My Final Impressions with FFXIV Dawntrail

Maybe we were the dawntrail all along...
Hello everyone I am Jmulls of Jmulls Gaming and welcome to my little corner of the internet!
Walkthroughs, First Impressions, Critique and Reviews for all things video games, by someone who loves video games!
In today's video, I go over my first impressions with the MSQ of Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail and the formula Square Enix uses for world building !
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[@Boxkar24]

Issues I had was: #1 Waaaaay too much time spent with Wuk Lamat. I know, sounds strange but I feel like the cowboy zone was the only break we got from her. She started to grate on my nerves after a while. The entire point after we discovered what Sphene was, and here is Wuk still trying to convince a computer program to do otherwise. I wanted my character to turn to her and be like "yo she can't! stop it!" #2 Not enough Krile. That moment where she goes to open the portal gate only for the Gulool Ja to take some of her shine felt like a kick in the pants. #3 This one is HUGE for me but the final zone annoyed me to death. No not the zone being empty when finished, I believe that was the intent of the story telling. The issue I had was why we were running around getting to know the specters of long dead people, *knowing* we were about to make them all disappear. It, to me, was extremely counter intuitive. Like making the job we were here to accomplish that much harder. That whole time spent essentially goofing off while there's important shit to be done. The only 2 moments of this entire ordeal that meant anything to me was Erenville and his mum, and Krile and her parents. Otherwise, it felt like we were padding the run time. #4 Did we really need another, potentially world ending threat so soon? All in all, I think they should of just focused the story on the explorative nature of this area. While the story wasn't trash it felt like they just shot gun blasted a whole load of crap onto a story board.

[@Alastor999]

Point #1, yes! I had liked Wuk Lamat for a bit, but she overstayed her welcome by the time of the second half. In the final trial when she suddenly broke through, the writers probably intended that to be a “Yes!” moment, but I was so sick of her hogging the soot light in every scene that I just rolled my eyes and hit the mute button. Point #2, I honestly forgot that part of the reason we were in Tural was because of Krile until her moments came in and I was like “Oh yeah…” but I did enjoy what little bits of lore we got from it. Just wish there was more. Point #3, I did liked the closure it gave Erenville and Krile with their respective parents. Heck, I even liked the bit with Wuk Lamat and her nursemaid/surrogate mom. It’s the part with Otis that seems rather pointless to me. I feel like for that to fit with the theme of characters getting closure with their dearly departed parents/caretakers like with the other three, Gulool Ja should have been there with Otis to give him one last piece of advice

[@Boxkar24]

@@Alastor999 On the 3rd point, you've got a point. I guess it's my old military brain that just was more focused on the big bad. But I've still gotta say just annoyed at that part I was (and truthfully still am).

[@PrincessofKeys]

​@@Alastor999 A lot of people do not like Wuk Lamat and her hogging the screentime. Personally I didn't hate her afterall is said and done in the game, but I see what people are saying she does have a lot of screen time and not too much given to the others or even ourselves. The part 3rd point I did love the last zone personally it made me sad as others felt it as well. The stories with Erenville and Krile was nice in that part at leasts he got to meet her parents and Eren was accepting the truth with his mother. I would've liked to have known at least Erenville and his mother even more but that was short lived...just not enough Erenville especially on the second half as we were going to go see his hometown afterall. In the end I don't really think about a lot of things until someone points it out and I can see what they mean.

[@pandoraMVS]

Dude, I thought this was going to be a Krile expansion…………😢 Was looking forward to it. Instead they made me suffer with a cringe lord Hokage wannabe ( main issue of which was the writing of the character, the VA acting only added to an already existing issue) 😢😢😢😢

[@kazahana9679]

Erenville is probably going to get Beastmaster job. They already revealed it as the next Limited Job and It makes perfect sense for his character.

[@25xxfrostxx]

It would be interesting to see him in a duty support role as a beastmaster and have that be as close to the MSQ as a limited job can get.

[@sylverkat9488]

I was going to post this too - good call

[@bandi138138]

You can really feel Ishikawa's absence in this one

[@Direwolf13PS3]

I didn't realize she wasn't writing this one, but yeah that may be the ingredient missing here.

[@CombativeMedic]

I hadn't thought about this until after finishing the MSQ...but I shared previously that I felt Wuk Lamat smothered me and the trip we took with Erenville was a nice break, and it was at first...until I realized that even that trip was taken over by Wuk Lamat's presence as well. We originally set off with Erenville to visit his hometown and meet his mother, but instead we got sidetracked into getting back a stolen gift that was from Wuk Lamat. Even when she's not there, her presence is forced into the story. She's left me so fatigued that if she's at all in the patches, I'm skipping. I'll do other content.

[@MegaAndyGG]

Your nightmares be like: "Talk to Wuk Lamat" 😅😂 "Walk with Wuk Lamat" 😂😂🤣🤣

[@CombativeMedic]

​​​​@@MegaAndyGG Your comment reminded me of a shared post; feels fitting, so enjoy: “You're walking in Tural. There's no-one around, and your linkpearl is dead. Out of the corner of the eye, you spot her. Wuk Lumat. She's following you, about 30 feet back. She gets down on all fours and breaks into a sprint. She's gaining on you! Wuk Lumat! You're looking for the Scions, but you're all turned around. She's almost upon you now, and you can hear peace from her lips. MY GODS, there's peace everywhere!” Hope you enjoyed. Now, pray, return to speak with Wuk Lamat. 😅 (*KZbin deleted my original post, idk why, so hopefully this sticks.)

[@PrincessofKeys]

Honestly never thought about a lot of things in the story, but you are right even in the other half of the story when everything was done were going to take a trip with Erenville and it all turned to Wuk Lamat! I just wanted to spend time with him and get to know his hometown! But honestly the ending was quite interesting though it reminds me of Endwalker and how that turned out but was the opposite in regards for the people living.

[@SGTLou96]

The worst disney allegation is the song blast for building the train up. I actually skipped that shit cuz i cringed so hard 😂😂 and i NEVER skip first runthroughs of story.

[@melaniebiberger2191]

That was so bad

[@shinkicker404]

I fully expected Eren to pull out a pair of Viper blades multiple times. It felt almost telegraphed from the moon. And yeah the ck blocking of the City of Gold was mildly infuriating.

[@kokiburiwallas1261]

Calling it : he will be beast master. No other job makes more sense than this given his skills set.

[@shinkicker404]

@@kokiburiwallas1261I had forgotten about BM coming, so yeah probably. Only issue is it can’t help In regular content, technically. Unless his version is special.

