Wark Digest #159 - Hands-On With Dawntrail
Welcome back to the Wark Digest, your weekly newsletter of new developments and historical insights from the Final Fantasy universe. I’m Chris, aka Hoogathy, and in this issue I come bearing fresh first-hand insights from the Dawntrail media tour in Los Angeles two weeks ago, where I got to try the new expansion and hear Yoshi-P discuss it all!
This week’s newsletter is 2077 words, a 10-minute read.
Hands-On Impressions With Dawntrail
Two weeks ago Square Enix welcomed media and influencers to check out Dawntrail for themselves… and I was lucky enough to be invited on behalf of CGMagazine! Here are my impressions based on the hands-on segment… [Note: These impressions are based on play of an in-development build of Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail; content in the final version is subject to change.]
What they’re saying:
The preview build included all classes (except Blue Mages) at level 100, with access to the hub city of Tuliyollal and a couple other regions around Yok Tural (the southern of the two continents that make up “the New World”), and the level 91 dungeon, “Ihuykatumu”
The visual upgrade was in effect, even though it was an in-progress build and not entirely representative of the final version—plus, the regions weren’t fully populated with all the NPCs and monsters you’d normally see
In practice, the new classes (both DPS) are pretty intriuging:
Viper revolves around cycling through 2-4 different 3-input combos, inflicting debuffs and granting buffs; ultimately, once the class gauge is full enough, you can temporarily use upgraded combos
Pictomancer is a little more complicated, with two main parts: going through your rotation of spells, then eventually through another cycle of upgraded spells; and casting the Motif effects for different attacks and/or buffs
There was practically nothing to see story-wise, short of one brief on-screen interaction in the dungeon that hints at the competition between some of the Scions
What we thought:
All of the new environments look really promising, even in this mostly-empty state; Tuliyollal is a delightful hub city, and the new climate brings a welcome change of scenery
In practice, the visual upgrade is both exciting, and hard to notice
When you’re watching your cooldowns and combos and companions in the heat of a battle, and a dozen animations are going on around the screen, and you’ve got to hop out of the next AoE zone… that improved lighting has a muted effect
That being said, in more chill situations, it brings a whole new vibrancy to the screen, and the improved textures will have a huge impact with all the unique vegetation in Dawntrail’s new environments
As I suspected, it’s not going to make FFXIV rival games built from the ground-up for next-gen hardware, but it’s still a stimulating shot in the arm for a game that’s a decade old, and a required step forward
I’m eager to see how more familiar areas look once the expansion is live for a real comparison
Viper was impressive, and I may actually switch to it for most of the Main Scenario
I hoped for the choice between dual-wielding and two-handed to be a little more weighty, but the swapping is so rapid in battle, and the bigger concern is varying your combos to keep all the buffs/debuffs active
Ironically, it would make a pretty great class for beginners, but instead it requires a level 80 Disciple of War/Magic to unlock
Pictomancer was daunting mechanically, though promising
One quirk of the preview experience is that you’re given a maxed-out character, so you miss the formative experience of unlocking Pictomancer at level 80, gradually learning the ropes and unlocking actions up to level 100 (and, not to mention, optimizing those hotbars)
The animation effects are really charming, however, and add a lot of character; people seem pretty divided about them, but I didn’t tire of whacking foes with a giant cartoon hammer or gradually summoning adorably fearsome moogles
Likewise, I think I’ll circle back to this class in Dawntrail proper and give it another shot (but only if I can glam myself back to less bright clothing—just not my style!)
Your mileage with the changes to your favourite class(es) may vary; I messed around with my main class, Dark Knight, for a while and genuinely like the level 100 changes (as well as the Samurai and Dragoon, but admittedly it’s been quite a while since I played them full-time), but try to give them an open mind when the time comes
The dungeon’s basic progression is about what you might expect, but there were some genuinely interesting curveballs in the presentation and the boss strategy, enough to keep things interesting
What’s next? You can read my full impressions over at CGM… and more below! Meanwhile, the Benchmark utility was updated on Monday, granting an improved, more representative look at the graphical facelift for themselves—PC players can check it out here, or even order a fancy, official FFXIV gaming chair from Secretlab.
A Neverending Quest For Balance
Director Naoki Yoshida was in attendance at the Dawntrail media tour, speaking to attendees before the play session and answering questions afterward. In the process, he gave some insights on the expansion pack’s final steps of development, what might lie ahead narratively, and the never-ending effort of balancing the game’s many aspects.
