So is there anything good about Dawntrail at all?

The dungeons were great, mechanics are cool now, Viper is really fun hoping they don't mess it up. The gear looks pretty cool.

Pretty much everything except the msq was good. Job design is 50/50 depending on who you talk to. But the MSQ was such a large portion of this first part and it was honestly so bad that it makes sense people are upset.

Also I didn't skip a single cutscene. Though I really wish I had skipped a few just to have a break from Wuk lamat.

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Originally Posted by SirShady

This is just not true. If you've read a lot of the criticism on here most of it comes from MSQ fans who experienced the entire story and were severely letdown. We have people making entire college theses on why its terribly written. These narratives of "everyone who doesn't like it skipped it" and "people don't like it cause it's slow" completely misrepresent the criticism. Plenty us didn't skip and just think the narrative is written incredibly immaturely and without nuance. We came in expecting a slow character driven narrative and got Wuk Lamant fan fiction and dry tedious busywork.

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Considering that we got a highschool musical/disney song shoved in our faces every some-odd quests, the narrative being written immaturely isn't far off; or that Wuk Lamat is an adult that's portrayed and written like a teenager turned disney princess

Though I'm hoping with the patches, we can explore xak'tural a bit more. I want to see the Whalaqee tribe.

And I do really appreciate Picto's RGB rainbow flashy bar.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Reading the forums, there seems to be nothing good about DT at all.
Maybe it's my fault reading before even completing DT. But the negativity starts to affect me, and I'm losing motivation. I just landed in Tural, and I immediately feel like logging off, because I've been hearing all bad things about Wuk Lamat.

So is there anything good to look forward to from DT?

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I enjoyed it. Not as good as Endwalker or Shadowbringers. Lots of cool stuff in this update including the graphics upgrade.

I think the dungeons are the best they have made for boss fights and trash doing things. The trials were fun too. I thought the first half of the story was fun, second half was meh for me.

Worst MSQ in the history of FF14.

One of the better gameplay content though. I clear the EXs and they're only behind Suzano

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Reading the forums, there seems to be nothing good about DT at all.
Maybe it's my fault reading before even completing DT. But the negativity starts to affect me, and I'm losing motivation. I just landed in Tural, and I immediately feel like logging off, because I've been hearing all bad things about Wuk Lamat.

So is there anything good to look forward to from DT?

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Life hack: don't let other people decide for you what is good and what isn't.

If you want an unbiased view of the expansion for yourself, I'd strongly suggest not coming to the forums until after you beat the game.

If you're asking is there anything good in the expansion, that answer will vary since different parts of the game carry different weight to each player. I do not raid or do extremes, so that content means next to nothing to me no matter how good it is. I play for the MSQ, dungeons, regular trials and regular 24man raid - along with the fun extra content / gear that comes along with that. Half of what I enjoy about a full expansion pack isn't released yet, so therefore the MSQ and dungeons carry far more weight right now more than any other time in the expansion.

For me half of it is awful and genuinely upsetting to me a who notices a lot of the nuance / details the writers put into the story. I also really enjoy doing the dungeons and I love how I'm not falling asleep or feel a tinge of anxiety going into these new dungeons.

Last point, if you noticed, the majority of the negative posts are about either how people's characters look with the graphics update or solely the MSQ. If nether of those 2 things bother you, then don't worry about that criticism. Enjoy it the way you want and if you find you want to give feedback, come on back - positive or negative.

Viper and picto are great, solution 9 is stunning, I like all of the areas (especially 93-96 ones), dungeons and trials are fun, music is good (excluding that one Disney song), I like the updated environment graphics and armor details, plus some of the new glamours are really cool (like from the 97 dungeon).

Everything has been great about Dawntrail *except* the story. If you notice pretty much everyone is mostly complaining about just the story.

The zones are pretty, the music is solid, the fights are fun. It's just that the MSQ was really bad.

At level 95 MSQ you get a small taste of intrigue, at level 97-ish the story actually starts to get interesting. The dungeons are great, the trials are great, you just have to get through the first 3/4 which is a slog unfortunately.

I feel like the developers forgot people like to play a game not just read a game with this one. Lots of missed opportunities for gameplay (no spoilers but a certain scene on a moving thing comes to mind).