[@z0h33y]

@@shinkicker404 Which is dumb, they can make BLU and BST fit, but they choose not to, so that it can be used as side content to entice people to extend their subscription.

[@AzureRoxe]

@@z0h33y Meanwhile FFXI had both as fully fleshed out classes.

[@numenume3079]

Wuk Lamat being a Blackhole Mary Sue really ruined the whole story. I feel like the story is supposed to appeal to the writer, because boy oh boy does it make everyone, including your MC, suck up and worship Wuk Lamat. The mentorship of Wuk Lamat from WoL isn't a thing, no matter how much people push that narrative. When compared to Three Houses, where you literally teach and mentor a group of kids, the story of WukTrail is just worship as she succeeds and get massive powerups because of friendship. The art team, not the writers, really carrying hard just like in WoW. Considering that YoshiP accepted this product to be sent out as is, really makes you wonder if he's slacking on the job. Game was a false advertisement; the trailer was used so you can play the writers sick perversion of worshiping Wuk Lamat. It's like the Rose situation from Tales of Zesteria all over again. We can hope it gets better, but I doubt we'll get anything good story wise until 8.0 with these writers.

[@MegaAndyGG]

Maybe, maybe Ishikawa will come back. We can only hope. I actually like the second half of the story. First half is just boring. And yes, too much Wuk Lamat. Simple as that.

[@Teramoix]

Wuk Lamat never grew on me. She just chaffed at me more and more as the story went on and hit the lowest point when she shows up at the end of the story to steal the only cool thing we got to do. Every time she was on screen, no matter what the situation or person, she spoke to, all she could compute was "i love Tural and peace." Anything beyond what was discarded. Even while the villains tell her to her face that there can be no peace and they will not change their ways. It was like a computing error happened and she would react like they said something else. She never evolved beyond childish naivety.

[@Anomander23]

Yes....yes...the WOL took a back seat but didn't have to. Ok, the WOL is supposed to be a mentor in this epidsode. Then, commit to that. Instead, the WOL is a third wheel. Nothing shows this more than the scene where Zoraal Ja kills Guulool Ja Ja. How does the WOL respond. Well, he stands around. Unless Zooral Ja has the beast soul of a first brood dragon in that regulator, we would have flattened him right there and made the entire second half of the expansion non-existent. That is lazy writing. Another thing. Electrope...all kinds of new technologies above our pay grade. Sure, you call in Graha...but, ummm, don't you also call in Cid? Hell, Nero would have needed a sedative. And, don't get me started on the disconnect between the devs, designers and writers. The WOL waved to a BLIND Viera.

[@user-nk5gb4ok5f]

100 agree haha nero wouldve been pitching a tent the entire time 😂

[@hawgacrux]

Nothing shows more the third wheel status than making the trip with Sphene and Wuk Lamat around Solution 9 and have those two flirting the entire time while we look like a zombie at the distance...

[@stevenalvarez2924]

If you want to know what expansion did small stakes excellently and we honestly didn't realize it? Heavensward. If you look at the over all main 3.0 story, nothing in there had any effect outside of Ishgard. Most characters in there were brand new and the Scions were side-lined for most of that expansion. Did anyone care if they were side-lined? No because the way they were sidelined made sense and the writers kept that for most of the expansion. I would say that Wuk Lamats VA was far too amatuerish to even come close to caring a whole expansion on her back. I have seen clips comparing every language/VA of Wuk Lamat and everyone but the english one performed so well. There was so much soul put into their scenes that the english one severely lacks. As I spoke to my brother about the English VA of Wuk Lamat, is to either fire them and hire someone new or she needs far more training as a VA than what they gave us in Dawntrail. We honestly feel the writing far worse in DT just because of how bad the English VA is. As far as I can tell there seems to be few complaints about DT from non-english speaking side of the isle. Maybe we should investigate into that.

[@loomingdeath1758]

Lol at the her part ,but being respectful is key...even if the va is an annoying twat. I agree with you in all compacity. I wish u would've point out how weird it was wuk lamat was bonding with erenville mother more than he was...that scene really bugged me.

[@stevenalvarez2924]

@loomingdeath1758 I would say what they failed to do was show the player all the times Erin spent with hos mother in Solution 9. We are there when Erin tells his mother he found the golden city. She runs after him to explain more. Any meaningful dialogue is done off-screen, so we have no idea what they could have spoken about. So for a fact it we know they spoke to each other. We just have no idea to what extent.

[@yucarin]

Even we have no issue with her Japanese va, Wuk Lamat still being hated in Japanese community.

[@stevenalvarez2924]

@@yucarin They really dropped the ball with Wuk Lamat.

[@shizachan8421]

I think Wuk Lamats Voice acting was fine for the most part, her VA did fall apart in situations where she had to raise her voice in particular though, for which I blame the voice director. The VA can do it and its the Voice directors job to ensure good takes. Honestly, speaks to me alot that people cry so much about Wuk Lamat when Sphene was the worst character in this entire direction. Makes it clear that gamer ascribe depth to a flat character as long as its an underaged looking Vtuber. She feels like a parody or an incompetent copy of the Ascians, her motivations are entirely selfish and monstrous, yet the game basically shoves how sowwy and well intentioned and kind she is into my throat, making me just dislike her and her entire people all the more. I felt good about erasing the endless, just because it ruins everything for Sphene. Wuk Lamats friendship and care for sphene felt force and I think devalued her character alot, as she tries to appease and constantly consoles some evil AI who wants to commit genocide on her people. I also hated it how she has the audacity to call Wuk Lamatyi and is allowed to do so, as it felt like devalueing the bond the Scions build with her to be allowed to use this familiar nickname for me, when Vtuber Hitler is allowed to just casually use it as well. Like imagine if Haurchefaunt would talk to some evil genocidal monster like he does to us, it would ruin his entire character.

[@Sithalos]

After seeing the entire MSQ, I have a few thoughts: 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 actually 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. 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. 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. But their performance gets 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.

[@JMulls]

Yeah I think Wuk Lamat as a character had/has a ton of potential just she's a victim of being the MC in the style of story Dawntrail was, so all of it's fault translate to her since she's the MC and face of it. I think Wuk Lamat has some good voiced parts but on the whole I think the direction just felt off in Dawntrail in a lot of scenes, like the song blaring when we were building the train felt equally out of place as some of the VO work this go around at least to me

[@maddoggk9]

bro said he was turning to a blasphemy in real time 😭😭😭

[@nighteyeswolf]

THANK YOU about otis....that WAS Steiner through and through lol. That honestly bugged me the most on the back half hahaha

[@Kumiko026]

Agree 100%. That was Steiner. I was mad his name wasn’t mentioned at all

[@TheMaxCloud]

Who is Steiner?

