the only MSQ I honestly would never want to experience again in my life and I wish I could have selective amnesia to forget everything that happened.

[Hallarem]

Doubt the story will get better, but at least we might have something to do.

[Catwho]

One thing I've noticed is that the doomers have been having a massive, hyperventilating DOOM THIS GAME SUUUUUCKS circlejerk since 7.0 launched and a chunk of the playing base decided it was Terrible, Awful, No Good and have taken every opportunity to shit on it.

In the meantime, those of us who kept playing - heck, even replayed 7.0 on alts or watched other streamers go through it - have had an opposite reaction? Mostly, "Oh, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was." Things didn't happen the way I recalled them happening. Wuk Lamat's character is a dumb unga bunga ... because she's a warrior, of course it makes sense she'd be a dummy.

Were there pacing flaws? Yeah. Did I dislike how much I was forced to interact with Wuk Lamat instead of.... anyone else? Yeah. Was the story weaker than anything since ARR? Absolutely yeah.

Have I still been playing every day and grinding all my jobs to 100 and trying to clear the savage tier and doing silly events with friends like maps and old Extreme mount farming? Also yeah.

I've tuned out the "THIS GAME SUCKS" crowd and decided I'd find my own way to enjoy it, and I've been a much happier person after I cut out every else's negative opinions.

[Veritas-Ancora]

Exploratory Missions is my one and only reason for excitement at this point.

MSQ has been awful.

I really have no interest in Sphene, Wuk Lamat, or any of the Dawntrail characters. They could all die in one big fire and I'd be like, "perfect, this is better."

Bring the Ascians back, at least they kept us on the edge of our seats.

[Kranel_San]

If the exploration zone is unable to save the expansion, then truly all is lost.

[Rolder50]

Said it before, I'll say it again. Relying on one patch to save DT is insane. Diadem with a space skin won't save a darn thing. Reskinned Bozja/Eureka won't either. Releasing them both around the same time won't either. Why? It won't change ANYTHING that came before it that people don't like.

The real issue is that they won't learn ANYTHING from previous instances of Diadem or exploration zones. They will have all the same issues as previous iterations

[Router]

If the exploration zone is unable to save the expansion, then truly all is lost.

I think a good chunk of the people expecting it to save the game are going to be disappointed. I personally loved grinding Bozja, but there were a LOT of people who hated it on release (and ditto for Eureka from what people have told me). I can't see this new zone being any different

[Xelanar]

Just think of Dawntrail as WoW's Shadowlands, players didn't like it and a lot of people stopped playing thanks to it.
But now WoW has The War Within and a lot of players say that it's really good and a lot of players returned thanks to that.

Point is, Dawntrail might not be the best for many but just endure (or take a break) and perhaps the next expansion will be better and people can just "forget" that Dawntrail ever happened.

There is an essential difference though.
In World of Warcraft, you can opt to ignore Shadowlands and BfA.

In FFXIV every single new player joining in will have to bear through the drastic drop in story telling quality right after Shadowbringers and Endwalker set the bar really high. There is no skipping or avoiding story in this game. Dawntrail is the new low, far worse than pre-revamped ARR (to be fair, ARR wasn't even bad. It just had and still has pacing issues).

Dawntrail is the new "it gets better after"-breaking point... potentially. We don't even know for sure yet. Considering last patch we witnessed a relevant story NPC showing more interest in selectively protecting one random entity of wildlife from another random entity of wildlife, than they showed for protecting their own father figure from being killed, my hopes are not exactly skyrocketing.

Unless they revamp, no one will be able to forget how full of severe plotholes and things that don't make any sense Dawntrail is.

[Doki]

The hilarious part of this whole discussion is that what people are clammoring for the exploration zone like it isn't just going to be Bozja zone 3 & 4. Yes it will be different, but it isn't going to reinvent the wheel, and many will be done with it within 2 weeks. Then it's right back to waiting 6++ months for something else.