Dawntrail lives or dies on whether or not you like Wuk Lamat. I hate her, so the part of the game we spent without her in Texas was my favorite zone

WoL now stand for Warrior of Lamat

This was the longest episode of Naruto One Piece Z i've ever seen. But we made it, we are truly the Wuk Lamat of all times.

I just don't understand what happened with the writing team because so many of these issues are so glaring and obviously bad. Like how did no one think that giving Wuk Lamat 90% of all dialogue in the MSQ was a good idea? How did no one realize how grating she comes off? How did we end up with nonsense story sections like Wuk Lamat stumbling onto a magic growth ritual by having horrible priorities, thinking a festival should be focused on after a storm left people homeless and starving, but somehow these people forgot that their ritual is magic even though they literally see a boat made of reeds fire lasers out that explode and rain magic energy down that makes plants instantly grow before their eyes? It feels like a kids show, like someone wrote this in middle school from a religious compound that sheltered them so they think "Peace is good, if we're friends then everything will be perfect" is the grand solution to life. I really hope they get rid of the main ones responsible for this foolishness and hire people that can write with depth and maturity again. There's no nice way to say it, so much of the MSQ was nonsensical and falls apart if you just think about what you just saw for 30 seconds.

I'm currently about to enter the "thunderdome" part of the MSQ, and I gotta keep looking at the wiki to see how much of the MSQ I have left to do, just so it'll be over.

I think that them losing their main writer was a huge blow to them and it shows.

I mean... they kinda did make Wuk Lamat stronger than the WoL with that power of friendship asspull. Never mind the sheer ridiculousness of her damage output once she joins the fray against . Have you seen the parses on that nonsense? Rofl. Obviously a parse has no lore implications, but the math is still pretty hilarious. She makes the WoL look like a small child that only knows how to slap.

What the hell Happened?! I could not believe I was playing FFXIV... It was so bad. How didn't any of the devs see the horrible pacing and huge plot holes(and a lot of other things) was beyond me. I would give this a pass if that was the Covid era... Maybe(cause it was that bad). I also groaned out loud in the last fight when Wuk Popped into the fight, I was like "*Groan*, Of course! Why not?! We need more of her". And that is coming from a person that loved Wuks design, and the overall design of the new Femhroths so much that I was considering fantaing my character for the first time ever (I still have that Lvl50 MQS Fata reward :V) to a Femhroth, but I just had to give up cause they forced us to stomach her for the whole Expansion and I don't need any reminds of her, at least of a while. Man... I miss Lyse (and that is saying a lot) And people thought EW patches plot was bad. =[

If Wuk Lamat plays a part in the upcoming story of the patches, I wonder how many people will stop playing.

I place Dawntrail MSQ far below ARR and Stormblood. It was terrible writing.

Yeah pretty on point. But I don't think most fans are ready to hear it.

They let rookie writers take the lead and Ishikawa didn't check their work enough. MSQ pacing was terrible. Wuk Lamat being in your face the whole expansion literally ruined Dawntrail. The bait and switch of "an Adventure!!!" turning into "making tacos, crafting a float, and catching an Alpaca" is criminal in its stupidity. The writing team of Dawntrail totally failed. Its unacceptable for FF14 to have this terrible of a story.

"America's culture is 'gun'." As an American, I endorse this message.

I don't feel the people in the last zone were truly alive. Here is something interesting - Sphene says that as long as we remember people, they never die? She erases dead people from the living's memories. The fact that this isn't brought up by our character or even Wuk Lamat is odd since it kind of negates what she says. In her mind I guess storing them on a computer is "memory", but it's not quite the same as the memory of friends or family. I do feel the last zone had issues, but my perspective is the opposite. At the end Wuk Lamat decides it's okay to let the people of Solution 9/ Heritage Found/ etc to continue living as they always have - so repurposing souls. To do this they have to harvest those souls and for me that is precisely what we stopped Meteion from doing? But to me if you find one aspect of this society problematic and I find another and neither are truly addressed? Then it doesn't matter if we agree since it's still poor writing.

The expansion suffers from a lot of the same problems writing-wise that the post-EW void story did (new character that takes most of the screentime, power of friendship, emet-selch style motivations for the umpteenth time, not enough focus on the scions and other side characters). It seems the new writers are afraid of stepping out from ishikawa's shadow and just recycle concepts and ideas that she herself explored in much better ways.

