Are y'all expecting too much from Dawntrail's story?

I'm still enjoying the slightly slow-paced, light-hearted, and joyous settings that DT brings. The blind run of the first 91 dungeon gave me some surprises.

Wut Lamat is cool, I want to glam her warrior armor.

I've noticed some forum changes over the years, especially after the influx of players from other MMOs. Many are very opinionated and want this game to be tailored to their play style or graphics preferences. I respect the hard work and effort game developers put into creating a good game, although sometimes it's not perfect. The best way to voice your opinions is to unsubscribe.

People are saying it's the new ARR and I honestly think it is worse by a long long mile. ARR might have been slow but you were learning about the mechanics of the world, how primals were summoned and the faiths of all these different tribes, city states, wars and figuring out who hated who and slowly uncovering a grander plot of very dark designs.

The first 15 hours of Dawntrail, I learned that capturing alpacas is a very important skill for running a kingdom apparently, Tacos will solve all of Garlemald's problems, and the birds don't know how magic works.

Tural is like if Eorzea had all the grit and soul sucked out of it and it was replaced with Latin American stereotypes and shonen trope humour.

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Originally Posted by FudoMyoo

The best way to voice your opinions is to unsubscribe.

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Unless you enjoy other aspects of the game besides the thing you're complaining about... I've seen some people say "just unsub if you're unhappy" in response to complaints about the story, as if The Wuk Lamont Show is the only thing FFXIV has to offer.

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Originally Posted by Garolymar

Tural is like if Eorzea had all the grit and soul sucked out of it and it was replaced with Latin American stereotypes and shonen trope humour.

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So true! And this idea that people are upset because this expansion is about world building and experiencing new cultures... We do that in EVERY expansion, only it's usually done in a much more organic and interesting way with MUCH more interesting plot beats going on at the same time.

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Originally Posted by missTori

I haven't even started it yet, been catching up on other stuff since I was gone since 6.1.
Now don't get me wrong, i posted on the "endwalker story bad" thread for years on my other account before i decided to come back to the game on this account.

So, I was under the impression that most of us here on the forum were going into this expansion with no expectations after the Endwalker travesty. Why are there so many hate threads right now? Is it really that bad lmao

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It is that bad, yeah. I went in with only the expectation that it would have good writing, and what I got was tween-drama anime/Saturday morning cartoon-level writing. I wasn't expecting an epic Save the Universe™ story, but if I have to hear Wuk Lamat say she wants peace ONE MORE TIME, I swear I will make plans to be the bad guy if an expansion ever allows it.

Seriously. I do not need the same point reiterated in every freaking cutscene.

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Originally Posted by Garolymar

People are saying it's the new ARR and I honestly think it is worse by a long long mile. ARR might have been slow but you were learning about the mechanics of the world, how primals were summoned and the faiths of all these different tribes, city states, wars and figuring out who hated who and slowly uncovering a grander plot of very dark designs.

The first 15 hours of Dawntrail, I learned that capturing alpacas is a very important skill for running a kingdom apparently, Tacos will solve all of Garlemald's problems, and the birds don't know how magic works.

Tural is like if Eorzea had all the grit and soul sucked out of it and it was replaced with Latin American stereotypes and shonen trope humour.

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Oh my god, yes. This. I feel like I'm playing Final Fantasy: Anime Dora the Explorer.

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Originally Posted by missTori

I haven't even started it yet, been catching up on other stuff since I was gone since 6.1.
Now don't get me wrong, i posted on the "endwalker story bad" thread for years on my other account before i decided to come back to the game on this account.

So, I was under the impression that most of us here on the forum were going into this expansion with no expectations after the Endwalker travesty. Why are there so many hate threads right now? Is it really that bad lmao

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Yes, it's that bad, the entire expac was written by the same writer that did the 6.x travesty, the pacing is terrible the plot is basically lifted from past expacs bolted together, but without any of the context those plots had or backstory etc. You as the WoL folllow a woman child around that wants to be the hokage, that's not really a spoiler as it's basically quest 1. You then just get taken around I kid you not for at least 10 hours before you do anything, there's probably close to 20 cutscenes for every 2m of actual you playing the game and by playing. I mean there's not really any content inbetween these cutscenes either, just run to spot A do a cutscene, walk with this NPC to spot B do cutscene, and in the cutscenes, nothing happens. Nothing advancing the plot explaining why we are really bothering to do this, just standing there like a plum while other character do 10m dialogues about a whole lot of nothing. Zero player agency zero actual gameplay.

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Originally Posted by SirShady

Unless you enjoy other aspects of the game besides the thing you're complaining about... I've seen some people say "just unsub if you're unhappy" in response to complaints about the story, as if The Wuk Lamont Show is the only thing FFXIV has to offer.

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To be fair with how terrible the jobs feel it pretty much is all it has to offer and it falls down flat, I'm one of the many that have unsubbed, we will see how things look in the next month I don't think their figures will be good and I'm predicting an apology letter coming out. Even the JP fans are not happy.

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Originally Posted by FudoMyoo

I'm still enjoying the slightly slow-paced, light-hearted, and joyous settings that DT brings. The blind run of the first 91 dungeon gave me some surprises.

Wut Lamat is cool, I want to glam her warrior armor.

I've noticed some forum changes over the years, especially after the influx of players from other MMOs. Many are very opinionated and want this game to be tailored to their play style or graphics preferences. I respect the hard work and effort game developers put into creating a good game, although sometimes it's not perfect. The best way to voice your opinions is to unsubscribe.

