JP Official Forums are also criticizing the Dawntrail MSQ.

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Originally Posted by ZodaSoda

Its just comes down to shes forced on us, They expect us to like her, which makes them bad writers. It hasnt even crossed their minds we wont like her and the irony on top of that being, they've made a lot of people who would have liked her or had no opinion also dislike her because of how much she wont go away.

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Wuk Lmao is shoehorned so forcefully into everything, I am not sure if the writers genuinely thought all players will like her or they are just trolling us at this point

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Originally Posted by Batthosai

Left in ARR,
Friend convinced me to give it a shot in EW,
Fell in love with MSQ,
Was hyped and looking forward to joining a my first FFXIV expansion launch and Dawntrail MSQ,
Got hit in the marble sack by whoever the hell wrote the story and got Wuk Lamat shoved down my throat the entire MSQ with monotone voice acting.
my thoughts: *Insert jokers ball drop off meme*

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Yeah this expansion makes me so damn grateful I came back from my ARR hiatus at the end of Shadowbringers. It really was the perfect time to start playing the game again and catch up to the MSQ right before Endwalker.

I'm disappointed as hell with Dawntrail, but it would be so much worse if this was my first "current" expansion experience. I'm sorry buddy. :(

Honestly, I didnt like endwalker because at some point the pacing felt off and they turned a weird plot into either a sad bird or gods wanting someone to off them.
A lot of it was just because i was sick and the queues were awful. I called it lukewarm

I took a break after 6.3 and would only come back because it felt like DT was interesting, (I called the 6.x patches the Zamasu arc in dragon ball super because of how similar it was to going to the 13th, beating things, getting attacked and running back to the source, and Zero constantly tipping her hat obsessively.)

I mean I did not decide to come back to play 14 till literally *a day before early access started*. And what i was met with.....less than lukewarm storytelling that made me feel like i was watching a badly written marvel or star wars show.

I didnt even come in with any expectations and even had thoughts that maybe it would be fine, and I still felt disappointed with DT. Like, I'm here for a good story and character stuffs and all Im getting is a ton of preaching of ''peace and happiness'' as if its some weird chant spoken by some cult.

Not even getting started on when there is real conversations about reflections and calamities and the character we are stuck with who apparently has more lines than any other character in other expansions combined is like Oh, huh really? well anyway who cares peace and happiness right?

so... who exactly was this story for? it feels like everywhere else i see is the same and only people on twitter are defending it, and even that is a relatively small number of people.

It is really simple. Player Agency is needed in a video game story. Yes in FF14 no matter what the story always plays out the same way, always has, always will. But in previous expansions you would have moments where your character was clearly central to what was happening. You did something that saved the day when others were failing or maybe you showed up to support a friend in need? Sometimes you fought the villain on your own and won. You got dialog options where every line was not a different flavor of the exact same statement. Your character mattered and was important to the story, even when they weren't the most important person in the room.

In Dawntrail you never show up to save anyone, you never provide critical aid to an ally in need, you are never given a dialog choice that has options all of them are literally the same statement just phrased slightly differently or at best "say nothing". Even when the stakes are just "take out the generic leader of these generic bandits" you aren't allowed to do it, some side character gets to do it while you stand there and watch. Wuk Lamat is the only character that matters for the whole story outside of the antagonists and Koana. She makes all the decisions, she fights all the battles that matter (some of them one on one while you are forced to again stand there and just watch), you are never allowed to disagree with her, and 9 out of 10 times she decides what everyone will do even in the beginning when she is clearly basically incompetent with no real skills or experience to back up what she is saying.

The reason this is the worst the FF14 story has ever been is because your character has no agency. If your character were removed from the plot nothing changes, the story plays out the exact same way. That was never true in FF14 until Dawntrail. You don't need to be "the main character" but you do need to matter. In Dawntrail you do not matter.

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Originally Posted by ZodaSoda

Its just comes down to shes forced on us, They expect us to like her, which makes them bad writers. It hasnt even crossed their minds we wont like her and the irony on top of that being, they've made a lot of people who would have liked her or had no opinion also dislike her because of how much she wont go away.

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I liked her at the beginning but honestly started to get annoyed with her around the time we get to Solution Nine.

Wuk Lamat feels like someone who you hit it off with when you first meet them, but then they just WON'T LEAVE YOU ALONE and it really sours the friendship as a result.

I like people with golden retriever energy, hell, a lot of my favorite anime characters have golden retriever energy, but just please leave me alone and stop breaking my immersion, I'm trying to play through MSQ as the Warrior of Light, not Wuk Lamat's Hired Muscle.

God, the best thing about finishing MSQ is that I won't have to see Wuk Lamat for at least a decent while, I hope she gets stuck being busy as Hokage Wizard Pirate King so I can at least properly play as the WoL in the next story patch.