13:15 I'm about 25% through the story and even then I'm starting to notice that Wuk Lamat is starting to seem like the new warrior of Light and there is an overall lack of awareness about the world (Example: Ohhh look at the Aetheryte that we have! Same character proceeds to never use it when it would avoid a large amount of suffering and save time.) Actually given what you're saying around this mark, it sounds like the usual self-insert both with a character and a world view, which is too bad. I enjoyed the first dungeon so I think I'll keep playing, but if it gets much dumber I might become a cutscene skipper.

Honestly after playing since RR was about to transition into HW I had been hooked to FF14, it was a major part of my free time and I had a ton of fun and was constantly glued to the screen for the MSQ but Dawntrail just left me feeling apathetic, I found it very hard to care about this new land or Wuk Lamat's journey to become it's leader, shes a static wall of anime protagonist tropes without any of the character development to flesh them out, she also takes up way too much of the screen time to an almost comical degree (she doesn't even let the WoL sleep without feeling the need to get back on camera), the antagonists weren't much better either all three of them being fairly shallow and really failed to make me want to confront them outside the generic save the world bit. The supporting cast was more hit than miss but they suffered from not having nearly enough screen time, Ernville is a great character but his big moment in MSQ almost felt rushed, same with Krile who gets one small part to try and do her whole story arc after sitting on it for half the MSQ. Most of the scions also could have been cut and just replaced by new Local NPCS, and of course the lower stakes we were promised turned out to be a bold faced lie. The second act feels like it was originally intended for later in the patch MSQ content but they realized they couldn't stretch out the first act anymore and panicked. I'll give the first MSQ patch a chance to see if they course correct but If not this may be the first expansion I decide to miss out on, I'm just finding really hard to care this time. I did enjoy the the dungeon and trial content but FF14 is more than that, it's MSQ was a big reason I kept playing and it just isnt up to the standard I expect from this dev team, even the somewhat bland post Endwalker MSQ stuff had me more invested than this, im not saying we need to save the world I just want to care about what i'm doing and who I'm interacting with and Dawntrail just didn't have that draw for me.

Yes, totally agree, worst of the story, even ARR is more interesting....(for when it was relevant)

Good review! I had the same reaction in the last fight, I almost felt like it had to be a joke it was so lame.

I absolutely agree that Wuk Lamat got way too much screen time. I hope she gets completely pushed to the sidelines like Lyse and Hien after Stormblood. Last trial conclusion wouldn't be as bad to me if it wasn't JUST Wuk Lamat but also Krile and G'raha.

Things I believe would make the MSQ better: - We're helping Gulool Ja Ja in the unification of Tural or to resolve internal conflict instead of Wuk Lamat in the rite of succession, the dungeons/trials along the way are favors to the tribes, during this we are actively training/scolding/teaching her, we beat Valigarmanda at the end marking the unification and end of act 1 finding the portal to the golden city. - Act 2 would be focused on Krile as her earring opens up the portal, but the city is deactivated on power saving mode, we retrieve the cup/key, we learn that Gulool Ja Ja had found the portal before with Galuf when he received Krile but never got to make it open again. Zoraal Ja gets self conscious that his siblings might surpass him as he under perform during act 1 and gets manipulated by the mamool mage. They steal the cup and bring it back to the portal activating the city, Sphene says they will need energy/souls to live and agrees in granting Zoraal strength in exchange. We then start investigating recent attacks on settlements close to the portal until we find the portal opened and we explore a now 'live' Alexandria. - While investigating, Sphene recognizes Krile as descendant of her late subjects, we learn more about the reflection and their tech, more dungeons, Sphene reveals were Zoraal is hiding, we find and fight him, Gulool gets injured and we find out that Sphene was also behind the attacks, she says that they dont have much more time and need the energy to keep her and the endless alive, some questing later and last trial begins, we beat the C++ out of her and at the end she finds comfort that Krile will carry on the legacy of her reflection, imparting some knowledge to the earring or via echo before shutting down. Gulool lives and continue to rule the kingdom he just funded and request or help to keep things in check. As to follow up with the raids and next patches: With the key, the portal on our side and the knowledge we receive we would research the travel between shards, the Arcadion could be in one of the other reflections that had some similarities to the one that Alexandria hail from. The alliance raid could take place in the space between the source and reflections and whatever is there (shadow lords) is not happy that we are trying to use his home as a freeway again.

I really don't see why we couldn't just tell Sphene about Ultima Thule, because I genuinely think that if the omicrons as literal robots can exist with their own 'emotions' there - there is absolutely no reason that it couldn't host Alexandria's Endless too.

The taco trial was where I realized the writers were afraid to do anything interesting. Pairing Wuk with one of the antagonists would have been a perfect opportunity to see how she handles having to cooperate and compromise with someone who rejects her "live, laugh, love" solution to everything. Not to mention an opportunity to flesh out Bakool or Zaruul and their motivations. I was starving for good chacterization. The Scions especially felt like they got their personalities wiped.

