Just realized that we didn’t get a free adventure glam outfit before entering dawntrail ._.

You remember telling your non XIV friend that the game is great, but ARR is a little slow? I feel like that's been totally flipped on it's head. "Okay now when you finish Endwalker, please temper expectations." That said, the new jobs/duties/Extremes/zones are great.

A lot of people seem to have a hard time putting it into words but I think the frustration is a culmination of things. She was introduced in 6.55 at a half patch and was the entire focus of the story in the game after that. Historically 14 has had more of a slow burn when it comes to character introductions. They get introduced early on and you get to know them a bit before they have a focus in the story like Yugiri, Aymeric, G'raha, etc. and even then they don't dominate the screen time but add to scenes and plot points as needed. Tonally it was a little jarring when compared to previous entries. As a result because of that she didn't really feel like part of the team yet, just someone you're working with. During the early parts of the game it feels like you're doing tasks to help her fulfill her objectives but that she (for the most part) didn't earn what was being given to her leading her towards a role she shouldn't have. Avoiding spoilers as best as possible but the 6th test stands out as glaringly bad personally. All that kind of compounded player frustrations to be a little adverse to her presence. While most people felt like the second half of the game was a breath of fresh air, the issue was only worsened by her still being there constantly giving little breathing room to the rest of the new (and old) cast and I think people resent the fact that there was solid story happening in the second half but we kept having to be reminded of her presence. Her power scaling was also questionable with her background and everything we had been shown. In closing, there was some really good stuff this expansion and I think frustrated players felt like she constantly got in the way of that. If you like her character a lot though and are just living in the moment scene to scene then you probably enjoyed it and that's fine too.

My problem is how Krile whole story was just sidelined. There should have been some time in the story early where we helped her. Too much focus on Wuk Lamat.

I think the expansion MSQ would've been better if we traveled with Estinien on his random side quests instead of Wuk Lamat. Estinien looked like he had much more fun than I did in the MSQ.

I may be too harsh. And Yoshi P did say the direction of the story would depend on player feedbacks. But the quality of the story and the direction of the story are two different things. A terribly written story is a terribly written story, no matter what direction it’s going towards. I think the execution here is the main problem, not the direction.

Overall, I enjoyed DT, but I also understand the negative sentiment. But more than the complaints about the NPCs, my biggest complaint would be our WoL's lack of reaction time. We can survive/defend against world ending attacks, but we can't react to something happening 2 ft in front of us. Surely we have grown enough to not just sit and stare at what is happening in front of us.

Housing has always been an interesting conundrum, but I don't think we will ever see instanced housing. I point out that the Islands are set up as hangout spots, but nearly nobody uses them for social events.

I generally liked the themes, zones and overall plot of the MSQ. I agree the writing and pacing could have been better overall though. Hopefully, Ishikawa gets more involved with the writing process. I feel like we aren't getting enough of her writing as she had more of a supervisor role for the story in DT.

It was... obviously not written by Ishikawa. There were very few characters that had much depth, frequently being reduced to the one-dimensional anime characters that swore me off that medium. The story was extremely softball. Most of the harder edges weren't explored for as long as you would see in quests as early as ARR. The mid-game chorus was jarring, like crowbarring in 500lbs of sugar and corn syrup. It honestly made me laugh. Hopefully they put Ishikawa back in the spotlight, because Dawntrail was a Dawntrial for me to get through.

I don't even care about the bad character wuk, i just want my character to do more then nod head and fist punch.

Taking 1 shot every time Wuk Lamat said she will be THE Dawnservant and protect her people. I'm drunk af. I want Lyse back.

One of the beauties of ffxiv is that theres virtually nothing you can't do if you pickup a job. They won't do this "only 10 people on your server can craft this thing" It goes against the system they've built

Went to sleep as the Warrior of Light, Savior of the Realm, God of the Land, Liberator of the Oppressed to waking up feeling like an NPC or sidekick character. Now that I’m in the endgame loop the game feels fine. Maybe give an option to skip the MSQ. Once you hit level 100 (from leveling other ways) talk to an NPC and unlock everything. The MSQ used to be fine to play through, this wasn’t for me.

