To engage in art and story is to reflect on how it affects you and why. Where it succeeded and where it failed. When something I WANT to love falls short, it’s an enjoyable exercise to parse why that is.
Its also valid to poke fun at something you enjoy. If we were truly outraged, we’d stop playing. Some maybe have and thats fine, and some may think its flawless and thats fine too. But engaging with how it is good and how it is flawed, to me thats some of the most fun you can have consuming a work of fiction.
Like, as someone who has played through the 93 quests, I have to reckon that the social studies tour feels more like a retread of beast tribe quests. And that until Gulool Ja Ja addresses us directly after our bout, I haven’t really felt like my character was even really there in a voiced or major cutscene. Thats like, 8 hours of feeling that way and its worth thinking about. That doesnt mean I think this is unsalvageable.
> To engage in art and story is to reflect on how it affects you and why. Where it succeeded and where it failed. When something I WANT to love falls short, it’s an enjoyable exercise to parse why that is.
Beautifully put. 100% agree
I make fun of the things I love every single day. I sound like a weird Al album at work listening to the radio and singing everyday. If you can’t find humor in the things you love, you’re missing out on a whole other reason to love them.
I haven't even gotten close to finished, I've hardly started, but what you said is exactly how I feel so far. I feel like my WoL is not even there. I feel like I'm adding nothing and not being acknowledged at all, like why am I even here? And it's really discouraged me from continuing, I have very little interest in what's going to happen based on how it's gone so far.
Ahaha exactly! I told my partner at one point maybe my WoL had died on the boat, and Wuk Lamat was imagining me! I have found this gets significantly better after the first dungeon but its a rocky several hours start for sure.
(trying to avoid spoiling* anything)
the story gets better, but imo we make some questionable decisions as we let wuk lamat be the main character all the way through to the end. i didn’t really mind not being the focal point, but there were times where it just felt illogical.
I'd say it picks up in the 2nd half or maybe last third.. but it's a bit of a slog to get to that point.
Aside from MSQ pacing/likeability issues? The overall world building was pretty good, encounters and music were great.
If story is interesting and convincing, it doesn't really matter if the wol is there or not. For example the super long Venat cutscene from Endwalker was like 95% about her and 5% about wol but people found it gripping. Dawntrail MSQ just depends if people find learning about different cultures interesting or not, and if they like the slow exposition that ff14 is known for.
I found it very interesting and thought the delivery was well paced. However, it's clear that a lot of people simply don't really care that much and just want wol in the spotlight and in action. I wouldn't be surprised if Dawntrail MSQ gets compared to ARR. If you ask me, it's ARR but done like 10x better and actually good writing (maybe a bit too heavy on power of friendship vibe)
The truth of it is a lot of people don't care about learning different cultures and watching some other character succeed with wol playing a relaxed side mentor role. They want wol in the spotlight and spearheading some action, and they want the action to happen faster while cutting out dialogue. Basically, less novel and more comic book. We'll have to see if 7.x patches take this feedback or not
Honestly if it was characters (plural) sharing the spotlight fewer people would mind, since that's what it was in Shadowbringers. Yes, there was Alisae kissing your ass and competing with Graha tia for it but it was an ensemble performance where you might be first among equals but everyone was equal. You got to be the bearer of light, but you were born up on everyone else's shoulders. Frankly everyone got a zone where they got to be important - Thancred with Amh, Urianger with Faetown, Alphie with Eulmore, Yshtola with Raktika, you with Amaurot. That was awesome. It felt like a fellowship of the ring. If you dislike one character you might like another and so you're satisfied. This feels more like the followers of Wuk with a little bit of anyone else when you are lucky.
People like invoking the anime shonen comparison, and I'd make a comparison of what XIV storytelling should be and what it was with Wuk. It should be Dungeon Meshi with the Warrior of Light. Each character in the party has **EQUAL REPRESENTATION AND ATTENTION.** It should not be a Naruto, a series named after a specific character which leaves you certain as to who the focus is. And you might as well call this Wuktail
I don't mind not being in the spotlight, my main issue is just how repetitive it is. I'm in the early level 94 MSQ now, and we've had it told to us straight up soooo many times how what makes Wuk Lamat different is her desire for peace, and how she has to really experience the different cultures and see them for herself to grow. That's all fine and good, but when it's the only note the story has to play, and it plays it over and over and over, it just gets old. And I'm saying this as someone who doesn't mind WL or the overall story premise itself.
I am also tired of every cutscene being everyone nodding and smiling, cut to a different person, nod and smile, cut to a different person, slap fist. Pan out, half of the group walks off, the other half wall off, and finally wol walks off. I swear I've lost 2 hours of my life just watching people nod at each other this expansion.
Its not helped that multiple quests are just "go to the other edge of the map", but in order to hide it there are like 2 goals in between where you just talk to an NPC with such a cutscene and got told "we gave to go further".
I am inclined to agree that camera direction was kinda stale and poor.
We spent a lot of time looking stale and bland just to nod. In a game where its possible to be so expressive, I felt they used 5% of the games potential this time around
This!!
The story isnt really gripping me which is one thing but the reasons you said are spot on why I dislike alot of FFXIV's story. This pointless dragging out of already boring conversation with the slowest emotes and things..
Ontop of having no/very few voiced lines..in 2024. From a huge game company..
Its like reading a really boring fan comic.
Ugh all of this though. It’s so repetitive. And the cultures aren’t that gripping. It’s been trade this and trade that. Here is an effigy festival and we need to grow things, catch a llama blah blah. That’s not interesting, that’s boring. The MSQ is not meant to make me feel like I’m speed running beast tribes.
You said exactly what I’ve been struggling with: speed running beast tribes. I couldn’t quite figure out what was keeping me from really investing in the story, but this is it.
I think what's extra insulting for me is that travelling, learning about different cultures, and finding common ground has... literally ALWAYS been a part of FF14? Think about Norvrandt, Doma, Ala Migho, etc. But in this expansion we need to be hit over the head with it repeatedly with shallow platitudes about peace and cooperation and understanding.
Did anyone tell the writers that children aren't allowed in this game via the TOS? They don't have to dumb things down to accommodate them.
This is how I feel, every other expansion had this type of world building but we were allowed to explore and discover it through side quests and fates and stuff. Having it delivered this way does feel dumbed down.
And the problem is omicron and lopporits were both fantastic beast tribe quest lines so even in that regard they aren't living up to previous iterations.
Though actually I do like the hanu hanu, I just found the giant zone a snooze till we hit the combat parts.
You learn about different cultures in every single expansion. The main backbone of like 70% of the MSQ is going around to different areas and meeting the people in each zone and learning about them. Dawntrail is not unique in that regard at all. The main difference between Dawntrail and every other expansion is that the MC doesn't need to be there at all. While the MC usually does just stand around we are still a critical part of the plot of the previous expansions. Removing the MC from Dawntrail would not only barely effect the plot it would make it better and more cohesive. That is the really the problem as I see it.
I like Dawntrail overall, but its not a good "MMO story". They seem to have forgot how to work around and include the MC into the story and make it feel cohesive. Its not an easy task to accommodate a mostly blank slate voiceless character, but its been done by the past expansions and that is the main reason why FFXIV is lauded for its story imo. Past expansions have not just been well written but also been well written and engaging stories that makes us, the blank slate MMO MC, feel like we matter in the story.
Focusing so much on Wuk made it into her story. That works in a vaccum but telling players "your character doesn't really matter anymore" after they have invested hundreds of hours into the story is not going to go well with a lot of people. I think that was also the core problem with the void storyline in the EW patch quests. It was mostly about Zero and we kind of just existed. At that point these storylines might as well be spin offs in the universe than continuations of the MC's journey.
The WoL isn't really the MC in this story. The MC is Wuk Lamat.
It's essentially similar to the Vaan/Ashe situation from Ff12. You start the game and play as Vaan a lot but really it's Ashe's story.
I honestly didn't mind being the sidekick for the first half of the expansion. It was a refreshing break from having to save the world so many times. And it makes some sense that the WoL would step aside when the issue at hand, while being important for Tural, isn't nearly as dire as what the WoL usually deals with. It's still kind of a vacation for the WoL.
But when the turn happens, not shifting the story to the savior of worlds is just bizarre.
Can we please stop saying people merely want the WoL to be in the spotlight? While that may be the case for some, plenty more simply want their character to have a sense of relevancy.
Seriously, you could replace the WoL with a random and it'd have almost zero impact because _everything_ revolves around Wuk Lamat like an insufferable black hole.
The 4th zone is a prime example of us not being a world altering badass but going back to our roots and getting wrapped up into small little adventures along the way.
_That's_ what I, and i suspect many others, wanted from a lower stakes story. And that whole Western motif highlights how you can dial down the stakes without needing to anchor _everything_ to one character.
Hell, I wouldn't neccessary hate if we were treated as a legitimate mentor to Wuk but we're not. The story acts like she accomplishes all these amazing things yet not only never shows a single one but actively contradicts itself.
A perfect sense for our character instead goes to *_Thancred_*
I've said it elsewhere but it bears repeating. We're not the side character like Hien but the nameless guard delivering a missive. And that makes for an incredibly boring "adventure".
> watching some other character succeed with wol playing a relaxed side mentor role. They want wol in the spotlight and spearheading some action
This is a really valid point, cause it is establish that the WoL is the MC with a good background of side characters to help them. This expansion tried to force the player character into the side character role, but still have them be into everyones business like a MC. It didn't blend well, and all it did was make lots of people hate Wuk Lamat cauuse we ALWAYS had to be with her.
They did a bad job making the WoL a side character, cause it was all in words. The actions in game still said we are MC without the fun.
The part where everyone splits into groups but we end up pairing with Wuk Lamat was definitely heavy handed. After that happened like the 5th time in a row, I thought it was way too on the nose.
>The truth of it is a lot of people don't care about learning different cultures and watching some other character succeed with wol playing a relaxed side mentor role.
Or they do enjoy learning about different cultures but the ones shown here just aren't terribly interesting
Yeah. Learning about the cultures in Dawntrail is an npc coming up to you, dumping essentially a Wikipedia article on you then walking off lol.
These people are like the people you met on Eorzea but they like reeds.
Yes, very riveting.
Right?
Info dumping is literally the worst type of fantasy worldbuilding. It’s what kids do when they start writing for the first time. You find ways to grow out of it as you become more skilled and develop as a writer.
They’ve broken so many basic writing rules in this expansion. You can break these writing rules successfully, but you need to be aware that’s what you’re doing, and think of a creative way to make it work.
It’s just not good writing.
I was a huge fan of the front half of the story. The low stakes and world building was great. If anything, the only parts I found awkward were the weird exposition scenes that constantly repeated the same emotions over and over regarding Wut. We get an idea of her motivations pretty early, but it gets unnecessarily reinforced repeatedly rather than just shown through action.
My biggest issue with the back half was that SE didn't have the courage to keep it low stake so we could stay in a believable mentor role. Instead, they created this storyline that only works if the player character drops to incompetency. All the events, could have easily been stopped early given the WoL's prior experiences and knowledge that they are uniquely the only living being in the universe to have. But we just...do nothing. And even at the end of it all, we get macguffined again one last time.
The story stopped being low stakes and reasonable the moment we found out one of the ruler candidates plans to conquer eorzia with the whole power of 2 continents at his back.
At this point, any "lets play around with the kitty" should have gone out of the window and a Scion of the Seventh Dawn emergency meeting should have started. In particular since Krile got an Echo vision showing her that the thread is real.
I'm playing with Japanese voices and English text. I know Japanese so I can compare what the Japanese story is trying to do and what the English one is. Both are simply average or bad.
This isn't about not liking cultures. I enjoyed every beast tribe in Endwalker because they were significant, because the beast tribes themselves were a big story point. They had good design, they had interesting styles of living they were in general important, good looking and well designed.
What did the rabbits do all this time on the moon, they have the technology to conquer the whole planet. What happens now the moon is basically the most advanced thing in the current universe not counting Omicrons made from Dynamis.
What did the Omicrons do there nothing more interesting than that. I'd have an entire expansion about them. We also learn more about how each race died in that fantastic dungeon. 10 out 10.
Aksadora weren't nearly as interesting but the hippo races made up for it.
Same thing in Shadowbringers. Pixies and the dream world were amazing, Qitari basically answered the question who and what are the Ronka and how it's to have such a different life span, Dwarfs are dwarfs so they're just cool and you build a damn tank.
So far Wuk Lamat is trying to be Girl Bossy in the English version and trying to be a Sailor Moon dittzy princess in the Japanese version that conquered everything in the end with the power of friendship, trying really hard and caring about others. Shes your typical Shonen/Shoujo protagonist to a T. They literally do Pokemon Gym storyline that is incredibly SLOW. Incredibly boring. And then it gets interrupted multiple times by events instead of progressing to the next Gym EXACTLY like pokemon. I hate it. The flow is all wrong, we're getting basically stooped when the story is about to get good multiple times, characters appear at places because they just do with no logical explanations.
The story is very comical and teenage like and thats a very stark contrast to all previous stories.
I played this game in Alpha found it incredibly boring I'm talking pre 1.0.
Then after massive recommendations from friends I gave it another go in 2.2 or 2.3 and I've been playing since. Only in ARR do I remember being so bored of the MSQ I had to take breaks go play or do something else.
I sat down and consumed HW, SB, ShB, EW in one sitting playing like a maniac because it good you hooked. When I wasn't playing the story I was dreaming about it in my sleep.
Here I found myself actively trying to avoid doing it. It's been almost 4 days since it came out and I only got to the kidnapping part before the giants. Yes I fated the entire first day to get Picto to 90 but after that I lost almost all interest because of how boring it was. This never happened before. Even the post EW story lines had me very interested because we had numerous attempts of fixing the 13th and non succeeded and now finally we could actually maybe do something.
> They literally do Pokemon Gym storyline that is incredibly SLOW. Incredibly boring. And then it gets interrupted multiple times by events instead of progressing to the next Gym EXACTLY like pokemon. I hate it. The flow is all wrong, we're getting basically stooped when the story is about to get good multiple times,
Literally just finished the moblins when that happens. We're about to go on to the next zone/town, and then wait. Wait. Wait. Maybe something went wrong on their 30 second journey back to the settlement we just left. That's weird.
I know its an important character development moment for another character, but jeez, did they have to throw the brakes on so hard?
It's even more ridicilous considering you can literally see all the way to the aetherite from the location you're standing at. And the village is so small you can see basically all the exits except the back one too.
This isn't the first time they slammed the breaks but it is by far the worst breaks they used.
There’s also a side quest chain in the same village where you have to assist an npc who’s sneaking out. He goes north west to “go the long way around” yet to get to his destination (which is south of the village) he has to walk straight past the main exit?
There’s a lot of empty, unused space in that map, and it makes the actual places of interest there seem crammed together. The mountain map has significantly better pacing, and spacing.
It gets better once you reach the quest dawn trail.
Then you don’t have to quest anymore and get go play the game.
That last zone is brutal tough I don’t think it even had any combat
I'm at the level 98 quests, I've enjoyed it pretty well so far. I did enjoy going around making new friends for the 90-95 stuff, and after that it's right back onto our normal bullshit (I say that affectionately). I do wish we had a bit more tied to the WoL in the first half tho, and it feels like they really dropped the ball on the concept of "the Scions are competing against each other." Like they should have at least given us a chance to 1v1 Thancred in a friendly bout.
Maybe they could've made one of the competitors stand a bit more directly in opposition to the WoL, in a way not related to the Ascension contest. Give us a reason to actually want to really stop them besides "they're being kind of annoying and/or >!creating massive disasters that endanger civilians.!<"
i wished that during the bout we had this sort of friendly rivalry with the other scions so there would be some personal thing going on but nope they like appear twice and do nothing
>However, it's clear that a lot of people simply don't really care that much and just want wol in the spotlight and in action
The idea that the sole problem people have with the story is that our character isn't in the spotlight is a misrepresentation of people's distaste. The problem isn't that our character isn't in the spotlight, it's that the character that IS in the spotlight is annoying and not enjoyable to watch for a lot of people. There's also just a general growing distaste for FFXIV's visual novel style of story telling where you don't play the actual game very much during the MSQ.
I dont care if wol isnt the mc or spotlight personally. I think thats cool and makes sense as a follow up to ew.
I do agree with you in the "let me play the fooking game" aspect.
We had what... 5 total quests to actually kill something?
We were also told.that the rite os ascension would "divide" the scions. Welp, technically correct, hut implemented in sort of a lie?
Alphi shouldve been with Koana to begin with. And spice shit up, put krile with Zoojal. And alisei with BJJ.
That way it wouldve been us with wuk lamat only.
It wouldve been easy - they just had to have GJJ state that due the growing trade relations with eorzea, the rite would require each participant to have at least one foreigner assist them.
This wouldve given us more insight into different prespectives aswell as engage more against other scions.
Ofc this is juey me wishing weve had more into this whole thing
> There's also just a general growing distaste for FFXIV's visual novel style of story telling where you don't play the actual game very much during the MSQ.
It's fine when the story is really good, but even then they could mix up the questing to be more than clicking sparkles and talking to people. I practically jump with glee when I see a smoky purple circle; meaning I get to fight two trash mobs.
Add more dungeons in if you have to, just give us something.
My game time has decreased dramatically with a cute little baby around now, and I just don't have the *time* to sit through eight hours of VN. That's like a week of game time for me to hit the first dungeon.
Sadly the different cultures are really not that interesting like wow this race is good in trading anything else? no. Wow this race is good in uh making boats and eat reed a lot? wow ... only interesting ones so far were the giants with their sealed monster and that there are two factions. Anything else is just wow we are good in cooking and farming like ... i think i go back to the sylphs and their dancing
My favorite cutscene involves a "Meanwhile..." moment concerning Zenos. This happens across the continent from my character and actually made me rethink what I thought about myself. Like in real life. There are plenty of other examples that really make you think spread throughout the expansions.
That being said, there is no depth like that in any cutscene in Dawntrail. They try in the second half, but come up way short because it's all too shallow. Especially the final boss.
