Given that this has become such a hot button subject please be respectful to each other, and remember people are allowed to have their own opinions whether it be the positive or negative towards the expansion. I would also ask that you be willing to listen and try to understand the other viewpoints being presented by people even if it may be counter to how you feel about Dawntrail.

One top what most everyone else has said, one thing that really broke my immersion is that Wuk Lamat's voice actor seemed to have trouble emoting any time she had to yell with emotion. She's fine in normal conversation and even good in some sad moments, but every time she had to yell, it just comes out flat. Might be an issue with the voice direction, but either way, it actually took away hype towards the end of the MSQ for me. I don't think I've ever experienced this in previous expansions from one of the main cast.

I actually liked the 4th Zone for the reason that there is no Wuk Lamat.

Wuk Lamat became a flawless character never to be questioned for her decisions. She gained everything we have achieved over multiple expansions. We also had extremely very little battle content and im not just talking about dungeons.

1st half is okay for Wuk to be in the spotlight as we are there to help her in this quest of hers but the 2nd half should have been Wuk taking a step back and letting the scions lead the way to the unknown, as they got the experience in dealing with stuff like that. Oh and Wuk interfering in the final boss fight was a dick move on her part. Don't steal our hero thunder!

I feel like the story had potential. It really did. But a lot of focus was put in the wrong areas, and not enough was given elsewhere. Wuk is a great example - there's nothing I felt was wrong with her character other than the writers stretching her out for far too much screen time. I don't want to see less of her because I don't like her. I want to see less of her because I genuinely believe she'd be a better character if she had more time off-screen so we could contrast her presence with how things are when she's not present. Not just Wuk, though. A lot of facets of DT feel that way to me.

To sum up negatives you mention, it felt to me like they wanted to try to do new things with story and msq structure, but didn't commit to it enough to make it actually good. See the mentor role - it felt off because it was there, but wasn't too much of a focus; make it a central point of why WoL is even there, and you have something to build off of. Maybe they were scared of displeasing people that want to be main character of the story, but what we've got made everyone unhappy. On topic of solo duties - I tend to treat msq like visual novel with some gameplay extras attached, and DT shift was very welcome: every solo duty was meaningful, fitting and good combat-wise; compared to Endwalker where half of the duties felt forced - pushing it gameplay for gameplay sake, when it could've been a cool cutscene instead. Having less duties that force you to play a different character was also a welcome challenge, I like comfort of playing my job(s) of choice, and being suddenly thrown on a butchered kit of something unfamiliar kills the pacing, since suddenly I spend few mintues reading tooltips and figuring out wtf I'm even doing. Fourth zone issue - again, they didn't commit to it enough. This sort of "filler" can work as setup to let you know area and people there before some events that play off of that as payoff. And here, payoff was underwhelming - again, they tried, but there was too little to make it work. Shadowbringers did the same just before level 79 dungeon/trial, but in much larger scope and - overall - better. In fact, I wouldn't mind whole expansion being just aimless travel and dealing with local problems, to have last segment be high stakes backtracking and playing off of all the random work we put in.

I’m about 5 hours in, haven’t even hit a dungeon yet. I’m not enjoying it at all so far.

On day 3 of early access I completed the msq. I will say there are points in this video I agree with such as it being a world building expansion and people needing to adjust expectations for that. However like 90% of this video I heavily disagree with. Just because that expansion was a world building one doesn't mean it needed to be this terrible of a story or way of telling you its world. I don't need a hour long fetch quest to understand that the traders like to trade. Also the amount of plot holes or straight up plot armor because reasons is insane this expansion. Almost comically so. Let's not forget the writers activity made characters with us more stupid in order for Wak to shine. Alphi and Ali two people who are almost Archon level couldn't figure out what Than or Uri told Kona to do in one of the rites. As for the gameplay design adding instance fights will never happen. We already had these back in STB and because there was two of them so close to one another it flat out almost crushed the front in of the expansion for days. They told us years ago instance fights use the same system as the dungeons. Putting to many in the msq would cripple the system at the launch of an expansion. This is an issue of the code of the game. As for the difficulty being accepted that is entirely depends on the echo chamber you live in. Even as a raider myself. Many of my own friends who only play msq and casual content have straight up quit the game before finishing even the second or first dungeons. Almost all of there reasons being they didn't ask sqaure to kick up the difficulty of the msq so why should they be made to have to suffer when it was the loud youtubers who did. Most casual gamers will just leave the game. I believe yoshi p even has kinda a famous quote about this. The silent majority will just leave your game if they don't like it. Let me tell you. If I didn't enjoy anything about the msq. Somebody who has played since 1.0 and stuck with this game. Garentee the casual audience straight up left without a word, and that's not a good thing for the health of this game at all. Need to start talking to players that aren't just on social media all the time.

I feel like they leaned so hard into rejuvenating the gameplay that they completely overlooked the quality of the story itself. The dungeons and trials were excellent, but getting to them is a slog through peak mediocrity.