I am the WoL, Wuk Lamats trusted purse chihuahua.

I disagree that instanced housing will create more social events. I just think of Garrisons from WoW.

Whatever your opinions are on the MSQ is one thing but we can all agree the music and fights were pretty enjoyable right?

Wuk Lamat has more lines of dialogue than the *entire* rest of the cast combined. Most Scions have less dialogue than new minor side characters. I'm not kidding, someone did the math.

Ngl I feel like at some point someone in the writing team fell in love with Wuk Lamat and it shows when an opinion of an explanation revolves around "if you like this character or not" then they have essentially over exposed said character

If it was summer vacation why was there no Y'shtola in a swimsuit?

I didn't have enough time to beat the Elden Ring DLC :(

If the game is mechanically at its best, both in game systems and server stability, a mediocre story can be overlooked up to a point. From what I gather, we have another case of Stormblood and Lyse. Stormblood's post release story was some of the best imo, so hopefully they will repeat that.

I think if we had more Erenville there would be much fewer complaints. His story had a ton of nuance and I loved seeing bits of him shine through as we explored the new continent. Sadly his character development felt super overshadowed by Wuk Lamat. When she took a backseat in the final zones I really did enjoy it.

I did enjoy my time with the MSQ, but I absolutely agree with some of the negative sentiments. What I'm wishing for in the MSQ moving forward: More Erenville, more focus on the Warrior of Light (as in, I want to be actively involved and not just stand there on the sidelines and then still getting praise for no reason), I would LOVE LOVE LOVE more Azem lore! And looking at the "Key", that might be a realistic wish. And I want to see the "constant" threat we will be facing and finding out about going forward, something that gives us things to look forward to and a sense of mystery.

I’m struggling to get through the MSQ. I’ve started skipping and I’m still bored to death. I’d rather play something else but I’m trying to get through it so I can level my crafter and gatherers then other jobs. It’s a struggle.

Had Wuk Lamat been anything less than 99% of the screentime of the MSQ, perhaps things would have been better.

Looking at the PVE content so far I'm largely not that concerned with the current end-game, I think they're on a good path and will cover that element well. For me the biggest concerns for my long-term enjoyment of the game comes down to, a) the mog station and account management/payment handling, and b) the continuous neglect of the early game. A) The first point just comes down to the issues that came from region locking and how hostile the payment processor became recently, with no solution or little communication in sight for those of us that ever moved or those in unsupported regions. I just finished 7.0's msq and really enjoyed myself and was feeling hyped to continue, but in 6 months my card expires and its up in the air for me if I can even keep my account subscribed, leading me to second-guess what, if any, long term goal or grinding I want to commit to... I hope this all won't bite Arthars or Zepla in the butt as well, who are two prime examples of people in tricky situations like this. B) It's very difficult in a game like this, especially this old, to keep maintenance on the early game. We're level 100 now, and unfortunately a natural consequence of our toolkits being developed and balanced around an increasing cap means you have to prune and pay a lot of attention to balancing at cap, which means that toolkit gets spread more thinly over more levels. That said, a lot of people still play fairly casually and do roulettes and we spend a LOT of time synced to lower levels, and the low level gameplay has suffered for a very long time now. I'm also not convinced this makes it as exciting as can be for new players considering how much content they need to work through, especially with how trivialized it has become. They need to shuffle some actions around to make lower level play somewhat more engaging, there's no reason we shouldn't all have at least one AOE ability by the first dungeons let alone leave Dragoon and Ninja without aoe gcds by 38 and 40. Jobs at 50 should also be resembling their higher level versions much more closely, while ofc making sure that it's not overwhelming. And the mechanics of lower level duties probably don't need to change much, but they also need to not feel like *suggestions* just because all they do is tickle you for the most part. Remember what level of skill we're expecting of players by 70 and above, we should be doing better at training them and make it so that less people need to be hard carried in the later game.

I'm just not feeling this xpac. I've played the game since ARR only dipping out a few times when I feel like the content or story are not really keeping me engaged and this is one of those times.