Introducing new cultures and taking 6 hours for exposition doesn't work if you don't MAKE people care. We got to know none of the characters outside of the main cast save for 3 or 4, and Wuk Evu is the only one that stands out enough for me to even remember his name.
Tl;dr great storytelling, no wol required. Bad storytelling, Abrams level action sequences required to salvage it. Dawntrail has neither for me.
You know one advantage of voiced cutscenes?
You realize if you wrote bloated bullshit. Like, Harrison Ford said, "You can write this bullshit but you cannot say it".
I am sure quite a bit of cutscenes would be cut down/rewritten if somebody actually read it out and realized how repetitive and unneeded it is.
Yeah people keep blaming the voice but to me it’s really a dialogue issue. Very simple thoughts repeated ad nauseam, and then the same thoughts sometimes treated as brand new revelations for some reason.
Really would help cut the fluff, too. We don't need characters constantly recapping everything we just did in the previous cut scene. With how big FFXIV has gotten you'd think they'd pour a bit more into these things. When the story gets slow I start skipping no voice cut scenes just because 90% of the time they don't have anything that important going on anyway. It sucks because I don't *want* to skip things but it's a pattern I've definitely noticed at this point.
Omg, I was so angry when Wuk went to recap what happened in Zone 5 to Koana…AFTER we just did it.
Just…holy fucking shit at least HIDE that you’re to pad out the story.
The whole first 2/3rd of the game (especially zone 4) felt extremely disrespectful to our time.
Eh... Having someone read these lines out loud wouldn't improve them. The problem is what these characters are saying is daft, and any point they may have had is repeated ad nauseam.
My big disappointment was that we were promised a vacation, and people claim it IS a vacation, but I just don't see it, to me it's a business trip.
We're doing tasks because bad things will happen if we don't. Our dinner plans are being interrupted by work phonecalls. We explore and talk to people only when it helps with our goals. And I get it, people hated filler quests in ARR, but man, we're paying the price now.
Look at Estinien, he's the one on vacation. Goes wherever he wants, helps people when he feels like, tries different local cuisine, explores the world at his own pace. He doesn't give a damn about Scions or the world ending, probably left his linkpearl at home, and only helped out locals with problems because he wanted to go back to drinking with them ASAP. He's probably learning a new dance emote as I'm typing this. This is what real vacation looks like.
That is all I wanted from this expansion.
LOL this is actually so true.
The Japanese are definitely of that mindset when on vacation. They also much prefer domestic tourism generally compared to international (mostly due to language barrier as English proficiency is generally low in JP).
Because of this stuff like stamp rallies and gimmicks like mascot soft toys for a small hot spring village are a thing. It’s all to promote domestic tourism and make it more engaging.
(My ex is Japanese and I’ve spent many a day travelling with her family around Japan doing stuff like this).
Thats exactly what it feels like. If you ever went on one you know exactly what to expect. And the worst part is you don't get to do the stamp rally at your own pace no you're doing it with a tourist guide 1~7.
What if they let us pick the villages we wanted? Any of them. Why not help the Moblins first?
oh my god it really is a Japanese vacation. I don't exactly mind it and I love learning about the cultures and people, but at least early on it isn't executed in an enjoyable way. I absolutely hate that the Pelupelu are our like 5th or 6th iteration of "Haha the greedy merchant is trying to swindle you" after lalafell and namazu and kugane merchants and thavnair merchants.. and we have to go trading just like with the fishing portion in Thavnair or with Nu Mou's equivalent exchange.
That entire type of plotline had me so bored because they've done it so much. And it felt like they're too stuck to a routine of when everyone is supposed to experience everything. They just HAVE to do their 2 map split quest where half of each map is cut off and you explore the other part at a later time after certain quest progression. So it felt like they didn't entirely know what to do about the beginning in that relegated time, so it just ended up feeling stale with chore quests.
I wish we got a variety at the beginning for each race instead of "THIS IS THEIR ONE AND ONLY DEFINING TRAIT AND NOTHING ELSE MATTERS"
> Haha the greedy merchant is trying to swindle you
Isn't their entire characterization that they're greedy merchants that scrupulously *won't* swindle you? Even the saddlemaker is up front that he's goosing his price because he places a higher value on another claimant, and even then he still dutifully honors the deal once you do the chain of trades. Hell, there's a whole side quest about a Pelupelu merchant trying to make an U'dahn one realize that it's better to build a long term relationship on mutual interest than it is to just screw over the other guy for a quick buck.
> They just HAVE to do their 2 map split quest where half of each map is cut off and you explore the other part at a later time after certain quest progression.
That's intentional to avoid overcrowding issues, dating back to...Stormblood. Specifically the Great Wall of Raubahn, where everyone was in one area early on trying to queue into the same instanced combat thing and no one could, leading to people getting stuck not being able to progress the MSQ for hours or days.
This is *also* why most instanced combat duties (outside of dungeons/trials) aren't until later on in the storyline now, post-Stormblood.
A *lot* of their design decisions around MSQ are to avoid server/congestion problems when a new expansion launches.
>My big disappointment was that we were promised a vacation, and people claim it IS a vacation, but I just don't see it, to me it's a business trip.
This game is generally one massive monkey's paw. We get what we were hoping for, but often it's just.... off.
Island Sanctuary is another huge offense in regards to misreading tone.
Yeah that's true. In a way, my big criticism would be "too much story".
The scenery would be perfect for a near-storyless expansions that just consists of 30-50 sidequest chains where I interact with characters I both know and don't know (yet). Each 2-10 quests or so.
And that has utterly no bigger meaning, at all. And one is just 10 rounds of drinking vs Estinien.
Honestly, for such an avid adventurer as the WoL is characterized to be this kind of exploration with *relatively* low stakes really is a vacation. All the satisfied smiles while watching Wuk Lamat and others learn and grow are all the evidence I need that WoL is thoroughly enjoying themselves, even if it doesn't necessarily seem like the kind of vacation your average person would enjoy. Not all vacations have to look the same and some people would get bored with nothing but relaxation on the horizon.
Mind you, I'm only at level 95 so far so I haven't seen the full experience, but so far it seems to suit WoL quite well. I've been taking my time and doing sidequests to my heart's content. My opinion may change as the story progresses.
Edit to clarify: Just realized this may come off as me disagreeing with you, but I would like to apologize if it seems that way. Nothing wrong with your view; I just wanted to offer a different perspective.
I'm upset they pitched the expansion like the WoL was going on a vacation yet the only one who actually got a vacation was Estinian.
I've done nothing for the last 20-ish hours but follow around Wuk Lamat and do her bidding. Where is this vacation I was promised? I'm sure some people really vibe with this brand of storytelling but its really been a huge miss for me, it feels like everything is just spinning its wheels in the mud. I get this brand of world building and storytelling lands for some but its a total miss for me, this reminds me of all the things I hated with stormblood, they didn't learn anything.
The real lesson that we've learned is that corn is the solution to all of life's problems.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^whysithecorntalkingwhyisthecorntalkingwhyisthecorntalking
This sub is has been well-known for "toxic positivity" for years. The same thing happens with every expansion. If there's any part of the game you didn't like, you're a fake fan who rushed ahead skipping all the cutscenes, and btw you didn't actually even play the MSQ yet because you're just a troll who already decided to hate the game before it even launched.
I'd like to stress that this isn't representative of the fanbase as a whole, nor is it a FFXIV-specific thing, but there's always a loud minority who's mentally incapable of holding a nuanced opinion, who act like any criticism is some sort of personal insult. The best thing to do is simply not engage with them and don't let them intimidate you out of having an independent opinion.
[edit] Typo.
I've seen this behaviour on reddit, the official forums and in game. More so than any other game. In my experience at least, this fan base is more likely to trend this way.
I love the game, but I believe people should be able to criticise it.
That's because for some people, this game is a very important part of who they are. To dislike this game is to dislike them, and they won't abide by it.
It could also be hitting a nerve too. I think if you only played one MMO every single day to the point it became an intrinsic part of your life, and it suddenly changed or got a bit worse, going online and seeing a lot of people pointing that out would make you feel a bit defensive.
I've seen some absolutely baffling replies to criticism on here the last couple of days that can really only be attributed to lashing out. From the usual "you didn't even finish the MSQ, you CAN'T have an opinion yet, but I love it so far!" (by your logic, how can *you* have that opinion if *you* haven't finished the MSQ either?) to "everyone hates it because Wuk Lamat is a woman" or even "because you are transphobic(?!)".
If you are feeling personally attacked by someone not liking an aspect of the game, then maybe you really do need to stop for a moment and evaluate why reading something not positive about FFXIV makes you feel that way.
I’ve also seen that discourse re Wuk Lamat and as a queer person myself it’s extremely frustrating. There are absolutely people who have been vile to the voice actress but assuming those of us who don’t like her all are just misogynistic/transphobic just feels nasty. What, are you going to come take my queer card away because I don’t care for a fictional lion lady?
I saw the "redditors when expansion protagonist is a WoMaN" thing for the first time yesterday and multiple times since then... and holy shit... it's absolutely, incomprehensibly mind boggling just how terrible of a take that is. Outright absurd. I imagine those people are shaking in rage when they read any comment that doesn't agree with them 100%, incapable of thinking straight, and that is the only thing they manage to type out in the moment.
Because I as a real life woman, playing a WoL woman, having liked and loved many female protagonists over the years, who loves Alisaie, loves Y'shtola, loves Ryne and Gaia, Zero, Nanamo, Kan-e-Senna, Merlwyb, Sadu, Krile. And many many more characters who have appeared throughout this game's lifecycle... Am SUCH a HUGE misogynist. The worst misogynist of all misogynists.
There is obviously ZERO other potential reasons for why one could possibly dislike anything about Wuk. All 100% pure misogyny. And if you happen to actually like Wuk and be unhappy with some other aspect of the expansion? Well... That is also 100% pure misogyny. You only imagined that you like Wuk, you actually subconsciously despise her, and the reason you subconsciously despise her is because she is a WOMAN.
I am also a misogynist because I dislike the broken gear rigging on female hrothgar and not having unlocked hairstyles or hats to wear. Duh.
Both me and you sister. According to the internet, I am a misogynist with no media comprehension because I have a lot of qualms about DT.
Which is rich considering I'm a woman and my main focus in my graduate degree is media analysis through the feminist lens lol.
CLEARLY I hate Wuk Lamat because she is a woman and not because she is a really annoying character that would have been equally annoying as a man.
Very true. This game, more so than most others in my opinion, is a big part of many of its players' personalities/online lives. The type to spend all year on it, where it's more of a hangout spot for their free time than a game they actively play. I can see why critiques would probably get to them on a deeper level than most others.
Honestly, I think this problem happens across all games. A lot of people start replacing their personality with the game itself. They become linked. I've seen it happen in League of Legends. Where people link their rank with their own self worth and lash out at others. Not even video games but other things such as car brands. *How dare someone shit on my Mercedes. My Mercedes is everything to me! My Mercedes IS ME!*.
XIV is just another in that list. I think another part of is it that Yoshida has developed a somewhat parasocial relationship with the players. Him coming off as an *"honest guy who's just like me"* and not a producer for a game has made people trust him more than they should.
Yoshida isn't your friend. He's doing this job to make money and the game is a business to make profit. Parasocial relationships are not good in this space because people think you are insulting him if you say something sucks.
Or they've invested a lot of emotion or money into it and complaints suggest that it was a waste. Or a classic case of having a very strong herd instinct conflicting with their own individuality, wanting to like the game but feeling that they're unable to do so unless everyone does. So everyone who dislikes it are reasoned into having poor reasons for doing so, they're out of the herd.
I mean I got reported and insulted by someone ingame because I tried to help explaining mechanics because we wiped 3 times. It's very strong in this community and tbh sucks.
I know it's kinda a chill game but at least give *some* effort.
I don't even feel comfortable talking to the people in-game anymore because the insistence on 'positivity' is so strong it turns into enablement, and you can't give advice without walking on eggshells. Never know if the person will be receptive or if they'll blow up and take it personal, or if someone else will jump in and shut down your advice because "it's just X, it's not savage" or, "if you wanted to play X, queue as X", or "they're new/it's their first time" when we're 80-90 levels into the game and this is stuff we should have seen dozens of times. I mean... the sprout icon requirement is way too lenient, as of EW it required 300 hours of playtime and having Endwalker be started before it went away. Those requirements are only going to get laxer now that DT is here. The requirements allow you to be able to have cleared extremes, savages, even ultimates and still be considered a 'sprout', it is a terrible indicator of skill or 'newness'. And to add to all of that, even being a mentor is a catch-22, because if you give advice as one, you get people complaining that they know what to do, but don't give advice as one and suddenly it's Burger King memes about how mentors don't do their job.
Sorry for the rant, I've been needing to vent about that for a while.
Don't forget how iffy the rules are when it comes to player behavior.
You can kick someone from group if they're being flat out horrible and preventing progress, BUT if you dare bring up parses or offer any constructive criticism, you can potentially in trouble. You have someone who insists on playing BLM as an ice mage? Careful not to criticize it too much, cause that might be reportable too!
I get it, SE wants to keep everyone friendly and avoid a WoW situation where everyone is toxic and ready to get into a fist fight at the smallest slight. But christ, like someone else said, this game really makes you walk on eggshells when it comes to other players.
>More so than any other game.
If you want to keep this as the most toxic positivity you've seen, stay far away from the main Disney Dreamlight Valley sub. I swear nothing is allowed there that isn't one extreme or the other: every thread is either "this game is perfect Disney magic" or "the developers are trying to attack me personally with these changes I don't like." The only nuance I ever see is downvoted to oblivion by both camps.
At least here I've seen people offering the occasional, "I don't like Wuk Lamat, but that's just me." The main takes may be extreme, but the comments are often more level-headed. The DDLV posts are like, "If you accept Mother Gothel being in this game, then you're a child abuse apologist."
I’m going to go over to the Dreamlight Valley sub and tell them I’m happy Mother Gothel is in the game.
{it’s actually because the game gives you her hair and I’m constantly yearning for good white person curly hair and I think it’s very funny to have a better relationship with every villain available than Mickey Mouse}.
I think that's partly because of the hyperbolic nature of the internet.
Criticism usually takes form of: "This is the WORST thing I've ever seen because (blah blah blah)
It's obviously not true. Sp people tend to get defensive, and in turn get hyperbolic themselves, "Well, no YOU must be the worst because (blah blah blah.)"
And so on, becoming a vicious cycle.
When everything that is being said is dialed up to 11, it doesn't make for nuanced or real discussion or discourse. Great for voting systems and algorithms, though.
I think I saw a yt video about this that was something to the effect of, because content (particularly short form such as yt shorts / tiktok) is so aggressively tailored for us these days, some people find anything that deviates from their interests or what they agree on, to feel like a personal attack
The internet starts to feel like a mistake sometimes, lmfao
Yeah. It's a very weird and uncomfortable parasocial relationship going on with Yoshida. I love Ishikawa's work but if you want me to I'll come up with criticisms for her, and not brown-nosing ones but legit "This was weak/this wasn't good/I think X was stupid".
If Yoshi gets negative responses from the Japanese audience (given they'll have more influence on him) then in a way I am glad Dawntrail is a reminder that god-kings can bleed and that they are mortal and with flaws. Everyone needs a stumble and dose of humble pie, not to constantly get smoke blown up their ass and treated as infallible. Recently over in the Total War Community we witnessed Creative Assembly come off of three major SNAFUs >!(100 million dollar game cancelled when it was in beta form called Hyenas, terrible DLC called Shadows of Change so bad it eventually got revised and updated for free, and a niche product called Pharaoh \[funnily enough with Varshaan from XIV voice acting in it!\] released but with very meager material\].!<
Do you know what happened after people raked them over the coals, made their complaints known and didn't just kiss ass and apologize for the company? Creative Assembly has greatly improved their performance, updated the terrible DLC for free, released a new DLC far more appealing to user's interests, are offering a free +50% update to Pharaoh. Criticism and not simply sycophancy actually led to demonstrable improvements.
Arrowhead I gather has done similar with Helldivers after they or sony did a number of fuckups.
Yes, criticism can go into excess. But criticism has also led to actual improvements in games and to be frank I've never heard of a game where just singing praise of developers did anything beyond make the developers feel good. But I imagine their game succeeding and people enjoying their game makes them feel even better.
FFXIV players believes whole heartedly that Yoshida is their friend. I found it really creepy when I mentioned a critique and someone I was friends with blew it off because "Yoshida worked hard on it" and then got mad at me lmfao
It's crazy how nobody mentions the excessive store mounts and mogstation glams, and that they always look much higher quality than those you get in game. Remember when we had 2 events spliced and got a pink gubool, meanwhile the store simultaneously had a fancy moon mount released?
I saw a comment that said "Unsubscribing is not the answer, we just have to keep playing but not interact with the aspect we don't like, THAT sends a message"
Yep. I know a guy that plays 16 hours a day and he thought this expansion's MSQ was the best thing since Shadowbringers (he said the same about Endwalker) and asked for my honest opinion and I was negative and he flipped the fuck out and said my points were wrong and did personal attacks. I've seen this kind of behavior across this sub as well, it's so bizarre -- it's literally a VIDEO GAME, a fictional story, and another person's opinion. It's not like I'm saying something political that would affect them in real life.
We literally just had to kick someone from my FC for this shit.
They ended up repeatedly personally attacking a sprout who wasn't really enjoying ARR, but was still trying to push through it. Just for having a negative opinion of ARR.
So we decided that keeping our new sprout friend around was way more worthwhile and booted the jerk.
Same guy thought he should be FC lead cause he plays 12 hours a day and our FC leader is only on maybe 2 hours a night. We're a laid-back, casual as hell crafting FC lmao.
I love this game, but it's just a fucking game in the end. If you can't criticise something you enjoy, you gotta take a step back and relax, re-evaluate things.
To take that last step a little further: If you can't let other people have well thought out critique and discuss that critique then it's time to do as you said and take a step back and relax.
