This expansion is an insult to long term FFXIV players

[Pandan]

Now days I'm more of an MSQ andy, i havent done hard content or progression since Stormblood. I'll admit that.

But the MSQ... the MSQ has always been pretty damn good. Even the widely agreed "mild" SB and ARR are still pretty good.

Dawntrail however, is an insult. I have NO clue what they were going for.
Square Enix said the Hydaelyn & Zodiark story arc was done. I assumed the big goodbye cutscene in Endwalker was supposed to be the last we saw of the scions. At least for awhile..

If their goal was to make an expansion to be the "new player experience" one day, they failed. All the scions are here. I actually dont mind Wuk Lamat at all. What I do mind, is treating the player like an actual idiot by "cluing" them in on things that JUST happened on screen moments later.

The story is incredibly boring before level 96 (MSQ level) And it picks up after that. But then it very quickly becomes contrived again, and the ideas my friends and I had about what might happen next ended up being better than what they did.

I'm normally one of the biggest FFXIV simps ever. Been playing since ARR, big MSQ andy, big about the story. This expansion is NOT for you if you're something like me.


I really dont know how people can delude themselves, the FFXIV apologists are calling the haters cut-scene skippers, but are... they skipping the cut-scenes? How do they not feel insulted by this?

[Sel Und Irae]

Originally posted by Sayo:

Yeah 1.0 was so bad they had to shut it down and remake it. But just because 1.0 was that bad doesn't make dawntrail any better than what it is.

DT needs a retcon, Warrior of light wakes up in SHB From their 5 year long coma.

Fix what you did wrong in EW, Get rid of Team B they dont need jobs.

[Integrity]

Originally posted by weiss:

Originally posted by Pandan:

I don't think saying "I'm a 1.0 player" is the gotcha you think it is lol
Im a ARR player, who cares. You coming in earlier doesn't invalidate what a lot of people are feeling.

it kind of does, furthermore doubt i that you are a "longterm player". your profile is private and you probably have not even 200+ hours in FF14, you just want to be part of the "flame train". not to mentition that this is literarly your first thread in 2 years in this community forum according to your post history, didnt wanted to go further back since most of your topics are "game is bad" etc. (yap, your private profile doesnt protects you from that)

if you would´ve played ARR and not skipping it with throwing money at square enix would you know that the first half of this expansion was literarly "get to know the factions and characters".

and yet, DT is better then ARR in every single aspect, alone the duties are better with the not so braindead mechanics

Is DT better or worse than EW? Because I thought EW was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Just trying to decide if I am going to watch the CS once I start.

[Archangel]

Originally posted by Integrity:

Originally posted by weiss:

it kind of does, furthermore doubt i that you are a "longterm player". your profile is private and you probably have not even 200+ hours in FF14, you just want to be part of the "flame train". not to mentition that this is literarly your first thread in 2 years in this community forum according to your post history, didnt wanted to go further back since most of your topics are "game is bad" etc. (yap, your private profile doesnt protects you from that)

if you would´ve played ARR and not skipping it with throwing money at square enix would you know that the first half of this expansion was literarly "get to know the factions and characters".

and yet, DT is better then ARR in every single aspect, alone the duties are better with the not so braindead mechanics

Is DT better or worse than EW? Because I thought EW was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Just trying to decide if I am going to watch the CS once I start.

DT is far far far worse than EW.

[Saph]

In terms of story, absolutely. But the combat content is consistently pretty great so far at the very least.

[weiss]

Originally posted by Integrity:

Originally posted by weiss:

it kind of does, furthermore doubt i that you are a "longterm player". your profile is private and you probably have not even 200+ hours in FF14, you just want to be part of the "flame train". not to mentition that this is literarly your first thread in 2 years in this community forum according to your post history, didnt wanted to go further back since most of your topics are "game is bad" etc. (yap, your private profile doesnt protects you from that)

if you would´ve played ARR and not skipping it with throwing money at square enix would you know that the first half of this expansion was literarly "get to know the factions and characters".

and yet, DT is better then ARR in every single aspect, alone the duties are better with the not so braindead mechanics

Is DT better or worse than EW? Because I thought EW was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Just trying to decide if I am going to watch the CS once I start.

like i wrote in other topics, DT is a new story arc. half of the expansion is literarly introducing the new races and characters. tho i agree with it that wuk lamat has way too much gscreen time. this was the same with ARR, hence why i compare ARR and DT to each other.

the previews expentions didnt had to introduce a whole new story and races, it was often just side ones+crafter etc.

in general is the same happening here what happened in ARR aka building the pillars for the future expansions. i mean, its surely not a great idea to do something like ARR again but ... it must be somehow done, otherwise are you just in this world and being like "who the heck are these peoples anyways o-o?" just like those peoples feel which skip everything XD.

[Topper mcnabb]

Originally posted by weiss:

Originally posted by Integrity:

Is DT better or worse than EW? Because I thought EW was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Just trying to decide if I am going to watch the CS once I start.

like i wrote in other topics, DT is a new story arc. half of the expansion is literarly introducing the new races and characters. tho i agree with it that wuk lamat has way too much gscreen time. this was the same with ARR, hence why i compare ARR and DT to each other.

the previews expentions didnt had to introduce a whole new story and races, it was often just side ones+crafter etc.

in general is the same happening here what happened in ARR aka building the pillars for the future expansions. i mean, its surely not a great idea to do something like ARR again but ... it must be somehow done, otherwise are you just in this world and being like "who the heck are these peoples anyways o-o?" just like those peoples feel which skip everything XD.