I've seen so many people hating on Shaaloani, when my thoughts are like the exact opposite. I was happy that we were done with WL babysitting; I actually enjoyed her journey for the most part but I felt it should have been finished after the 95 dungeon. Shaaloani really felt like the only zone storyline that delivered on the promise of the "vacation experience" that we were given during previews. After Shaaloani, it's just more WL babysitting, this time with an extra helping of naivete, and with the added bonus of the WOL not really getting anything to do. There were so many points where I felt like "can I just fucking kill this guy/girl already? Please!" For the record, I actually still have really enjoyed the expansion. Just annoyed at the MSQ; the battle content and the dol/doh content has been amazing so far

Been playing since Heavensward, I LOVE FFXIV as much as anyone else. Where every expansion had me watching all cut scenes, in literal tears with Stormblood and Endwalker, I found myself skipping scenes with no regret in Dawntrail. Just because we go to a "new" area doesn't mean we have bring on the basic bus stop fetch questing. It's truly exhausting and by now, the WOL who has literally saved the universe, should be tasked with a lot more relevant tasks than filler content. Wut Lamat is a character I was forced to be aware of through the story, and for the scenes I did stick around to watch, I eye rolled a lot. Bottom line, we are many expansions into FFXIV, and the development team needs to change the quest designs, they are too simplistic for a character that irl would say no, I won't help with that.

The main problem with the pacing at Shaaloani is expectation. You, the player, expect the story to continue since you're still not at level 100. That mean the story has to go on right? But your WoL has no idea. You're here to help WL become Dawnservant and that's it. Your business here is done. It's now adventuring time. Think of Shaaloani as a fresh new adventure in Tural after your main business is done and it will make a lot more sense.

Yep that "Smile" vocal track Kills the mood of the ending, dont know what they were thinking

About FATEs: they didnt cut out the amount of FATEs you need to clear before getting max rank on a zone, they just split it into 4 ranks instead of 3, same amount of FATEs.

I hate solo instances; I want to play with my friends. Screw balancing of them, I just want to be with my friends.

You’re absolutely on point with this take; at least for me.

The plot would be fine on paper, but the moment to moment writing is reminiscent of an afternoon children’s cartoon. There’s no real depth beyond the power of friendship and all grit and seriousness is sacrificed either for the same superficial message that is repeated over and over again (friendship, mutual understanding, etc.) or some unfunny ”bit” or another. Wuk lamat would be fine if she had more noticeable character development, and even then she overstays her welcome at the second part of the MSQ. The tribal quests from ARR did a better job of showcasing of understanding between different cultures than this expansion. I was so hyped for this, and I could not be more disappointed after loving pretty much everything this game has had to offer (including ARR and SB)

I think the first trial is absolutely AMAZING! As soon as I beat it with like 3 wipes, I immediately qued in 4 more times! And I still havent got to the second one yet lol. This expansion is Wild! And im not just talking bout the Wild West zone!!! 🤠

If I wanted to be a background extra I'd play WoW

I think what really annoyed me was wuk in the story she would just talk to much and at the end boss fight when we have a moment to show off how powerful and cool we are she just jumps in and gives the most cringey line so hopefully we see less of her

Go play the L98 Solo Duty again, it's treated like Duty Support where it goes fast or slow regardless of your engagement, and will complete itself. They fake player agency, so I don't even feel good about them adding extra duties if they're just going to give me the unplugged little brother controller and fake my agency as a player. It's not fun. It's incredibly insulting.

The writing, pacing, and a lot of voice direction made this the first expansion I have actually looked forward to being over. Wuk Lamat as a character was fine. I rather liked her but the writers dropped the ball. The VA did great. I liked the voice and due to the extreme lack of agency the voice cast gets with line delivery direction, I don't blame anyone but the recording directors. You can really feel the loss of Ishikawa here. To create a compelling and engaging character, a writer has to understand that this person did not just form from nothingness the day before. They are a person with experiences that they don't just remember but have learned from. There is a progression through life of lesson learned or hardship faced that informs decisions and colors how a character interacts to a given scenario. In the past, characters would be presented to us as a point in the progression of their existence. They don't just exposit and list off all of the things they did in the past to tell you what they have done before, they act in your presence and slowly over time you learn how the types of actions they take have been shaped by the past that you then slowly uncover. A good character will encounter a scenario and the reader (in this case, player) can fairly accurately predict how that character will react to stimulus. In a way, you do feel like you know them because you know their logical progression. The majority of DT characters are cardboard cutouts. They are two dimensional, their personality is right out in the open, no ambiguity. They want X. They came from Y. They are going to Z. This causes a lack of interest in supporting characters and a complete lack of emotional investment in them when something dramatic happens. I'm avoiding spoilers but there are two particular occurrences with two of the claimants that I could tell the writers thought were supposed to have emotional weight that had absolutely none. At first I was glad to hear the writing team behind Werlyt was taking over but now I think the reality is, they were fine at a 3 segment trial series but didn't have the overall capability to handle an MSQ. I really hope 8.0 is better. It's really depressing that any real chance to salvage is two and a half years out.

i vibe alot with this. i def see some of the issues in the story you bring up though in others just dont agree but thats how the convo should go. Def gonna be continuing the convo with a more positive lean while not being afraid to bring up issues (i also think some of the character use wasnt as clean and i do wish they poushed the mentor aspect fuirther) i like what we got but WANT more and thats such a fair ask

4:48 That's fair point but there is a problem with that non the less: from the beginning of the story we are Cloud Strife of this game, we are Cecil and Noctis, we are the main character and that's what Final Fantasy games are about: a hero's jorney. If we no more the important hero of this story, who has connections with different characters in it, than Final Fantasy game just stops being itself, simple as that.