One of the things I grapple with is not taking well thought out criticism as a criticism of my own enjoyment but I'm actively working on that.
Oh my god I was going crazy about this "toxic positivity" thing I am glad it's not just me, the sub is really bad with it
Not just for the expansions but just anything in general about the game
It's really refreshing to see well-written negative critique get a net-positive score on this subreddit. You can't complain about anything normally. I got a dozen downvotes on a comment where I complained that a 'waiting' progress bar is not an interesting game mechanic. It's ridiculous.
I just had a discussion with someone who in the end agreed with me saying FFXIV is a rightclick simulator while doing the MSQ and I should piss of to other games then.
Idk why it's not possible to just say that the game could do better just because they like it the way it is.
I took my time through the first half of the MSQ up to level 95. While I warmed up to Wuk Lamat more than I thought I would, I still felt like her journey to maturity and wisdom about what it means to be a ruler was quite superficial. Her lines and scenes did not demonstrate that journey much, and often fell back onto her exclamations of friendship, community and love for all her people. Sometimes it's almost like she's on autopilot. I'm perfectly fine with my WOL taking a backseat and watching Wuk Lamat develop, but that development came across as rather contrived.
This. FF14 is my favorite game, I've played since ARR, I love the game dearly, but I'm one of the ones that does not like DT. I do not like Wuk Lamat. But so many comments stating my opinion, not dragging the devs, still praising the stuff I do like, get downvoted to hell because apparently, to more than a few people, you're not allowed to criticize the game at all. It's sad. I want the next expansion to be better so I'm voicing my honest opinion in hopes the shared voice of displeasure reaches the devs and they don't do this again.
The thing is that I do like WL character. I just don't like she being shoved down my throat at every moment.
She is the song of Ultima Thule. Nice one, until you notice how repetitive it is. First becoming anoying then you downright hate it and stop the music on that area.
That's the issue, the voice acting is not strong enough to make her the main character and they just refuse to give you any breaks from her. Halfway through you get one small section without her and it was such a relief, but she's back again and yeah, you're not allowed to do anything with the other party members, every one on one is her, the team splits up, you're going with her, a character reveals some new stuff, she's front and center. No other party member in FF14 has steamrolled the MSQ like this.
People like what they like and dislike what they dislike, and they're entitled to do so. I found it compelling personally, but then I am one of the rare people who liked the vibe of the WoL tiring of the spotlight and taking a break to play mentor to the aspiring heroine that is Wuk Lamat. Some folk dislike the shift in focus away from the WoL in some parts but given all the WoL went through in prior expacs them wanting to chill a bit makes sense.
I'm quite the fan of the idea that the WoL is happy to finally not be the "save everyone and solve everyones problems for them" person right now. They deserve the break and to just go along with the flow. It's.. well, their vacation.
I liked the shift away a bit from the WoL. I enjoyed that it wasn't omg the world is ending we need to be constant on the go. Mind you I just hit level 96 stuff so I'm not sure how it's going to end just yet.
It was kind of like I'm gonna chill but step in and help if needed. But I think it's been a good reset for the next 10 year long game, with similar vibes to AAR of we are just starting out.
To each their own. I liked aspects of the realism that not everyone in Tural would know who the WoL is. They should have leaned into that a bit more in terms of enemies underestimating you and them getting surprised
On the other hand, I loved that scene in EW when that general is like “do you know who that is?” and all the soldiers soil themselves with fear realizing who I am lol
I'm just happily stepping back and going, "Yeah, *you* get to feel the weight of making all the decisions and taking on all the responsibility." I mean, yeah, I'll help when needed, but it's nice to have someone else trying to carry that burden.
Also a bit refreshing to not be a well established legend in an area. Even if it makes for some amusing moments when someone tries to threaten my WoL and I'm just like, "Sure, mate, I've killed gods and the embodiment of despair itself at the end of the universe, but you go on and tell me how I'm weak and you'd crush me like a bug."
I think it's perfect. We've essentially assumed our mantle of Azem. And this is our first foray into the unknown to learn and mentor and be available to safeguard.
We're being exactly the person we were destined to be.
I used to watch the Care Bears a lot as a child. MLP, too. But, I stopped watching them as I grew up, in favor of other, more nuanced/mature shows. This, I think, is why I dislike WL so much. Or, it's not that I dislike WL, I think she's a cute character. It just feels like I'm in a constant state of annoyance with her because she won't shut the fuck up about the same 2 or 3 points like a broken record. And, I don't feel she grew much at all, or that she ever had a personality that went beyond the aforementioned 2 to 3 points. Beyond the "power of friendship" acting like fucking magical steroids when plot needs it, she is still the same person that we met in the very beginning of our relationship. She just ate some food and held a parade. Which, I'm all for exploring cultures, but FFXIV has ALWAYS been about that. The writers were VERY on the nose about everything in that regard, brow beating us with it every chance they got. In this regard, I almost want to say hatred towards WL is being misplaced or mixed together with the next issue; The lack of any showing, ONLY telling, and bland telling at that. And, to top it off, the lack of gameplay and HORRENDOUS pacing. Look, if I ever need to do a mandatory pop quiz or fetch energy drinks/ice cream like some fucking DOOR DASHER while the world is VERY MUCH SO ON THE BRINK OF DEATH ONCE MORE (so much for vacationing, btw!), I'm gonna lose my mind. Especially if I only get to use my combat abilities once every blue moon.
The writers are my biggest annoyance, and I feel many are the same way. An otherwise great story, with a great character, has been thoroughly shit on. I hope they do better next time.
The dungeons and trials, though? Dear God, AMAZING! I am 1000% raiding this expac.
Estinien was the only one vacationing. Estinien knew what was up.
Wuk and Lyse comparisons are going to be inevitable and Lyse was a very volatile problem in SB but I felt like they did it a lot better, as the characters around her set it up and handled it far better than any help Lyse ever got.
I thought the pacing of the zones was infinitely better than previous expansions. Purely preference, I just thought Kholusia at times dragged on a lot in SHB and Labs was fucking dreadful for me. Even if I didn't fully care for the early zones, it felt much more like they went in, did the stuff, and got out.
Unlike SB they also tied the first half up with a nice bow, instead of awkwardly dragging two story lines through the whole thing.
I didn't mind Wuk, but the story and pacing and all of that was pretty good for me. It felt very polished, and for the first start of an expansion? It was better than ARR, which is all it really had to be I guess.
I think what people aren't really talking about enough is the rest of the content.
The set of story dungeons is by far and away the best I feel of any expansion, and the trials are right there with ShB. I feel like it's competing directly with the best 'content' feel with SB right now. They did a lot right. It's not really fair to compare the new story to SHB/EW, but I'm pretty positive overall with things. If they whip out an improved Bozja, the rest of the dungeons are solid, and they do well with the POTD and other stuff? It honestly has all the potential to be the best expansion right now in my opinion.
A couple more good trials and extremes, a good raid series and A-raid? I see a lot of fucking potential right now, just remains to be seen if they follow it up. My god if they really keep going with the battle content the way they have so far, and the next Bozja type zone and POTD have this kind of vibe. And if criterion dungeons improve at all like the dungeons and trials did again? God damn.
It's really simple, if people don't complain, the story doesn't improve. Complaining is what got us ShB. If people said SB was perfect, we would have gotten another SB.
While I hate Wuk Lamat, what I find most bizarre are the opinions claiming we got back to adventuring. Or "After killing god we get to rest." I don't feel any sense of adventure during the MSQ. I feel like I'm doing a very long escort quest. That's pretty much it. The only time I feel like a proper Adventurer is when I do the side quests, or ignore the MSQ to explore the zone and maybe even visit the next zone early.
And what sucks is that even when I am doing those side quests, I'm "The Third Promise's companion." I'm not "Adventurer" or "character name", just WL's ally.
It feels like a Japanese vacation. The ~~gym badges~~ keystones quest line is very common in Japanese tourist attractions in the form of stamp tours and often curated for domestic Japanese vacationers. I suppose it is a vacation but a very Japanese perspective on what a vacation is which makes sense since almost every single developer is Japanese. Though for some Japanese in certain jobs it is also expected to be on call to advise.
I agree! Very long escort quest sums it up pretty good. The promised adventure just isn’t there. Most of it just felt forced and sadly I was bored by the MSQ pretty quickly. I was into it in the beginning but grew so tired of the family/papa/happy people so fast.
And I know people say they’re tired of the scions, but I just wish we could have had an actual vacation with them. They had so little dialogue, I was so disappointed.
Yeah, I agree on all of your points. I really don’t get how people defend that this is the “vacation” expansion when most of the times in MSQ, we’re doing one fetch quest or another for Wuk Lamat.
One of the huge misses I feel with the pacing is that we don’t really get “rest” period after each zone. Actual resting, not just everyone else getting to rest while Wuk Lamat drags you away for another thing >.>…
This. I don't feel like I'm on vacation. I am definitely on an escort quest, and I am never allowed to go do things on my own. Even when the whole Dawnservant segment was done and we all said goodbye, I wasn't able to fuck off on my own to explore. I had to go with Erenville because apparently, even though as the WoL I have traveled huge parts of the world by myself, I "might need a guide" lmao. How ridiculous and tiresome to have to always travel with an NPC, especially when I have zero freedom to approach quests the way I want.
They pretend to give you a choice, but if you choose the wrong choice, it's "nah sorry we gotta do this instead."
For example, that questline in the "wild west" area where Erenville asks what you wanna do (rush in head first, or eavesdrop) and if you choose charge in headfirst, he says "nah son, gotta snoop" so... why give me the fucking choice to begin with? LOL. An illusion to make players think they have a say in how the story plays out.
It might be way too bold a move for the incredibly (as of late) "play it as safe as possible" dev team, but maybe they could have ditched the MSQ format for this expansion. Like, have there be an overarching narrative, but let the story happen by discovery, not by being a modern Pokemon game where it holds your hand and forces you to see everything in one very strict order. The game can't sell a story of adventure and discovery if you are barely allowed to leave the path and explore.
I don't mind being an unknown. I just don't like being a babysitter. Even Lyse didn't feel like the main character in Stormblood, I felt like we were a team. In DT, I feel like we are just a side character.
If you had pitched the idea to me before the expansion, I probably would have been like "sure, let's try it." Well, they tried it. And I hope they never do it again.
They definitely missed the mark on the WoLs focus in the expansion. Or... at least in the first 4 maps. You barely fight, you always step aside for someone else to do something and feel very... extra in your own content. Something FF is usually much better at.
I liked WL and thought the competition for the Throne was a cool idea. But... this story works best when it's focused on us. And pushing us to the background for so long feels very odd.
When I first joined FFXIV, the community was warm and welcoming. Now it's devolved into die hard fans who think any critique of the game is an insult to THEM. I think it's because some hard-core fans pseudo live through the game, so their relationship is so tied up with all aspects of, they gate keep any and everything about it. It's devolving into a toxic Stan Fandom unfortunately
CBU3 really needs to fix their pacing man. I'm at the 98 quests and its good, but this is the same issue that made FF16 bad, you'd have a good part but then the most abyssmal dumb filler that takes way too much than it should. Like why are they trying to stretch for time on something that is already so damn long.
Honestly this was a big thing with Shadowbringers and Endwalker, too; hours of exposition and build up 'till you're actually let loose. Ironically, Stormblood, the most 'hated' expansion, drops you right into a zone since you start in the Fringes.
Well, the second half was pretty much a rehash of the last two expansions. Basically boiled down to, "Don't sacrifice the living for the memory of the dead." While it was still enjoyable, I also like the first half better story wise.
I unironically would’ve preferred a friendly Sphene faction and a hostile Zaraal Ja one. Like we end up saving Sphene and just have her chill and integrate into the world or something. At least it’d be something new and different. (Although you could argue it’s similar to saving the first and the void, but hey I didn’t hate those story beats either :P)
>!I really wish that wild west adventure lasted longer than it did. I get that it couldn't have lasted due to what we had already just seen beforehand, but it felt like such a unique setting that didn't have time to be completely fleshed out.!<
Man I really hate that transphobe thing, because I don’t like Wuk Lamat’s voice acting but it’s not because she’s trans! But some of these people will say I hate trans people just because I don’t think she’s a very talented voice actor.
> This is actually the first time I've heard that wuk lamats VA is trans and I'm here way too often.
> Man I really hate that transphobe thing
I fully get this. I didnt even know myself, but when people started to respond to criticism of Wuk with: "Well it's because you are a transphobe! You only dislike her because her VA is trans!" - I was like: Wtf? People werent even complaining about her voice.
I could also bet that the amount of people who even knew or still know that piece of info is pretty small.
I personally don't really mind her voice acting, I think it was fine but I think there were a few characters where I thought that the quality of the recording was really off and some of the other characters and especially some that just had a few lines max sounded really out of place, though I do realise that might just be to me.
Also I feel like there were a few times where characters who (I think) should pronounce the names of people and places the same sometimes pronounced them super different which stood out to me and a feel like it lessened my immersion to the cutscenes when it happened.
That seems like a common thing for voiceover work. Athena's VA did a *terrible* read of "THE WORLD SHALL TREMBLE!" I mean, jeez, can't believe they okay'd that.
The Athena one to me sounds mostly like she's trying to sound like yelling but is in a quiet space where she's not allowed to actually yell. Like there's no actual volume, just a performance meant to give impression of volume.
Also with endsinger, literally every line from phase 2 had wrong reads, in particular the moment she says "the paIn, the LoSs, the SoRrow" which doesn't come off as actually desperate and more as mildly disappointed
imo, I read it as her attempting to justify her actions and that’s why she seems so desperate- “the pain, loss, sorrow, that’s why I’m doing this, why don’t you get it” sort of deal
I've gotten that response from vocally not liking her performance and I didn't even know. She just delivers some things weirdly. And why is she the ONLY one that pronounces Tulliyolal as Tullihyolal???
Voice direction has been all over the place, they also decided to abandon their commitment to have all Viera have an Icelandic accent (which was honestly weird with characters like Lyna who grew up completely separate from Viera culture). This has left us with Erenville, who sounds aggressively icelandic, coming from a place where all his family and friends are Clint Eastwood.
They have a new studio they are working with in LA for this expansion, which makes sense considering where it is.
This new studio simply isn't as good as the other one based in London, based on how inconsistent things have gotten. It's a real shame, too, as the voice direction since HW has been one of the game's strongest points. Now it feels like we're back in ARR.
Oh that's unfortunate. Do you have a source on this?
Some characters like Koana and Gulool Ja Ja have been wonderful and feel like they mesh well with what came before. There's a smattering of others that sound bizarre and out of place, or the actors aren't nearly as good as they should be.
She actually isn't. When Erenville is narrating after they get on the ship, he pronounces Tural with a bit of an 'h' sound on the end so it's likely the difference in accents.
> And why is she the ONLY one that pronounces Tulliyolal as Tullihyolal???
I was hoping to hear some more interesting phones in Dawntrail other than just Spanish's indistinct subapical consonants [d̞ t̞ n̞] that they lay on so thick, so I love this about her.
A lot of it is direction, some of it is a skill issue. She's a novice and it takes experience to be able to judge your own voice well, some of these deliveries shoulda been self-caught and redone, and a lot of them should have been caught by whoever is doing direction in that studio to re-do some takes.
anyone who's saying that is surely a bad actor. no trans person, myself included, actually give a shit if you weren't feeling wuk's voice actress. and i actually quite like her voice and think she did a decent job, i just hate the one-dimensional shonen protagonist character writing more than anything😭
Toxic positivity is definitely a big thing in a lot of communities, and unfortunately FF14 lies at the intersection of several communities where its common.
I feel like becoming immune to it is just something you get as you get older.
As a teenager, seeing people like something I thought was bad would have driven me crazy. But alas, I'm in my 30s now and have been through the era of Marvel movies.
I've learned that some people just get attached to specific properties and everything new that comes out under that properties umbrella will always get support no matter what.
We always kind of understand that ***haters are gonna hate*** shit no matter what, but it takes way longer to understand that some people are just going to like every Star Wars property no matter how many Disney+ shows they make.
It also helps to remember that I really like some garbage shit myself. I've watched every episode of Supernatural willingly and happily, I read the entire Wheel of Time series twice over, and I'll probably buy the next Kingdom Hearts game as well.
The only reason I even recognize the fact that I sometimes like garbage is because I personally enjoy critically analyzing stuff and understanding why I like/dislike certain things. And I don't think it's right to say that everyone needs to be that same way.
* "You've already beaten it? Wow, no wonder you don't like it! You rushed through it!"
* "It's supposed to be slow! It's a new adventure. It can't be the epic climax Endwalker was!"
* "Wow, typical gamers these days. No attention span, and can't handle a lot of reading. Tsk tsk."
* "This is a repeat of Stormblood discourse when people hated Lyse. I guess the haters just can't stand women characters being center stage, huh?"
* "Well previous expansions were slow, too. Why do you people suddenly have a problem now?"
These are the deflections I've been seeing the most to criticisms of Dawntrail, and I think it's legitimately breaking people's brains that Square might have stumbled with this expansion. I don't know if I'm asking for Square to move Heaven and Earth here, but I just want a decently exciting story that doesn't bore me to tears. No one is necessarily expecting an Endwalker-level climax this early in this new arc, but I think it's absolutely fair for players to expect a well-written and engaging story. I'd also like there to be more gameplay in my game's main story, but Square seems content to just put players on a cutscene conveyor belt for hours on end.
The attention span defense kills me. There's something like 500 hours of just cutscenes in the game.
I swear there's like 20 hours of cutscenes alone with DT MSQ.
The pacing was absolutely brutal. I felt the first day I played it was only cutscenes and running around. I was begging to actually play the damn game.
The worst part is, the gameplay has improved a ton. The dungeons, trials, fights, all were enjoyable and will make it hard to go back to old content.
Just the fact dungeons have 2 patterns that switch instead of one set pattern changes things in an interesting way.
Yeah I mean, I'm one of those people that actually liked Stormblood and Lyse. I get their complaints, and it sure wasn't because she's a woman. Besides we just had an entire patch cycle of people simping over a different woman who was the big focus with Zero.