[@pklifeupa7064]

​@@TheMaxCloud à character in Final Fantasy 9, a royal Knight just like Otis, same mannerisms too.

[@chunga689]

i was so hyped why finally got to go away from wuk in part 2, only for her to come back halfway through

[@cobalt968]

The main issue with Tulliyolal as a whole is that there is barely any conflict or friction between its disparate peoples to explore and possibly remedy. ARR had the WoL and scions trying to reconcile three Eorzean city-states with a laundry list of both economic and social issues and an even longer history of conflict with each other. Only when faced with varying degrees of annihilation did they ever try to ally with each other or turn their gaze inward and try to change. It also took several expansions of us working with them to start enacting meaningful change to address some of these issues too. This had a nifty side effect of getting the player emotionally invested in the outcomes of these issues. Tulliyolal in contrast has barely any conflict. Only the Mamool Ja have a glimpse of the issues that we saw in Eorzea. While this makes it a nice place to live in, it feels less real than Eorzea did. It feels more like a vacation area than a place that players can get invested in.

[@Foodzorz]

I noticed too. It's very strange that they only really showed conflict in Mamook with the Mamool Jas. There must problems brewing in Tural if there are Pelupelu traders who wants to rally behind a war monger, if even reluctantly. What makes them want to expand their area of business at the expense of others' well being, if they all want peace and cause no harm? Perhaps I missed it or it's said in sidequests, but I think DT's MSQ lacked the more grounded conflicts that affects peoples' daily lives. Wuk Lamat ended up in Gulool Ja Ja's care after what most likely was an assassination attempt on her. If the Mamool Ja seclude themselves and attack others ( I didn't miss that both the Mamool Ja candidates are portrayed as villains), shouldn't there be more prejudice against them? I have a lot of questions but the game doesn't seem to ask them, or sometimes straight out say "don't think about it". Like you said, these conflicts make the world more believable, the slow burn of seeing them resolve themselves will be more satisfying than immediate solutions.

[@irishsage2459]

7:19 I seriously doubt players like being pushed to the side and take a back seat to this awful character. Who honestly could? It's extremely boring. I think it's more players are terrified to be honest about this story because of toxic positivity, and being ostracized for daring to have even the slightest negative reaction to the game. No one likes babysitting in a game. And that's exactly what we do in this story.

[@MegaAndyGG]

When i was a young boy i had never thought that one time we will live in the time with thing called "toxic postivity" 😅😂🤣🤣 It's so weird man. And not only FFXIV, many other things too. And the other side is haters. There is no middle ground anymore lol. So weird.

[@hypnotic13371337]

Dawntrail is the Battle For Azeroth of ff14 First half is the theme of the expac we were advertised "Vacation arc adventure/succession rite"(The faction conflict in BFA) and the 2nd half is "Not ascian" world ending event (Olds gods again that we were told wouldn't be a focus again)

[@GothaBillsAndDeath]

Hopefully it's not as bland and boring as BfA in the latter half. WoW could never really hire actual writers for their narratives because their community caters to raid progression and PvE/PvP. They did a recent poll that showed most if not all of their community basically just skips quest text. Look how well that turned out for them.

[@lunaticmode638]

@@GothaBillsAndDeath What you mean how well that turned out? WoW is the biggest MMO for a reason. Ultimately focusing purely on story and ignoring any and all gameplay will eventually fail as we can see with Dawntrail. The moment the community doesnt enjoy the story the whole game falls apart.

[@kokiburiwallas1261]

Just a note regarding Erenville : I thought he was way underused. I wanted to travel with him more. It was better than what poor Krile was given but not by much. I have hope though that with the mission his mother gave him, he becomes our Beast Master mentor. He says himself he has no combat skill, however he has already proven he was great at handling creatures. He has the knowledge, he has a great motivation to follow this path... Fingers crossed!

[@TheUnrealjester]

I disagree with your point about Shaaloani, I enjoyed our romp through dinosaur texas and it's little dirty cop story with Tin Tin The Kid. It wins on pure vibes alone

[@melaniebiberger2191]

next time a bit less power of friendship and wuk lamat, and we are golden

[@MegaAndyGG]

And maybe not so much peace either lol "I want peace, i want people to smile, be happy" Lmfao

[@melaniebiberger2191]

@@MegaAndyGG yeah that too, i considered that a part of the power of friendship issue

[@TheKirby8u]

I think the dev intent really was to commit to the idea of the whole WoL mentor thing and make the city state head more important to the story than usual but yeah they went a bit far with Wuk Lamat being the only driving force for a lot of this when she didn't have to be. A lot of people seem to be blaming the voice director for a few of Wuk Lamat's VA lines but tbh she has half the amount of voiced lines in the story they prolly didn't have time for many reshoots. Since its am experimental expansion I know the devs are gonna be looking at community feedback for this especially and I hope they can engage with the community in good faith about some of this; I really enjoyed the energy Wuk Lamat brought to the team for a lot of DT and I hope she doesn't get the Lyse sidelined treatment.

[@kiretan8599]

I think they should have not included any of the scions tbh. They brought nothing to the table. They did great job with estinien, thancred and urianger of being there but not really, I thought it was great job at sidelining them to make way for new characters. However, the twins brought nothing to the table but were always with us, especially alisae. maybe they should have been replaced with more interactions with koana, krile and erenville, bakool jaja. I agree with the zones, urqopacha was so good, i spent some time just flying around looking at the mountains, and also yaktel was amazing, if you ascend the trees, you can see the whole of the forest shrouded in fog. Also the cenotes that you can dive and see the underwater caverns was fantastic. I will never go cave diving so that is probably the closest i will get to at cave diving

[@ragnarok400]

Arr definitely had it's issues but at least in arr I actually felt like I had an adventurer. We met the sions, the different faction leaders, beast tribes, fought ascians, garlemald forces, and primals. Arr zones feel much larger too. I think it took me about 2 months to finish arr when it first came out. When dawntrail came out it took me a few days and my friend who is a story skipper, finished it in about 6 hours.

[@qamarqammar7629]

ARR was committed to world building and complex, gritty issues. For all its flaws, it was great fun and had big heart at its center. DT didn't and wasn't.