"A lot lower" he says as the stakes are star wide genocide by a technologically superior culture who don't blink at slaughtering people to rip their souls for selfish reasons. I wanted a vacation arc where they set up stories for later while getting to know the new npcs and maybe future villians. Instead I get shadowbringers lite and another villain of the week I care nothing about.

Speaking of dungeons, I queued into expert roulette and got the lvl 100 msq dungeon, and we wiped to the first boss 9 times because the healer just couldn't wrap their mind around the first mechanic. Was the first time since I started in SHB that we had to vote abandon in a dungeon.

Dawntrail? More like Wuk's trail lmao. This is the Wukage's of Light world now, we're just living in it.

Imagine rpg players wanting to not be a side character to a 5/10 child character..how dare they

For me i don't care about Wuk or Erenville. They're both 3rd rate characters to me and the last zone i was skipping cutscenes because i just could care less about anything happening.

You can be the main character of your story without being the main character of the world's story. The core issue (besides WL) is the story is not told from our perspective. It's told from WL's. Our story, *as the mentor*, is not told.

Let's sacrifice Wuk to the Big One, yes yes?

I agree with Namazu that the MSQ was alright. The first two zone were world building and it was as good as expected. I felt like the 3rd zone was where the story really started to pick up. It was there that we got to know one of the antagonist and where the player gets to feel some emotion. I agree the 4th zone was strange because after the 3rd zone it then goes back to the world building of the first two zones. I agree that Luk Wamat was an okay character that I didn't mind having there...up to a point. After the 2nd trial I felt like she was done. If I had agency I would of said to her "time for you to go home and go back to work, the rest of this is my work". After the second trial it really should of hard focused on Krile and Eren. She was totally third wheeling it after 2nd trial

I despise Wuk Lamat. I don't know if it's dialog or voice direction or VA ability, but she's nails on a chalkboard to me. Apart from her, the MSQ started incredibly slowly and was a boring slog filled with a lot of filler.

The story its shit, the amount of plot holes is insane, in one phrase this expansion is "conveniently made up bullshit". That's it. Natsuko Ishikawa lead story designer for Shadowbringers and Endwalker did not write for this expansion. Instead one of the 2 MSQ writers was the person who wrote the Fairy Forest in Shadowbringers. I think this saids it all.

Im glad people are saying what i was thinking. Im halfway through the story, and I'm like, where is the villain or plot twist. I honestly thought this expansion was going to be about swash buckling pirates and gods.

I would've loved the train sequence to be a turret section. Hell, even if it was part of the level 96 dungeon, that would've been cooler than what we got. That being said, it was a cool scene to watch.

I think I know what vocal song you speak of when it starts playing at a specific part of the story...it felt like one of my wifes corny reality tv shows whenever something dramatic happened *cue the song!*. That felt very cringey. Wuk Lamat is okay, but she did overstay her welcome at certain parts...and at times. I felt like the Scions were there only to be trusts, nothing more. But I will say this...good god they are way in love too much with walking escort quests....they are repetitive and soul draining.

I don’t really have many complaints with the story tbh, I liked almost every character, both main villains hit (one very personally) and made sense, and the world was great. I really just don’t get the absolute vitriol online for an expansion that may have paled in comparison to SB and EW but overall was really good in my opinion. Honestly in my opinion it’s next to HW for me and I feel over time it’ll be more liked than it is currently. And I also do get a lot of it will be a vibe thing, especially coming off Endwalker but even then I didn’t really see the hoopla about it 😅

2 solo instances I wish this expansion had: WoL vs Urianger & Thancred WoL (loosing) vs the First Promise

4th Zone was my favorite, because it was what I wanted more of as a vacation/adventure. And we had Erenville and not Wuk Lamat, it would have been the worst if Wuk Lamat was there and black holed herself into every cutscene.

I think the point of the fourth zone was ultimately the duel. That sometimes, you can't talk things out, and the only way to resolve something is brute force (and this is called back by the wol before the final fight where we have the option to say "then let's resolve this" before we kick ass) But just bc I see what they were trying to do thematically doesn't mean I think they did it well. For example. Wuq Lamat wasn't even there for that - so it had no bearing on her decision to fight her brother or Sphene. I think they should have dug further into the morality of that. Like. When is it okay to use force? How can you be sure you're right? I think it would have benefited from another duel where a character in the wrong wins to show the danger of that kind of method. Either way they could have done a waaay better job tying it into the bigger themes.

I keep seeing this idea of a mentor role being thrown around and it sounds terrible. The best parts of this game are all focused on your character and who they are. I want more of that not this baffling mentor idea, but if they did do it they need a far stronger mentee than Wuk

I am just hoping now we have the world building out the way the patches will be more exciting

Hope they fix everything ....