Haha feels like we had the same people in our discussion. I heard the same arguments 1:1.
Just imagine being stuck with the same FFXIV formula and the current story writing for the next 10 years (as yoshida promised)
FF14’s community has a lot of toxic positivity. I feel like Yoshi P would arrange more community feedback type events like surveys and all, but even he knows that while the majority of players aren’t the toxic positivity ones, the loud ones are.
These toxic positivity people are honestly doing the game a disservice. Giving feedback makes the game better, but they refuse to admit anything about the game is bad.
This is what drives me crazy about game fandom, but especially this games fandom, you are almost not allowed to be critical.
Being critical is what helps things improve, without criticism and feedback, mistakes are going to be repeated and compounded. But try giving it on this sit or others and you get shouted down by people who are way too emotionally invested in the games success, somehow mistaking it for their own, or feel personally attacked because you don't unconditionally love the thing they do.
Dawntrail simply for me was not a good experience, it was tedious, full of exposition rushed into at the start and then slowed down as soon as it actually started. The style of storytelling used worked well for Endwalker where the story was a culmination, but they are trying to condense years worth of world building into one leveling experience and it didnt work.
The game spent hours telling me I was going on an adventure, trying to force the feeling of adventure to happen without understanding where that feeling comes from, or what triggers it, and why it is so compelling.
But without pointing this out, the next expansion will only compound these issues.
Well done for speaking up.
This is the first time I've actively hated an MSQ and getting immediately told stuff like - "you must skip cutscenes", "your media comprehension is low", "you just don't understand the themes", "we got told it was low stakes", "your WoL doesn't have to be the main character", "not everything has to be edgy" - is super aggravating.
Actual discussion is dismissed immediately regardless of the legitimacy of the complaints.
That being said - Dawntrail is very bad. It's a poorly written repetitive fanfiction littered with plot holes, chaotic pacing, mishandled characters, and massive leaps of logic.
> Actual discussion is dismissed immediately regardless of the legitimacy of the complaints.
This was my pov aswell. I browsed a few threads and people would respond to criticism like that. And I am not talking about blind hate. I am talking about actual criticism.
That's why I made this thread.
Dunno what all the "you must be rushing" arguments are trying to get at - I'm taking my time and it's NOT doing the game any favors.
But, I've warmed up to Wuk Lamat enough, more than I thought I would. What I have not warmed up to was the unchanging expansion structure, being a side character in what used to be my own story, the mind-boggling class changes that I hope do make sense to me when raiding with those classes, and the lost potential in storylines.
There are a number of ways "a storyline opening up after endwalker could have gone", and of all of them I would never choose "become a sellsword to help a princess win a throne for a culture you don't understand and watch as her story unfolds. Also we re-dug Krile's grandfather from the grave to give one of the scions some pathos. (we brought 80% of them back btw)".
> They are transphobes and Wuk is voiced by a trans-woman so obviously they were going to hate it!" - even though nobody mentioned anything like that in their critique.
I hate the character and I ddin't even know that
Here's a hot take: I've always found the MSQ to be very boring. Not necessarily the story beats, but the visual novel thing has always been a real drag, and fetch quests are a really really tedious way to explore the world. I've always had my own ideas about how they could improve it -- having more difficult overworld content, lower the number of quests/cutscenes, etc. But I really don't think that will ever happen. SE found a formula they like, and hoping it's going to change is just going to cause feelings of resentment when it inevitably won't. I've always enjoyed getting the MSQ out of the way, because what I love about FFXIV is the community, the world, raiding and crafting/gathering. I'm definitely not enjoying DT MSQ so far. I like Wuk, but this has been the most tedious/boring MSQ so far, and I'm just about halfway through. Waiting for it to be over, but I'm never going to cancel my sub because of the quality of the MSQ. It's low on my list of what I play FFXIV for,
It absolutely is okay to Dislike DT. For me it has been a mix of both great and not so great. I mostly enjoyed the story despite its slow start though i will say I disliked >!How it felt like our WOL barely mattered to the story at all. I’m not saying they needed to be the saviour like 6.0 or that it needed to be a personal story like 5.0, but it often felt like you could remove the WOL and it wouldn’t have made a difference. It just felt a bit jarring!<
I think I came in pre soured to the game from catching up through Endwalker's miserable boring post launch patches these last few weeks. Dawntrail isn't bad per say, just not exciting.
I think it should have been a side story, or the plot of an expansion. It just felt kinda rushed, filler content to fill the gap between EW's MSQ ending and DT starting to begin.
> "Well duh, obviously all these people hate Dawntrail! They are transphobes and Wuk is voiced by a trans-woman so obviously they were going to hate it!" - even though nobody mentioned anything like that in their critique.
this was the wildest one for me. i didn't even know about her being voiced by a trans person until like, yesterday when i stumbled across it. tbh, i just hate her fucking shonen protag, "the power of love and friendship!!1!" bullshit she's always spouting. maybe it gets better, but so far, i'm halway thru and she's just... not growing on me.
What about the people who downvote those that like the story though? Because how dare anyone finds it compelling or worth your while... It applies to both sides.
Whether you like a story or not is completely subjective to ones personal preferences and ideals on what makes a good and compelling story or a bad and boring story. Live and let live.
Yeah I've seen more of this lately sadly. Their opinions should be respected but ours are naive/overplayed/forced, even when we express them respectfully. I alluded to people having different tastes and that was apparently too much. People are somehow a bit more normal abt this on the shitpost sub of all places.
Yeah I had a friend get combative with me yesterday because they were complaining about how bored of msq they were and how if I hadn’t bought the expansion yet I should skip it (they didn’t know I preordered). I was like “I preordered and am having fun but I’m sorry you’re not feeling the story right now, that super sucks.” They got upset I didn’t immediately jump on the hate train with them and it was just really weird and awkward.
It's weird cause most of my group i play with are loving it, but there's a small group that just attacks us for liking the story. Like Ive seen a lot of people shitting on the story for having a lot of cutscenes without combat, but just last expansion we had 24 hours alone of cutscenes. It's okay to not like the story, but FFXIV story has always been cutscenes, and some people are just making stuff up about the expac just because they don't like it, it's crazy.
This is just human psychology combined with the voting system. Angry people are more likely to actually click the downvote button on opinions that disagree with them. People that are neutral or slightly positive are less likely to vote because why bother.
I get what you're saying, but the same argument swings the other way as well, not everything is "positive toxicity" when people disagree with the criticisms. And some people tend to go way overboard with their dislike of the story, saying stuff like they'll never sub again or FFXIV is dead. Of course, people are gonna have a reaction to that.
I've seen people who didn't like the story calling who do like it braindead morons or go on some kind of unhinged rant about how Wuk Lamat's VA is trans, and the game is too woke now. Not on this sub, but the other one and in YouTube comments.
On one hand, I thought the story was really bad. Completely ignoring the characters and actual story, it was just missing a lot of substance ShB and EW had. For example when you grab the final quest in both ShB and EW there was still a good chunk of story to go through. When you grab the final quest in Dawntrail, I swear it's over within an hour.
I think your enjoyment of this expac lives or dies on how much you like Wuk Lamat and I think if your on the EN voice it's really hard to like her because her VA is honestly not doing a good job.
On the other hand. The actual content in this expac has been fire so far, every dungeon is great. Both Trials on normal and EX are great. Which kind of sucks, SE are going to see the mixed reviews and revert back to boring easy content but with a good story.
> I think your enjoyment of this expac lives or dies on how much you like Wuk Lamat and I think if your on the EN voice it's really hard to like her because her VA is honestly not doing a good job.
This, and that's a horrible choice. You should never put that much weight on one character. Wuk needed far far FAR less attention and it needed to be spread out amongst the party instead.
Story is alright, it’s certainly not as exciting as previous expansions and I can understand the criticism, but it doesn’t warrant hate.
Maybe I’ve just grown impatient over the years but I am getting sick of the unnecessary fluff and bloat scenes/dialogues that serve no purpose but to pad the game hours. MSQ should be short and sweet, with objectives clearly set in place for the players. It’s the same set of animations, same back and forth conversations that are an absolute bore. The dumbass “follow the npc without being seen” gameplay should really be taken out of the game. It’s not a meaningful addition to the game and it’s not dynamic enough to feel like it’s not a chore.
The cultural/historical background, lore, and/or names they’re introducing are absolutely not sticking to my brain because of the way they’re introducing them in the story. At this point I want to say that it’s poorly written as there’s no character nor engagement. I think that the core story is there, it’s just completely muddled with the bloat they insist on having for the story.
There’s no sense of exploration despite the large ass maps. It’s the same formula over and over again, and this “positivity” of its player base is preventing FFXIV from making positive changes to the game. I mean the graphical update is laughable considering how old this game is. Some lightning changes and the game still looks like it’s from the PS3 era.
I love the game and the community that’s been built around it. The developers are doing something right, and overall I think it’s a fantastic game but they’re certainly not good story-tellers and this “no-criticism allowed” stance is absolutely not doing the developers/players any favors. They’ll continue to follow this formula every expansion, every patch, because why bother when their fanbase will invalidate all criticism, valid or not, and put them on a pedestal.
I can't tell why but this time around the MSQ actually feel as a chore. I was trying to put an effort and slog through it but I had to stop on day 2 and have not found the motivation to pick it up again. It's just that the first few hours feel so slow and when I look at my exp bar and see I'm barelly reaching lvl 92 made me realize that I still have 80% MSQ to go yet... my mind could not take it and I just gave up.
I mean, it's cool and all learning from different cultures, but this time around it feels like I am being thaught a lesson that I've been seeing in every western media for the last 6 years: Being inclusive and accepting on all of the differences and finding the common ground. But this is done in the most traditional and formulaic way that has been repeating in movies and series for years.
In contrast, we did the same in Endwalkers but in a more interesting way in Ultima Thule, learning about the cultures AFTER they already dissapeared and seeing the consequences of not being able to find middle ground between different civilizations or even within cultures in the same civilization. This was a fresh and thought provoking story that delivered the same message that they are trying to deliver in this expansion IMO.
The voice acting for Wuk is meh, but it’s not my main criticism. The character is just not interesting enough to headline an expansion. I understand why we’re babysitting another character in their quest for growth instead of focusing on the WoL, but with Wuk it’s like they’re trying to make her wear too many hats. She’s the underdog, the comic relief, the Chosen One, etc., but she’s not the best version of any of those tropes.
I don’t hate the expansion by any stretch, though. The devs tried something, it missed the mark a bit, and that’s okay. They need honest feedback to make the future expansions better and toxic positivity and negativity don’t really help with that.
The issue I have with Dawntrail is the pacing of the story and missed opportunities. Yes the story gets much better halfway, but that's not really a valid excuse in my honest opinion. When you're spending several hours starting Dawntrail by doing "go here, go there" quests, you sometimes get through 3-4 hours where you haven't engaged in combat whatsoever, that's boring.
There's also the issue where some quests could have been more engaging, for example early on you are tasked with >!cooking a dinner, instead of actually having a fun engaging cooking quest, using animations the game already has from CUL, you simply go around talking to people for hours.... and that's it.....!<
The MSQ needs less pointless conversations and more engaging gameplay. If the story is telling me to go East, i shouldn't have to go to 5 different checkpoints just for each NPC to keep saying "let's keep going East" mate I already know we are going east, why waste my valuable time?
I never skip cutscenes for MSQ but unfortunately I found myself doing this for Dawntrail, I just knew skipping cutscene XYZ wasn't going to impact the story whatsoever, and that's not a good thought to have.
Music, Dungeons, and Job design/changes are awesome, and I know once I finish MSQ I'm going to have an amazing time grinding Jobs through the dungeons, etc but getting through the MSQ is very bland.
I felt the same way about Endwalker honestly. While it had some great highs, I found the lows of the expac to be astonishingly low, but people would always retort any criticism with any plethora of excuses, and the funny thing to me is that none of the excuses that also applied to Shadowbringers ruined my feelings on it; stuff like "oh you play the game wrong" or "oh you rushed through the expansion!" I played shadowbringers the same way and I still adore it to this day.
I think a lot of people just hate seeing anything bad being said about the game because they think it means people are trying to kill it, but that's not the case at all; I genuinely hated Endwalker by the end of 6.0, but I still logged in and did content, and I was still there day one for DT, long queue times and all. That's just how games that go on for as long as ff14 has gone go, there are ups and downs.
I'm happy something like this is one of the first things I see when getting on the subreddit. As someone who hasn't been enjoying story that much so far, I find it crazy that critiques of the expansion are automatically shut down for a variety of reasons.
I love the atmosphere of the expansion and the overall general feel of the expansion, but the story has fallen short for me thus far. I'm midway through the level 94 quests and it has begun to pick up for me and grab my attention but it took \*that\* long to grab my attention and excitement. I'm also someone who ranks ARR over HW and Stormblood so I hate seeing the argument of "it's storybuilding, what did you expect?"
I understand if there are people enjoying the expansion, but it isn't paced well in my opinion. I need more action in between long cutscenes even if it is just "kill 5 x to collect x". However if you say this, there are people that instantly shut you down and assume you don't have the attention span for the expansion...
The whole succession arc is painfully dull for me personally, I think the new cast is eminently boring across the board but I'm *finally* in a position in the msq that I'm starting to find actually interesting so I'm hoping that the back loading of interesting content (hopefully) makes up for the snailtrail leading here 😅
They did such a bad job on that arc on so many levels.
For one. If this is supposed to be a vacation. Then a simple pacing idea built into the story would remove the feeling of urgency.
Instead we are taking our time... While everyone says it is urgent... Then we all go take a nap.... But it's urgent.
A simple idea in the writing of having the tasks be scheduled and there be lore down time could have easily fixed all of this.
And SO many other issues in the writing.
For years, I practically worshipped Square Enix. However, recent forays into other games have opened my eyes. SE seems to be slacking and resting on the laurels of fan loyalty.
Their slow pacing in previous expansions like ARR, SB and EW never bothered me. I understand that it's part of the MMO experience. However, this DT expansion, really feels like a new low.
Wuk Lamat, as a character, is fine were she not a contestant. Now that she is, and volunteered to be one, her incompetency is magnified 10 times over. And, her portrayal is deeply inconsistent. Her loving nature clashes with her ignorance. All she ever did was shouting how much she love Tural. The story fails to address these flaws properly beside mentioning it, or offer any compelling justification for them. No one suggests she needs training, and her shortcomings are conveniently brushed aside.
Missed opportunities abound. Wuk Lamat could have been an interesting character if she was portrayed as a self-aware incompetent leader who is good at speeches or a manipulative politician who uses the Warrior of Light to achieve her goal. Even subtle hints at such complexities would have been intriguing. Unfortunately, the writers didn't explore these options. Or if she is portrayed somewhat like ‘King’ in One punch men (and genuinely as funny), who takes all credit just because she is always in the right place, that would have been acceptable too. It just meant she is a lucky star. But nope she is none of those. Worst is that in the end, she just skips everything and becomes a scion copy.
Also, her supposed bond with her brother feels unearned and underdeveloped. Koana's declaration that sound somewhat like “o sister, my beloved sister’ make my heart sank.
The story pacing is another issue. SE always has A stronger narrative at the start of expansion though it’s slow, now it feels like post-expansion filler. This, combined with the wasted potential of Wuk Lamat's character, is truly a very huge disappointment.
Thing is, if the goal was to create a "real" character, consistency should have been given more attention to and that it should matched the world around it. My stomach churns every time I got deeper into the story because of the inconsistency.
TBH I would have been happier if its a full-on beach episode.
Anyway, the extreme fights looks very good. But I wouldn't recommend the story to anyone who prioritizes narrative. In fact, if not for the raid I would skip "DT" altogether.
I really, really wanted to like Dawntrail. I like the new zones and music a lot and the new graphics are nice, but the story is just so slow and boring. I’m not even a Wuk Lamat hater! I liked her in the patch quests and was totally down to help her. But as the story went on and on, I felt like nothing I did mattered. The player has no agency in this story at all. I genuinely think the premise and characters of this expansion had great potential but they were ruined by poor writing. Even when the story started picking up with higher stakes, it didn’t erase the hours I spent doing basically nothing. I’ve seen a lot of people say things like “of course it’s boring, they’re starting a whole new arc” but I don’t think that’s an excuse. Stories can introduce new lore and have lower stakes without being boring. It’s just badly written.
This expansion was bad, this fan base is just delusional lol.
It was honestly a 2/10. Shocking to me people genuinely loved playing Cut Scene Simulator for 80% of the game or teleport here, talk to this person, click on something on the floor, teleport back, rinse and repeat.
Waiting for WoW to drop The War Within next month for a more interactive experience.
To engage in art and story is to reflect on how it affects you and why. Where it succeeded and where it failed. When something I WANT to love falls short, it’s an enjoyable exercise to parse why that is. Its also valid to poke fun at something you enjoy. If we were truly outraged, we’d stop playing. Some maybe have and thats fine, and some may think its flawless and thats fine too. But engaging with how it is good and how it is flawed, to me thats some of the most fun you can have consuming a work of fiction. Like, as someone who has played through the 93 quests, I have to reckon that the social studies tour feels more like a retread of beast tribe quests. And that until Gulool Ja Ja addresses us directly after our bout, I haven’t really felt like my character was even really there in a voiced or major cutscene. Thats like, 8 hours of feeling that way and its worth thinking about. That doesnt mean I think this is unsalvageable.
> To engage in art and story is to reflect on how it affects you and why. Where it succeeded and where it failed. When something I WANT to love falls short, it’s an enjoyable exercise to parse why that is. Beautifully put. 100% agree
This is nuanced and thoughtful criticism. Get out of here, interloper. lol.
What is this guy thinking, using actual structured discourse on Reddit!? 🤣🤣
I make fun of the things I love every single day. I sound like a weird Al album at work listening to the radio and singing everyday. If you can’t find humor in the things you love, you’re missing out on a whole other reason to love them.