Actually, I enjoyed that the WOL took the backseat in the story but they could have done more to empower the mentor role that they supposedly had for this. They could have integrated more of the struggles and tribulations he faced.

Well, it's the creative direction they went with so I am fine with it. The mini story to start the new expansion was a huge step up from ARR for me. I absolutely despised ARR.

MSQ is not a "mini story."

It's a mini story to set up what is to come. Like the calm before the storm. What's wrong with that? You aren't the main hero and everything doesn't spin around the WoL?

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

It's a mini story to set up what is to come. Like the calm before the storm. What's wrong with that? You aren't the main hero and everything doesn't spin around the WoL?

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If this is their attempt to set things up for what's to come, I am very, very concerned.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

It's a mini story to set up what is to come. Like the calm before the storm. What's wrong with that? You aren't the main hero and everything doesn't spin around the WoL?

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Lol did you even pay attention? You are not only not a hero, you are not even a participant. You never make a decision, you never express an opinion (except 1 scene, and even then your opinion is forced every option is the same thing), you never do anything meaningful to the plot, if you were written out of the story ..... the only scene that changes is now no one other than Estenien duels Gulool Ja Ja, everything else is identical. It isn't about "not being the main character" it is about "being a participating character on any level".

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

Actually, I enjoyed that the WOL took the backseat in the story but they could have done more to empower the mentor role that they supposedly had for this. They could have integrated more of the struggles and tribulations he faced.

Well, it's the creative direction they went with so I am fine with it. The mini story to start the new expansion was a huge step up from ARR for me. I absolutely despised ARR.

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A mini-story setting up what is to come? This is a multi hour long (incredibly boring, padded and predictable) main scenario story line.

What it should have been was us exploring a new continent, traveling to each area and learning about the people. Mini-stories would be self contained for each group of people and region. Then towards the end you set up what is to come to keep enticing us to play.

And also, I play a game to be the main hero, not take a back seat to an NPC. The medium of video games, especially role playing games, is to put you in the role of someone. In this case we're the Warrior of Light, the main hero of the entire game. If I want to enjoy a story where I'm not the hero, I'll watch a movie, or a TV show, or read a book . . . that's not why the majority of us play games. It's why it's so infuriating for many to see the game go in this direction.

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Originally Posted by KurenXIV

A mini-story setting up what is to come? This is a multi hour long (incredibly boring, padded and predictable) main scenario story line.

What it should have been was us exploring a new continent, traveling to each area and learning about the people. Mini-stories would be self contained for each group of people and region. Then towards the end you set up what is to come to keep enticing us to play.

And also, I play a game to be the main hero, not take a back seat to an NPC. The medium of video games, especially role playing games, is to put you in the role of someone. In this case we're the Warrior of Light, the main hero of the entire game. If I want to enjoy a story where I'm not the hero, I'll watch a movie, or a TV show, or read a book . . . that's not why the majority of us play games. It's why it's so infuriating for many to see the game go in this direction.

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You did learn about each region's culture, its people, and the activities they engage in. The side quests further elaborate on it and many have cutscenes. The vistas now give historical backgrounds, so I am not entirely sure what you actually mean.

I don't agree with the whole: "I have to be the main hero and the entire world to revolve around me stance", but you are entitled to your opinion, I guess.

The only 3 issues I had with the story were that it had a lot of missed opportunities, the plot was very predictable and Sphene was plain shit. I wished they moved away from " I love my people so I am gonna kill yours"

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

I don't agree with the whole: "I have to be the main hero and the entire world to revolve around me stance", but you are entitled to your opinion, I guess

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When the alternative is an entire expansion revolving around a furry Jar Jar Binks, anything would be better.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

You did learn about each region's culture, its people, and the activities they engage in. The side quests further elaborate on it and many have cutscenes. The vistas now give historical backgrounds, so I am not entirely sure what you actually mean.

I don't agree with the whole: "I have to be the main hero and the entire world to revolve around me stance", but you are entitled to your opinion, I guess.

The only 3 issues I had with the story were that it had a lot of missed opportunities, the plot was very predictable and Sphene was plain shit. I wished they moved away from " I love my people so I am gonna kill yours"

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Sorry to say this but what culture is there really?
The Pelupelu are just traders. That's the entire thing about them.
The not Vanuvanu are basically the same as in HW.
The Mamool Ja and Giants are interesting I give you that (the Giants are the first time we actually see the builders of ruins in the zone I think?) Also the info that they once looked different was interesting. The side quests are also good (better then the MSQ)

In my opinion the problem with the cultures was that there was not really anything to learn or for them to go anywere. They were all in peace allready. Sure there are small things like what candidate to like but even that was presented as all but those who like Wuk Lamat are in the wrong in one way or the other.