About content, Trials were really fun, so are Extremes, dungeon bosses were fun enough compared to other dungeons, but the biggest flaw imo was the pulls, having so many packs of 2-3 mobs or super tanky enemies that would take you forever to kill felt pretty underwhelming and disappointing, I don't think there were big pulls in general, and as a tank is pretty sad =( Music was simply godly as usual. I cant stop listening to the last boss theme. I personally enjoyed the MSQ a lot, yeah it started extremely slow but I liked it in general, thank god I play with japanese voices, I feel like that was a big reason why some people hated Wuk Lamat or the story lol. SPOILER: The last map had me in tears because of the theme that was present, having that short time to say goodbye to your loved ones is something I bet a lot of people would appreciate a ton.

From what i gathered from all social media and streams and content creators DAWNTRAIL: STORY it depends if you like Wuk lamat you gona enjoy it if you dont you gona hate it intil you hit the second part . and they did the same with LYSE BTW WUKLAMAT is not special for getting haters and people get anoyed by her DAWNTRAIL: DUNGEONS / TRAILS / EXTREMS every one is enjoying them and they said they never been happier with the battle content and they cant wait to do Savage .

I am very curious what your take is Quazzi on the MSQ. Any plans to drop one of those videos in the near future? Love the content, thanks!

Im surprised no one has brought up the laziness on the devs behalf when it comes to armor designs. There are SO many armor recolors from ShB and EW this expansion. Not to mention they introduce a two dye system for armors and theres still dungeon gear that isn't even dyeable. It's even more frustrating when Yoshi P keeps turning down removing glamor restrictions for NON-AF gear because he fears it might confuse players. 🤦

Dawntrail's issue wasn't the story as much the writing quality. The plot made sense and could have been great if not for the poor execution - even taking into account that a lower key storyline is much harder to write for.

While I enjoyed the expansion, I felt like there were points in it that were weak especially in the second part of it. It had it's highs and lows which is fine but my main issue is quests that feel like padding, and I did feel more of that in places here than I have felt in a little while in this game. They left a good framework and things to build off of in the story, and I hope to see more of what they can accomplish with what they have set up. I have other issues but that leads into spoiler territory and this ain't the chat for that lol.

"Mixed" is the best way to describe Dawntrail. There are things that I like about it (maps, combat, dungeons, new lore) but there are also as many things I hate about it. I hope the post-DT content will make up for the disappointment just as StB was.

It was not a summer vacation, we got stuck babysitting. I also think people saying "We're supposed to be a mentor" is kinda a cope since we hardly do any actual teaching and just reassure sometimes bad decisions.

This is the first expansion where I feel like the ideas for the MSQ story was only great on paper but failed in many ways on execution. To me it felt like a quality control issue from little things in the writing to big things in the writing. I could go into detail but there would be 100% spoilers. The essence of it though to me is that the writing quality is nowhere close to style I have come to expect from CBU3. It's almost like the writing was done by a completely different team. Outside of the story, everything is S tier which is usually the opposite. All in all, Dawntrail is a very strange a confusing expansion.

I think we don't exactly need another massive story arc. Even though I enjoy them. Personally, i've had the most impactful story experiences when it came down to smaller and more compact, but rich story beats. Stories like Tsuyu/Yotsuyu and exploring the idea of what makes someone responsible for their actions, justice, and what it means to have real retribution. Themes that really ask the player to think about what's right, human thoughts that really have no real answer. I think of themes like in portions of endwalker delving into the thought of what it means to suffer, to struggle, and what comes out of it. Whether struggle is necessary in all life lest the door opens to apathy and complacency for the joy of life itself. While Endwalker's whole narrative point was to close up the Zodiark/Hydaelyn era and the story of the ancients, themes like those are FAR more impactful than large set pieces of long standing villains or narrative conclusion fights. People loved Heavensward for its theme beyond simply the tale of dragons. Dragons are a dime a dozen in fantasy media, but exploring the consequences and the sins of the father in relation to the son, the cycle of vengeance and betrayal, that's what makes it more than simply about dragons. That's all the game really needs for its story. Focus on a theme or an area that a theme can be taken from. Build one for the other. Hell, even executing a common theme with the aide of set pieces in game would still be fantastic. Most stories have been told in some way or form already, but FFXIV has the power to execute a story in a unique way with its own settings.