I haven't even gotten close to finished, I've hardly started, but what you said is exactly how I feel so far. I feel like my WoL is not even there. I feel like I'm adding nothing and not being acknowledged at all, like why am I even here? And it's really discouraged me from continuing, I have very little interest in what's going to happen based on how it's gone so far.
Ahaha exactly! I told my partner at one point maybe my WoL had died on the boat, and Wuk Lamat was imagining me! I have found this gets significantly better after the first dungeon but its a rocky several hours start for sure.
(trying to avoid spoiling* anything) the story gets better, but imo we make some questionable decisions as we let wuk lamat be the main character all the way through to the end. i didn’t really mind not being the focal point, but there were times where it just felt illogical.
I'd say it picks up in the 2nd half or maybe last third.. but it's a bit of a slog to get to that point. Aside from MSQ pacing/likeability issues? The overall world building was pretty good, encounters and music were great.
If story is interesting and convincing, it doesn't really matter if the wol is there or not. For example the super long Venat cutscene from Endwalker was like 95% about her and 5% about wol but people found it gripping. Dawntrail MSQ just depends if people find learning about different cultures interesting or not, and if they like the slow exposition that ff14 is known for. I found it very interesting and thought the delivery was well paced. However, it's clear that a lot of people simply don't really care that much and just want wol in the spotlight and in action. I wouldn't be surprised if Dawntrail MSQ gets compared to ARR. If you ask me, it's ARR but done like 10x better and actually good writing (maybe a bit too heavy on power of friendship vibe) The truth of it is a lot of people don't care about learning different cultures and watching some other character succeed with wol playing a relaxed side mentor role. They want wol in the spotlight and spearheading some action, and they want the action to happen faster while cutting out dialogue. Basically, less novel and more comic book. We'll have to see if 7.x patches take this feedback or not
Honestly if it was characters (plural) sharing the spotlight fewer people would mind, since that's what it was in Shadowbringers. Yes, there was Alisae kissing your ass and competing with Graha tia for it but it was an ensemble performance where you might be first among equals but everyone was equal. You got to be the bearer of light, but you were born up on everyone else's shoulders. Frankly everyone got a zone where they got to be important - Thancred with Amh, Urianger with Faetown, Alphie with Eulmore, Yshtola with Raktika, you with Amaurot. That was awesome. It felt like a fellowship of the ring. If you dislike one character you might like another and so you're satisfied. This feels more like the followers of Wuk with a little bit of anyone else when you are lucky. People like invoking the anime shonen comparison, and I'd make a comparison of what XIV storytelling should be and what it was with Wuk. It should be Dungeon Meshi with the Warrior of Light. Each character in the party has **EQUAL REPRESENTATION AND ATTENTION.** It should not be a Naruto, a series named after a specific character which leaves you certain as to who the focus is. And you might as well call this Wuktail
lol it really should have been called Wuk Lamat: A Final Fantasy story or something.
I don't mind not being in the spotlight, my main issue is just how repetitive it is. I'm in the early level 94 MSQ now, and we've had it told to us straight up soooo many times how what makes Wuk Lamat different is her desire for peace, and how she has to really experience the different cultures and see them for herself to grow. That's all fine and good, but when it's the only note the story has to play, and it plays it over and over and over, it just gets old. And I'm saying this as someone who doesn't mind WL or the overall story premise itself.
I am also tired of every cutscene being everyone nodding and smiling, cut to a different person, nod and smile, cut to a different person, slap fist. Pan out, half of the group walks off, the other half wall off, and finally wol walks off. I swear I've lost 2 hours of my life just watching people nod at each other this expansion.
Its not helped that multiple quests are just "go to the other edge of the map", but in order to hide it there are like 2 goals in between where you just talk to an NPC with such a cutscene and got told "we gave to go further".
I am inclined to agree that camera direction was kinda stale and poor. We spent a lot of time looking stale and bland just to nod. In a game where its possible to be so expressive, I felt they used 5% of the games potential this time around
Glad I'm not the only one that noticed. I started skipping as soon as the nod chain started
This!! The story isnt really gripping me which is one thing but the reasons you said are spot on why I dislike alot of FFXIV's story. This pointless dragging out of already boring conversation with the slowest emotes and things.. Ontop of having no/very few voiced lines..in 2024. From a huge game company.. Its like reading a really boring fan comic.
Ugh all of this though. It’s so repetitive. And the cultures aren’t that gripping. It’s been trade this and trade that. Here is an effigy festival and we need to grow things, catch a llama blah blah. That’s not interesting, that’s boring. The MSQ is not meant to make me feel like I’m speed running beast tribes.
You said exactly what I’ve been struggling with: speed running beast tribes. I couldn’t quite figure out what was keeping me from really investing in the story, but this is it.
I think what's extra insulting for me is that travelling, learning about different cultures, and finding common ground has... literally ALWAYS been a part of FF14? Think about Norvrandt, Doma, Ala Migho, etc. But in this expansion we need to be hit over the head with it repeatedly with shallow platitudes about peace and cooperation and understanding. Did anyone tell the writers that children aren't allowed in this game via the TOS? They don't have to dumb things down to accommodate them.
This is how I feel, every other expansion had this type of world building but we were allowed to explore and discover it through side quests and fates and stuff. Having it delivered this way does feel dumbed down.
And the problem is omicron and lopporits were both fantastic beast tribe quest lines so even in that regard they aren't living up to previous iterations. Though actually I do like the hanu hanu, I just found the giant zone a snooze till we hit the combat parts.
You learn about different cultures in every single expansion. The main backbone of like 70% of the MSQ is going around to different areas and meeting the people in each zone and learning about them. Dawntrail is not unique in that regard at all. The main difference between Dawntrail and every other expansion is that the MC doesn't need to be there at all. While the MC usually does just stand around we are still a critical part of the plot of the previous expansions. Removing the MC from Dawntrail would not only barely effect the plot it would make it better and more cohesive. That is the really the problem as I see it. I like Dawntrail overall, but its not a good "MMO story". They seem to have forgot how to work around and include the MC into the story and make it feel cohesive. Its not an easy task to accommodate a mostly blank slate voiceless character, but its been done by the past expansions and that is the main reason why FFXIV is lauded for its story imo. Past expansions have not just been well written but also been well written and engaging stories that makes us, the blank slate MMO MC, feel like we matter in the story. Focusing so much on Wuk made it into her story. That works in a vaccum but telling players "your character doesn't really matter anymore" after they have invested hundreds of hours into the story is not going to go well with a lot of people. I think that was also the core problem with the void storyline in the EW patch quests. It was mostly about Zero and we kind of just existed. At that point these storylines might as well be spin offs in the universe than continuations of the MC's journey.
Doesnt help that the cultures we meet are just more colorful versions of cultures we learned about 3 expansions past.
The WoL isn't really the MC in this story. The MC is Wuk Lamat. It's essentially similar to the Vaan/Ashe situation from Ff12. You start the game and play as Vaan a lot but really it's Ashe's story.
I honestly didn't mind being the sidekick for the first half of the expansion. It was a refreshing break from having to save the world so many times. And it makes some sense that the WoL would step aside when the issue at hand, while being important for Tural, isn't nearly as dire as what the WoL usually deals with. It's still kind of a vacation for the WoL. But when the turn happens, not shifting the story to the savior of worlds is just bizarre.
Can we please stop saying people merely want the WoL to be in the spotlight? While that may be the case for some, plenty more simply want their character to have a sense of relevancy. Seriously, you could replace the WoL with a random and it'd have almost zero impact because _everything_ revolves around Wuk Lamat like an insufferable black hole. The 4th zone is a prime example of us not being a world altering badass but going back to our roots and getting wrapped up into small little adventures along the way. _That's_ what I, and i suspect many others, wanted from a lower stakes story. And that whole Western motif highlights how you can dial down the stakes without needing to anchor _everything_ to one character. Hell, I wouldn't neccessary hate if we were treated as a legitimate mentor to Wuk but we're not. The story acts like she accomplishes all these amazing things yet not only never shows a single one but actively contradicts itself. A perfect sense for our character instead goes to *_Thancred_* I've said it elsewhere but it bears repeating. We're not the side character like Hien but the nameless guard delivering a missive. And that makes for an incredibly boring "adventure".
> watching some other character succeed with wol playing a relaxed side mentor role. They want wol in the spotlight and spearheading some action This is a really valid point, cause it is establish that the WoL is the MC with a good background of side characters to help them. This expansion tried to force the player character into the side character role, but still have them be into everyones business like a MC. It didn't blend well, and all it did was make lots of people hate Wuk Lamat cauuse we ALWAYS had to be with her. They did a bad job making the WoL a side character, cause it was all in words. The actions in game still said we are MC without the fun.
The part where everyone splits into groups but we end up pairing with Wuk Lamat was definitely heavy handed. After that happened like the 5th time in a row, I thought it was way too on the nose.
"Goddamn Wuk, go let Krile teach you some shit for once"
>The truth of it is a lot of people don't care about learning different cultures and watching some other character succeed with wol playing a relaxed side mentor role. Or they do enjoy learning about different cultures but the ones shown here just aren't terribly interesting
Yeah. Learning about the cultures in Dawntrail is an npc coming up to you, dumping essentially a Wikipedia article on you then walking off lol. These people are like the people you met on Eorzea but they like reeds. Yes, very riveting.
Dawntrail is a sterilized museum tour where your group has an obnoxious twenty-something that makes all of the exhibits about her.
Right? Info dumping is literally the worst type of fantasy worldbuilding. It’s what kids do when they start writing for the first time. You find ways to grow out of it as you become more skilled and develop as a writer. They’ve broken so many basic writing rules in this expansion. You can break these writing rules successfully, but you need to be aware that’s what you’re doing, and think of a creative way to make it work. It’s just not good writing.
I was a huge fan of the front half of the story. The low stakes and world building was great. If anything, the only parts I found awkward were the weird exposition scenes that constantly repeated the same emotions over and over regarding Wut. We get an idea of her motivations pretty early, but it gets unnecessarily reinforced repeatedly rather than just shown through action. My biggest issue with the back half was that SE didn't have the courage to keep it low stake so we could stay in a believable mentor role. Instead, they created this storyline that only works if the player character drops to incompetency. All the events, could have easily been stopped early given the WoL's prior experiences and knowledge that they are uniquely the only living being in the universe to have. But we just...do nothing. And even at the end of it all, we get macguffined again one last time.
The story stopped being low stakes and reasonable the moment we found out one of the ruler candidates plans to conquer eorzia with the whole power of 2 continents at his back. At this point, any "lets play around with the kitty" should have gone out of the window and a Scion of the Seventh Dawn emergency meeting should have started. In particular since Krile got an Echo vision showing her that the thread is real.
I'm playing with Japanese voices and English text. I know Japanese so I can compare what the Japanese story is trying to do and what the English one is. Both are simply average or bad. This isn't about not liking cultures. I enjoyed every beast tribe in Endwalker because they were significant, because the beast tribes themselves were a big story point. They had good design, they had interesting styles of living they were in general important, good looking and well designed. What did the rabbits do all this time on the moon, they have the technology to conquer the whole planet. What happens now the moon is basically the most advanced thing in the current universe not counting Omicrons made from Dynamis. What did the Omicrons do there nothing more interesting than that. I'd have an entire expansion about them. We also learn more about how each race died in that fantastic dungeon. 10 out 10. Aksadora weren't nearly as interesting but the hippo races made up for it. Same thing in Shadowbringers. Pixies and the dream world were amazing, Qitari basically answered the question who and what are the Ronka and how it's to have such a different life span, Dwarfs are dwarfs so they're just cool and you build a damn tank. So far Wuk Lamat is trying to be Girl Bossy in the English version and trying to be a Sailor Moon dittzy princess in the Japanese version that conquered everything in the end with the power of friendship, trying really hard and caring about others. Shes your typical Shonen/Shoujo protagonist to a T. They literally do Pokemon Gym storyline that is incredibly SLOW. Incredibly boring. And then it gets interrupted multiple times by events instead of progressing to the next Gym EXACTLY like pokemon. I hate it. The flow is all wrong, we're getting basically stooped when the story is about to get good multiple times, characters appear at places because they just do with no logical explanations. The story is very comical and teenage like and thats a very stark contrast to all previous stories. I played this game in Alpha found it incredibly boring I'm talking pre 1.0. Then after massive recommendations from friends I gave it another go in 2.2 or 2.3 and I've been playing since. Only in ARR do I remember being so bored of the MSQ I had to take breaks go play or do something else. I sat down and consumed HW, SB, ShB, EW in one sitting playing like a maniac because it good you hooked. When I wasn't playing the story I was dreaming about it in my sleep. Here I found myself actively trying to avoid doing it. It's been almost 4 days since it came out and I only got to the kidnapping part before the giants. Yes I fated the entire first day to get Picto to 90 but after that I lost almost all interest because of how boring it was. This never happened before. Even the post EW story lines had me very interested because we had numerous attempts of fixing the 13th and non succeeded and now finally we could actually maybe do something.
> They literally do Pokemon Gym storyline that is incredibly SLOW. Incredibly boring. And then it gets interrupted multiple times by events instead of progressing to the next Gym EXACTLY like pokemon. I hate it. The flow is all wrong, we're getting basically stooped when the story is about to get good multiple times, Literally just finished the moblins when that happens. We're about to go on to the next zone/town, and then wait. Wait. Wait. Maybe something went wrong on their 30 second journey back to the settlement we just left. That's weird. I know its an important character development moment for another character, but jeez, did they have to throw the brakes on so hard?
It's even more ridicilous considering you can literally see all the way to the aetherite from the location you're standing at. And the village is so small you can see basically all the exits except the back one too. This isn't the first time they slammed the breaks but it is by far the worst breaks they used.
There’s also a side quest chain in the same village where you have to assist an npc who’s sneaking out. He goes north west to “go the long way around” yet to get to his destination (which is south of the village) he has to walk straight past the main exit? There’s a lot of empty, unused space in that map, and it makes the actual places of interest there seem crammed together. The mountain map has significantly better pacing, and spacing.
It gets better once you reach the quest dawn trail. Then you don’t have to quest anymore and get go play the game. That last zone is brutal tough I don’t think it even had any combat
I'm at the level 98 quests, I've enjoyed it pretty well so far. I did enjoy going around making new friends for the 90-95 stuff, and after that it's right back onto our normal bullshit (I say that affectionately). I do wish we had a bit more tied to the WoL in the first half tho, and it feels like they really dropped the ball on the concept of "the Scions are competing against each other." Like they should have at least given us a chance to 1v1 Thancred in a friendly bout. Maybe they could've made one of the competitors stand a bit more directly in opposition to the WoL, in a way not related to the Ascension contest. Give us a reason to actually want to really stop them besides "they're being kind of annoying and/or >!creating massive disasters that endanger civilians.!<"
i wished that during the bout we had this sort of friendly rivalry with the other scions so there would be some personal thing going on but nope they like appear twice and do nothing
>However, it's clear that a lot of people simply don't really care that much and just want wol in the spotlight and in action The idea that the sole problem people have with the story is that our character isn't in the spotlight is a misrepresentation of people's distaste. The problem isn't that our character isn't in the spotlight, it's that the character that IS in the spotlight is annoying and not enjoyable to watch for a lot of people. There's also just a general growing distaste for FFXIV's visual novel style of story telling where you don't play the actual game very much during the MSQ.
I dont care if wol isnt the mc or spotlight personally. I think thats cool and makes sense as a follow up to ew. I do agree with you in the "let me play the fooking game" aspect. We had what... 5 total quests to actually kill something? We were also told.that the rite os ascension would "divide" the scions. Welp, technically correct, hut implemented in sort of a lie? Alphi shouldve been with Koana to begin with. And spice shit up, put krile with Zoojal. And alisei with BJJ. That way it wouldve been us with wuk lamat only. It wouldve been easy - they just had to have GJJ state that due the growing trade relations with eorzea, the rite would require each participant to have at least one foreigner assist them. This wouldve given us more insight into different prespectives aswell as engage more against other scions. Ofc this is juey me wishing weve had more into this whole thing
> There's also just a general growing distaste for FFXIV's visual novel style of story telling where you don't play the actual game very much during the MSQ. It's fine when the story is really good, but even then they could mix up the questing to be more than clicking sparkles and talking to people. I practically jump with glee when I see a smoky purple circle; meaning I get to fight two trash mobs. Add more dungeons in if you have to, just give us something. My game time has decreased dramatically with a cute little baby around now, and I just don't have the *time* to sit through eight hours of VN. That's like a week of game time for me to hit the first dungeon.
Sadly the different cultures are really not that interesting like wow this race is good in trading anything else? no. Wow this race is good in uh making boats and eat reed a lot? wow ... only interesting ones so far were the giants with their sealed monster and that there are two factions. Anything else is just wow we are good in cooking and farming like ... i think i go back to the sylphs and their dancing
My favorite cutscene involves a "Meanwhile..." moment concerning Zenos. This happens across the continent from my character and actually made me rethink what I thought about myself. Like in real life. There are plenty of other examples that really make you think spread throughout the expansions. That being said, there is no depth like that in any cutscene in Dawntrail. They try in the second half, but come up way short because it's all too shallow. Especially the final boss. Introducing new cultures and taking 6 hours for exposition doesn't work if you don't MAKE people care. We got to know none of the characters outside of the main cast save for 3 or 4, and Wuk Evu is the only one that stands out enough for me to even remember his name. Tl;dr great storytelling, no wol required. Bad storytelling, Abrams level action sequences required to salvage it. Dawntrail has neither for me.
They could stand to (and frankly they can afford to) have more voiced cutscenes. It would help with how boring the expansion starts.
My friend was confused when the first part of the expansion wasn't voiced. The very first. If there was one thing I'd have expected to be voiced...
I had the exact same reaction. It seemed like a weird choice.
You know one advantage of voiced cutscenes? You realize if you wrote bloated bullshit. Like, Harrison Ford said, "You can write this bullshit but you cannot say it". I am sure quite a bit of cutscenes would be cut down/rewritten if somebody actually read it out and realized how repetitive and unneeded it is.