Yes, 2.0 had exposition in excess and Minfilia taking a prominent role despite having the gravitas of a wooden plank.
And what happened because of that? they killed Minfilia in the patches.
Then Lyse coming out of nowhere as they retconned Yda at the end of 4.5, made her the focal character of the Mhigan side of the xpac and even had her be the central figure in that ending scene where everyone sings Mhigo anthem.
And what happened because of that? she got written out after 4.1.
And the worst part is that Wuk is better written than Min and Lyce, but suffers from being to forcefully hamfisted everywhere, there is no room to miss her or breathe, she is there wether you like it or not.

Comparing it with ARR and saying it's the same isn't exactly a good thing, specially when ARR and SB had a divisive reception, and with the hindsight of devs having 4 xpacs of learning about what works and what doesnt.

As for the notion that xpacs didn't had to introduce things, SHB did introduce a whole new world and its races and it didnt affect the pacing, HW introduced Ishgardians and Dravanians in a broader scope which were previously only mentioned as being these isolationists in 1.0, SB introduced both mhigan country and the east, and everyone was fine with the pacing of the east part of it.

I mean, they have the experience, they should know the dos and don't.
SHB did it afterall in a cave with a box of scraps.

[BingusDingus]

Honestly, if the next expansion is as bad as this one is I doubt this game will last much longer, people will mass exodus. A big draw of FF14 is the story, almost all of the content is structured around it, if the MSQ is so insufferable that nobody can sit through it they just wont stay.

[Lorti Lort]

also as a 1.0 player disagree. Talk for yourself. For me it is ok to build up a new Story.
Surely is the first half of the Story a bit boring and get better then. But i don`t play FF14 only for the Story, have a blast of content, and the good is, it is in lower level not empty, like in mostly other mmos like WoW EQ etc etc

[¤ƒ¤]

Originally posted by BingusDingus:

Honestly, if the next expansion is as bad as this one is I doubt this game will last much longer, people will mass exodus. A big draw of FF14 is the story, almost all of the content is structured around it, if the MSQ is so insufferable that nobody can sit through it they just wont stay.

Not an real fans quitting a game even would some expansions be worse and ffxiv like 57 millions players so. World of Warcraft is worse than ever to playing.

[Aldroen]

Lets all just agree that DW for FF14 is the same as Cataclysm for WoW the game is not bad yet but the direction its going towards right now is not giving me any hope for the future of this game.

[Broso]

Didn't like the first 60% of the expansion very much. They spent too much time on the exposition. Should have aimed to have that done at around 40%, maybe 50% at the most. The way it is, when the good stuff started happening, I was already pretty bored. Personally however I really liked what they did with the expansion afterwards. That stuff was much much better than those initial 60%.

I also agree that the entire "13th reflection / Void" plot could have served for something overall more interesting if it had been done correctly.

New climate zones and real world inspired areas are okay, but we have so many of those already and this expansion gives us 4 maps with stuff we've already seen and only 2 are on the more original side. Take Shalooani as an example. That map is the epitome of boredom. It's just big and empty. We've seen similar stuff already in the likes of Thanalan or Amh Araeng. You could take the map out of the game and literally nothing of value would be missing. That's NOT a good thing! The fact that this map comes as the 4th you visit and is the first in the northern part of the continent that you had to work your way through the rite of succession to even get to is terribly disappointing.

It should have been 2/3 maps with real world inspired geography/flora at most and the rest should have been the more original/fantasy stuff.

[Havok]

I dont agree. I came into this with open mind, and I am quite enjoying myself. Even the parts that people seem to hate, I found 90-95 MSQ quite enjoyable. It wasn't at all miserable compared to ARRs setup, and I found the world building to be fairly good.

Granted, this is my first time not playing catchup, so I finally got to take my time with an expansion, so I do want to NG+ the other expansions and play them this slow, but I don't think DT is nearly as bad as everyone claims it to be.

With that being said, I think the bulk of the complaints are coming from folks who blitzed through the game. I get flying in a zone, then do all the shared fates. So for me, I am spending a lot more time, per zone than most, and yet I still find myself enjoying the MSQ.. Presumably because im consuming it in chunks, rather than the entire expansion within a week for it releasing.

[Lixire]

Originally posted by Stagnant Moon:

This is Square Enix's Warlords of Dreanor. Can the team turn in around, and make it better? Answer is nah, take more funding from Game and go make FF17! Yoshi-P seems checked out. Good Thing War Within out in August. This gives me enough time to try the savage raids and then off to ride my dragon thru zones!

if anything, WoD will be more similar to Endwalker. the expc started really strong but then fall off hard as there wasn't much to do (not as extreme but you got the idea).
Dawntrail is probably more like MoP in that sense.

[Sally smithson]

If I had to choose something that wasnt needed it was the bracelet story.
Currently at the Lvl 97 dungeon.

But other than that I have been enjoying taking it slow, I felt plenty of emotions. Which is my indication that it a decent story to me.

[Sel Und Irae]

Originally posted by Aldroen:

Lets all just agree that DW for FF14 is the same as Cataclysm for WoW the game is not bad yet but the direction its going towards right now is not giving me any hope for the future of this game.

It doesn't help they're ignoring all backlash, They're 100% gunna double down on this writing.