The 4th zone is also the low point for me, we just found a cool new thing and then the story just turned back to 0 for some reason

I was just upset that they ruined my power fantasy. MY character took a a back seat. I mean this whole story couldn’t have ended if they just let me body the bad guy instead of letting him walking off after he killed the father. Like dude what. Just killed the king and we just let him walk off

This is the second time we have been a somewhat of a mentor. First, was Lyse. Not its Wok Lmao. This side of writing was god fucking awful. Sadly to say the writer was bad in all aspects nothing in DT except one moment way late when someone meets 2 important people was actually good in this expansion for the writing. As a writer myself. This expansion was JUST above High School level writing. But BARELY. It was a disaster, and something that that writer should be put on side quests only. Or no longer writing for FF14 and put somewhere else or let go if thats what it takes. DT is simply the worst execution expansion, and idea so far in the game. Hate to say it, but we should and are forever the main character. And sorry to say but, it shows they fail to be able to deliver; Combat fun, Story fun, AND exploration fun unless we are the main character completely. ESPECIALLY the SHITTIEST cutscene in the game in the final trial.

It was stated by many people long before DT release that DT will possibly be a devisive expansion because it was brand new story. I personally hoped that DT would do a few things that is important. -Side line the scions for new characters that need to grow out on their own. It's not a brand new story if the characters who were important for the last one, the past 10 years, over shadow and stunt the growth of any new potential character. -Have no one know who the WoL is. Important in starting fresh new story that it will take time for WoL to get recognition in a new area. WoL is not a citizen of Tul or seen as anything less than a stranger. We were commissioned as guardians, and the story played out as such. We were not there to change the evil and corrupt ways of Tul, the Dawnservant did that already. -No one gets anything for free because plot. Everything happened for who it needed to and when. Krile got the shine she needed, Erinville got the shine he needed. Wuk did get a little too much but Im guessing during patches and such, she will be another "City Leader" like charcater making appearances during specific conditions. Over all story was good at best. Motivations for villains made sense with how the foreshadowing went from each antagonist. 4th zone was painfully dull. You can take that entire zone out, and it would not affect the story much. Other than nanny and a train, nothing else happens there that is fun to do.

4:48 the problem with this is that this DLC is supposed to not JUST WL journey, It SHOULD be our journey too! We dont have to be the main character, we are not the main character in HW and StB are we? It was Alphinaud+Estinien in HW and Lyse in StB, and yet I enjoyed those because WE'RE STILL PART OF THE STORY. In HW and StB our WoLs grow alongside the Main Protag of that expansion. All I want is for me to feel like my WoL is part of the story. In DT you can feel that the story could move on without you. You are not even the fifth important character in the story, you are a literal extra. You are a fly on the wall. Its literally the "Just Standing There Menacingly" DLC. I want to be a part of the story. The reason I loved FFXIV from HW to EW is because its not just our friend's journey its also our journey, with character growth both for our old friends and new friends along the way. This is not it, your are literally pushed to the side so much you might aswell be a shitstain on the wall. Not important but you make everyone uncomfortable enough by the virtue of your existence.

For my experience the MSQ story was great especially for the start of a brand new adventure, it just had a REALLY slow start but I really enjoyed it especially the new zones as well as trials and dungeons! But I'm also not picky at all when it comes to games.

If this was a world building expansion I gotta say, I can't wait to get the hell out of the world they built. The best part of the MSQ was the end of it, because I finally got rid of Wuk Lamat. PS what music were you listening to? This was EASILY the weakest soundtrack of any expansion in years. You do know stormblood is almost universally considered the worst expansion so far right?

Overall i thought it was decent, def felt like most of the scions were just afterthoughts. I can remember only seeing thancred like maybe 5x? I was excited to see that they were backing a rival during the event. It would have been awesome if they played into a friendly rivalry, and leaned more into like the race to the goal kind of thing. I know starting a whole story will be a slow start and im fine with that, i think w how they ended it theres hope. I didnt mind Wuk at all either, but overall i thought they had too much to try to broad stoke explain and it showed that the characters took a backseat in a way. That was disappointing. Overall im enjoying DT, dungeons felt fresh and fun, and the dol/doh stuff has been great and fun also. Hoping next patches will add to overall experience, rly excited abt the tournament raid series.

The solo duties, while I enjoyed them, felt like they forgot that they had to put in solo duties and just put them somewhere. Only meaningful was the Bakool Ja Ja one imo.

having the scions there instead of introducing new character to accompany them felt like it was for one reason and one reason only..........the duty support. I'm no expert on character creations or such but i do imagine having to create new characters to replace existing ones not only for the story but to be the roles a player would sellect to do the dungeons with sounds like a ton of effort that they just didnt want to bother with