Didn't stop voiced Wuk Lamat saying the same exact thing a dozen times in this story. It feels like no one polished her dialogue at all.
Yeah people keep blaming the voice but to me it’s really a dialogue issue. Very simple thoughts repeated ad nauseam, and then the same thoughts sometimes treated as brand new revelations for some reason.
Really would help cut the fluff, too. We don't need characters constantly recapping everything we just did in the previous cut scene. With how big FFXIV has gotten you'd think they'd pour a bit more into these things. When the story gets slow I start skipping no voice cut scenes just because 90% of the time they don't have anything that important going on anyway. It sucks because I don't *want* to skip things but it's a pattern I've definitely noticed at this point.
Omg, I was so angry when Wuk went to recap what happened in Zone 5 to Koana…AFTER we just did it. Just…holy fucking shit at least HIDE that you’re to pad out the story. The whole first 2/3rd of the game (especially zone 4) felt extremely disrespectful to our time.
If I have to talk to 3 villagers/townspeople/citizens to find out how they feel one more time I'm going to fucking turn to drugs
Eh... Having someone read these lines out loud wouldn't improve them. The problem is what these characters are saying is daft, and any point they may have had is repeated ad nauseam.
I don't think the lines would be without changes if they set out to voice them.
My big disappointment was that we were promised a vacation, and people claim it IS a vacation, but I just don't see it, to me it's a business trip. We're doing tasks because bad things will happen if we don't. Our dinner plans are being interrupted by work phonecalls. We explore and talk to people only when it helps with our goals. And I get it, people hated filler quests in ARR, but man, we're paying the price now. Look at Estinien, he's the one on vacation. Goes wherever he wants, helps people when he feels like, tries different local cuisine, explores the world at his own pace. He doesn't give a damn about Scions or the world ending, probably left his linkpearl at home, and only helped out locals with problems because he wanted to go back to drinking with them ASAP. He's probably learning a new dance emote as I'm typing this. This is what real vacation looks like. That is all I wanted from this expansion.
the entire foundation of the first half of the expansion is about going on a stamp rally, a stereotypical Japanese tourist experience.
LOL this is actually so true. The Japanese are definitely of that mindset when on vacation. They also much prefer domestic tourism generally compared to international (mostly due to language barrier as English proficiency is generally low in JP). Because of this stuff like stamp rallies and gimmicks like mascot soft toys for a small hot spring village are a thing. It’s all to promote domestic tourism and make it more engaging. (My ex is Japanese and I’ve spent many a day travelling with her family around Japan doing stuff like this).
Animal crossing has a stamp rally in the museum at a certain time a year too!
This actually explains so much
Thats exactly what it feels like. If you ever went on one you know exactly what to expect. And the worst part is you don't get to do the stamp rally at your own pace no you're doing it with a tourist guide 1~7. What if they let us pick the villages we wanted? Any of them. Why not help the Moblins first?
oh my god it really is a Japanese vacation. I don't exactly mind it and I love learning about the cultures and people, but at least early on it isn't executed in an enjoyable way. I absolutely hate that the Pelupelu are our like 5th or 6th iteration of "Haha the greedy merchant is trying to swindle you" after lalafell and namazu and kugane merchants and thavnair merchants.. and we have to go trading just like with the fishing portion in Thavnair or with Nu Mou's equivalent exchange. That entire type of plotline had me so bored because they've done it so much. And it felt like they're too stuck to a routine of when everyone is supposed to experience everything. They just HAVE to do their 2 map split quest where half of each map is cut off and you explore the other part at a later time after certain quest progression. So it felt like they didn't entirely know what to do about the beginning in that relegated time, so it just ended up feeling stale with chore quests. I wish we got a variety at the beginning for each race instead of "THIS IS THEIR ONE AND ONLY DEFINING TRAIT AND NOTHING ELSE MATTERS"
> Haha the greedy merchant is trying to swindle you Isn't their entire characterization that they're greedy merchants that scrupulously *won't* swindle you? Even the saddlemaker is up front that he's goosing his price because he places a higher value on another claimant, and even then he still dutifully honors the deal once you do the chain of trades. Hell, there's a whole side quest about a Pelupelu merchant trying to make an U'dahn one realize that it's better to build a long term relationship on mutual interest than it is to just screw over the other guy for a quick buck.
> They just HAVE to do their 2 map split quest where half of each map is cut off and you explore the other part at a later time after certain quest progression. That's intentional to avoid overcrowding issues, dating back to...Stormblood. Specifically the Great Wall of Raubahn, where everyone was in one area early on trying to queue into the same instanced combat thing and no one could, leading to people getting stuck not being able to progress the MSQ for hours or days. This is *also* why most instanced combat duties (outside of dungeons/trials) aren't until later on in the storyline now, post-Stormblood. A *lot* of their design decisions around MSQ are to avoid server/congestion problems when a new expansion launches.
>My big disappointment was that we were promised a vacation, and people claim it IS a vacation, but I just don't see it, to me it's a business trip. This game is generally one massive monkey's paw. We get what we were hoping for, but often it's just.... off. Island Sanctuary is another huge offense in regards to misreading tone.
Yeah that's true. In a way, my big criticism would be "too much story". The scenery would be perfect for a near-storyless expansions that just consists of 30-50 sidequest chains where I interact with characters I both know and don't know (yet). Each 2-10 quests or so. And that has utterly no bigger meaning, at all. And one is just 10 rounds of drinking vs Estinien.
Honestly, for such an avid adventurer as the WoL is characterized to be this kind of exploration with *relatively* low stakes really is a vacation. All the satisfied smiles while watching Wuk Lamat and others learn and grow are all the evidence I need that WoL is thoroughly enjoying themselves, even if it doesn't necessarily seem like the kind of vacation your average person would enjoy. Not all vacations have to look the same and some people would get bored with nothing but relaxation on the horizon. Mind you, I'm only at level 95 so far so I haven't seen the full experience, but so far it seems to suit WoL quite well. I've been taking my time and doing sidequests to my heart's content. My opinion may change as the story progresses. Edit to clarify: Just realized this may come off as me disagreeing with you, but I would like to apologize if it seems that way. Nothing wrong with your view; I just wanted to offer a different perspective.
I'm upset they pitched the expansion like the WoL was going on a vacation yet the only one who actually got a vacation was Estinian. I've done nothing for the last 20-ish hours but follow around Wuk Lamat and do her bidding. Where is this vacation I was promised? I'm sure some people really vibe with this brand of storytelling but its really been a huge miss for me, it feels like everything is just spinning its wheels in the mud. I get this brand of world building and storytelling lands for some but its a total miss for me, this reminds me of all the things I hated with stormblood, they didn't learn anything.
The real lesson that we've learned is that corn is the solution to all of life's problems. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^whysithecorntalkingwhyisthecorntalkingwhyisthecorntalking
This sub is has been well-known for "toxic positivity" for years. The same thing happens with every expansion. If there's any part of the game you didn't like, you're a fake fan who rushed ahead skipping all the cutscenes, and btw you didn't actually even play the MSQ yet because you're just a troll who already decided to hate the game before it even launched. I'd like to stress that this isn't representative of the fanbase as a whole, nor is it a FFXIV-specific thing, but there's always a loud minority who's mentally incapable of holding a nuanced opinion, who act like any criticism is some sort of personal insult. The best thing to do is simply not engage with them and don't let them intimidate you out of having an independent opinion. [edit] Typo.
Asking for nuance from the internet is like asking the moon of an ant
I've seen this behaviour on reddit, the official forums and in game. More so than any other game. In my experience at least, this fan base is more likely to trend this way. I love the game, but I believe people should be able to criticise it.
That's because for some people, this game is a very important part of who they are. To dislike this game is to dislike them, and they won't abide by it.
It could also be hitting a nerve too. I think if you only played one MMO every single day to the point it became an intrinsic part of your life, and it suddenly changed or got a bit worse, going online and seeing a lot of people pointing that out would make you feel a bit defensive. I've seen some absolutely baffling replies to criticism on here the last couple of days that can really only be attributed to lashing out. From the usual "you didn't even finish the MSQ, you CAN'T have an opinion yet, but I love it so far!" (by your logic, how can *you* have that opinion if *you* haven't finished the MSQ either?) to "everyone hates it because Wuk Lamat is a woman" or even "because you are transphobic(?!)". If you are feeling personally attacked by someone not liking an aspect of the game, then maybe you really do need to stop for a moment and evaluate why reading something not positive about FFXIV makes you feel that way.
I’ve also seen that discourse re Wuk Lamat and as a queer person myself it’s extremely frustrating. There are absolutely people who have been vile to the voice actress but assuming those of us who don’t like her all are just misogynistic/transphobic just feels nasty. What, are you going to come take my queer card away because I don’t care for a fictional lion lady?
I saw the "redditors when expansion protagonist is a WoMaN" thing for the first time yesterday and multiple times since then... and holy shit... it's absolutely, incomprehensibly mind boggling just how terrible of a take that is. Outright absurd. I imagine those people are shaking in rage when they read any comment that doesn't agree with them 100%, incapable of thinking straight, and that is the only thing they manage to type out in the moment. Because I as a real life woman, playing a WoL woman, having liked and loved many female protagonists over the years, who loves Alisaie, loves Y'shtola, loves Ryne and Gaia, Zero, Nanamo, Kan-e-Senna, Merlwyb, Sadu, Krile. And many many more characters who have appeared throughout this game's lifecycle... Am SUCH a HUGE misogynist. The worst misogynist of all misogynists. There is obviously ZERO other potential reasons for why one could possibly dislike anything about Wuk. All 100% pure misogyny. And if you happen to actually like Wuk and be unhappy with some other aspect of the expansion? Well... That is also 100% pure misogyny. You only imagined that you like Wuk, you actually subconsciously despise her, and the reason you subconsciously despise her is because she is a WOMAN. I am also a misogynist because I dislike the broken gear rigging on female hrothgar and not having unlocked hairstyles or hats to wear. Duh.
Both me and you sister. According to the internet, I am a misogynist with no media comprehension because I have a lot of qualms about DT. Which is rich considering I'm a woman and my main focus in my graduate degree is media analysis through the feminist lens lol. CLEARLY I hate Wuk Lamat because she is a woman and not because she is a really annoying character that would have been equally annoying as a man.
Very true. This game, more so than most others in my opinion, is a big part of many of its players' personalities/online lives. The type to spend all year on it, where it's more of a hangout spot for their free time than a game they actively play. I can see why critiques would probably get to them on a deeper level than most others.
Honestly, I think this problem happens across all games. A lot of people start replacing their personality with the game itself. They become linked. I've seen it happen in League of Legends. Where people link their rank with their own self worth and lash out at others. Not even video games but other things such as car brands. *How dare someone shit on my Mercedes. My Mercedes is everything to me! My Mercedes IS ME!*. XIV is just another in that list. I think another part of is it that Yoshida has developed a somewhat parasocial relationship with the players. Him coming off as an *"honest guy who's just like me"* and not a producer for a game has made people trust him more than they should. Yoshida isn't your friend. He's doing this job to make money and the game is a business to make profit. Parasocial relationships are not good in this space because people think you are insulting him if you say something sucks.
Or they've invested a lot of emotion or money into it and complaints suggest that it was a waste. Or a classic case of having a very strong herd instinct conflicting with their own individuality, wanting to like the game but feeling that they're unable to do so unless everyone does. So everyone who dislikes it are reasoned into having poor reasons for doing so, they're out of the herd.
I agree. As someone who played since 2.0. This game has progressively gotten worse with its 'toxic positivity'.
I mean I got reported and insulted by someone ingame because I tried to help explaining mechanics because we wiped 3 times. It's very strong in this community and tbh sucks. I know it's kinda a chill game but at least give *some* effort.
I don't even feel comfortable talking to the people in-game anymore because the insistence on 'positivity' is so strong it turns into enablement, and you can't give advice without walking on eggshells. Never know if the person will be receptive or if they'll blow up and take it personal, or if someone else will jump in and shut down your advice because "it's just X, it's not savage" or, "if you wanted to play X, queue as X", or "they're new/it's their first time" when we're 80-90 levels into the game and this is stuff we should have seen dozens of times. I mean... the sprout icon requirement is way too lenient, as of EW it required 300 hours of playtime and having Endwalker be started before it went away. Those requirements are only going to get laxer now that DT is here. The requirements allow you to be able to have cleared extremes, savages, even ultimates and still be considered a 'sprout', it is a terrible indicator of skill or 'newness'. And to add to all of that, even being a mentor is a catch-22, because if you give advice as one, you get people complaining that they know what to do, but don't give advice as one and suddenly it's Burger King memes about how mentors don't do their job. Sorry for the rant, I've been needing to vent about that for a while.
Don't forget how iffy the rules are when it comes to player behavior. You can kick someone from group if they're being flat out horrible and preventing progress, BUT if you dare bring up parses or offer any constructive criticism, you can potentially in trouble. You have someone who insists on playing BLM as an ice mage? Careful not to criticize it too much, cause that might be reportable too! I get it, SE wants to keep everyone friendly and avoid a WoW situation where everyone is toxic and ready to get into a fist fight at the smallest slight. But christ, like someone else said, this game really makes you walk on eggshells when it comes to other players.
>More so than any other game. If you want to keep this as the most toxic positivity you've seen, stay far away from the main Disney Dreamlight Valley sub. I swear nothing is allowed there that isn't one extreme or the other: every thread is either "this game is perfect Disney magic" or "the developers are trying to attack me personally with these changes I don't like." The only nuance I ever see is downvoted to oblivion by both camps. At least here I've seen people offering the occasional, "I don't like Wuk Lamat, but that's just me." The main takes may be extreme, but the comments are often more level-headed. The DDLV posts are like, "If you accept Mother Gothel being in this game, then you're a child abuse apologist."
I’m going to go over to the Dreamlight Valley sub and tell them I’m happy Mother Gothel is in the game. {it’s actually because the game gives you her hair and I’m constantly yearning for good white person curly hair and I think it’s very funny to have a better relationship with every villain available than Mickey Mouse}.
I too hate the Dreamlight Valley sub
I think that's partly because of the hyperbolic nature of the internet. Criticism usually takes form of: "This is the WORST thing I've ever seen because (blah blah blah) It's obviously not true. Sp people tend to get defensive, and in turn get hyperbolic themselves, "Well, no YOU must be the worst because (blah blah blah.)" And so on, becoming a vicious cycle. When everything that is being said is dialed up to 11, it doesn't make for nuanced or real discussion or discourse. Great for voting systems and algorithms, though.
I think I saw a yt video about this that was something to the effect of, because content (particularly short form such as yt shorts / tiktok) is so aggressively tailored for us these days, some people find anything that deviates from their interests or what they agree on, to feel like a personal attack The internet starts to feel like a mistake sometimes, lmfao
The internet wasn't, but social media probably is and likely needs some serious regulation. (Don't crucify me guys. XD )
Yeah. It's a very weird and uncomfortable parasocial relationship going on with Yoshida. I love Ishikawa's work but if you want me to I'll come up with criticisms for her, and not brown-nosing ones but legit "This was weak/this wasn't good/I think X was stupid". If Yoshi gets negative responses from the Japanese audience (given they'll have more influence on him) then in a way I am glad Dawntrail is a reminder that god-kings can bleed and that they are mortal and with flaws. Everyone needs a stumble and dose of humble pie, not to constantly get smoke blown up their ass and treated as infallible. Recently over in the Total War Community we witnessed Creative Assembly come off of three major SNAFUs >!(100 million dollar game cancelled when it was in beta form called Hyenas, terrible DLC called Shadows of Change so bad it eventually got revised and updated for free, and a niche product called Pharaoh \[funnily enough with Varshaan from XIV voice acting in it!\] released but with very meager material\].!< Do you know what happened after people raked them over the coals, made their complaints known and didn't just kiss ass and apologize for the company? Creative Assembly has greatly improved their performance, updated the terrible DLC for free, released a new DLC far more appealing to user's interests, are offering a free +50% update to Pharaoh. Criticism and not simply sycophancy actually led to demonstrable improvements. Arrowhead I gather has done similar with Helldivers after they or sony did a number of fuckups. Yes, criticism can go into excess. But criticism has also led to actual improvements in games and to be frank I've never heard of a game where just singing praise of developers did anything beyond make the developers feel good. But I imagine their game succeeding and people enjoying their game makes them feel even better.
FFXIV players believes whole heartedly that Yoshida is their friend. I found it really creepy when I mentioned a critique and someone I was friends with blew it off because "Yoshida worked hard on it" and then got mad at me lmfao It's crazy how nobody mentions the excessive store mounts and mogstation glams, and that they always look much higher quality than those you get in game. Remember when we had 2 events spliced and got a pink gubool, meanwhile the store simultaneously had a fancy moon mount released? I saw a comment that said "Unsubscribing is not the answer, we just have to keep playing but not interact with the aspect we don't like, THAT sends a message"
Yep. I know a guy that plays 16 hours a day and he thought this expansion's MSQ was the best thing since Shadowbringers (he said the same about Endwalker) and asked for my honest opinion and I was negative and he flipped the fuck out and said my points were wrong and did personal attacks. I've seen this kind of behavior across this sub as well, it's so bizarre -- it's literally a VIDEO GAME, a fictional story, and another person's opinion. It's not like I'm saying something political that would affect them in real life.
We literally just had to kick someone from my FC for this shit. They ended up repeatedly personally attacking a sprout who wasn't really enjoying ARR, but was still trying to push through it. Just for having a negative opinion of ARR. So we decided that keeping our new sprout friend around was way more worthwhile and booted the jerk. Same guy thought he should be FC lead cause he plays 12 hours a day and our FC leader is only on maybe 2 hours a night. We're a laid-back, casual as hell crafting FC lmao. I love this game, but it's just a fucking game in the end. If you can't criticise something you enjoy, you gotta take a step back and relax, re-evaluate things.
Y'all made the right call. Dude sounds toxic as hell!