Every aspect of Dawntrail is great...except the story. My friend is a scene skipper and I've never been so envious of him in my life.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Reading the forums, there seems to be nothing good about DT at all.

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There is plenty good to be had, once you step away from overly dramatic forums.

One of the best Addon launches I have ever seen in any MMO. Virtually no queues or server issues.
GFX update looks great in most cases.
World looks lovely, good music for the most part.
Story is palatable enough, if you don't think too hard on it (pretty much the case of any movie/game story, really). Even though I admit that they should capitalize more on solo duties for key moments to break up the cutscenes a bit.

Endgame content: dunno, not really there yet.
Just did the story so far. Though I expect the usual formula/quality we've come to expect and that is okay in my book.

Just stay of the forums. It's full of negative nancies in here. We knew from the start when DT was announced that this was a chill XPack that leads into another 10 year arc, so i never expected anything on ShB levels of story. I still liked the bits i have played and first and formost READ so far.

Those basement dwellers in here seem to skip all the parts that requires them to read, so they can't even understand the story.

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Originally Posted by NailBach

Just stay of the forums. It's full of negative nancies in here. We knew from the start when DT was announced that this was a chill XPack that leads into another 10 year arc, so i never expected anything on ShB levels of story. I still liked the bits i have played and first and formost READ so far.

Those basement dwellers in here seem to skip all the parts that requires them to read, so they can't even understand the story.

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lmao, they said chill xpac but not bad writing xpac

The role quest NPCs are absolutely delightful and I would die for them.

I love I'toca and Loashkana so much... I'm gonna miss them. Worlds not small enough to get another Hero's Gauntlet cameo appearance with the role quest npcs I fear.

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Originally Posted by NailBach

Just stay of the forums. It's full of negative nancies in here. We knew from the start when DT was announced that this was a chill XPack that leads into another 10 year arc, so i never expected anything on ShB levels of story. I still liked the bits i have played and first and formost READ so far.

Those basement dwellers in here seem to skip all the parts that requires them to read, so they can't even understand the story.

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I mean, I did read them until I didn't.
It's not worth it, it really isn't. It's a mid tier story and, if you've read a handful of manga or novels, you can see how the story plays out hours before it happens.

The soundtrack is amazing, I dare say that it's the best they have done.

Ambient and artistic design of the first three zones is amazing. I actually enjoy how there's so much detail in all corners. Tuiolal is a great city to see and walk around.

Pictomancer job design is great, has a Lot of possibilities to play and diversify rotation. In a scenario where everything is being dumbed down to near idiocy like SMN, it's a breath of fresh air

Zone #4 the desert one is a plummet in quality, absolutely awful. We went from great meso-american inspirations to a shitty wild west inspired place, an immense letdown. I still have to see zones 5 and 6, no comments on this

Yes there was.

Dungeon boss design was amazing, same thing for the trials.

Shaaloani story was a nice breath of fresh air. Story at Mamook was fun.

My first experience heading into Tuliyollal was at night, and it was raining. Seeing that after just coming out from the cutscene was amazing. The design of the world was amazing. Living Memory although it had a pretty bad story with cheap moments of trying to force people to care -- I still found this zone to be absolutely stunning.

If I am honest though, I will reserve complete judgement until engaging with all of the content, seeing as the post-expansion content is what will dominate most of my time engaging with the expansion.

I made the same mistake as you I came to the forums to see if people where enjoying the game aswell and I came away abit jaded with all the negativity which was my own mistake, happy people wont come to forums they'll actually play the game and share their stories with their friends only the people who are unhappy and wanting to share their negativity will do it ina place where it will get seen by others.

Personally im on area 5 and Im still enjoying the game MSQ has been fine, bit too much Wuk but I understand shes the focus of this story so the adult in me accepts this, The dungeons, music, side quests and classes have been great very much a 7.5/10 expansion for me.

I even found myself coming back and apologizing to people who where being critical here as I knew I was in them wrong for butting heads with them but even that got critized so I will not respond to anyone much anymore unless its engagement im interested in, I wish you the best OP.