Don't want to lecture or monologue at length; lots of folks were caught off-guard by the delivery of the expansion's story and MSQ, but I would like to mention a thing or two (and please take it all with a grain of salt): It could have done a LOT worse for a vacation story where we were already taking the side-seat for someone else's saga and learning journey. It was a touch idealistic, but I had to remind myself that THIS Tural had already had its band of brave adventurers that brought forth the calm that we are now relaxing to. The story of Tural wasn't about us in terms of the Succession Rite; the story for our heroes and our WoL begins as soon as we begin the next adventure, and while this was more like a history lesson it was still an adventure and not all adventures are fraught with life-ending threats. I expect things will pick up moving forward, but we need to temper our expectations to that of an adventurer and enjoy the time we have been afforded with the departing of the Endsinger. There's still much to be uncovered and Tural was just a stepping stone for us, and while it hasn't been terribly exciting thus far, the game could do far worse like some of its counterparts (i.e. WoW, GW2, etc.) in terms of story, development, and things to do. This is all coming from someone whose father read Tolkien and C.S Lewis novels to her when she was a child, so my temperance may be a touch abnormal in comparison to many gamers, but I wanted to pitch in my thoughts on it. It wasn't an exciting expansion so far, but I appreciated its facets and flaws as a collective sum of a story simply being told and having us take the backseat for once. In retrospect I'm glad we're more casual in this MSQ because I wouldn't want to go leaping into the abyss without ALL of my friends there with me (no offense, Wuk, but I will NOT be taking that position as your personal chef. I'll just visit!).

The expansion became immensely more enjoyable when I started skipping cutscenes around level 96. Great classic FFXIV gameplay and job design. Abysmal characters and story. Worse than ARR, worse than Stormblood, you name it.

**Light spoiler** I gave it all the chances until the final trial..when there is a forced cutscene in the fight just allowing the "main character" to come out of nowhere and monologue about the power of friendship..the writing took a major hit by losing the head writer

Personally loved the story and wuk Lamat although admittedly no offense to the English Va but I heard it and yee.. ngl I’m glad I always played the game in either French or Japanese bc from various sources those two are by far the best, for those who complain we are not the main character this time, well on this it’s definitely just subjective personally I always hated being a hero and my favorite storylines were those when we literally are just an adventurer, like the shadow of Mach storyline or rabanastre one, I guess I’m on the minority with the fact that the 4th zone story was one of my fav ever specifically because there was no stakes no purpose but just vibing exploring and helping people along the way which is literally what Azem is supposed to do I was actually really pissed when the stakes got high again all of a sudden and ruined my vacation but still ofc loved the second part and in terms of gameplay ye this is definitely going to be the best expansion imo we’ll see for real with savage raids and more down the line but in terms of base content it’s already one of my favs

Why have better MSQ when you can be lazy and do the same old fetch and people will put up with it.

Wuk Lamat sucks, most of the story sucks, there's very few moments for characters to properly shine or develop and worst of all, they made her the ultimate sin of a mary sue at the end. She went from needing out help to beat up the memories of lizards, and alive lizards (She isn't a worthy leader.) To holding off god by herself. With no power ups. They looked at Lyse, saw everyone with a brain hate her and that AWFUL rewrite and erasure of Yda with zero fixes for the dialogue in Stormblood, and went "Yeah, let's do that again." But worse. Vacation expansion, btw. Vacation of braincells in the dev team maybe.

The lack of voice acting is a BIG complaint for the game, many scenes would have benefitted from voiced delivery.

I am dissapointed, tbh.... Female hrothgar is a mess. ( You cant create wuk lamat. The face is not available with the right colors ) And even thou female hrothgar came with dawntrail, there are barely any headpieces or hairstyles available. It feels like they did a half-a** job. Just like with viera. Additionally, the glam doesnt match the landscape in any way. I was hoping for more glam like what wuk lamat wears. Something beast-like. So far, i havent found anything remotely like this. Just the same old, same old...boring glam, no headpieces or hairstyles for fem. Hrothgar...

1. I think you are mistaking Wuk's personality vs her growth as a leader. 2. I do agree the Scion's are put in the sidelines this time since its not their story as pre established. The Scions are more spectators and mentors this time around so its up to preference if you like that. Their restraint is also a sign of growth from past expansions, they only step in when they need to. 3. the first 2 zones are always the build up lore areas since HW its always meant to be slow, I think people find it boring this time since its lower stakes in those zones. 4th zone I can see why people would see it as filler, since DT is structured similar to SB being a 2 part story, they used the 4th zone similarly to Kugane. 4. I do agree the MSQ this time has less "gimmick" and instance quests. But, I think they probably chose to put more of their resources in the post patch content since they did say DT will have the most MMO battle content. 5. I also agree with the VA, but I think its another resource issue based from what they said in the past. 6. It might felt rehashed due to having parallels with Endwalker's introspective themes. But, I think the main theme of the expansion that ties it all together is its about "passing the torch" to the next generation and honoring the legacies of the past to make way for the future/dawn.

Wuk Lamat was fine in the first half. However, she overstayed her welcome. They should not have sent her to xak tural, that part of the story should have been for fleshing out Krile and Erenvile's stories. I feel like the writers (new leads? idk) didn't flesh things out and then were like "Oh btw, you should feel emotional here, even though we didn't build anything up". Like, they write Bakool Ja Ja as a cartoon villain, then after 1 or 2 random lines that are easy to miss they're suddenly like "actually he's just misunderstood"

Dawntrail story is trash. Gameplay is a pretty big upgrade. Considering the nature of FF14, that is a net loss. Wuk Lamat's poor VA work coupled with horrible writing is pretty unforgivable as well.