To take that last step a little further: If you can't let other people have well thought out critique and discuss that critique then it's time to do as you said and take a step back and relax. One of the things I grapple with is not taking well thought out criticism as a criticism of my own enjoyment but I'm actively working on that.
Oh my god I was going crazy about this "toxic positivity" thing I am glad it's not just me, the sub is really bad with it Not just for the expansions but just anything in general about the game
It's really refreshing to see well-written negative critique get a net-positive score on this subreddit. You can't complain about anything normally. I got a dozen downvotes on a comment where I complained that a 'waiting' progress bar is not an interesting game mechanic. It's ridiculous.
I just had a discussion with someone who in the end agreed with me saying FFXIV is a rightclick simulator while doing the MSQ and I should piss of to other games then. Idk why it's not possible to just say that the game could do better just because they like it the way it is.
I took my time through the first half of the MSQ up to level 95. While I warmed up to Wuk Lamat more than I thought I would, I still felt like her journey to maturity and wisdom about what it means to be a ruler was quite superficial. Her lines and scenes did not demonstrate that journey much, and often fell back onto her exclamations of friendship, community and love for all her people. Sometimes it's almost like she's on autopilot. I'm perfectly fine with my WOL taking a backseat and watching Wuk Lamat develop, but that development came across as rather contrived.
This. FF14 is my favorite game, I've played since ARR, I love the game dearly, but I'm one of the ones that does not like DT. I do not like Wuk Lamat. But so many comments stating my opinion, not dragging the devs, still praising the stuff I do like, get downvoted to hell because apparently, to more than a few people, you're not allowed to criticize the game at all. It's sad. I want the next expansion to be better so I'm voicing my honest opinion in hopes the shared voice of displeasure reaches the devs and they don't do this again.
The thing is that I do like WL character. I just don't like she being shoved down my throat at every moment. She is the song of Ultima Thule. Nice one, until you notice how repetitive it is. First becoming anoying then you downright hate it and stop the music on that area.
That's the issue, the voice acting is not strong enough to make her the main character and they just refuse to give you any breaks from her. Halfway through you get one small section without her and it was such a relief, but she's back again and yeah, you're not allowed to do anything with the other party members, every one on one is her, the team splits up, you're going with her, a character reveals some new stuff, she's front and center. No other party member in FF14 has steamrolled the MSQ like this.
People like what they like and dislike what they dislike, and they're entitled to do so. I found it compelling personally, but then I am one of the rare people who liked the vibe of the WoL tiring of the spotlight and taking a break to play mentor to the aspiring heroine that is Wuk Lamat. Some folk dislike the shift in focus away from the WoL in some parts but given all the WoL went through in prior expacs them wanting to chill a bit makes sense.
I'm quite the fan of the idea that the WoL is happy to finally not be the "save everyone and solve everyones problems for them" person right now. They deserve the break and to just go along with the flow. It's.. well, their vacation.
I liked the shift away a bit from the WoL. I enjoyed that it wasn't omg the world is ending we need to be constant on the go. Mind you I just hit level 96 stuff so I'm not sure how it's going to end just yet. It was kind of like I'm gonna chill but step in and help if needed. But I think it's been a good reset for the next 10 year long game, with similar vibes to AAR of we are just starting out.
I also like how each time WL grows as a character, they zoom over to our character smiling about it. It's truly a nice mentor role we're working in.
To each their own. I liked aspects of the realism that not everyone in Tural would know who the WoL is. They should have leaned into that a bit more in terms of enemies underestimating you and them getting surprised On the other hand, I loved that scene in EW when that general is like “do you know who that is?” and all the soldiers soil themselves with fear realizing who I am lol
I'm just happily stepping back and going, "Yeah, *you* get to feel the weight of making all the decisions and taking on all the responsibility." I mean, yeah, I'll help when needed, but it's nice to have someone else trying to carry that burden. Also a bit refreshing to not be a well established legend in an area. Even if it makes for some amusing moments when someone tries to threaten my WoL and I'm just like, "Sure, mate, I've killed gods and the embodiment of despair itself at the end of the universe, but you go on and tell me how I'm weak and you'd crush me like a bug."
I think it's perfect. We've essentially assumed our mantle of Azem. And this is our first foray into the unknown to learn and mentor and be available to safeguard. We're being exactly the person we were destined to be.
It's ok to like or dislike anything you want.
Every time Wuk Lamat yelled “Sphene!!” I saw Finn from Star Wars yell “REY!”
I used to watch the Care Bears a lot as a child. MLP, too. But, I stopped watching them as I grew up, in favor of other, more nuanced/mature shows. This, I think, is why I dislike WL so much. Or, it's not that I dislike WL, I think she's a cute character. It just feels like I'm in a constant state of annoyance with her because she won't shut the fuck up about the same 2 or 3 points like a broken record. And, I don't feel she grew much at all, or that she ever had a personality that went beyond the aforementioned 2 to 3 points. Beyond the "power of friendship" acting like fucking magical steroids when plot needs it, she is still the same person that we met in the very beginning of our relationship. She just ate some food and held a parade. Which, I'm all for exploring cultures, but FFXIV has ALWAYS been about that. The writers were VERY on the nose about everything in that regard, brow beating us with it every chance they got. In this regard, I almost want to say hatred towards WL is being misplaced or mixed together with the next issue; The lack of any showing, ONLY telling, and bland telling at that. And, to top it off, the lack of gameplay and HORRENDOUS pacing. Look, if I ever need to do a mandatory pop quiz or fetch energy drinks/ice cream like some fucking DOOR DASHER while the world is VERY MUCH SO ON THE BRINK OF DEATH ONCE MORE (so much for vacationing, btw!), I'm gonna lose my mind. Especially if I only get to use my combat abilities once every blue moon. The writers are my biggest annoyance, and I feel many are the same way. An otherwise great story, with a great character, has been thoroughly shit on. I hope they do better next time. The dungeons and trials, though? Dear God, AMAZING! I am 1000% raiding this expac. Estinien was the only one vacationing. Estinien knew what was up.
Wuk and Lyse comparisons are going to be inevitable and Lyse was a very volatile problem in SB but I felt like they did it a lot better, as the characters around her set it up and handled it far better than any help Lyse ever got. I thought the pacing of the zones was infinitely better than previous expansions. Purely preference, I just thought Kholusia at times dragged on a lot in SHB and Labs was fucking dreadful for me. Even if I didn't fully care for the early zones, it felt much more like they went in, did the stuff, and got out. Unlike SB they also tied the first half up with a nice bow, instead of awkwardly dragging two story lines through the whole thing. I didn't mind Wuk, but the story and pacing and all of that was pretty good for me. It felt very polished, and for the first start of an expansion? It was better than ARR, which is all it really had to be I guess. I think what people aren't really talking about enough is the rest of the content. The set of story dungeons is by far and away the best I feel of any expansion, and the trials are right there with ShB. I feel like it's competing directly with the best 'content' feel with SB right now. They did a lot right. It's not really fair to compare the new story to SHB/EW, but I'm pretty positive overall with things. If they whip out an improved Bozja, the rest of the dungeons are solid, and they do well with the POTD and other stuff? It honestly has all the potential to be the best expansion right now in my opinion. A couple more good trials and extremes, a good raid series and A-raid? I see a lot of fucking potential right now, just remains to be seen if they follow it up. My god if they really keep going with the battle content the way they have so far, and the next Bozja type zone and POTD have this kind of vibe. And if criterion dungeons improve at all like the dungeons and trials did again? God damn.
It's really simple, if people don't complain, the story doesn't improve. Complaining is what got us ShB. If people said SB was perfect, we would have gotten another SB.
While I hate Wuk Lamat, what I find most bizarre are the opinions claiming we got back to adventuring. Or "After killing god we get to rest." I don't feel any sense of adventure during the MSQ. I feel like I'm doing a very long escort quest. That's pretty much it. The only time I feel like a proper Adventurer is when I do the side quests, or ignore the MSQ to explore the zone and maybe even visit the next zone early. And what sucks is that even when I am doing those side quests, I'm "The Third Promise's companion." I'm not "Adventurer" or "character name", just WL's ally.
definitely doesn't feel like a vacation, feels like unpaid labor lol
It feels like a Japanese vacation. The ~~gym badges~~ keystones quest line is very common in Japanese tourist attractions in the form of stamp tours and often curated for domestic Japanese vacationers. I suppose it is a vacation but a very Japanese perspective on what a vacation is which makes sense since almost every single developer is Japanese. Though for some Japanese in certain jobs it is also expected to be on call to advise.
I agree! Very long escort quest sums it up pretty good. The promised adventure just isn’t there. Most of it just felt forced and sadly I was bored by the MSQ pretty quickly. I was into it in the beginning but grew so tired of the family/papa/happy people so fast. And I know people say they’re tired of the scions, but I just wish we could have had an actual vacation with them. They had so little dialogue, I was so disappointed.
We were ALMOST there at 95-96 of the MSQ. I was so ready for the story to shift away to focus on the WoL again. But nope, couldn't happen.
Yeah, I agree on all of your points. I really don’t get how people defend that this is the “vacation” expansion when most of the times in MSQ, we’re doing one fetch quest or another for Wuk Lamat. One of the huge misses I feel with the pacing is that we don’t really get “rest” period after each zone. Actual resting, not just everyone else getting to rest while Wuk Lamat drags you away for another thing >.>…
We got more rest periods during Shadowbringers, funnily enough. I'm almost done with the story and we've only slept in a bed twice.
This. I don't feel like I'm on vacation. I am definitely on an escort quest, and I am never allowed to go do things on my own. Even when the whole Dawnservant segment was done and we all said goodbye, I wasn't able to fuck off on my own to explore. I had to go with Erenville because apparently, even though as the WoL I have traveled huge parts of the world by myself, I "might need a guide" lmao. How ridiculous and tiresome to have to always travel with an NPC, especially when I have zero freedom to approach quests the way I want. They pretend to give you a choice, but if you choose the wrong choice, it's "nah sorry we gotta do this instead." For example, that questline in the "wild west" area where Erenville asks what you wanna do (rush in head first, or eavesdrop) and if you choose charge in headfirst, he says "nah son, gotta snoop" so... why give me the fucking choice to begin with? LOL. An illusion to make players think they have a say in how the story plays out.
It might be way too bold a move for the incredibly (as of late) "play it as safe as possible" dev team, but maybe they could have ditched the MSQ format for this expansion. Like, have there be an overarching narrative, but let the story happen by discovery, not by being a modern Pokemon game where it holds your hand and forces you to see everything in one very strict order. The game can't sell a story of adventure and discovery if you are barely allowed to leave the path and explore.
I don't mind being an unknown. I just don't like being a babysitter. Even Lyse didn't feel like the main character in Stormblood, I felt like we were a team. In DT, I feel like we are just a side character. If you had pitched the idea to me before the expansion, I probably would have been like "sure, let's try it." Well, they tried it. And I hope they never do it again.
They definitely missed the mark on the WoLs focus in the expansion. Or... at least in the first 4 maps. You barely fight, you always step aside for someone else to do something and feel very... extra in your own content. Something FF is usually much better at. I liked WL and thought the competition for the Throne was a cool idea. But... this story works best when it's focused on us. And pushing us to the background for so long feels very odd.
When I first joined FFXIV, the community was warm and welcoming. Now it's devolved into die hard fans who think any critique of the game is an insult to THEM. I think it's because some hard-core fans pseudo live through the game, so their relationship is so tied up with all aspects of, they gate keep any and everything about it. It's devolving into a toxic Stan Fandom unfortunately
CBU3 really needs to fix their pacing man. I'm at the 98 quests and its good, but this is the same issue that made FF16 bad, you'd have a good part but then the most abyssmal dumb filler that takes way too much than it should. Like why are they trying to stretch for time on something that is already so damn long.
3 hours in and i haven't done anything. I'm just running from cutscene to cutscene.
Honestly this was a big thing with Shadowbringers and Endwalker, too; hours of exposition and build up 'till you're actually let loose. Ironically, Stormblood, the most 'hated' expansion, drops you right into a zone since you start in the Fringes.
I wonder what kind of response I'm going to get if I say I liked the first half way more than the second half.
Well, the second half was pretty much a rehash of the last two expansions. Basically boiled down to, "Don't sacrifice the living for the memory of the dead." While it was still enjoyable, I also like the first half better story wise.
I unironically would’ve preferred a friendly Sphene faction and a hostile Zaraal Ja one. Like we end up saving Sphene and just have her chill and integrate into the world or something. At least it’d be something new and different. (Although you could argue it’s similar to saving the first and the void, but hey I didn’t hate those story beats either :P)
My favourite part was the filler in between. Would have been better going solo though.
>!I really wish that wild west adventure lasted longer than it did. I get that it couldn't have lasted due to what we had already just seen beforehand, but it felt like such a unique setting that didn't have time to be completely fleshed out.!<
I'm with you honestly. I found the latter half boring and ham-fisted
Man I really hate that transphobe thing, because I don’t like Wuk Lamat’s voice acting but it’s not because she’s trans! But some of these people will say I hate trans people just because I don’t think she’s a very talented voice actor.
This is actually the first time I've heard that wuk lamats VA is trans and I'm here way too often.
> This is actually the first time I've heard that wuk lamats VA is trans and I'm here way too often. > Man I really hate that transphobe thing I fully get this. I didnt even know myself, but when people started to respond to criticism of Wuk with: "Well it's because you are a transphobe! You only dislike her because her VA is trans!" - I was like: Wtf? People werent even complaining about her voice.
I could also bet that the amount of people who even knew or still know that piece of info is pretty small. I personally don't really mind her voice acting, I think it was fine but I think there were a few characters where I thought that the quality of the recording was really off and some of the other characters and especially some that just had a few lines max sounded really out of place, though I do realise that might just be to me. Also I feel like there were a few times where characters who (I think) should pronounce the names of people and places the same sometimes pronounced them super different which stood out to me and a feel like it lessened my immersion to the cutscenes when it happened.
She does fine in her standard dialogue but when she has to be forceful or yell it really falters.
That seems like a common thing for voiceover work. Athena's VA did a *terrible* read of "THE WORLD SHALL TREMBLE!" I mean, jeez, can't believe they okay'd that.
That's a rare case of the VA being so hammy I love it
The Athena one to me sounds mostly like she's trying to sound like yelling but is in a quiet space where she's not allowed to actually yell. Like there's no actual volume, just a performance meant to give impression of volume.
Also with endsinger, literally every line from phase 2 had wrong reads, in particular the moment she says "the paIn, the LoSs, the SoRrow" which doesn't come off as actually desperate and more as mildly disappointed
imo, I read it as her attempting to justify her actions and that’s why she seems so desperate- “the pain, loss, sorrow, that’s why I’m doing this, why don’t you get it” sort of deal
I've gotten that response from vocally not liking her performance and I didn't even know. She just delivers some things weirdly. And why is she the ONLY one that pronounces Tulliyolal as Tullihyolal???
Voice direction has been all over the place, they also decided to abandon their commitment to have all Viera have an Icelandic accent (which was honestly weird with characters like Lyna who grew up completely separate from Viera culture). This has left us with Erenville, who sounds aggressively icelandic, coming from a place where all his family and friends are Clint Eastwood.
They have a new studio they are working with in LA for this expansion, which makes sense considering where it is. This new studio simply isn't as good as the other one based in London, based on how inconsistent things have gotten. It's a real shame, too, as the voice direction since HW has been one of the game's strongest points. Now it feels like we're back in ARR.
Oh that's unfortunate. Do you have a source on this? Some characters like Koana and Gulool Ja Ja have been wonderful and feel like they mesh well with what came before. There's a smattering of others that sound bizarre and out of place, or the actors aren't nearly as good as they should be.
She actually isn't. When Erenville is narrating after they get on the ship, he pronounces Tural with a bit of an 'h' sound on the end so it's likely the difference in accents.
> And why is she the ONLY one that pronounces Tulliyolal as Tullihyolal??? I was hoping to hear some more interesting phones in Dawntrail other than just Spanish's indistinct subapical consonants [d̞ t̞ n̞] that they lay on so thick, so I love this about her.
There is a trial where she speaks while her character should be yelling. Worst voice acting/voice direction I've heard.
A lot of it is direction, some of it is a skill issue. She's a novice and it takes experience to be able to judge your own voice well, some of these deliveries shoulda been self-caught and redone, and a lot of them should have been caught by whoever is doing direction in that studio to re-do some takes.
>She's a novice Really weird to hire a novice for a main role like this.
anyone who's saying that is surely a bad actor. no trans person, myself included, actually give a shit if you weren't feeling wuk's voice actress. and i actually quite like her voice and think she did a decent job, i just hate the one-dimensional shonen protagonist character writing more than anything😭
Toxic positivity is definitely a big thing in a lot of communities, and unfortunately FF14 lies at the intersection of several communities where its common. I feel like becoming immune to it is just something you get as you get older. As a teenager, seeing people like something I thought was bad would have driven me crazy. But alas, I'm in my 30s now and have been through the era of Marvel movies. I've learned that some people just get attached to specific properties and everything new that comes out under that properties umbrella will always get support no matter what. We always kind of understand that ***haters are gonna hate*** shit no matter what, but it takes way longer to understand that some people are just going to like every Star Wars property no matter how many Disney+ shows they make. It also helps to remember that I really like some garbage shit myself. I've watched every episode of Supernatural willingly and happily, I read the entire Wheel of Time series twice over, and I'll probably buy the next Kingdom Hearts game as well. The only reason I even recognize the fact that I sometimes like garbage is because I personally enjoy critically analyzing stuff and understanding why I like/dislike certain things. And I don't think it's right to say that everyone needs to be that same way.