[@XXLPIakat]

One thing people tend to mess up. Protagonist drives the story forward (Minfila in ARR, Aymeric and Ysayle in HW, Lyse and Hien in StB, Exarch and Spoiler in ShB, the scions in EW) The main character, in video games, is the character the game engine is built around. Sure others are more important in the story, but the game still revolves around our character, crafting, fighting, gathering, questing is all based on our character. But when you take out the gameplay and anything that makes the game a game and remove us out of our player role, then it's a shit game and we could just watch a movie/cutscene, because why bother play when it's not even gameplay. And the last trial is the embodiment of that problem where even when I finally got the fight I wanted, it was taken away from me and the Protagonist and DM PC took away that moment. I was so mad, I skipped the last cutscenes and just wanted to be done with the MSQ and never touch it again. It's pretty much a DnD Horror story, where the DM is trying to have their DMPC be the hero of the adventure and sidelining the players. And the 4th Zone with Erenville and the last zone were the best parts, because I was able to connect with characters and not watch someone else connect with the characters.

[@ChannelRaznoff]

I hard disagree. The writing in ARR was not nearly as bad as it is here. I knew what was going to happen well before it happened and I stopped paying attention to the cutscenes about 2 hours in. I've been playing through the story with a friend since ARR launched. We normally mute our mics while cutscenes play. Not this time though. We spent the entire time after the 2 hour mark telling each other what we thought was going to happen next and the reasons behind it. We got about 90% of it right. It took us from the first day of early access till the day the raid released to get through the story and not because we were busy. We quit hours early each night because it was putting us to sleep. ARR never did that and we played through it originally with all of the bloat. My hatred of Naruto as a character also played a large part in not enjoying the story as his cat annoys me just as much as he does.... also, screw that ending. All of it. It was a bad rehash of Shadowbringers/Endwalker and having that stupid cat jump in to save us last min was a slap in the face. The dungeons/trials/raids are hard carrying this expansion. I think it's some of the best normal content we've had since around Heavensward.

[@qamarqammar7629]

ARR was great. I admit its dated but it also succeeded where DT didn't even try in giving us real worldbuilding, complex geopolitics, class conflict, economic hardship and in introducing the WoL to a huge cast of characters built up over time. What DT did was repudiate the games own past. I think that's why some people are so uneasy, beyond just disliking the story we were told. DT's story is that of the WoL from ARR through ShBringers compressed into one expac and retold through the eyes of Wuk Lamat -- a revisionist WoL who brings peace and love to all by making everyone smile, one who is almost sociopathically disconnected from any of the real people around them, and who exists merely as a goofy Savior. If this is the character they think we ought to have been all this time, then I think the legacy audience is going to be left behind however many Azem McGuffins and shards they throw our way.

[@Death2all546]

13:04 this… this stunned me for a full 20 seconds because of how hard that realization hit me.

[@MastatmastaT]

In my head I still can't separate the first two zones. Like. They are just the same zone in my head. Having a nonsense name doesn't help either.

[@yuina88]

Wuk single handedly made this expansion a 1/10

[@MegaAndyGG]

Talk to Wuk Lamat 10/10 Lol

[@melaniebiberger2191]

Kinda weird obsession that one character makes you overlook all the good things. Come on, she also bothers me but you are overreacting

[@Sithalos]

Agreed.

[@waterdog737]

World building patch, I do hope things can pick up in the future patches. Still this Direction was spotty at best for the story. Yeah it's nice to experiment, but experiment failed that lead to a borderline, an unappealing story. Wobbly ship that needed to be tighter. Wuk Lamat needed to be more relatable to the viewer, and the Warrior of light should have more agency in the story.

[@omensoffate]

Saying world building patch means nothing.

[@victorvalandybernard7944]

Thé Warriors of light need to take a break common what did u expect .. another world ending

[@Catryx39]

AAR 6/10, HW 7/10, SB 5/10, ShB 10/10, EW 8/10, DT 5/10. I think 3 tasks to prove WL is worthy to be Dawnservant instead of 5 would’ve been enough. I thought it was fun for a while but by the 4th task I was over it. Then they should’ve put her aside and leave her in the city where she could pop up once in a while as we kept going. Then they could’ve expanded way more on Krile and Erenville and the rest of the scions the rest of the story. I didn’t mind WL for a good while but then it kicked in that I was starting to get annoyed by her after she got what she wanted (winning the challenge). Not to mention the annoying voice she had in English… but I kept wondering when the story was going to finally get good. Finally by zone 4 it did. I actually really enjoyed the last couple of zones. All in all, story wise I didn’t hate it, didn’t love, hence 5/10 for me.

[@MegaAndyGG]

ARR = 7/10, HW 8.5/10, SB 8/10, ShB 9.5/10, EW 9.5/10, DT 8/10. Nothing is 10/10. Even all time best movies are not 10/10. That 10/10 Shadowbringers score is just nostalgia. Yes, it's the most unique expansion and possible the best too (EW is close), but it's not perfect. The whole trolley was boring and pacing was bad, 5.0 is good, but it's not perfect. I love 5.3 tho, but even that the first half is kinda boring. Ps. I really think that DT is better than 5/10 lol. Yes, it has cringe dialogue at times, yes, it has the worst pacing in the first half, etc. But it have some really cool ideas. And by far the best zones, dungeons, and trials. So i give it solid 8/10.

[@hawgacrux]

For me it would be: ARR 7/10, HW 8.5/10, SB 7/10, Shb 9/10, EW 8.5/10, DT 6/10 ARR gave me the best adventurer feeling with the reasons we go into the dungeons. HW is my favourite atmosphere with Ishgard and was the beginning of the WoL becoming a character SB had good and bad. Maybe I would give it a 6.5/10 but not less Shb was for me peak. New world with very different cultures, the Scions becoming useful for a change and we getting more story and meaning EW was a great finale but with questionable pacing like the Loporits or Labyrinthos DT has some good lore implications with the other shard and the key but Wuk Lamat pulls it way down and it has less cultural diversity then Shb and feels to happy for a large junk. Also I hated how we became just a cameraman. These are all just my opinions on the expansions themself, not the patch stories.