Can we get a spoiler version of like your final thoughts on the base Dawntrail expansion? Would love to hear your thoughts but 3 hours is intimidating, and while first reactions are nice I also like collected thoughts.

Very much looking forward to the msq review. :)

After seeing the entire MSQ, I have a few thoughts. I'll keep it spoiler free. Yes, after Endwalker I was expecting a lower stakes story. What I got was a lower quality one. Not just a little bit lower either. I was actually suffering through a lot of this story. I could feel myself turning into a blasphemy in real time. It feels like it was written by a 4th grader. It actually seemed like the writers WANT us to hate Wuk Lamat. Well, they succeeded in spectacular fashion. I do hate her, very much. Also, take a shot every time the game asks you to "talk to three people and then speak to Wuk Lamat" (Don't actually do that, you'll die). As far as voice acting goes, yes, this game has some amazing VAs, and some less good VAs. Most of the time though, those less good VAs have little screen time, so it doesn't matter as much. (Athena comes to mind here.) Wuk Lamat on the other hand, has some of the worst VA I've heard in this game since ARR, and she has a TON of screen time. WAY too fucking much. Dawntrail has some truly epic moments, every expansion does. Of course it does. But even those moments were soured by Wuk Lamat's screeching. I never want to hear that character speak ever again. I hope they Lyse her. ASAP. It's a shame too, because the other new character's VAs killed it. Bakool JaJa and Koana both are fucking amazing. Sphene too! But their performances get stifled time and again by Wuk Lamat, and how shit that VA is. All that being said though, the actual battle content seems S tier. All of the dungeons and trial bosses looked great. No complaints there.

I certainly feel mixed. About the job design, the story, the characters, the voicing. almost every aspect of the expansion so far. I don't hate any of it, but none of it hits like Shadowbringers (especially) or Endwalker. I am hopeful going forward though.

Been playing for 10 years. I just want a good story, good written characters and emotional connections. Not contrived and on the nose forced narratives. Not the characters we all love act like random npcs. Not using cheap shonen tricks without any substance.

My complaint about Dawntrail isn't that the story is bad or the content isn't fun or Wuk Lamat is a bad character. It's that Wuk Lamat is the ONLY character. I could forgive most other issues with the character if they hadn't given the shaft to the entire rest of the cast. Every single party member in Dawntrail, including yourself, exist solely to nod in approval whenever Wuk Lamat opens her mouth. Dawntrail is unrelenting in its attempts to forcefeed this character to its audience. It feels like they finished the script, and then everyone sat down, poured over every line, and asked the question "can we have Wuk Lamat say this line instead of [Other Character]?"

The biggest flaw with the MSQ is Wuk Lamat and the inability to do anything wrong for the right reasons. She's written like a self-insert character; not a Mary Sue, but forcibly liked to the point where she becomes more annoying the more forced our WoL responds with "You can do this!" and "Show them who's boss, Head of Resolve!". She got overexposed while other characters that served to support the story were underexposed and given very little depth. Bakool Ja Ja's dilemma didn't come to light until the very end of the Rite and did a complete turnabout that would make Phoenix Wright blush with envy, Zarool Ja's dilemma didn't actually generate any sympathy UNTIL HE WAS ON HIS DEATHBED, and Koana's was the only one who got any amount of screentime to improve at a decent rate because he supported Wuk Lamat in general. She's a golden child furball and does not want to pry herself away from us and I feel betrayed by the writing team.

As someone who doesn't like the Zero arc... Is it worse?