Dungeons are fun, locations look good. It's the story and main character that are the drawbacks

The dungeons, trials, music and zones are all very good. I love the zones so much I've been fate farming this early in the expansion.
I think really the story and 90-100 abilities have been bad, the story being bad is unforgivable for most people but for me it's the 90-100. It's so disappointing that the capstone up to the triple digits wasn't anything massive or game changing it was just samey boring abilities nothing special at all.

The dungeons and trials are a massive step up from anything we've had post Shadowbringers (save Seat of Sacrifice which is still the best trial they've ever made imo). And Pictomancer is good, haven't tried Viper yet.

As someone who doesn't care about the story at all, Dawntrail looks promising so far for me. Except for Black Mage.

The new antialiasing options are good, IMHO. That is the best thing in DT.





Cheers

Yeah thought the story was fine, they just overdid it with Wuk Lamat screen time, she is an alright character, just far... too overused in the story. Honestly if they spent a more time with the others especially Krile and Erenville it wouldve been a fairly decent story overall. Im curious whats next for the patch though, ending at least opens up things to just about any possibility really.

I liked the first 4 zones, the 4th felt a bit empty/too samey in how it was designed- a more elaborate cave system would have done it some favours in terms of using vertical height, but after the cenote in the previous zone I can see why not. Zone 5 is pretty cool, but I’d like it more if the weather cleared up a bit.

I really liked the diving areas in the third zone, I’d like them to be a bit bigger/more connected but I also need to further explore them.

Zone 6 is probably my least favourite in both incarnations. The vibrancy of the colours is presumably meant to contrast more with the disabled version but bouncing between the extremes and leaving 1/8 of the dt zones so homogeneous seems a bit odd. The lala museum while active I think was my favourite part of it, however I broadly dislike skyscrapers and the hard artificial line aesthetic so it looking more natural helped it in my eyes. I think the HOH midfloors and 95 dungeon are also appealing for the same reason. I did like the “backstage” in canaltown, but this distinction was lost when everything was turned off.

Tuli has incredibly annoying aetheryte placement, but overall I liked the visual style and variety. S9 is not my preferred aesthetic and feels as though it was designed with mounts in mind. I do like the crafting/tome counter this go round - does the proximity here mean only one raid vendor? Hopefully the raids being so close keep it from becoming a ghost town. It would be nice to have an inn room here too, if only because we saw one for all of 2 minutes and it seems a lot of work for so little time.

My first impressions of the dungeons and trials are positive, but would like to wait for the dust to settle for final judgement. Not a fan of the first boss on spooky 100 dungeon, but I had similar problems with judging the hitboxes on samurai armour boss of rokkon’s minions. Lv100 trial I hope doesn’t get ilvl sync, hole in the wall phase was pretty cool but wuk barging in wasn’t.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Reading the forums, there seems to be nothing good about DT at all.
Maybe it's my fault reading before even completing DT. But the negativity starts to affect me, and I'm losing motivation. I just landed in Tural, and I immediately feel like logging off, because I've been hearing all bad things about Wuk Lamat.

So is there anything good to look forward to from DT?

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In all seriousness, my best recommendation is stay off the forums. This place is a cesspool of negativity and professional complainers who find joy hating everything they can about the game. They don't represent the typical player.

I made the same mistake with Destiny 2 that you did here. I was on their forums quite a bit in the run-up to the release of their latest expansion, and it absolutely destroyed my expectations (this forum actually looks like a paradise compared to D2's). Then I decided to just step away form that forum and, you know, play the game. Guess what? I loved it. I'm going between FFXIV and D2 right now and having a blast playing both.

And yes, there's a ton of good stuff about DT. Personally, I'm really enjoying the story, the music rocks as always, I like seeing Wuk Lumat's leadership maturation, and the first trial in particular was an amazing fight.

So yeah, my best advice is just leave this place behind and go play and enjoy the game. Don't let sad, bitter people get in your way.

PvE content (esp. new extremes) seems good.

If they hit the landing with raids and ultimates it will be Stormblood 2.0 indeed

The dungeons, trials, zones, and music have all been great. Honestly the only thing that's really let it down is the MSQ and I wouldn't say it was bad, just not great if you get me.