[@mismismism]

SPOILER WARNING, I personally didn't even think it really got much better in the second half. A lot of it doesn't really make sense or they show something happen that immediately contradicts the emotional scene they want to happen after. And it felt rushed. Like the first half felt like Dora the Explorer and filler that lasted way too long and the second half felt like they tried to rehash ShB but it felt too rushed and some story elements don't really stand up to scrutiny so it can suck the life out of emotional moments if you noticed an inconsistency. It took me out a few times. Like the Sphene thing for example. SPOILER WARNING AGAIN, They show us she's an Endless that can freely hop between robot bodies, she's not controlled by Zoraal, she can, and does, act in opposition to him, but then the story wants us to believe she has no authority and can't do anything but we see she is not controlled. So when people die in front of her, all I could think was "Just take over the robot so it can't kill them!", and Sir Otis, the authority is not strong enough to stop him from regaining free will, and on top of it, he sacrificed himself to protect the only character that is not in any danger. They just showed us Sphene can't die, she can jump from body to body, but she just sits there helplessly and lets him die protecting a body that she doesn't even need and just discards and few minutes later. The writing was just not at a level I expect from FF14, at bare minimum I'd expect the ensemble cast to actually be used instead of 1 character and I'd expect the plot points to not have these logical hiccups right on the surface. If you have to search for a reason to excuse what you're seeing, I think that's a sign of a poorly thought out storyline.

[@brandonsipes8028]

The best thing I can say about Dawntrail's story is that it didn't do any lasting damage to the FFXIV world. Like, the bad writing didn't set anything up that can't be recovered from. It is a shame though that you only get once chance to be introduced to a new area of the world, and this was it for Tural. Maybe the next expansion will have us go to the northern parts of Xak Tural since we get to meet some of the people from there in one of the Role quests

[@Direwolf13PS3]

All of the characters who needed more development or growth for were instead rushed. Krile and Erenville's stories were basically footnotes when they are supposed to be in the 'main' group. Erenville's own mother is never met until after she's already dead which seems like a serious mistep. What if we instead had a quest to go deliver something to Shaaloani but Erenville couldn't be there for whatever reason? We meet his mother without realizing who she is, and we also get to see Shaaloani before it is fused and effectively destroyed. That would've made the impact of both his mother's death and the destruction of Shaaloani more 'real' for the story. Instead we have to watch Erenville come to terms with his mother's death and then have him say goodbye to a simulacra of her. There was a lot of weight that could've been had with that moment, but for me it felt shallow. I can't help but feel knowing who she was before she died would've made finding out she was an Endless hit a lot harder for the WoL and explain Erenville's proclivity to say nothing but '...' for several cutscenes far more reasonable. Worse yet was the implementation of Krile's story. Every aspect is told third person or in an extremely rushed fashion, as if to simply go through the numbers and get it over with. Krile is given very little purpose other than to simply tag along for the majority of the campaign when she's supposed to be one of the main reasons were in Tural to begin with. The rest of the scions are simply background scenery with the exception of Estinien who actually has a reason to be here and is actively pursuing it. He is here to explore, and explore he does. The rest of the scions are just present. Lastly why were so many unimportant cutscenes voiced, but important ones were left completely unvoiced? There were a number situations where it would've been far more worthwhile to actually HEAR the characters speak. Instead we get voiced psuedo-side quest cutscenes. Also the quality of voice acting, in several points a character is meant to be speaking to a group or at a distance, but they speak as if they're sitting in a room with other people. It doesn't make any sense. Gulool Ja Ja's VA projected his voice in such scenes to make it clear he was making a speech, but Wuk Lamat's VA (at least in english) did not.

[@Gharon]

I feel the same way. The whole 10 year Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc is pretty much my favorite story in all of entertainment. Movies and books included. Not necessarily because it is the best written overall but because i had so much time to live and breathe this world and get to know it intimately in the decade since i started playing. No other form of media can replicate that experience. That's why it stands at the very top for me. I was never expecting Dawntrail to ever come close to the heights of Shadowbringers or Endwalker, how could it without years of build up in its favor. But i was still very disappointed overall for the same reasons you are. The story was by no means terrible but after two incredibly well written expansions i was hoping for something better. I'm still very excited to see where we go from here but i doubt that 7.0 will ever be among my favorites going forward.

[@steakdriven]

The Alexandrians sure were stupid. They stored all of their memory data in RAM!!!

[@25xxfrostxx]

There are a lot of problems with the writing overall and I could go on all day but one thing that stuck out to me is that the entire MSQ writing (and I know people tend to get a certain way when you point this out and this is just an observation) has a lot of signs of "western current day left leaning politics", or "woke" in a way. A story written by Japanese authors tends to have a certain "feel" and approach to topics and method of presentation of characters and situations that felt entirely missing here. One thing you will notice about "woke" story characters is that in most of this modern writing, male characters start at the bottom. They have to overcome the realization that they aren't good at much of anything and struggle to progress as the story goes on just to be barely good enough, usually only with the help of a secondary cast of characters that meet certain check box criteria who carry him. Female characters, on the other hand, start out with the only struggle being that they have to come to terms with the fact that they were always overpowered and they just need to overcome self doubt and they reach the mountaintop (the Captain Marvel movie format). This was essentially the way Wuk Lamat was written. She gwas rather good at, and succeeded handily at, every single thing she tried. Her only obstacle was not thinking she was good enough. You reach the top of the mountain and beat the giant's elector and "my brothers are good at stuff but what am I good at? She confronts Bakool Ja Ja and beats him handily once she gets the confidence and realizes that she's fighting for peace. You know, that same line she's been saying every 30 minutes for the last 12 hours of gameplay? There was no one she talked to that wasn't immediately compliant. There was no one with a difficulty that she didn't fix with a contrived course of action. So on and so forth. The entire game was written like a 11 - 14 year old Young Adult novel that flat out explains what is going on at every single step of the way as if the player would have no idea otherwise. The only thing missing was one of the characters looking directly into the camera while doing so. It insulted the audience's intelligence constantly. The overall story was fine and I didn't hate any of the characters themselves, just how they, and the progression, were written and presented. This was painfully bad and over all I'd give it a 5/10 and that's being generous with ARR being a 6. The pacing is another severe problem. The expansion starts with what amounts to a 3 hour cutscene with only about 20% being voiced and it's about 4 - 6 hours in before you even fight anything. I genuinely hope they seriously re-evaluate who puts pend to paper going forward.

[@Dragon359]

I think something that should've been highly considered, is saving Shadowbringers and Endwalker for the final two expansions for the life of the game. Like after Endsinger, that would be the end of the whole story. Might've been pretty difficult to adjust the story to fit like that, but still that's just my opinion.

[@sethharrison2284]

Quality of early msq aside, DT in every other aspect sets XIV up for a great future. The story can go many interesting places, the new jobs are very well recieved, the graphics update is an incredible leap forward, and the encounter designs are fresh. If DT delivers the amount of endgame content promised, it will likely be viewed as a massive step forward for FFXIVs next 10 years.