I mean, I figured the last expansion would be the end of the game given that almost all the story lines came to a conclusion and that they would just announce a new MMO or one final expansion to tie-up the lose ends. We are also at the point where our level cap is getting high. Also, the villains kind of lose their threatening aspect when we have literally slain The Twelve, Hydaelyn, Zodiark (even if it wasn't at full power), Endsinger, and all the primals of note. What can honestly pose a threat to the hero when at this point killing gods is just another Tuesday? The only reason we even have to do trials in Dawtrail instead of just slapping everything is because of game mechanics. They blew the scope of the world and power fantasy to the point that you can't really do much else now. The dungeons/trials are enjoyable, but none of the MSQ really felt all that engaging, not to mention, kind of cheating to hire a literal god slayer to fight on your side in a competition for the crown. Outside of a new MMO, I have no idea how you even make anything a realistic challenge for our players. Limited housing is idiotic and they should have fixed this awhile ago. I'd much rather have all housing instanced than the limited housing we have now, which only made the meaningless Island Sanctuary feel even more like a slap in the face.

I wonder what the next expansions are gunna be and how long they gunna take

My biggest gripe with the story wasn't Wuk Lamat at all. Like yeah, she's had to do ARR Alphinaud levels of character growth in 1 base expansion story, same as Lyse, which doesn't lend itself to realistic growth and definitely doesn't make it easier to grow fond of her as a character. However my main gripe with Dawntrail's story was the lack of combat. They did such a good job with the dungeons, the trials, and the scenarios, that it kind've makes me sad they didn't include a lot more combat in the MSQ. In the first 8-ish hours of story you maybe fight a monster once, twice at a stretch. I understand FFXIV's levelling isn't a combat-heavy affair, hasn't been so for quite a while now, but the amount of combat we got to do this time around was tragically low. In a story like ShB and EW where the stakes are almost always high, that's not that big a problem, but when the stakes are as low as they are, a little bit of combat to break up the monotony would've been welcome. The latter half of the MSQ kind've redeems the dreadfully boring first half though.

I was really hoping for a Heavensward style adventure focused on one area and its people, and I only got a little bit of that. Everything feels so disjointed and poorly executed overall despite some great concepts, which is shocking coming from CS3. I really didn't expect to prefer the Zero arc to a full expansion, but here we are.

I just find it very disingenuous of CC's and many people that say "Oh yes your criticism concerns and what not" Matters, when it does very much not. Unless you play on the JP servers. Change only ever happens if the JP community joins into complaining, or does anything in general.

I can't get over how they saw the reception to Lyse and thought "yeah, let's do that again... but even more... but also slower. A lot slower."

Without spoiling anything. I feel like the missed some story marks that could've made Wuk lamat more fleshed out. Also, it feels like the individual who voiced wuk Lamat had a bad voice direction, or was incapable of showing a wide range of emotions. I'll see if the JP voice actors sounded the same with a specific story beats, as the English ones.

The overall consesus seems to always been the same for tje absolut majority of reviews & ratings from everyone. Expansion had great content (dungeons, trials & solo duties, zones) with great music. The story idea, story theme & message were really promising & solid. The weak part however was the execution on the msq as it dropped the ball several times despite laying itself a solid foundation in a lot of moments! Furthermore the new characters stared of strong and well but ended up becoming stale in the second half of the story, which only hurt more as we as the WoL took an a permanent side character role throughout the expansion.

Spoilers for the msq!!! My biggest question after finishing the msq is how the relic relates to Azem. Since their symbol appeared on the relic, its safe to say that azem at least has something to do with it. but why would they need a tool to travel to other worlds when the reflections did not exist yet when azem was around? Does that mean it allow travel to even more distant worlds? Are there more than one "Source"? this is what i hope to have answered in the future. Because it could open up so many more story oportunities, and opportunities to see more stuff from other ff games.

The only issue I see going forward with personal housing is the same issue with island sanctuary. If everyone has an island, no one visits each other's island. Having a space in the game that is available to anyone in limited quantity creates the value of people wanting to see what others have done with them. I would have never have spent hour going through houses and seeing what they looked like if everyone had one

I think the reaction to Wuk Lamat was warranted. Wuk Lamant's VA was passable, but there a few moments where it was supposed to be epic and... it was not as strong/good as it could have been. Great example is the final trail phase 2. I would like to see an expansion focusing on the WOL, and that might be the next one considering everyones reaction of DT.