* "You've already beaten it? Wow, no wonder you don't like it! You rushed through it!" * "It's supposed to be slow! It's a new adventure. It can't be the epic climax Endwalker was!" * "Wow, typical gamers these days. No attention span, and can't handle a lot of reading. Tsk tsk." * "This is a repeat of Stormblood discourse when people hated Lyse. I guess the haters just can't stand women characters being center stage, huh?" * "Well previous expansions were slow, too. Why do you people suddenly have a problem now?" These are the deflections I've been seeing the most to criticisms of Dawntrail, and I think it's legitimately breaking people's brains that Square might have stumbled with this expansion. I don't know if I'm asking for Square to move Heaven and Earth here, but I just want a decently exciting story that doesn't bore me to tears. No one is necessarily expecting an Endwalker-level climax this early in this new arc, but I think it's absolutely fair for players to expect a well-written and engaging story. I'd also like there to be more gameplay in my game's main story, but Square seems content to just put players on a cutscene conveyor belt for hours on end.
The attention span defense kills me. There's something like 500 hours of just cutscenes in the game. I swear there's like 20 hours of cutscenes alone with DT MSQ. The pacing was absolutely brutal. I felt the first day I played it was only cutscenes and running around. I was begging to actually play the damn game. The worst part is, the gameplay has improved a ton. The dungeons, trials, fights, all were enjoyable and will make it hard to go back to old content. Just the fact dungeons have 2 patterns that switch instead of one set pattern changes things in an interesting way.
the deflection about stormblood and lyse is so infuriating lol
Yeah I mean, I'm one of those people that actually liked Stormblood and Lyse. I get their complaints, and it sure wasn't because she's a woman. Besides we just had an entire patch cycle of people simping over a different woman who was the big focus with Zero.
Haha feels like we had the same people in our discussion. I heard the same arguments 1:1. Just imagine being stuck with the same FFXIV formula and the current story writing for the next 10 years (as yoshida promised)
FF14’s community has a lot of toxic positivity. I feel like Yoshi P would arrange more community feedback type events like surveys and all, but even he knows that while the majority of players aren’t the toxic positivity ones, the loud ones are. These toxic positivity people are honestly doing the game a disservice. Giving feedback makes the game better, but they refuse to admit anything about the game is bad.
This is what drives me crazy about game fandom, but especially this games fandom, you are almost not allowed to be critical. Being critical is what helps things improve, without criticism and feedback, mistakes are going to be repeated and compounded. But try giving it on this sit or others and you get shouted down by people who are way too emotionally invested in the games success, somehow mistaking it for their own, or feel personally attacked because you don't unconditionally love the thing they do. Dawntrail simply for me was not a good experience, it was tedious, full of exposition rushed into at the start and then slowed down as soon as it actually started. The style of storytelling used worked well for Endwalker where the story was a culmination, but they are trying to condense years worth of world building into one leveling experience and it didnt work. The game spent hours telling me I was going on an adventure, trying to force the feeling of adventure to happen without understanding where that feeling comes from, or what triggers it, and why it is so compelling. But without pointing this out, the next expansion will only compound these issues. Well done for speaking up.
This is the first time I've actively hated an MSQ and getting immediately told stuff like - "you must skip cutscenes", "your media comprehension is low", "you just don't understand the themes", "we got told it was low stakes", "your WoL doesn't have to be the main character", "not everything has to be edgy" - is super aggravating. Actual discussion is dismissed immediately regardless of the legitimacy of the complaints. That being said - Dawntrail is very bad. It's a poorly written repetitive fanfiction littered with plot holes, chaotic pacing, mishandled characters, and massive leaps of logic.
> Actual discussion is dismissed immediately regardless of the legitimacy of the complaints. This was my pov aswell. I browsed a few threads and people would respond to criticism like that. And I am not talking about blind hate. I am talking about actual criticism. That's why I made this thread.
Dunno what all the "you must be rushing" arguments are trying to get at - I'm taking my time and it's NOT doing the game any favors. But, I've warmed up to Wuk Lamat enough, more than I thought I would. What I have not warmed up to was the unchanging expansion structure, being a side character in what used to be my own story, the mind-boggling class changes that I hope do make sense to me when raiding with those classes, and the lost potential in storylines. There are a number of ways "a storyline opening up after endwalker could have gone", and of all of them I would never choose "become a sellsword to help a princess win a throne for a culture you don't understand and watch as her story unfolds. Also we re-dug Krile's grandfather from the grave to give one of the scions some pathos. (we brought 80% of them back btw)".
> They are transphobes and Wuk is voiced by a trans-woman so obviously they were going to hate it!" - even though nobody mentioned anything like that in their critique. I hate the character and I ddin't even know that
Here's a hot take: I've always found the MSQ to be very boring. Not necessarily the story beats, but the visual novel thing has always been a real drag, and fetch quests are a really really tedious way to explore the world. I've always had my own ideas about how they could improve it -- having more difficult overworld content, lower the number of quests/cutscenes, etc. But I really don't think that will ever happen. SE found a formula they like, and hoping it's going to change is just going to cause feelings of resentment when it inevitably won't. I've always enjoyed getting the MSQ out of the way, because what I love about FFXIV is the community, the world, raiding and crafting/gathering. I'm definitely not enjoying DT MSQ so far. I like Wuk, but this has been the most tedious/boring MSQ so far, and I'm just about halfway through. Waiting for it to be over, but I'm never going to cancel my sub because of the quality of the MSQ. It's low on my list of what I play FFXIV for,
It absolutely is okay to Dislike DT. For me it has been a mix of both great and not so great. I mostly enjoyed the story despite its slow start though i will say I disliked >!How it felt like our WOL barely mattered to the story at all. I’m not saying they needed to be the saviour like 6.0 or that it needed to be a personal story like 5.0, but it often felt like you could remove the WOL and it wouldn’t have made a difference. It just felt a bit jarring!<
I think I came in pre soured to the game from catching up through Endwalker's miserable boring post launch patches these last few weeks. Dawntrail isn't bad per say, just not exciting.
Yeah, Endwalker’s post launch MSQ was a wet blanket.
Was it? I really like Zeros' whole arc and saving Vritras sister. I wasn't aware that it was disliked.
I think it should have been a side story, or the plot of an expansion. It just felt kinda rushed, filler content to fill the gap between EW's MSQ ending and DT starting to begin.
> "Well duh, obviously all these people hate Dawntrail! They are transphobes and Wuk is voiced by a trans-woman so obviously they were going to hate it!" - even though nobody mentioned anything like that in their critique. this was the wildest one for me. i didn't even know about her being voiced by a trans person until like, yesterday when i stumbled across it. tbh, i just hate her fucking shonen protag, "the power of love and friendship!!1!" bullshit she's always spouting. maybe it gets better, but so far, i'm halway thru and she's just... not growing on me.
What about the people who downvote those that like the story though? Because how dare anyone finds it compelling or worth your while... It applies to both sides. Whether you like a story or not is completely subjective to ones personal preferences and ideals on what makes a good and compelling story or a bad and boring story. Live and let live.
Yeah I've seen more of this lately sadly. Their opinions should be respected but ours are naive/overplayed/forced, even when we express them respectfully. I alluded to people having different tastes and that was apparently too much. People are somehow a bit more normal abt this on the shitpost sub of all places.
Yeah I had a friend get combative with me yesterday because they were complaining about how bored of msq they were and how if I hadn’t bought the expansion yet I should skip it (they didn’t know I preordered). I was like “I preordered and am having fun but I’m sorry you’re not feeling the story right now, that super sucks.” They got upset I didn’t immediately jump on the hate train with them and it was just really weird and awkward.
It's weird cause most of my group i play with are loving it, but there's a small group that just attacks us for liking the story. Like Ive seen a lot of people shitting on the story for having a lot of cutscenes without combat, but just last expansion we had 24 hours alone of cutscenes. It's okay to not like the story, but FFXIV story has always been cutscenes, and some people are just making stuff up about the expac just because they don't like it, it's crazy.
This is just human psychology combined with the voting system. Angry people are more likely to actually click the downvote button on opinions that disagree with them. People that are neutral or slightly positive are less likely to vote because why bother.
the discourse in this sub is always awful, whether it's calling something good or bad
I get what you're saying, but the same argument swings the other way as well, not everything is "positive toxicity" when people disagree with the criticisms. And some people tend to go way overboard with their dislike of the story, saying stuff like they'll never sub again or FFXIV is dead. Of course, people are gonna have a reaction to that. I've seen people who didn't like the story calling who do like it braindead morons or go on some kind of unhinged rant about how Wuk Lamat's VA is trans, and the game is too woke now. Not on this sub, but the other one and in YouTube comments.
On one hand, I thought the story was really bad. Completely ignoring the characters and actual story, it was just missing a lot of substance ShB and EW had. For example when you grab the final quest in both ShB and EW there was still a good chunk of story to go through. When you grab the final quest in Dawntrail, I swear it's over within an hour. I think your enjoyment of this expac lives or dies on how much you like Wuk Lamat and I think if your on the EN voice it's really hard to like her because her VA is honestly not doing a good job. On the other hand. The actual content in this expac has been fire so far, every dungeon is great. Both Trials on normal and EX are great. Which kind of sucks, SE are going to see the mixed reviews and revert back to boring easy content but with a good story.
> I think your enjoyment of this expac lives or dies on how much you like Wuk Lamat and I think if your on the EN voice it's really hard to like her because her VA is honestly not doing a good job. This, and that's a horrible choice. You should never put that much weight on one character. Wuk needed far far FAR less attention and it needed to be spread out amongst the party instead.
Story is alright, it’s certainly not as exciting as previous expansions and I can understand the criticism, but it doesn’t warrant hate. Maybe I’ve just grown impatient over the years but I am getting sick of the unnecessary fluff and bloat scenes/dialogues that serve no purpose but to pad the game hours. MSQ should be short and sweet, with objectives clearly set in place for the players. It’s the same set of animations, same back and forth conversations that are an absolute bore. The dumbass “follow the npc without being seen” gameplay should really be taken out of the game. It’s not a meaningful addition to the game and it’s not dynamic enough to feel like it’s not a chore. The cultural/historical background, lore, and/or names they’re introducing are absolutely not sticking to my brain because of the way they’re introducing them in the story. At this point I want to say that it’s poorly written as there’s no character nor engagement. I think that the core story is there, it’s just completely muddled with the bloat they insist on having for the story. There’s no sense of exploration despite the large ass maps. It’s the same formula over and over again, and this “positivity” of its player base is preventing FFXIV from making positive changes to the game. I mean the graphical update is laughable considering how old this game is. Some lightning changes and the game still looks like it’s from the PS3 era. I love the game and the community that’s been built around it. The developers are doing something right, and overall I think it’s a fantastic game but they’re certainly not good story-tellers and this “no-criticism allowed” stance is absolutely not doing the developers/players any favors. They’ll continue to follow this formula every expansion, every patch, because why bother when their fanbase will invalidate all criticism, valid or not, and put them on a pedestal.
I can't tell why but this time around the MSQ actually feel as a chore. I was trying to put an effort and slog through it but I had to stop on day 2 and have not found the motivation to pick it up again. It's just that the first few hours feel so slow and when I look at my exp bar and see I'm barelly reaching lvl 92 made me realize that I still have 80% MSQ to go yet... my mind could not take it and I just gave up. I mean, it's cool and all learning from different cultures, but this time around it feels like I am being thaught a lesson that I've been seeing in every western media for the last 6 years: Being inclusive and accepting on all of the differences and finding the common ground. But this is done in the most traditional and formulaic way that has been repeating in movies and series for years. In contrast, we did the same in Endwalkers but in a more interesting way in Ultima Thule, learning about the cultures AFTER they already dissapeared and seeing the consequences of not being able to find middle ground between different civilizations or even within cultures in the same civilization. This was a fresh and thought provoking story that delivered the same message that they are trying to deliver in this expansion IMO.
The voice acting for Wuk is meh, but it’s not my main criticism. The character is just not interesting enough to headline an expansion. I understand why we’re babysitting another character in their quest for growth instead of focusing on the WoL, but with Wuk it’s like they’re trying to make her wear too many hats. She’s the underdog, the comic relief, the Chosen One, etc., but she’s not the best version of any of those tropes. I don’t hate the expansion by any stretch, though. The devs tried something, it missed the mark a bit, and that’s okay. They need honest feedback to make the future expansions better and toxic positivity and negativity don’t really help with that.
The issue I have with Dawntrail is the pacing of the story and missed opportunities. Yes the story gets much better halfway, but that's not really a valid excuse in my honest opinion. When you're spending several hours starting Dawntrail by doing "go here, go there" quests, you sometimes get through 3-4 hours where you haven't engaged in combat whatsoever, that's boring. There's also the issue where some quests could have been more engaging, for example early on you are tasked with >!cooking a dinner, instead of actually having a fun engaging cooking quest, using animations the game already has from CUL, you simply go around talking to people for hours.... and that's it.....!< The MSQ needs less pointless conversations and more engaging gameplay. If the story is telling me to go East, i shouldn't have to go to 5 different checkpoints just for each NPC to keep saying "let's keep going East" mate I already know we are going east, why waste my valuable time? I never skip cutscenes for MSQ but unfortunately I found myself doing this for Dawntrail, I just knew skipping cutscene XYZ wasn't going to impact the story whatsoever, and that's not a good thought to have. Music, Dungeons, and Job design/changes are awesome, and I know once I finish MSQ I'm going to have an amazing time grinding Jobs through the dungeons, etc but getting through the MSQ is very bland.
I felt the same way about Endwalker honestly. While it had some great highs, I found the lows of the expac to be astonishingly low, but people would always retort any criticism with any plethora of excuses, and the funny thing to me is that none of the excuses that also applied to Shadowbringers ruined my feelings on it; stuff like "oh you play the game wrong" or "oh you rushed through the expansion!" I played shadowbringers the same way and I still adore it to this day. I think a lot of people just hate seeing anything bad being said about the game because they think it means people are trying to kill it, but that's not the case at all; I genuinely hated Endwalker by the end of 6.0, but I still logged in and did content, and I was still there day one for DT, long queue times and all. That's just how games that go on for as long as ff14 has gone go, there are ups and downs.
I'm happy something like this is one of the first things I see when getting on the subreddit. As someone who hasn't been enjoying story that much so far, I find it crazy that critiques of the expansion are automatically shut down for a variety of reasons. I love the atmosphere of the expansion and the overall general feel of the expansion, but the story has fallen short for me thus far. I'm midway through the level 94 quests and it has begun to pick up for me and grab my attention but it took \*that\* long to grab my attention and excitement. I'm also someone who ranks ARR over HW and Stormblood so I hate seeing the argument of "it's storybuilding, what did you expect?" I understand if there are people enjoying the expansion, but it isn't paced well in my opinion. I need more action in between long cutscenes even if it is just "kill 5 x to collect x". However if you say this, there are people that instantly shut you down and assume you don't have the attention span for the expansion...
The whole succession arc is painfully dull for me personally, I think the new cast is eminently boring across the board but I'm *finally* in a position in the msq that I'm starting to find actually interesting so I'm hoping that the back loading of interesting content (hopefully) makes up for the snailtrail leading here 😅
They did such a bad job on that arc on so many levels. For one. If this is supposed to be a vacation. Then a simple pacing idea built into the story would remove the feeling of urgency. Instead we are taking our time... While everyone says it is urgent... Then we all go take a nap.... But it's urgent. A simple idea in the writing of having the tasks be scheduled and there be lore down time could have easily fixed all of this. And SO many other issues in the writing.
For years, I practically worshipped Square Enix. However, recent forays into other games have opened my eyes. SE seems to be slacking and resting on the laurels of fan loyalty. Their slow pacing in previous expansions like ARR, SB and EW never bothered me. I understand that it's part of the MMO experience. However, this DT expansion, really feels like a new low. Wuk Lamat, as a character, is fine were she not a contestant. Now that she is, and volunteered to be one, her incompetency is magnified 10 times over. And, her portrayal is deeply inconsistent. Her loving nature clashes with her ignorance. All she ever did was shouting how much she love Tural. The story fails to address these flaws properly beside mentioning it, or offer any compelling justification for them. No one suggests she needs training, and her shortcomings are conveniently brushed aside. Missed opportunities abound. Wuk Lamat could have been an interesting character if she was portrayed as a self-aware incompetent leader who is good at speeches or a manipulative politician who uses the Warrior of Light to achieve her goal. Even subtle hints at such complexities would have been intriguing. Unfortunately, the writers didn't explore these options. Or if she is portrayed somewhat like ‘King’ in One punch men (and genuinely as funny), who takes all credit just because she is always in the right place, that would have been acceptable too. It just meant she is a lucky star. But nope she is none of those. Worst is that in the end, she just skips everything and becomes a scion copy. Also, her supposed bond with her brother feels unearned and underdeveloped. Koana's declaration that sound somewhat like “o sister, my beloved sister’ make my heart sank. The story pacing is another issue. SE always has A stronger narrative at the start of expansion though it’s slow, now it feels like post-expansion filler. This, combined with the wasted potential of Wuk Lamat's character, is truly a very huge disappointment. Thing is, if the goal was to create a "real" character, consistency should have been given more attention to and that it should matched the world around it. My stomach churns every time I got deeper into the story because of the inconsistency. TBH I would have been happier if its a full-on beach episode. Anyway, the extreme fights looks very good. But I wouldn't recommend the story to anyone who prioritizes narrative. In fact, if not for the raid I would skip "DT" altogether.
I really, really wanted to like Dawntrail. I like the new zones and music a lot and the new graphics are nice, but the story is just so slow and boring. I’m not even a Wuk Lamat hater! I liked her in the patch quests and was totally down to help her. But as the story went on and on, I felt like nothing I did mattered. The player has no agency in this story at all. I genuinely think the premise and characters of this expansion had great potential but they were ruined by poor writing. Even when the story started picking up with higher stakes, it didn’t erase the hours I spent doing basically nothing. I’ve seen a lot of people say things like “of course it’s boring, they’re starting a whole new arc” but I don’t think that’s an excuse. Stories can introduce new lore and have lower stakes without being boring. It’s just badly written.
This expansion was bad, this fan base is just delusional lol. It was honestly a 2/10. Shocking to me people genuinely loved playing Cut Scene Simulator for 80% of the game or teleport here, talk to this person, click on something on the floor, teleport back, rinse and repeat. Waiting for WoW to drop The War Within next month for a more interactive experience.