Summary
Final Fantasy 14’s Dawntrail expansion haslaunched to a lukewarm reception from players, with many voicing their dislike of the new main protagonist Wuk Lamat and the slower narrative pacing. WhileI’m still unconvinced that all of the negativity is warranted, there is a clear case for some of the criticism targeted towards what players are now referring to as ‘Yawntrail’. After the recent announcement about the planned job changes, I’m now concerned Square Enix is feeling the heat a little too much from the less-than-favourable reviews and is over-eager to win players back.
There are always job tweaks after an expansion drops. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: the team can’t test for every possible outcome or scenario and discover all the issues in the same way that thousands of people playing it at launch can. We all expected some job changes post-launch to finetune some of the issues that undoubtedly arose, and Pictomancer being able to manually disable Subtractive Palette and Aetherhues is a great example of a genuine, unplanned problem that the team is fixing.
However, the real point of contention here is that Square Enix will be simplifying Viper’s rotation because of “feedback pertaining to the busyness of their skill rotation”. Since the announcement,many fans have expressed disappointment at these new changes, and I can’t help but feel this move on Square Enix’s part is because it’s trying to over-correct to try and rebalance the perception of a launch that is currently a sore spot.
Having played Viper, I didn’t have any trouble understanding Viper’s rotation. I’m not the most skilled player, either. Yes, you’re doing a lot, but that’s the point, right? It’s a quick-moving, fast-action role. Having a flurry of actions to hit in quick succession is part of the appeal. As with most FF14 jobs, if in doubt, just press the button that’s glowing and you can’t go that wrong as you learn to perfect your preferred rotation.
Even if the majority of fans dislike the “busyness” of this role, and Square Enix feels this is a legitimate complaint, surely you have to allow some time for the learning curve? It’s been a week since the game launched in early access, less than a week since full launch. Are many players really going to have mastered Viper in that time? No. Should we perhaps have waited until people had more of a feel for it before changing it? Yes.
This quickdraw reaction to what feels like a non-issue, especially compared toactual problems being addressed in the same notes, feels like Square Enix is too eager to please. Old school Viper rotation has gone the way of Ugly Sonic. My real concern is that this will be the first of many concessions the team makes to try and regain the favour of its fanbase as it flounders in the wake of a fan reception that is likely far less enthusiastic than it anticipated. That’s a slippery slope. If you start making so many changes on the whim of fans, where does it end?
Dumbing down Viper isn’t going to change fan perception of the narrative or new characters. Square Enix should have stuck to its guns on this and kept the job as it intended, at least for long enough to ensure a more accurate gauge of how people feel about it.
I was already of the opinion that players just needed to give Dawntrail time, not only in terms of the expansion itself (the narrativedoespick up in the latter half) but as a whole. This is the start of a new ten-year arc, it needs to build itself up over that decade, so it’s not going to race out of the gates on par with the likes of Endwalker’s exciting finale.
Now I realise it’s not just fans who need to give the game some time to breathe, but Square Enix too. Let the dust settle, and see what fansreallythink after they’ve had some proper time with Dawntrail before jumping in and fixing things that aren’t broken. Listening to fan feedback is important, but you’re able to’t jump in at the first tremble of a complaint. Many of these might fade away given a little time for players to simply adjust to all the new content anyway.