Well the content is pretty good, definitely much better than other expansions for the regular player. Though it is an improvement purely in execution it's still the very same old 'find the correct spot to stand at' content. That said, if you're someone that is heavily invested in the story and lore you're going to most likely have a bad time. Quest design and padding has not improved in the slightest and you will feel it with every quest. Unlike other times where the story moves forward with something interesting, this whole expansion has you feeling a 'this could have been an e-mail' vibe.

I play XIV mostly for social reasons, so I will continue to play it despite the fact my support is clearly having a negative effect in the quality of development.

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Originally Posted by Hycinthus

Reading the forums, there seems to be nothing good about DT at all.
Maybe it's my fault reading before even completing DT. But the negativity starts to affect me, and I'm losing motivation. I just landed in Tural, and I immediately feel like logging off, because I've been hearing all bad things about Wuk Lamat.

So is there anything good to look forward to from DT?

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Content wise, the Expansion is good. The dungeons and trials have all been of higher quality than we got in Endwalker. The EXs aren't jokes like Zodiark was. The story is just so dreadfully mediocre that it lets down the rest of the package.

I am mid-way through the MSQ and I am enjoying it. The hate seems really overblown. I don't know why folks expected another high stakes expansion right after EW. We probably won't even have a huge big bad until 8.0 or 9.0.

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

I am mid-way through the MSQ and I am enjoying it. The hate seems really overblown. I don't know why folks expected another high stakes expansion right after EW. We probably won't even have a huge big bad until 8.0 or 9.0.

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Same. I'm enjyoing it so far aside from one or other hiccup.

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

I am mid-way through the MSQ and I am enjoying it. The hate seems really overblown. I don't know why folks expected another high stakes expansion right after EW. We probably won't even have a huge big bad until 8.0 or 9.0.

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The whole story is hinged around if you like Wuk, if you hate her you will despise this story. Yoship made a gamble and it didn't pay off.

As for the whole battle content being good, XIV is not the tab targeting MMO you play for battle content, even XI does a better job with more fleshed out endgame and a infinently superior gearing system. WoW just mogs it to death with things like M+ and fated raids. Since gear gets completely replaced every tier in this game if you just want battle content just don't play the game till x.55 and then resub then so you can sync down stuff and gear easier.

It really depends on how many times you've ran the circuit. Games are about experiences and despite people constantly saying it's a journey, games are more like dancing. If the only thing that mattered in a game was the finale and the last few steps, then we'd have nothing but tons of games that were just finales. FFXIV is on the way out, though. The high point was Shadowbringers and afterwards the direction on the design has become increasingly narrow. It's probably a design by numbers problem: Someone starts designing a game fairly openly and gets criticism, then uses statistics to determine and validate what the critics want. The cycle repeats and slowly it narrows out all the diversity that once was into a refined system that supposedly "everyone wants", but in the end if it was easy to tell what everyone wants the world would be a vastly different place.

Boss mechanics
The new dungeon glamour is the best in a long time
Music is good except the cheesy ending song

I will say, the music has been great. Although I always enjoy the music of FFXIV. I'm not even playing the expansion, I just play other games while listening to FFXIV music lol.

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

I am mid-way through the MSQ and I am enjoying it. The hate seems really overblown. I don't know why folks expected another high stakes expansion right after EW. We probably won't even have a huge big bad until 8.0 or 9.0.

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People didn't want a high stakes story that's not why people are upset about the msq. They're upset because it's boring, isn't adventurous and basically has us as the preschooler carer for a incompetent boring and reckless woman kitten.

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Originally Posted by DynnDiablos

I am mid-way through the MSQ and I am enjoying it. The hate seems really overblown. I don't know why folks expected another high stakes expansion right after EW. We probably won't even have a huge big bad until 8.0 or 9.0.

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There's a middle ground between "Massive world ending threat" and "Playing babysitter for Wuk Lamat for 30 hours"

There is some stuff to like outside of the main story. The land of Tural (the new city and the first three zones) are nice. Some of the music is good. The sidequests are okay. Viper job is cool. Three more trials if you like doing the same instanced boss fight over and over. New job outfits. However, the lackluster main story highlights the flaw of later FF14 expansions, which is that they are thin on meaningful content to do, so the expansions now live or die based off of the writing. Contrast that with Stormblood where even if you disliked the story, that's okay because it was way shorter and there was a lot to do outside of it.