I can't believe you don't like Poochie the dog.

Boring and bad MSQ being carried by the most annoying character ever made in FF - Wuk

Good analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the expansion.

You bring up a great point about how now we're in Emet's shoes. Hadn't thought of it that way!

The first half of this story felt like I was just doing a more in depth beat tribe quest line. Which makes sense considering the writers of this expansion were originally writers of beast tribe quests

Nice review I’m so far from Dawntrail but it sounds like there’s no rush to play it.

Shame to hear FFXIV story is in a decline, one of its biggest selling points.

The thumbnail actually got me to bark out a laugh; I've been depressed since I finished the MSQ for how betrayed I felt by Yoshi P and Square Enix for hyping up Dawntrail with "You and the Scions are taking a vacation together, and you're helping a potential new ally with her quest" and instead it was a one-sided conveyor belt of cutscenes where we prop up Wuk Lmao with praise, "You go girls", and not a single shred of negativity or criticism towards her naivety. I really needed the laugh, and I thank you. Doesn't change how I feel about how the MSQ was handled and how the fanbase was treated in contrast to the absolute gems of storytelling we've gotten before, but you did what they have yet to do since the expansion dropped. 🤣

Whoa. Haven't seen your videos since around 2015. Used to watch your lore videos about ds2 all the time. Cool to see you're still keepin' on man, loved the video. 🤜🤛

Honestly, Wuk Lamat is really the victim of this game's writing. Very repetitive, lots of telling and not showing, draged out pacing, and the boring and un-engaging quests.

Voice your concerns. It’s not nitpicking. Bless you for making this video. You articulated perfectly so many of my thoughts. I agreed 99% (except seraphism and Emet-selch). I would love to hear your opinion on the raid. It felt like such a poor downgrade from Pandemonium story wise to me.

I've been playing since the release of Heavensward and Wuk Lamat and her story just didn't do it for me. I'm happy to watch and listen to your review because your thoughts mirror my own.

The thumbnail broke me, I can´t xD

It was really interesting to hear your viewpoint on the story, i do think the marketing set some fake expectations about the adventure since from the patch quests, i knew we would be wuk's retainer. The story felt more like a fire emblem than anything else, and at least the second part was pretty hard hitting emotionally with its topics of needing to let go.

The leadup to Dawntrail: Semi vacation, some sort of civil war where we were told multiple times that the Scions take different sides and that "the usual ones" were not the ones taking the opposite side to us. What Dawntrail was: Half-assed Naruto show with Wuk Lamat as a more annoying Naruto, barely any growth, the usual Scions being the ones who are "against" us and Wuk being shoved down everyone's throats.

Having to bear with Wuk Lamat was the biggest challenge the expansion offered. Took me two weeks to beat MSQ because I could not bear her anymore. I'm done with the game if she is remains relevant in patches to come. Please SE, hire competent writers. I had my issues with XVI, which ended up being a major let down, but you went overboard by butchering XIV MSQ and turning our WoLs into brainless babysitters 😢

imagine if wuk lamat gets in with zoraal ja and having conversations with him, if she’s truly the convo first gal why not use that characteristic and build other characters through conversation?

Dawntrail, if you remove Wuk Lamat (or at the very least reduce her presence to like an eighth of what it is) would have been a very middling expansion. Possibly better than Stormblood. Honestly, not really. I hate StB Zenos. Very Orcus on his Throne. But he's still better on average than the character assassinating payoff that Zoraal Ja gave us. And I think freeing an occupied nation from an evil woman, and then following that up with freeing an occupied nation from an evil woman, is more compelling than babysitting the heir to the throne of some knockoff Aztec empire. But WITH Wuk Lamat? I'd rather complete the rest of the ARR relics. Wuk Lamat is an awful character, and she's omnipresent. There ARE no other characters. Only Wuk Lamat.

I think trying to say we are genociders like Emet is a big misread of the material. Our party was willing and wanting to talk it out to the very end. It was the villain that was uncompromising and going to genocide countless people had we not stopped them.

I only finished the msq because I paid for it

I've heard that story skippers are enjoying it more, is this true?

"It's good to get along with other cultures, unless they have anything that inconveniences you...." Considering that Sphene wanted to harvest the souls of everyone else in the world just to protect her people, I think calling things an "inconvenience" is a bit much. Where I think the writers failed was that there wasn't enough exploration into the fact that Team Wuk, while not completely wrong, chose the lesser evil rather than the good.

i beg you please talk more about it i care what you say.