What’s they’re saying:
As he’s previously said, with the “Hydaelyn & Zodiark Saga” concluded, Dawntrail is a “new start,” and something of a “summer vacation” for our player characters
Dawntrail will also see the team making a more conscious effort to emphasize the multiplayer aspect of the MMORPG, now that the initiative to make the game more accessible to single-players has achieved its goals
“We’re hoping that now we can encourage those people to play together, including those who have been enjoying by themselves, and go back to our roots as a massively multiplayer online game […] Now with Dawntrail, we are going to be focusing back on that sort of group content and the MMO aspect”
This doesn’t mean they’ll be abandoning the Trust system or anything like that, moving forward; rather, they’ve been paying more attention to more isolated players, and now they want to shift their focus back to more social players who may have felt that side of the game has been lacking
Part of the effort to focus on the MMO aspect means an effort to make questing more rewarding, in a couple ways
Yoshida said they’ve heard feedback that the rewards, especially for variant dungeons, is underwhelming, so the number of rewards will be increased—things like minions, mounts, maybe even gear (but not more Tomestones)
They also want to make it more rewarding in a less literal sense, by bringing content that feels a little bit different from the previous norm
More solid information on this will likely come around patch 7.1
With the level cap hitting 100 in Dawntrail, the team had to decide first what new abilities would be added, and how all of a class’ actions are distributed over different levels
“We can always increase the number of actions that are available in a character’s skillset, but if you have too many actions now, you’re going to have a very bloated button system, and we won’t have enough to compensate for that. On the flip side, if you learn everything at a lower level, then what happens in the mid- to higher-level tier?”
“Looking at what's happening in the real world, we see a lot of very sad news about war and chaos. But with FFXIV, we wanted to focus in on relationships between people. There are many people who may have different values than you. Even with the players, your motivation to play might be different from other people. Being able to take a story like FFXIV [and] depict different values and the history that these new areas have, the cultures that they represent [and] get to a sort of mutual sort of understanding amongst each other… We hope that we connect to brightening our [own] future as well.”
Yoshida brought up the last-minute delay for Endwalker’s launch, but was confident history wouldn’t repeat itself this time
What we thought:
Aside from the above, Yoshida was asked about the possibility of making a couple of dramatic changes, and it was apparent that he’s agonized over most of them at some point before
The whole team seems to have its finger on the community’s pulse, always looking for feedback to help alleviate “pressure points”
It’s a tricky spot, trying to balance the wants and needs of so many players, each with their own priorities—for example, focus on the single-player side too much, and dedicated social players may feel neglected, then you flip sides and the situation repeats itself
The same goes for balancing classes and giving them new abilities—how do you add things without making the class bloated? How do you adjust the distribution of abilities at lower levels to appease endgame players, while keeping it fair for all the beginners infusing new life into your game as they go through the early story segments?
“Rewards” can mean many things, and again, hand out too many amazing rewards and the whole economy of items can collapse; making the dungeon-to-dungeon experience feel fresh again, though, is rewarding in a sustainable way
What’s next? Yoshida has one more Live Letter broadcast before the launch of Dawntrail—next week, on June 14. This will probably cover some of the final housekeeping details and updates on the last tweaks to things like the visual update.
And… Two More Things
Summer Game Fest kicks off today, with the big showcase kicking off about 2 hours after this issue is published. There’s been plenty of speculation (founded or not) over the possibility of seeing new Square Enix or Final Fantasy titles announced, and when we might see those things happen. Square Enix has been officially quiet about any presence at SGF this year, especially given the recent releases and shifts in business, so remember to go into these showcases with a hefty salt shaker close at hand.
That being said, in another interview with Gamer.nl during the media tour, Yoshida said that Creative Studio 3 is working on 2 new games that may be announced soon. It’s unclear how soon, or what scale these releases will have, given how this team has had its hands full over the last few years.
Around the Union
We had our say on the matter recently, but now it’s your turn—the people have spoken and selected the “7 Most Powerful Attacks in the History of Final Fantasy [Commenter Edition]!” Was your personal pick overlooked on both lists? You can still sound off in the comments!
Meanwhile, in the first of a new series we’re calling Final Fantasy Explained, we’re taking a lore deep-dive to explore “The History of Midgar: The Build of a Metropolis!“ Giant technological city-states don’t just pop up overnight (and then build another huge layer on top of themselves), so join us for the first part of Midgar’s full tale… in our signature granular style!
Finally, in this last week’s premium Kupo Chronicle, we travel back to 2011 and the wake of Dissidia Duodecim’s launch to see what its creators saw as the future of the Dissidia subfranchise—along with plenty of other juicy tidbits along the way, like which monsters could have earned a spot as playable characters…
Kupo Chronicle #9 - A History of Discord
Welcome to the Kupo Chronicle, the premium edition of the Wark Digest newsletter, where we explore the Final Fantasy universe in long-form and drill down into unique moments of the series’ history. I’m Chris, aka Hoogathy, and in this installment we’ve dug into a treasure trove of information on a once-beloved sub-franchise, and found its downfall may have been foretold long ago…
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