1. We were lied to about “political divisiveness among the cast.” Without going into spoilers, there was nothing intriguing about it and it was nonexistent. 2. Wuk Lamat was insufferable. Her personality, her voice, was all grating. I’m fine being a side character, but make the main character GOOD and someone I want to learn and support. That’s not even mentioning the.. “interesting” casting for the EN VA. I gave her the entire first half to become decent, and to no surprise, she remained bad. Towards the end I only had resentment towards her. The mentor angle would have been cool if they went with it. Story bad, cast bad, I could go on and on. we’ll see how it stages the next expansion but I’m past this one.

Honestly, I love Dawntrail so far. The class changes/additions/etc I've played are all great, the dungeons are well designed, the extremes are a ton of fun, etc, etc. The only thing the expansion has suffered in this time around is writing for the msq. And the msq as a whole is fine, largely good even I'd say. The competition was nicely handled and match Wuk Lamat's character arc fairly well, etc. It was a different experience playing a supporting character this time around, and while that's not my favorite thing, it was executed fairly well. Even the shift after that to a more traditional narrative with Zoraal Ja was done well. There's just three specific things that are kinda embarrassingly bad, from a writing perspective, which killed the msq for me. First is Bakool Ja Ja, namely the aura he had for basically the whole competition, where he would behave like a bottom shelf isekai's first villain and literally no one (after the first elector) would so much as call him on his shit. It strips all agency and character from the electors, turning them into cardboard cutouts of plot contrivance, and it drive me up the wall. And it annoyed me even more when his heel-face turn ended up being handled fairly well, if a little rushed. Second, Zoraal Ja's whole motivation and stated goal makes absolutely no sense and is both contradictory and batshit insane. It killed any sense of immersion to have what was functionally a cardboard cutout as an antagonist. It would have been so easy to fix too; just have him want to conquer everything to prove he's better than his father. Bam, everything else can stay exactly the same and it's a thousand times better written. Third, Wuk Lamat being an author pet. I was perfectly happy to pay second fiddle to Wuk Lamat, but her just randomly showing up during the final trial with no explanation or reason for her to be there annoyed me something fierce. She was there just for there to be a cmoa for her, and it was so incredibly forced that i hated it. Finally, and this one i don't really count against the msq writing, Sphene is just Meteion all over again, and I was over it the first time around. Sad anime girl is confronted by an unfortunate truth of life and can't handle it, so she starts committing atrocities is just not a compelling plot to me. It wasn't badly written, just not my cup of tea, and I really hope we get something different with the next expansion.

Something I find really, really funny/odd in DT is it's meant to celebrate indigenous people, but like... everyone to the south has a Hispanic accent i.e. after South America was conquered by the Spanish... And the north has a bunch of white cowboys with trains and guns, but they have native sounding names. So post colonization of North America. It has this really weird after taste when that sets in.

There is one HUGE no-no sin that was commited in DT. Golden rule "Show, don't tell" was brutally ravaged amd sent on a long journey. Many interesting and important situations were "told" to us. Instead of shown. At least show echo being used, visual hints, nods/winks. Nope X just happened, deal with it. (Oh and explanation of how and why we leaving to forums/patches/next expansion)

It was a careless cash grab it felt like they the B team step in and just checklisted off EW parts redid them but worse also fuck Wuk Lamut most annoying character yet

I didn't mind WL, she got annoying sometimes but overall, I kind of liked being the "sidekick" in this expansion, but my biggest gripe so far is everything after Zoraal Ja felt dragged out and was honestly hella boring.

I spent the entire early access until Day 1 release to make it to the last feat. Looking back, I should have skipped all the scenes. They are totally unnecessary. Sad seeing how the Scions are degraded to be mere random NPCs.

i simply had higher expectations for the story based on previous content, im totally disappointed wuk lamat is way too much of a lame, one dimensional character to take the spotlight for almost the entire MSQ idk if they could make her a more generic "power of friendship, i want everyone to be happy" character if they tried, its legit the only thing she talks about over and over and over she is the only character in the history of the game i hope vanishes and never appears again after shaaloani contributed nothing to the story, we had 2 zones to build the entire story of alexandria and wrap it up this expansion felt like doing beast tribe quests, then other random sidequests, then going to ishgard on lvl 57 and telling the entire heavensward story in the last 2 zones because the last 2 zones were the only remotely interesting parts of the story, you could skip the entire rite of succession story and miss nothing i wish they decided to completely cut wuk lamat and the rite of succession story, made us find the golden city earlier and focus more on alexandria

I really wanted to resub to play this expansion. But the thought of having to slog through some BS story is just not selling me

You mean Weak Lamat? Proving all you need to do to win in ff14 is roll warrior

SPOILERS 1.she didnt grow as a character.. at all. she was all about peace and happines but even when faced with the notion that alexandria and sphene literaly did not want that at all and only cared for her people and where going to KILL everyone on the source, STILL she didnt get that, maybe, just maybe peace is just not an option when meet with such an enemy. she still wanted peace and sphen STILL UNTIL THE VERY END she didnt want to have peace... like.. hello? 2. we never where the main character. ever. 3. they robbed krilles story and erenvilles. wuk lmat should have been less in the story, we should have gone to the new world with krille and erenville an dwuk lamat should have stay in the new world.