How do you follow up a story conclusion of the caliber of ShB and EW? You write a strong well written slice of life, more character focused intimate story, which is not what happened with DT as far as im concerned. I just find it so incredibly obnoxious and lazy that people dismiss the legitimate criticisms of DTs msq with suggesting its only disliked because it wasnt as epic because its a new start. A great story is not predicated on stakes or scope and this game is not exempt from that fact. DTs msq narrative was found weak by many for reasons entirely taken in isolation.

I still hold out hope that we may one day get Burmecians as a race. I can dream

Good summary. Just one thing: I think having an island sanctuary home kind of solved the housing issue for me because I now have a personal space to use. However, I think there needs to be way more options to implement new housing items to make it more personal. So here is my suggestion: Why not having an additional land plot in the Island Sanctuary area where you have your personal house? You should obviously be able to beam there from wherever you are or any big city. But why not use something we already have implemented in the game?

Dawntrail was great for about 85% of my run with it. That last 15% however really, really upset me.

regarding player housing, instanced housing is probably going to feel so much lacking. not being able to see your neighbor and your own house alongside others hits different than the opposite. ESO and Runescape does this and everyone's houses look pretty much the same and boring too. in runescape, you get inside a portal where everyone also is hanging around afk to go to their instanced housing

o/ I did enjoy the overall themes of Dawntrail MSQ but I didn't like the execution at all ! Feels like a lot of wasted potencial, at least for me this felt like the weakest story expansion so far, but when it comes to actual battle content I rank it very high, been having a blast learning the new Extreme Trials ❤❤❤❤❤

Thanks! I always enjoy what you have to say. I haven’t gotten very far into dawntrail yet, but I think one thing that unites all FF titles is the ability to put you into a story and break your heart. We need to get to know a character as a friend and then lose them. Characters that are introduced only to be killed shortly thereafter are cheap shots, and those lost only to be resurrected ten minutes later have their sacrifices cheapened. I think the expansions that are best loved are the ones that feature true and lasting sacrifice that mark a real before and after. Also, the twins have to grow up sometime!!! Maybe there has to be a point where your WOL has advanced into the future enough that certain quests are no longer unlockable due to story NPCs no longer being in the right place. I believe that these limited-time side quests were present in older titles like FF7.

I liked the story overall. Didn't love it, but i liked it. I'd say it's on par for like Stormblood. That being said, a big part of why i didn't love it is that we sacrificed 90% of the usual character moments with people we care about (or newly care about, i like Bakool and Koana a lot). In exchange, it was all given to Wuk Lamat. I think she is fine, but not a strong enough character to hold the vast majority of the narrative and emotional beats on her shoulders. I feel like we had basically no emotional heart to heart scenes with any of the Scions despite the fact Krile is supposed to be a big focus in the expansion. I'd either have liked less Wuk Lamat or more of other characters.

im not fully though the story yet but i am close to the end. the story i feel is not bad, but it wasn't the strongest. it could have been far worse. the Dungeons and Trials i done so far feel really good. and one thing i really love is some of the class changes. MNK feels so good now, while DRK is one that feels more odd to me. removing the Damage from their GC kinda throws me off, while Bloodweapon and Delirium being one button now feels odd, along with Living shadow not having a Blood gauge cost. gonna take a lot of adjusting to their Rotation again. Overall, i enjoy DT. im really excited for the Future content.

I've no idea why people are upset

Just finished the MSQ myself. Overall I had fun BUT compared to the last 2 expansions, I wasn't as emotionally invested at the end. I'd say emotionally wise it's comparable with my experience with the end of the original 2.0 ARR. For Wuk Lamat, I like the character enough, but I felt she belonged more to a Hildibrand quest line rather than be a main character in the MSQ. She's likable but not someone I can take seriously.