[@loomingdeath1758]

Maybe idk it might be targeted toward certain ppl now cause this msq was boring af so im not the target viewer if what u say is true ff14 going to be a slog for majority of us

[@MegaAndyGG]

I am MSQ player. Not content player. So if the story is not good anymore, i am not playing. In the future i might just watch some twitch streamer plays the game. I do that know too, but i have played the msq myself. Now, i'm thinking that maybe it's enough that i just watch when other players play the game. It's equally fun for me. But we will see. Also i'm not that young anymore lol.

[@qamarqammar7629]

The story could already have gone many interesting places the minute we finished with EW. It failed to do so. People gave the 6.X patches a pass in anticipation for DT, whose "mixed reception" is a kind way of saying it flopped. FF14 is loved for its story. If it continues in the present direction it will lose many of its legacy players. Perhaps that loss can be made up with whoever this expac was supposed to appeal to, but I think there has been serious reputational damage and it won't be that simple.

[@qamarqammar7629]

@@MegaAndyGG I put aside Tale of Genji to devote over a week to playing through this MSQ, doing side quests, normal raid and and side content. I won't be doing that again unless they decide to make this worth my time. The older I get the more valuable my time is, not less.

[@godless1014]

It was about on par with Stormblood. Maybe a tiny notch better. The first half of the MSQ was boring. The 2nd half was actually interesting and pretty good. They made a lot of writing decisions that weren't at all what I hoped they would do.

[@patrikbatemanx]

agree but i had way more fun with this MSQ than normal stormblood MSQ (patches were sick tho) after reflecting on everything i enjoyed all of msq, in a way - because i was hyped, new graphics & i love the zones + this expansion has the best BGM in the game imo, that carried so fking hard but i was not "hyped" about the story while playing, that is clear now. when i look back, i only really care about krile, her parents & kaf key wa (erins mother) they really need to focus on character development. i dont care about all the scions tbh because they dont get any screentime or so fking little its ridiculous. you dont need a crazy insane complex story, especially when its a new saga but have meaningful relationships and characters

[@melaniebiberger2191]

Yeah its a slightly better SB overall.... the only part SB did better was that it didnt have as much power of friendship like DT has and Lyse despite being technically worse than Wuk Lamat, at least didnt smother you with her presence like Wuk did

[@PrincessofKeys]

​@@melaniebiberger2191I still don't understand the hate for Lyse, but I can understand why people don't like Wuk Lamat as you said her personality and her presence was everywhere smothering the screentime away from others.

[@nightstrider15]

My opinion about Dawntrail: it’s a palette cleanser. It’s your summer vacation arc before the next major expansion. The arcadion is literally an anime tournament arc. But in regards to the characters, you’re applying the standards of characters who had 5 games of build up and development to characters who had 1 game. You said it yourself, there were characters who you didn’t care for only to appreciate them more in future expansions. Give this game time to cook. Many stories take several expansions to fully build up. I agree with a lot of what you said but it’s important to put the correct lens on when analyzing this expansion.

[@JMulls]

Yeah I agree, cause they could EASILY make me really love these characters in the future if the story is told well enough, but I'd also argue that there have been characters introduced in an expansion that I grew to really love within that version such as Aymeric or even Stormblood Zenos (tho that last one is more polarizing and I get that). For me it's important to be able to point out the good and the bad because I want this game to be the best version of itself

[@nightstrider15]

@@JMulls that’s fair. They definitely have their work cut out for them. I don’t mean to imply that the game doesn’t have clear flaws in its story, it definitely had issues with pacing and voice direction. I am just extremely hopeful because I’ve seen them fumble stories in the past to redeem themselves in a major way later on. Hien was a character I bonded with immediately, compared to him Wuk Lamat still has some work to do. 🙏🏻

[@crashzone6600]

Heritage found reminds me of northern thanalan.

[@mitsudafanni7978]

I think Dawntrail was the worst expansion in terms of MSQ. The biggest problem is that the MSQ is one of the biggest driving factors this game has over other MMOs. This game's story is why it gets recommended time and time again. It's why I think it's the best FF in the series. So either two things happen from here: 1.) The patch quests are fantastic and lead into something amazing. DT will just be considered a slog to push through by new players, just like ARR and SB. 2.) The patch quests and future expansion(s) do not blow anything out of the water. This leads people telling new players that they're effectively done with the game after 6.0 and can safely quit without missing anything. I really hope for the first, and we probably won't know for certain until 8.0, but based on what we've seen (6.1-now), I don't think the story is worth experiencing after Endwalker.

[@PrayLuna]

If ppl want to take a back seat from being a main character they should just play wow lol

[@DanielRobbins-qf7ho]

I really didn't like how even Gulool Ja Ja said, "guide her and show her the way" in respect to Wuk Lamat. Instead...we just stood in the back and nodded once in a while, might chirp in here and there, but we didn't guide her in anyway. She was guiding us and it grated me. Like a highschool teacher thats sitting in the back letting the students do the teaching. I don't know why they forced her down our throats like that, "love the kitty girl!!" Give me a reason to love her! :/ I also feel like they had two different ideas for two different expansions and fusion danced em together. Ya got the right of succession which is cool coulda been a whole ordeal with big bad bro being final boss. Then you got the sudden super high tech reflection area which coulda been post game leading to the next expansion. But that's just my take. Feels kinda rushed to me.

[@Sassjor]

Good video, subscribed, probably the most fair review/impressions video I seen. I honestly feel like if Sphene has just a little bit more time to bake and got more personal with the WoL instead of wuk lamat, having her delete memories and then fight her would of invoked more emotions from us as players. Zoral ja as well, you were on to something about getting to play him in his failed trial, maybe give something to convey that he feels slighted or unwanted by his father, or that he views his adopted siblings as replacements for him, also maybe pair him and wuk lamat up for the cooking quest could of made something mundane a lot more tense.

[@tiawen1945]

I went from warrior of legend able to fend gods and defender of the weak to errand boy and spit shoe shinner expert for someone who was introduced 15 minutes ago and also shes way stronger than you , wich begs the question .... where the fuck were you when the world was ablaze . Could have used you to protect a few towns.

[@selay333]

With 16 being finished I wonder if they'll move those writers to work on the rest of the msq coming in the patches.

[@Mclucasrv]

I felt like even in the patch story last expansion had some of these symptoms like really we are just teaching a Emo girl how to feel again and in this manner? Its was not the worst but it felt they were writting for little kids sometimes.

[@gzuskreist1021]

The dude who did the voice acting for wuk lamat was horrible

[@omensoffate]

Dude 😂

[@loomingdeath1758]

I mean he not wrong.....