Yawntrail is more like it. Im trying to hold out judgment until the patches, but this was a straight up slog.

Cant disagree. I think the content i really like as far as trials and dungeons and stuff and im excited to see the upcoming stuff in that way. But story... i wasnt so much about this time. Good, but not stb-ew

I'm level 95, so I should be about halfway through the story content, and I am bored out of my skull. I get that you can't expect a new beginning of the story to have the same resonance as the final 2 acts of the previous one, but man... does DT's story so far feel... lame. With how low the stakes of the story here are, it really makes it painfully clear how old this game feels. Everything here is formulaic, the msq never had much gameplay, but it always had a story that made you want to push forward, turns the next page, see what happens next. I just cannot bring myself to care about any of it. Why do we still have these annoying follow quests? It was the single gameplay "innovation" of last expansion's msq, was almost universally hated for killing the pace when you'd inevitably fail it the first time and had to redo 10 minutes of the most mind numbingly mundane "gameplay" ever conceived and they literally copypasted it into this expansion as well. Why? It reeks of utter creative bankruptcy. I do not care for Wuk Lamat. She bumbles her way through these trials, even when she's in mortal danger they try and fail to be funny about it. All of the grit that made the story of the past decade plus compelling has been swept aside for us to play second fiddle to this Jar Jar clone. When those 3 giants pop up in the mountain zone that want to kill her, literally all it takes for them to turn is for her to block some giant bird's fart attack and be like "Woopsie! I saved you! Teehee~" And GOD IT'S SO FUCKING LAME KAJSDCNDkjIASDNBf Remember Fordola? Remember Lady Iceheart? Used to be that enemies turned allies required... you know... turning? By us? The players? All of the peoples inhabiting these new areas look exactly the same. All of those birdfolk share one model and texture. All of the moblins too, and all of giants bar their leader. I believe all but those giants are reused models as well. Would it really have put too much strain on the art team to change the colours of some textures around? I feel like most of the music is incredibly out of place. This visual gem of a new capitol city, with an alien culture has this lame smooth jazz track as the background. It feels so incredibly off to have music that sounds like it would fit in nighttime Golden Saucer be the audio backdrop to this amazing looking city. Man, I hate it so far xD I don't think I've ever been as deflated about a game before. The Dungeons are great, I bet all the Trial and raid encounters will be too, all of them have been so far. But saying that, so was the story up till here. I really hope they don't mess this up as well, cause so far, this expansion is SO INCREDIBLY far down the tier list of expansions... Best to worst: ShB, EW, HW, SB, ARR, followed by an astronomical gulf before we get to DT. It is freaking AWFUL.

I love everything about Dawntrail! I am not done with MSQ, but I love it so far! I love the journey & growth that happens! I loved meeting all the people on the journey! It isn't tearing jerking as SB & EW but there are moments that made me happy, sad, & or angry! To me a good story pulls you in & this has done it for me! I love MY journey in Dawntrail! Looking forward to the future storyline!

I dis agree with you, but I like your video. People like what they like. I wouldn't like a one size fits all world. I loved the dungeons. I loved Wuk Lamat's journey and discovering that she didn't know didley about Tural as she supposed. It was a big thing for her to admit that, and then it drove her one to learn more about her home. I agree one hundred about the Fates. I'm loving leveling up my alt jobs that way. it's fun.

Thank you. Thank you. We need more people voicing the critical opinions so they listen to honest and solid feedback.

I wholeheartedly disagree that the solo duties of this expansion were better than EW. Many felt contrived or that you were waiting for the planned moment to rescue you. (Looks at the Solution Nine duty with annoyance.) The Thancred Stealth operation and the Body-Swap duties still stand out as pillars of great solo duties.

I made it to Solution 9, got my new motorcycle and burned Disneyland (that was a huge waste of a really gorgious zone IMO). I Stopped after the first boss of the last dungeon. There just wasn't any motivation for any more of that level of irritation for me. This expansion will break a lot of casual players. While some will be all for it, they are the people who pay the bills. They won't post a KZfaq video. They won't post in the forums. They'll just cancel and leave.

I wouldn’t have minded taking on a mentor role at all for this expansion, had the protege been a likable character who really didn’t just suck all the enjoyment out of every scene. Arenvald, Fordola, Jullius, the last surviving sibling from Werlyt- any one of those characters or knew a character who was as likable and engaging as they were and it would have been fine. But who we were forced into taking a back seat for is not a character that my WoL would ever tolerate or feel proud of training. We all know the exact moment in the last fight you are talking about. That is just insulting to our multi-expansion journey. The WoL was so repeatedly dismissed and made so unimportant that one final moment of glory for the player to enjoy gets ripped out of our hands by a monotone and emotionless war cry of passive indifference. Square had better grab the controls and pull up the nose really quick. Or they are gonna lose their hard earned audience for the rest of this expac. And I adored Stormblood from the second I started playing it. I hate Dawntrail as much as I hated Shadowbringers and that is saying something. I love this FF14 and I PAID for this expansion . I did not get the fun and touching experience that I was expecting. That sucked