I haven't finished the story yet but we already choose the Dawnservant, and till this moment I don't feel the money I invested in the expansion was worth the money:(

Whenever instanced housing discussion rears its head, I just think its funny that even on populated worlds, a solid number of instanced apartments are always available and never taken.

Thank you patreons

Also they were testing with cloud servers so probably in the near future they will migrate to that, this could be a really cool thing because in the housing situation they mentioned that they have servers just for housing so with cloud servers it will be more easy to create servers and probably the housing situation will be solved.

The mixed reception has been awesome. No queue times to get the real work done.

Let’s be honest lads. In this expansion we really felt like a background character. Not much mentoring going on. Most of the time we just stood there like an extra. And also please explain to me how no one in Tural seems to talk about the final days? Did we not just save the entire world or did we just save everyone except people in Tural?

quazii, i love your point of view here. you're the man. keep doing what you doing.

The problem is they use the current housing system for player retention as it is. If you aren't staying subbed to the game you'll lose your plot. Why would they lose out on that sub money? It just gives people a reason to not stay subbed.

I did not like the MSQ they treated Wuk Lamat as if she is the WoL. Center of attention she has cameras on her most of the time. Why was our presence or the scions presence even needed? I held out hope that we get the later half of DT without her and nope…luckily the new trails and dungeons are banger MSQ is only once. However I will never preorder again. We were sold the idea that it’s grand new adventure for us and enjoy our vacay. Nope this is Wuk Lamar’s grand new adventure. And she will steal the spot light. It’s sad there were so much potential here…

I'll be really blunt on instanced housing. I am not remotely interested. No one goes to people's island sanctuary's outside of maybe streamers. No one would come visit your instanced house, and I have no drive to decorate things that no one else will ever see - I want something that someone might stumble onto and enjoy, if even for a moment. If that won't happen, then it might as well be a trash can for the random housing items I find. I would hate to never get a new housing district in lieu of instanced housing - which may be the sacrifice we'd be making to have them add a new system like that. That said, yes, I know it's not all about me, but I really question whether there would be any stickiness to the system if it was instanced. Now, I would *love* to see them rip houses away from people who have claimed entire districts and such. I want everyone who wants a house to be able to have one, but I just don't think ripping community out of the system for individual instances is the way to do it. That said, if we were *going* to go down this route, don't make it individual. Make it FC based. Make a housing district that an FC can put all their houses in and people can look up those FC districts (and sub districts for larger ones) and visit. In any case we are talking about additional server space and infrastructure, might as well do it right.

Did creative business unit change their name?

I’m a 5.3 free trial sprout and I took an extended break after 6.4 cos the 6.4 msq felt like a bit uninspired and rushed? Sure there were cool lore bits but in terms of the villain, as of 6.4 Golbez felt like another unbroken Ascian? But I decided to play Star Rail instead and it was refreshing, with its own Heavensward, Stormblood and Shadowbringer esque arcs but with their own spin. If anything, now I’m looking forward to starting 6.5 and 7.0. Even if the story is meh, it’s fun to come back to this world again. Played a run of Copied Factory last night and it was a blast!

I always expected a mixed reception. Let's face it . . . The combo hit of Shadowbringers and Endwalker is a HARD act to follow. That aside, having played through the Dawn Trail MSQ . . . Yeah. I agree. It's a mixed bag. The first half was kinda boring and the writing felt kinda lazy while the 2nd half was pretty damned good. I wouldn't have written it like they did. The first half of the game I wanted a swash-buckling adventure and a neck for neck friendly rivalry. I wanted Goonies and Uncharted. Instead I got a one dimensional hero, a cultural lesson, and a conclusion that was so damned obvious I thought for sure they would NEVER actually do it. The second half of the MSQ was much . . . Much better. But I still would have written a few moments a bit differently. Ishikawa stepped aside as lead writer and boy can you feel it.

Instanced housing would be kinda lame thh. I personally love the fact that everybody can see each others houses naturally. Obviously we have different wards so not everyone is in the same neighborhood but nevertheless instanced housing would take that away no?

Was expecting the queen to say "remember us" lmao.

