Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Scream Aim Fire]

As fascinating as his hypothesis is, the sad reality is that XIV will forever be saddled by the stain and utter wasted potential that is Dawntrail. Not even a flawed good time like Stormblood was, but an utter albatross that will haunt the game until whenever it reaches EOS.

Sad but true; it's unlikely that FFXIV will ever be able to fully recover thanks to Kate's bullshit. Hell of a fall, honestly; the game was riding high after Shadowbringers, and while Endwalker wasn't perfect, it was still well-liked. It's almost impressive just how badly Dawntrail shit the bed; I haven't even gone through the expansion, and I know just how shit it is!

 

[Kane Lives]

Sad but true; it's unlikely that FFXIV will ever be able to fully recover thanks to Kate's bullshit. Hell of a fall, honestly; the game was riding high after Shadowbringers, and while Endwalker wasn't perfect, it was still well-liked. It's almost impressive just how badly Dawntrail shit the bed; I haven't even gone through the expansion, and I know just how shit it is!

As they say, live by the MSQ, die by the MSQ. I think Dawntrail illustrates perfectly the strengths and weaknesses of the XIV formula. You can get away with subpar gameplay and subpar QOL, if you can sell the average player a good time in story (or singleplayer), but the moment you drop the ball you're going to be raked by the coals and be scrutinized heavily.

WoW had a dogshit plot for awhile now but it doesn't matter because it's just an excuse to have a new endgame.

 

[Well Intentioned]

As fascinating as his hypothesis is, the sad reality is that XIV will forever be saddled by the stain and utter wasted potential that is Dawntrail. Not even a flawed good time like Stormblood was, but an utter albatross that will haunt the game until whenever it reaches EOS.

if WoW can bounce back from the Jailer, XIV can bounce back from Wuk Lamat.

 

[Fcret]

if WoW can bounce back from the Jailer, XIV can bounce back from Wuk Lamat.

I maintain that the Dawntrail story, despite being the lowest point for XIV story-wise, is still more coherent and competently put together than the best WoW xpac stories.

The worst you can say about Dawntrail is that the first half of it is boring and there's an annoying trannycat constantly butting in. Shadowlands was not only boring and confusing, but also retroactively raped the WoW lore in such a way that they're still damage-controlling to this day.

Honestly, I could see them streamlining the Dawntrail MSQ like they did with the ARR patch MSQs. The core story will still be there but I think it'll go from annoying to merely inoffensive if they cut down a quarter of it.

 

[Well Intentioned]

I maintain that the Dawntrail story, despite being the lowest point for XIV story-wise, is still more coherent and competently put together than the best WoW xpac stories.

The problem is that WoW's story is largely like the plot in a porno: nice to have, but unimportant. It took things getting REALLY bad, plus some unassociated sex pest nonsense, to tick off WoW players with the story.

If XIV can bring the quality of the narrative back up to a level where the retards who don't understand narrative are clapping and baying like seals, they'll be fine. Will they hit the highs they enjoyed during EW? No, but that's for a litany of reasons.

And I would argue that DT is a bigger fumble than that. It was supposed to be setting the table for the next dynamic story arc and blahblahblah, only for the vast bulk of it to be completely irrelevant and the New World being completely wasted.

Compare to the (wrongly) maligned Stormblood where we got significant advancements in the Garlean and Ascian stories, including introducing a major antagonist (Zenos) who wasn't simply a villain of the week, other characters who played important/supporting roles (Emet-Selch, Hien, Fordola, Fandaniel) and generally advanced the story.

Dawntrail, what did we get? Sphene, most likely will be sticking around, and Calyx, who was introduced in post-7.0 content. None of the other characters that were introduced in the main MSQ are going to fucking matter once 8.0 launches. Trooncat and Lusts For Buffaloes will go off and have their quasi incestual (how quasi?) relationship, Bakool Ja Ja will be sent to the isle of broken toys to sit alongside characters like Hilda and Arenvald, and that will be that.

Going back to 'it's Ascians!' and interdimensional bullshit is a pretty poor effort at setting things up and a pretty significant failure given the relative importance of XIV's narrative.

 

[Fcret]

Going back to 'it's Ascians!' and interdimensional bullshit is a pretty poor effort at setting things up and a pretty significant failure given the relative importance of XIV's narrative.