[@MegaAndyGG]

Bruh, lol

[@Sithalos]

Agreed. Only character in the entire franchise that made me want to set the game's language to JP. Who would have thought that a man trying to VA a female character would sound like shit? Certainly not me... 🙄

[@steakdriven]

We need way more Shaaloni.

[@steakdriven]

Weird aether stuff and matters involving shards? Indeed, Y"shtola should have been involved a lot more. Also, she needs to be somewhere in the world and interactable.

[@dimitriosd2083]

I think the most important line is: this is the foundation for a new 8-10 year story and if it s...this bad it s hard to see the rest from objective view.

[@Marinterre]

Well said. I also agree that Dawntrail and ARR are tied for the worst msq of the game. I would personally say that Dawntrail is the worst. ARR at least introduced characters I liked, and the patch content had a memorable end. In Dawntrail I didn't feel like an explorer or a mentor, just a moving set piece. We don't get enough time with characters who seem interesting, so their development is either ignored or rushed. And the finale felt rushed and borrowed themes from ShB and EW which I felt lessened the impact.

[@zeng58]

final fantasy 14 the magic of friendship XD

[@MagiaErebea028]

I hated living memory I like it better shut down

[@jynn698]

one of the biggest disappointments for me was lack of time with the scions....loved Kriles story and having her along...but Estinien and yshtola got criminally low amount of screen time....WHO PLAYS A GAME NOT TO BE THE MC!?!?!?!? i dont get that statement. first time i skipped custscenes for the MSQ...was just so boring . Deciding who will be king by making tacos....wtf lol

[@Titanxzero1]

I do not agree with Stormblood being bad story wise, ans Heavensward's storyline was great imo. But I agree. I feel like Wuk Lamat and others wouldn't have been nearly as bad, if the writing more up to snuff. Also the lack of scenes that should've had voice acting was weird as fuck. Did anyone else notice that?

[@PrincessofKeys]

It was funny I thought some of them were going to be voiced as well because it looked like it was but it wasn't. As someone who also didn't hate stormblood or even heavensward don't really see how people do, and if I had to say people would probably put DT underneath one of them storywise.

[@izumolee6714]

It was fine for an introductory expansion. It doesn't have the highs as say Heavensward or Shadowbringers. I'd say it was more similar to a Stormblood expansion, i did felt there were too many lulls in the story & too much talking and continuity issues in terms of pacing & story telling. However once the reveal happens it does pick up and ended up being quite enjoyable especially in the gameplay aspect. The dungeons were a huge step above previous dungeons, some were even challenging in terms of mechanics. The trials were awesome and a lot of fun to do. The raids will be very interesting to see what the dev team cooked up. Looking forward to how the expansion moves forward with each subsequent content patch, hopefully it follows the Stormblood route where each patch improved the overall expansion experience as a whole.

[@powergi3996]

Dawntrail was 85% boring, except the small part about Alexandria. Even the last zone was a big disappointment (for me). But I heard people enjoying it so maybe I'm no longer the target audience for the MSQ. At the end of the say it's just the MSQ and doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of the game.

[@CrazyOtaku11]

Real question how many expansions until we become MC again? I regret sitting through Dawntrail I’m skipping everything from now on.

[@patrikbatemanx]

very on point

[@joshuacheong5678]

Pacing has never been the strength for FFXIV. Each expansion had pacing issues even for Shb. The other expansions does not receive much criticism because the highs of those games overshadow the negatives, kinda like FF16. Expecting good pacing from an MMO is ridiculous since the MMO's philosophy is to give players more things to do and waste time. Lol.

[@MegaAndyGG]

Also Nostalgia. Nostalgia is like farts to people. They love to sniff it lol.

[@TheHugos94]

Tbh I would have preferred the dawnservant trial would have been expanded through the whole msq, they had expanded upon the native stuff on the north continent and gave us more time with Zoraal ja, than what we got with Sphene and solution 9 etc

[@zarathos888]

If anything I think the sphene section would make more sense as post msq story admitadely would be difficult to fit but more infuses on tullyoal was kinda needed. Koanna disapperaing wouldn't have been so bad if he had a full msq to develop though what we got was pretty good. Have zoral ja plan a coup with yok huy conqurers and those that worship him as some messianic chose one. There a lot that got sidelined pretty hard so they could develop out sphene section of the story. Even though its the most intersting I would have prefered if we had wuk deal with a civil war as it would force her to reconcile her naievity with a rulers resolve. Zorall ja could be expanded on because there is some really good motivation revealed during his trial post defeat. Being a inadequate son that never lived up to his father expectiations all that weight and pressure driving him to prove himself hence his desire to go to war. The downside is we would have to wait or sacrifice some of the amazing tials and dungeons we got. Which would be a big loss on the gameplay side. Who knows maybe the post msq will help flesh out the characters more but as it stands dawntrails is still mile ahead of stormblood and ARR (that goes without saying).

[@steakdriven]

14:10 Denis Leary reference?

[@matrixcom69]

Guess the people who disliked the other critical videos gave up. I'm seriously considering skipping most of the story except key moments. What a shame because I played the game until now for the story.

[@Elyakel]

You can strat reading when you've arrived at the lizard's town and skip the far west after that ( watch the big cinematic on the far west tho) The other part are still worth following

[@Zaber177]

Well we can't all have world-breaking stories, but I feel they are using this to construct a new narrative for future content. So I think we should be patient here. I don't intend to quit the game over a bad expansion, are you?

[@PrincessofKeys]

Some people are I'm sure which is stupid should see where they take this from here on out. Of course feedback is most welcomed to the team working on the expansion so seeing what people are saying collectively should help improve things.

[@gravematter824]

Yeah the news on this new expansion definitely ain't enough to make me want to log back in. More of the same.

[@Tsugandate]

Whenever I listen to her voice in the english dub, I feel like I get the hate she gets from part of the community, due to the poor voice direction and whatnot... but having only played in JP and having her energetic girl voice really showing her immaturity at the beginning, and how she ended up actually becoming a great leader figure and also being a bit more softspoken in the 2nd half (while still being passionate when necessary), really made me appreciate the development she went through, from preaching about peace without any foundation, to actually caring and fighting for her people without being rash at every opportunity. It really made me feel like "this is what they actually meant to do with Lyse back in Stormblood", and I really enjoyed her company despite the blatant overexposure. That's not to say MSQ was well paced or well written of course, I agree with every other complaint about the plot, and for how much the scions are around, they really are inconsequential to the story and are just there because "we need WoL to have enough NPCs to run dungeons with". I was particularly annoyed when we spent the entirety of Shaaloani without seeing Estinien again, when the few moments he got in MSQ made him seem so fun to hang around with. I personally don't mind WoL taking a back seat in the story though, as much as I enjoy mine, but Dawntrail pushed it a bit too far and made them a bit of a non entity for other characters to be surprised when they realize that "this is the dude that saved the star" or something. Lastly, regarding Sphene, I don't think she was anything too special as a villain, but despite her being what she was, it was still cool to have a final boss villain who was actually someone we got to spend time with on friendly terms. Of course she can't be compared to a character like Emet who was much more nuanced, but the final battle against her was somehow more memorable to me than fighting Hades (post fight scenes nonwithstanding). Part of it might be due to the song sounding gentle and hopeful, in contrast to all the other final trial themes we've had thus far.