Go Wuk, go broke

Sorry for the long post in advance. In my opinion, they made the first 50% of the Main story too long and the last 50% too short. The best way I think they could have handle it was have the Wuk Lamat part only cover the first two maps then the 3rd and 4th map focus on WoL going on a Adventure as he/she was promised since the reason WoL went to this country was because of the promised sponsorship from Wuk Lamat that will have given him/her authorization to freely explore the lands as a adventurer. The 5th and 6th map should have been focus on alexandria so we can have a better understanding why their way of life is wrong and provide more time to show the flaw of the Endless being just perfect copies of a person only on a surface level but they lack the ability to understand and accept alternatives to their current mind set due to lacking the inner values of the individual they are copies of due to lacking a soul. They show this aspect mostly between Sphene and Otis. Otis is meant to represent someone in Alexandria who still continue to live without having his soul turned into soul food and he maintained all his values. However, Sphene is single minded on her methods to save her people and only mimics the love for her people the real Sphene has on the surface level which is why she could not accept the offer of a possible alternative solution to save the endless and if her current methods was leading her own people to self destruction due to them acting no different from Voidsents which also denied them the ability to enter the afterlife and go through the process of reincarnation.

Yall forgeting about dynimis. I think it fixes a lot of the plotholes people see with like wuk's power lvl

I think you undersold viper tiny bit, yeah the class has two whole swords that turns into one, thats neat. Maybe your opinion will change as you level it more, however the bigger appeal to most people i chat with and that play the job is how active it is vs other classes, it has a lot of ogcds and is essentially the definition of glass cannon, it lacks any defensives. It basically feels like what i wanted from reaper personally.

LOL! I didn't even know you still exist and now you plop out of nowhere with my favorite game of all time, omg. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Endwalker. Will watch this video as soon as I played Dawntrail. Love.

PCT doesn't appeal to me at all. Not saying it's bad, just not my cup of tea. VPR, on the other hand, feels like they designed a job specifically for me. It's become my new main. I've even stepped away from tanking and am willing to deal with the DPS que times for it. Even if we get nothing else worthwhile from DT, VPR will be enough to keep me happy.

Eh dungeons in DT are not difficult neither, theres one annoying boss but because it forces you into downtime

Good review. But next time tune down the ingame music and sound effects a little bit

Finally people realized the FFXIV is a bad game 😂😂

Hiya Mont I kinda disagree with you at some story points As I see it, dawntrail as a story, on a contrary to previous expantions, is about dawn of q civilization, how it finds it's footing, how it deals with inner turmoils, so us glimpsing into a some sacred parts, no matter superficial may it be, of people's traditions gives us wider understanding of how Tural's beasts and men came to coexist, compared to their eorzean counterparts Also I don't really agree on a "genocide" point, it's meaning feels like "the duty of a ruler is to bear the sins they commited for the sake of their people", while being harsh, some things cannot be resolved without conflict, and that's a message that can be seen since ARR, not just "genocide because we disagree lmao" On Wuk Lamat point I somewhat agree, but for me, her character was mostly ruined by horrendeous EN VA, otherwise I don't mind her much, and scions having lesser screentime is fine, cause, probably, we will spend another full story arc with them But on Krile point I agree with you wholehertedly, she should've had much more screentime

I get not liking Wuc Lamat, but the whole point of you going to Tural was to help her... I don't understand how you couldn't expect her to be all over the story?

DT is an amazing story, and I know the doomers and boomers will seethe at the thought, but is better as a whole than SHB. It has strong themes when it comes to legacy, provides interesting character development for several characters, manages many plot threads simultaneously. Comparing the Turali definition of legacy (living on through the memories of your descendants) versus the Alexandrian conception (erased form the memory of others, but your own memories live on) is extremely clever. The last zone is both extremely poignant and resolves the character arcs in a way that fits the theme. Dismissing a lot of the story as fetch quests is ridiculous and shows a lack of reading comprehension. It can be easily gleaned that the purpose of said quests was to have the candidates retrace the path of the original Dawnservants, learn of their history and as such, grow in such a way that they can replicate what Gulool Ja Ja did and further its legacy. He even says so explicitly to the WOL later on, and yet, many people still miss it. I hope that the writing continues to improve in such a manner in the future, no matter what the edgelords think.

The story is okay. You focus too much on the bad, all you see is bad.

Didnt we unplug the golden city because Sphene was going to drain the other shards of aether to sustain an unsustainable system? They were literally mnemonic imprints, comparing it to Emet Selch is a bit much.