It's weird how the shards have once again become a central plot point. I would have figured we'd be going to a completely new world or something.

I'm guessing they felt like the expanding scale of EW was too dangerous and have deliberately kept their writers in the Etheirys cuck cage.

In any case, I'm glad we're getting an Ascian who's a hot redhead instead of more bishieslop for the fujos.

 

[Pigeon Enthusiast]

Going back to 'it's Ascians!' and interdimensional bullshit is a pretty poor effort at setting things up and a pretty significant failure given the relative importance of XIV's narrative.

If Dawntrail was supposed to be the equivalent to ARR in the "new saga", as they basically said, then it is difficult to call it anything but a monumental miss of an attempt.

The only plot thread that wasn't tied up with a bow in the same patch it showed up is the interdimensional cataclysm and Ascian stuff that is kickstarting 8.0's MSQ.

It really doesn't stand up next to ARR, which (justifiable accusations of rather slow and tedious MSQ aside) actually set up the plot threads for the next two expansions pretty much directly (Ishgard's Dragon Problem™ and Garlemald/occupied Ala Mhigo/Doma), and dangled enough threads about the greater world and situation for the following two after that to tie their plot fairly comprehensively into basic concepts established in ARR, even if it sometimes necessitated pretty blatant retcons.

Whereas DT has basically not introduced a single thread that wasn't neatly tied up with a bow in the same patch it dropped, with the exception of the interdimensional nonsense/returned Ascians introduced this patch that is setting up 8.0. The overall status quo has basically not changed one whit between 6.5 and 8.0, with that one exception.

 

[Kane Lives]

It's weird how the shards have once again become a central plot point. I would have figured we'd be going to a completely new world or something.

We could have had an entire expansion dedicated to the 13th. You know, the world which has been completely devoured by darkness and filled to the brim with voidsent? It's honestly infuriating that they wasted that entire plot bunny in EW post-patch and Zero's "friend? friend! " shit.

 

[Fcret]

Both Aether and Crystal are congested.

 

[SnowBall]

DT’s mistake was juggling two settings in one expansion without doing anything to tie them to the future of the story. They should have had the entire expansion set in one place where they can build up multiple future plot threads while not introducing them so late. We could have had it take place fully in Tural while building up threads like shard travel and visits to potential other areas of the Source slower and earlier in the base expansion msq instead of shoving the shard and Ascian threads in the post DT patches. It was extremely obvious shard travel and Ascians were elephants in the room we were eventually going to address especially now that our actions in the previous saga are having major ripple effects, and we were teased with visiting other areas of the source.

 

[Sheep King]

Bakool Ja Ja will be sent to the isle of broken toys to sit alongside characters like Hilda and Arenvald, and that will be that.

Bakool Ja Ja is the saddest waste of potential for me. Not because I think he's a super integral character or anything but he had so much potential to just be fun. He could have been a great villain-turned-ally in the vein of Nero during the Omega raids. At the end of the Vana'diel raids there's a scene where Prishe and Alxaal go back to their home world with Shantotto, and Bakool (Mighty) has a little "I'm not crying, you're crying" bit while Bakool (Mystic) comforts him and honestly it was kind of endearing. Although I am just a sucker for sibling/brother relationships in stories.

The idea of two brothers who share the same identity, dealing with their assumed godhood? It's a great idea for a character. I would have enjoyed seeing more of how they look out for eachother. Like, maybe the Mighty Bakool is a bit retarded and he's the one who can't really comprehend being a eugenics project with mountains of dead aborted siblings, but the Mystic is more aware and is shielding him from the harsh reality of his upbringing. Maybe the Mystic head is more guarded and has a hard time trusting others, but the Mighty develops a grudging respect for Wuk and the others and convinces his brother to trust them.

Or fuck, just use them as fun assholes. Their dialogue throughout the Vana'diel raids is almost entirely nuts and bolts generic NPC dialogue, they could be replaced with anyone for all the difference it makes. The story even ends with the party confronting Sareel Ja, the completely irredeemable and unlikable villain who arguably caused all of the events in DT by manipulating Zoraal Ja, and the writers don't even have the balls to have Bakool kick him over the edge of a cliff.