To be honest, Dawntrail is the only expansion that I feel buyer's remorse. You have to inhale a lot of copium just to get through the MSQ.

MSQ doesn't really bother me, it's a one and done thing, but I'm ready for the real content. The raids, the bozja/eureka like zones, etc.

what i want fixed more than everything is snappier combat - i HATE the server tick. This is the only game i've played that there's such a lag between seeing attacks go off and them actually hitting you. Were so many expansions deep and the devs can't figure out a way to fix this? They were able to fix shields, so I don't think it's such a big lift from this.

There's lots of little things that could improve upon that could have a significant collective impact on the game. Quite a few things feel slightly off to me of how certain jobs play at the moment. Things that wouldn't take full reworks to fix. Some jobs even already have some of the stuff I'm thinking would be a solution so why are others just feeling not up to date? It is refreshing to have several dungeon encounters that I actually have to think about a bit, and not all of them are just knowing where a hidden aoe is about to pop so I'm really happy with that. There're a few things in the story that have me a little concerned, but I have faith we'll see a bit more of that get addressed in patch content.

It felt less like a ff14 xpac then a wow xpac , where instead of being the hero im a side character to events.

Honestly I wish they would take resources used to make the msq and explore other avenues. I am totally fine with there not being an msq, leave the story bits for other content like the raids, exploration content etc etc. The msq honestly is the biggest drag of the mmo and it already told its grand story. Dude even shadowbringers and endwalker dragged super hard. It had big highs but way more drag.

I’m a break taker and coming back and trying to learn how to play has been a learning curve for me. But I dove into the MSQ thinking ehh I’ll pick up my rotation while leveling. I’m two zones into the Wuk Lamat escort and I have fought a total of ten mobs. The back and forth quests have always been a thing in FF14 but DT has made the questing experience a walking simulator

I think we have seen hints of Beast master prospects in the story! I would love if Erenville became a Beastmaster through some type of old magic!

End game is important, but to think that story is somehow less is ignoring why many people left WoW. There were a mix of reasons, but one of them was that the storyline was an absolute mess and disaster. I also disagree that world first races retain players. Most people I know would rather watch others play mythic+ and mythic raids. World first races only help the people in the race which is why they want them. As for DT, the main writer wrote the post-EW AR and the HW alliance raid quests so not new. The problem for me is that is what the DT MSQ feels like - alliance raid quests. I wind up getting annoyed in some AR quests and sometimes just skipping. Alliance raid stories are often ones where the WoL is not the main character and are more observers of others. It is like just watching a movie and that is how DT feels for me as well.

All of the other expansions have felt like they succeeded in giving us a final fantasy theme park. Dawntrail felt like I was tagging along to the theme park to just be left holding the bags while someone else went on all the rides for me.

My issue with the MSQ is they just gave us the D team. Every character we actually care about was sidelined or just didnt show up until the ending part. I couldnt bring myself to care about Krile's part because she didnt feel like a part of the story.

Good video. Well said.

The problems with DT isn't that its not as epic or that the stakes aren't that hight as it was in ShB or EW. There are many problems with DT: - they made you a sidecharacter and made u the babysitter for Wuk Lamat ( I understand that u neede to be a mentor fugire for her, but they just made the WoL agree with every stupid thing Wuk said or did); - the Scions were only there for the Trust system... poor Krille and Erenville; - the evil guys of this expansion was so lame and 2 dimensional it hurts... the worst antagonist in ff14 by far; - etc etc

Somehow they dedicated all the character time to Wuk Lamat and still made one of the most generic and bland characters I’ve seen in games.

I’m looking forward to new story expansions that deal with zeros world, or other sources others plotting things on other worlds, can’t forget Y’shtola is still trying to find a way to traverse to the first 😊

I lost the count of the nodding of my character in all the cutscenes. The story can be liked or not but the feeling is really that the Warrior of light has just been downgraded to the Nodder of Light.

The only thing really polarizing about Dawntrail is one character. Everything else about the game has been glowing thus far. As long as they continue to make really fun encounters and deliver the content they have promised, Dawntrail will be looked upon fondly.