Unenthused About Dawntrail

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

I'm going into this xpac blind after taking a pretty decent hiatus from the game, but honestly looking at the job changes I can't say I expect anything beyond the same-old same-old formula with no innovation and a few new toys for every job to play with.

I'm gonna say there's an 80% chance the story knocks it out of the park, but I doubt there'll be anything interesting to do after getting through the MSQ.

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I really lost that gamble, huh? Well I can't be too mad since hopefully that bit of bad luck turns into good luck in my gacha pulls

It's kind of sad that they failed in the one thing that the game does consistently well, mind you the bar for passing for me is about 50% good, but they somehow managed to hit the 35% mark and undercut my already low standards

So for my own personal opinions.

MSQ: Not good, at all. Way too much hinges on you liking Wuk Lamat. Final zone it felt like I had to drag myself through it with frequent pauses simply because the story just didn't hold my attention at that point. But at least there weren't any baby to chase this time.

Jobs: Played as a WAR and it felt just like playing EW WAR. Just this time I get one oGCD and one GCD extra every time I hit Inner Release.

Encounters: To me this was the only real stand out for the initial launch. The encounters were fun and with a lot more going on than in EW. And the raid is fun.

After completing the MSQ I didn't feel much drive to keep playing, level other jobs. Normally in other expansions I would at least work on getting the tome gear. But this time I didn't do much after the final CS. Part is that Zenless ZZ released shortly after and is fun, but also an indifference towards the MSQ that bled into other parts of the game for me.

Cataclysm is what dawntrail feels like.

I had zero expectations for Dawntrail, I didn't care about Tural at all and wanted to explore Ilsabard instead while cleaning up the Garlean Empire's mess. They just kept mentioning locus amoenus and corvos, so I was expecting to go there and eventually Dalmasca.

But I was pleasantly surprised by Dawntrail's story, I actually enjoyed all the world building and the character writing around Wuk Lamat. Maybe it's because I enjoyed Stormblood. The only MSQ I didn't enjoy, was the 6.X series, because it was split between being an epilogue for Endwalker, and being a trial series with a completely new enemy.

Also, it seems like the FFXIV team has expanded their team and can now deliver more content than before. SHB didn't have a deep dungeon because of Bozja, EW didn't have a Bozja equivalent because of the new deep dungeon and island sanctuary, but Dawntrail is getting all of those so the future looks bright for me.

EDIT: Almost forgot but I do agree that the gameplay for the MSQ was lacking in terms of combat, comparing the solo duties of EW and DT, EW soloes were much more involved, while DT's solo duties were more trial-like and shorter. The MSQ also way overused the "talk to locals" trope of quest design, we literally did that in EVERY town.