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Nah mate most of us just want a game in our game, not just a walking sim with cutscenes where things happen around us while we stand there doing nothing. I've played since 1.0 quit then came back during ARR. I think you'll find that most of the people who think this expac is pure trash are not the newer players, it's quite the opposite, most of the people who think this is terrible are the OG fanbase that functionally saved both the game and SE as a whole back in the day.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

Yes, it's that bad, the entire expac was written by the same writer that did the 6.x travesty, the pacing is terrible the plot is basically lifted from past expacs bolted together, but without any of the context those plots had or backstory etc. You as the WoL folllow a woman child around that wants to be the hokage, that's not really a spoiler as it's basically quest 1. You then just get taken around I kid you not for at least 10 hours before you do anything, there's probably close to 20 cutscenes for every 2m of actual you playing the game and by playing. I mean there's not really any content inbetween these cutscenes either, just run to spot A do a cutscene, walk with this NPC to spot B do cutscene, and in the cutscenes, nothing happens. Nothing advancing the plot explaining why we are really bothering to do this, just standing there like a plum while other character do 10m dialogues about a whole lot of nothing. Zero player agency zero actual gameplay.

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Right? There are so many obvious, glaring inconsistencies, and nothing references our own past like it should. Our character and the Scions just sit around like lumps near the beginning when everyone is speculating about the Golden City, apparently not remembering that Emet-Selch told us to seek it/them out. No one thought to say, "Yes, an ancient, who would very much know, told us to search for it, and it's obvious he'd been there." Apparently we just want Erenville and Krile to look like idiots.

And speaking of Krile, she doesn't even get any story advancement more than a single line in every zone at least up to the 3rd--apparently she's not good for anything else? Why is she even there? Oh, just to show off Pictomancer, sure, but up until a particular zone, she might as well have disappeared. Even her off-quest dialogue is silly. If you click on her in Tuliyollal at one point, she's awed that people built the city into the side of a mountain. Like... were we not just in Radz at Han? Girl, have you seen it? Has she not been to Ishgard? Was Ala Mhigo just kidding?

There's also a point (MINOR SPOILERS) where we see a glyph before a Big Thing that talks about Ketenramm... and later people apparently forgot like we literally didn't just see it 3 minutes ago.

Anyway, those are just some of the minor things... that the writers in the past have done right. Here? It's like there was no quality control.

Did I expect too much? Hm, I don't know. Is it weird to have expectations for a game that I've played and loved for almost 10 years now, and that is praised to be THE story MMO on the market? And that I put a good amount of money in each month? Should I have really gone in with the mindset of "Ah, it's gonna be boring anyways?"
No, I don't think so...

Also, I don't know why people keep bringing up ARR in comparison. ARR was a great start to an awesome story, and I'm probably one of the very few people who played through ARRs story on multiple characters without skipping in the course of my entire playtime, so even before the story nerf came along. I love ARR, basically I'm one of the big ARR apologists, but granted much of it could also be a sense of nostalgia at that point. But it was still way better executed that Dawntrail until now.

The graphic update is a whole other beast that I have some issues with, many people have reported constant stutters even on highend PCs, and the benchmark score doesn't really translate well into the real game. Also character design is a bit wonky, with my male Viera I have no problems anymore but I get the people who are really disappointed that their characters don't look the same.

I will say, the dungeons are amazing and I love the music so far. I haven't dipped into ex yet (just finished MSQ yesterday) but I can't wait to. Not everything is bad, but to get through the story was exhausting at best. With this many people voicing their criticism openly, even the JP playerbase, I wonder if the devs will want to adress this in the future. But even if they don't I can only hope they learn from it.

My biggest problems are that the pacing in the beginning is really slow and the Scions are kind of just there and don't really do anything. They could have very well replaced the whole cast with new people or have them not present at all and absolutely nothing would have changed at all.

I don't think the plot wrecks the momentum as bad as SB's did when we completely halt our rebellion to go to the other side of the world to have fun Fantasy Japan times in Kugane before whatever the heck Ruby Tide was. I think so far it's a solid 6/7 out of 10. It'll maintain a 7 as long as it doesn't completely ruin its story by reviving half the dead cast at the very end like SB. The story is decent, but the way it tells it is a little cumbersome. The villains have much better motivations than ARR's Ascians who were just doing evil things for evil's sake or whatever Zenos' deal was.


I think a lot of the people here on the forums reviewing it are being extremely melodramatic. I've read A LOT of fiction and this is at least passable. There's way worse writing out there but this isn't the best FFXIV has put out there. I think at this point a lot of posters here have way too much exposure to social media and people are used to expressing their opinions in extremes and everyone who disagrees with them is the enemy and places where people have good opinions are "hugboxes". Internet brain rot is real.

All that said, outside of the forums and in my max-capacity FC of randomly collected people by an overzealous recruiter, I seem to have the most negative outlook to Dawntrail and my thoughts are that it's an OK run at best and aggressively mediocre at worst. I haven't seen anyone in-game say it's downright bad and there's a lot of people who seem easily pleased enough and absolutely love it.

I played through ARR 3x just fine and I've never skipped cutscenes before. Dawntrail through, I need a vacation after this MSQ.

The "gameplay" loop is so exhausting, the characters are flat, even the ones that were established before are just caricatures of themselves and can be replaced with cutout cardboards. The only ones that kind of act like themselves are Thancred and Urianger. Wuk Lamat is so one-dimensional and constantly repeating herself. I get it, you want peace - can we please move on.

I don't think there is anything particularly interesting or unique about the races, it's nothing we haven't seen before and the way we engage with them feels so uninspired.
Why not do an alpaca mini game, just something different from running from A to B to read another text box, watch another cutscene, where nothing happens.
Also why is there a cutscene for literally everything when the contents of that can be summed up in like one line in a plain text box.

The dungeons and trials are fun though. I loved how atmospheric the second dungeon was, the music was otherworldly.

Ngl, if I didn't have a static already for the upcoming savage raid, I'd unsub, but I don't want to let my friends down lol.