Looking to gauge public perception of Dawntrail's MSQ + My genuine perception of it
I'm going to preface this all by saying that I am someone who is naturally heavily biased towards FFXIV and CBS3. I've purchased all three Eorzea Encylopaedia's, I have over 16k hours of playtime on my main character, and I'm heavily obsessed with the game's lore, and especially it's writing.
I want to know how the general playerbase is feeling about Dawntrail, and what specifically they appreciate or dislike about it's MSQ.
This post is not at all looking to discuss the gameplay, as this is solely for the sake of gauging perception on the story itself.
Below are my notes that I wrote whilst playing through the MSQ, which I've just beaten as of a few minutes before writing this post. I do have many other thoughts, but I don't mean to make this post utterly massive.
- Writing team clearly did not know how to handle how overpowered the WoL has become throughout Shadowbringers-Endwalker, and instead of attempting to create a new and interesting way to overcome this challenge, they simply gave up and made the WoL watch the expansion unfold from the sidelines almost as a babysitter, only having them act after things conveniently go wrong just enough for the protagonists to require a "free win" tool in the form of the WoL - literally treating the WoL as the "weapon of light" that they were mocked for being by previous villains.
- Antagonists of Dawntrail are viciously one-dimensional. Their motives are explained to us as being outwardly evil and nefarious, but their reasons for acting out are ridiculously shallow. We've never had a villain in the franchise feel so "evil for the sake of evil because we need a bad guy" as we have in DT. Zenos, while controversial, is an entirely separate talking point, and was an extremely well executed character.
- As with the Zenos comparison, Dawntrail attempts to do a number of difficult feats that XIV has done in previous expansions, but does without any of the tact or depth that made them work previously.
- Character dialogue is articulated poorly, Scions and other recurring characters do not act as themselves. It felt as though characters were simply cardboard cutouts attempting to preach very basic morals and ideals at the player, rather than acting and talking as though a real human would, and allowing players to experience the tale alongside them.
- Dawntrail's MSQ was just so, so far below my hopes. I had low expectations because this is a new turn for the story, but the manner through which this has let me down was far beyond what I was expecting. It didn't just handle the overarching plot poorly - it struggled to even articulate itself adequately. And I'm saddened by that. I mean no ill will to whomever wrote DT, but I sincerely hope they do not ever work on MSQ again. This was just a stain on XIV's storied track record.
I will not be replying to any posts, but I would like to read as many as I am fortunate enough to receive.