Maybe the MSQ in Dawntrail is bad because..

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

There did seem to be huge boring stretches with way too much fluff mixed with too much focus on wuk lamat and certain characters that seemed to not provide much to the story.

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Yeah. Characters with nothing to do with anything got waaay too much focus. Not to mention like... the Pelu Pelu trading game was just one long string of conversations. Not even like an active quest where you go find stuff to trade to start the chain, it's just... endless conversation.

Same with so much in the game. There was too much padding. It's why I think people are loving tbe Raid in comparison. The writer there's cut out everything not directly relevant.

Dawntrail isn't bad because of the world-building of its Americas-inspired setting; a lot of that stuff is actually pretty good. It's bad because of the flat character writing, the half-baked villains, and the plentiful plot holes in the narrative. None of that seems like it has anything to do with someone's view on the Americas.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

Dawntrail isn't bad because of the world-building of its Americas-inspired setting; a lot of that stuff is actually pretty good. It's bad because of the flat character writing, the half-baked villains, and the plentiful plot holes in the narrative. None of that seems like it has anything to do with someone's view on the Americas.

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Yeah, that's what is so weird. Whoever was writing the lore and sidequests did a pretty solid job overall. Like, I haven't seen anything earthshattering, but I didn't expect there to be. It's just the MSQ was so... itself.

Hail the Cornservant.

I am not far in, but I noticed Graha didn't come on the boat..... that contributed to sadness on my part.

- poor execution of otherwise good topics/plots
- MSQ should build engagement, emotions, and hype - aside from 3 events (Estinien intro, king-pwning, and then big flying things with many wings; maybe some of the ending) it fails to do, build upon what is there.
- rushing a few last zones and plot while stalling initial ones
- regressive game design "preparing" the game for the next 10 years without testing any new content type, any change to existing content type, and no innovations.
- way too little voice narration, or voiceover for a 2024 release?

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Originally Posted by ConantSivrha

Personally, I dislike Dawntrail’s MSQ for various reasons that aren’t related to the setting:
- It doubled-down on previous expansions’ poor balance between cutscenes/dialogue and gameplay (too many cutscenes, too much dialogue, not enough gameplay)
- Cutscenes were drawn out unnecessarily by characters silently walking on or off screen, or pausing dialogue for too long as the character performs an emote animation or changes their facial expression
- Dialogue is often repetitive, with the same concept getting reiterated a silly number of times, often in quick succession
- Yet more WoL “dialogue options” that are just the same opinion phrased in two slightly different ways
- The earlier parts of the story don’t feel exciting, and the later parts of the story feel like a bungled overcorrection, with a multi-world-ending threat whipped out near the very end without the buildup something of that nature deserves
- Everything surrounding the Endless feels like it was contrived for the sake of telling a story that just isn’t built to play nice with existing lore; for example, what is “life force” and why has it never been different from other types of aether that compose living beings before this point? I’m concerned about the effect this writing style could have on XIV’s world in the long run
…and so on.

The setting is one of Dawntrail’s strong points, in my opinion. I’d rather not give Square the idea that Dawntrail was disliked just because of the setting. I’d like to see more of Tural at some point in the future, preferably something beyond just the tropical and desert areas—I was hoping we’d get to explore the area the tank role quest NPCs come from, for example.

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This is pretty much it. The game isn't a game, it's a low-budget-Disney-imitation movie that got dragged out like the rest of any xiv story. the unskippable scenes due to them having "choices" is just a cheap tactic to waste our sub time, as if we will somehow subscribe longer to bad content and low effort.

If the story is not good, it doesn't matter what culture it represents. It's not good.