Wuk lamat is terrible

People really should stop using " new story arc and it's a slow because of world building" argument couz it's fuckin stupid ... Every expansion had new zones, new characters and world building.. Wuk Lamat is consistent in being annoying and naive like a toddler. Having character growth consist of changing and being consistent in these changes unlike Wuk she constantly repeat. Being mentor is good and all but we were rly trash mentor with no agency and doing absolutely nothing while some insane shit happens and we could just snap our fingers and be done with it.. it's rly bad and boring story. No surprises no stakes at the trail. I could see think happen way before they do.. it was shit and ppl should stop defending that crap. I love the game and I want it to be good , I'm not hating it just because. The community is really allergic to a legit criticism, they are very quick to brand you as a hater or that u don't get the story like u are some dummy... Very toxic community... Credit where is due the music is awesome, beautiful zones good dungeons and trial.

Synopsis: it's @$$

Filler fantasy trash game

It's FINE. Which I suppose is the problem many have

The story is lame till about level 96! After 96 the story is 10/10!!!!!😊 but endwalker patches were terrible!!!!!! These patches will be 10/10! Most of the good content will be in patches! But I disagree with zone 4 being useless! I loved zone 4! But totally agreed with more voiced cutscenes! The game should be fully voiced! No excuse in 2024 that the game should not be fully voiced! Look at Elder Scrolls Online! Every cutscene and sidequest is voiced.

The only point I'll have to disagree with is the music, specifically zone music. Imo it's the worst of all expansions

I finished the MSQ on DRK and now I'm going back leveling VPR. Because, honestly, trying to tank the expert dungeons on a DRK is just too punishing to be fun for me.

I know how to fix the story!! New story idea for series. There is a warrior of Darkness. Someone who has zodiark echo. Like we still have Hydes echo. They travels to source. They end Woke Lament. Everyone is devastated. We use the uber earing to travel new shard for revenge. Everyone wins. And can do a story built on anything. Everyone says this patch is world building. How? What is interesting about the world building in this? I just don't understand why everyone says its good world building. I feel like we are not advancing any good story that has even been remotely setup with the world. Look its a pretty world we built but it just felt empty. There were really no problems to be solved that the overall quest didn't create it's self. Build a parade float because people are lazy. Show me you can barter because people want you to work. Help the gold smiths get to work. They lazy after all. There were really no problem in the game that we didnt make. I dont understand why i am doing anything. From arr there was always, always, ascians looming over us. Even in SB. What is there looming over us besides Woke Lament? Please let me know. There could have been some dark looming force in the background. Meanwhile cs. But there is nothing. And You are the villan. You ended all of a civilization. SB at least had a reasonable story with villains setup. Who was actually evil in this story arc? Everyone had good motivation just misunderstood. Except WOL. Crush the innocent. All will perish!!!

I think the last trial shows dawntrails core issue. ff14 has always been a power fantasy for the player. dawntrail feels like its a power fantasy for the writers.

I think Endwalker was the best expansion besides Shadowbringer. I found 7.0 dungeons are tooooo easy i only done 2 so far. I do think the first one sucked and was pointless filler but the 2nd one was great!

It super strange to me, I have complains about the story, but I hear totally out of space arguments here, and I am not sure where they came from. 1. I read every dialog, not only the voiced and nope, Wamat is progressing consistent, I am not sure what exactly made you say she is going back in none voiced cinematics. But it was not fun at all, not the pacing itself, the entire thing. "This will be world building expansion" is not a valid argument as I don't remember 2 expansions in the same zone, every expansion is world building in their first part. However, we go from entering a nation in the middle of a war with dragons, light turning population into monsters, the two children that were so scared from you, that they ran into a monster and got killed to Pelupelu trading lesson... World building just got pushed back to ARR level. 2. People don't like Wuk Lamat (at least from my expirience) mostly because she is too repeatable character in the way SE used her. She have sea sick and they will grind the shit out of it. She is afraid of alpacacha (or whataver the Llama was named) and they grinded the shit out of it. She want to keep the piece, and they grind the shit out of it, of course. It is ok to add some comedy elements, but it felt like they are just grinding it, to add extra hours in a story they just don't have enough of by repeating the same stuff over and over. 3. Quest design is fine, nobody likes to kill that and that in MMO as battles in MMOs are not extremely fun when you are solo, however in this expansion they had an issue with the pacing. In all expansions you need to hear what everyone go to do once in a while as a reason why the WoL is alone to do their part. However, as in this expansion the entire group is following Wuk Lamat, you have countless dialogs just to excuse why other party members are not with you, I was reading 20 minutes about who is going to gather what for a dish ffs. This is exactly why so many people got crazy about the pacing, normally as a design choice you want to lower the amount of "trash" content as this one, but in this case, they just had it all the way. Now, for the second part, I am not a fan of ancient high tech empire, I never liked this part of the story, as I was not a huge fan of the empire at all, I think that was the weakest link in the original story, so this is personal, but I didn't get any "omg, how cool is that" at the second part.

Wuk Lamat is a weak character overall. Everyone knows that she’s many steps below Emet, Venat, and even Lyse. The English VA is amateurish at best and horrible at worst. Had to switch to JP VA for the first time ever.

This expansion is trash