[@vanzta]

I agree that having voice on JP helps so much with Wuk Lamat

[@omensoffate]

This was the easiest skip msq I’ve ever done

[@EhhmmmNo]

thought it was bad and am kinda considering leaving my 6000hr account over the jarring sci-fi.

[@GothaBillsAndDeath]

So you're saying it's the Mists of Pandaria of FF14? Both are hard resets to the lore after an expansion that concluded the overarching story of other expansions prior. Both were lambasted for annoying, immersion-breaking features: Wuk Lamat acts as the collective hatred for the Pandarans and their introduction back then as critiques type-casted them as being too foreign, generic, and boring. Both Wuk and Pandarans were sort of scape-goats for the prevalent issues that actually made them less enjoyable, which was the early to mid storytelling in a foreign land that excluded, for the most part, integral characters. Only with Mists, the latter half is fondly remembered for its inclusion of two recognizable characters in the form of Thrall and Garrosh, and the culmination of their feud. Both had great raids with WoW having just recently launched Mists of Pandaria Remix due to high demand. Hopefully, like Mists, DT will be looked over fondly after we see everything the expansion has to offer in the coming years. Especially if later down the line they add in more story-heavy components that involve the world at large.

[@AzureRoxe]

Difference is that Wuk IS one of the biggest issues, she's not a scapegoat, she's one of the core causes of the problem.

[@user-nk5gb4ok5f]

Which is funny because I was on WoW last month and people were mentioning MoP as one of the best expansions. Or rather the end patches of MoP and the timeless isles when they introduced glyphs. But I can see the comparison here.

[@Eisenight]

I would say that the foundation is solid, the world building and the hook is there. Though they fumble really hard on how the character focus is distributed: We have four character in focus. Wuk Lamat, Krile, Erenville and Sphene. Wuk got the most unnecessary spotlight. Sphene was shoehorned way too late like Meteion but worse. Krile and Erenville? Barely. At this point they _must_ fix those else it won't be remembered as 'Hey the build up was great'.

[@AzureRoxe]

You mean Wuktrail.

[@v77z]

This is the expansion that, for me at least, felt like a middle finger to the point I voted with my walled by removing my subscription. Will wait for some patches to pile up and try before next expac. I hope more people do something similar and this never happens again. They should feel it.

[@PrincessofKeys]

I honestly find it a bit rediculous you would do that for one msq story while there is other things to do in the game still. I was more excited I have to admit for the extra stuff in it like the side quest, new jobs, the graphics and so on. But suppose we all have our own opinions

[@gzuskreist1021]

Ibmiss when storylines took a backseat in mmos and the players made the stories. IE: FFXI, vanilla wow, EQ, etc.

[@georjoporjo3323]

its okay guys his mind is blocking out the trauma of stormblood so it doesnt feel as bad as it was

[@evanwetmore]

i dunno about dawntrail being worse than stormblood but to each their own. i feel like yur giving hien and lyse too much credit. also i dont agree with having shadowbringers level of writing every expansion but i think the writing should have been more like heavensward. and ishikawa is no longer the main writer so take tht into consideration

[@JMulls]

I personally really enjoyed Stormblood but it had it's own fair share of issues

[@souetrejeremy]

She did overseer the pool of writers, though. The cutscenes in the final zone got me so good i can't imagine she didn't at least give a clear direction.

[@XPhobic76]

Way worse than stormblood. I could elaborate and write an essay. But I never wanted to quit stormblood and I took days breaks from how bad dawntrail was.

[@omensoffate]

Stormblood had zenos make it automatically better

[@AzureRoxe]

Hien and Lyse are miles ahead of Naruto.....i mean Wuk Lamat.

[@fayte0618]

Wuk Lamat is characterized as bravado, sheltered, and naive so of course she talks like that. All the characters here talk like how you expect their personalities would. Its just most people don’t vibe with that type of character despite having growth. I think people are spoiled with darker characters with twists in past expansions I do also get the 1st half being divisive because they went with the subversive tournament arc which is more intimate than competitive. Contextually, it makes sense with the characters and story they went for. The lack of instances also threw people off since EW had a lot of those and it made the 1st half more unbearable since both aren’t within their expectations and in most people’s taste.

[@Crobinso2508]

Hard disagree. It gets really good about 1/3 in.

[@loomingdeath1758]

Describe goid in your vision and then compare that to rest of ppl views. Also describe what part gets good.

[@dannywild8838]

In my opinion, this should be called "My final impression with 7.0" not Dawntrail. I think its far too early, like its just been weeks since release and we didn't see the far many things which will come in the future. Those are the actual things we have to keep an eye on to give thoughts about dawntrail, but as ut is just 7.0 with just a MSQ and barely anything to do now, its hard to critizes whole Dawntrail.

[@julicen]

Poor mindset and weak stance, an mmo especially FFXIV sells when its content engaging and interesting, this isn't reality, this is entertainment, and it sure as hell does a poor job being entertaining. If you enjoyed yourself good for you, many including me, did not.

[@dannywild8838]

@julicen but it has been only weeks since release. Remember Endwalkers first 4 weeks before pandemonium and anything else months later. What did it offer to do for us. Literally the same amount as now: Dungeons, (EX) Trials, Hunts, FATE's and Crafter and Gatherer. This is the typical routine as previous. And if this does not entertain you then I might think that Endwalker wasn't your expansion too. What we will get in Dawntrail honestly hypes me up (content like Eureka and Bozhja, upgrade to Island Sanctuary but in Space, more critereon dungeons and more), also the instances for now are also much better than Endwalker imo.

[@dannywild8838]

@julicen I am 1000% sure, the verdict will drastically change between 6 months and 1 year. Wether in the better or worse direction. I won't deny it, that they can fuck up the upcoming content, but as far as I like the current content more cause of creativity and difficulty compared to Endwalker, which was a casual fanfest, then I am sure, it will go in the better direction

[@Ratix24]

I want housing on the 1st