In comparrison:
The first was the first time we saw beast tribes and spoken races living together and used that on the source. Even then the Fair folk only joined when shit hit the fan at the end.
EW saw the first time all the races of Eorzea coming together after so much time.
DT that was already done and that was also why the train scene fell flat in my opinion.

On the main hero stuff.
If not making us the main character this time then they should at least went further in the mentor direction or let us adventuring and helping out Team Wuk Lamat from time to time.
The problem is less us not being in the centre but us being completely invisible and unneded in the story.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

You did learn about each region's culture, its people, and the activities they engage in. The side quests further elaborate on it and many have cutscenes. The vistas now give historical backgrounds, so I am not entirely sure what you actually mean.

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What we learned was from tagging along with Wuk Lamat and getting exposition dumps.

That's not interesting or fun.

Being an outsider and being the one doing the traveling and having interesting 'in' points where we get involved with the local people and learn about them/help them with their issues is far more engaging and rewarding than what was given to us.

Going to one place, doing a simple task and/or having Wuk Lamat give a "I love peace! I love you!" speech and then being told about why people do something and coming to an understanding is, I suppose a way of learning about people but its so shallow it may as well not exist.

It's why the Wild West area actually starts decently because it does just that. I thought the bracelet quest line was a perfect example of what I expected going into this expansion. Lots of 'low stakes to us, high stakes for those we are helping' scenairos.

Well Yes in a Final Fantasy i expect the whole Storyline revolving around the Main Character, Us the Player, otherwise we have World of Warcraft where the Player Character will always be the Sideline Character or a FF12 Situation.
Or in our Situation we being Forced into a Furry Show, it would be less bad if the Wuk lamat character would be a Well Written Man or Woman, but we got a Head Empty Furry

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

It's a mini story to set up what is to come. Like the calm before the storm. What's wrong with that? You aren't the main hero and everything doesn't spin around the WoL?

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Dawntrail will take average 50 hours play time to complete. It is a full game and will be reviewed as such.

Some people are taking whatever quote about "starting again" far too literally and using it as a make shift shield to deflect criticism of the MSQ. As FFXIV has just thrust a Saturday four hour afternoon maintenance on us, I am happy to annouce I have nothing better to do right now than call people out on this.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

You did learn about each region's culture, its people, and the activities they engage in.

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Can we stop pretending like this is somehow special or unique to DT?

Every. Single. Expansion. Had this. And did it better.

HW? You learn about Ishgard, their faith, their politics, their social issues. You learn about the Dravanians, how they differ from other races, the truth behind the Dragonsong War. You learn about the Vath, the Vanu, even the moogles get their lore expanded.

SB? You learn about Ala Mhigo, about how the people are tired from war, about their views on Rhalgr, about the Ananta. You learn about the factions of the Far East, pirates, undersea cities, cutthroat merchants, ninja turtles. You meet the Xaela tribes of the Azim Steppe, how they all have different beliefs and cultural traditions.

ShB? Hello? Whole new world? I don't even know where to start. I could go on. DT did exactly nothing new, nothing better and set up nothing but give us a random McGuffin we could have acquired in all sorts of other ways. My god what a waste of time.

I agree there was nothing new to learn. The Hanu are the same, no real culture differences from their counterparts in HW, and the short amount of time we spent with them didn't even seem worth it. I'm also questioning the continued quest format - who exactly finds it engaging to type in a hard to spell word three times? I find it obnoxious to have to put the controller down to do a silly quest when all I want to do is relax and explore.

But again, because all of it is just so bad and disengaging I think every little nuance feels like the end of the world. I found it mildly irritating in previous xpacs when we had to do this, but in this one it made me want to just shut down the game and renew my sub in WoW to get ready for that xpac.

I have no idea who this xpac was for, but it wasn't for players of Final Fantasy games.

Want to give the WoL a vacation? Cool. Make it an actual vacation where crazy things happen he\she needs to solve while trying to get some rest. At least that makes some sense other than oh, let's spend my break helping someone I literally met 5 minutes ago that I know nothing about beyond she 'says' she's 'for peace' attain power. Holy crow, who came up with this premise to begin with?

The vacation should have been something like they did in XI with Rhapsodies of Vana'diel - a storyline that crossed all previous expansions and missions so we can see how everyone is making out and help them with lower level tasks now that the world isn't in crisis. Whatever this is, they need to drop these writers and either get some new talent or get the Shadowbringers folks back in the seats. What a mess.

Again, WoL not being the main character is completely fine.

WoL having the idiot ball permanently glued onto their hands to artificially prop up another character is, however, bad.

That's not how you elevate either character.

And it's not some insurmountable issue of "WoL is just too OP to work as a main character, just deal with the writing being weird because of that."

It's absolutely not. The hyper capable mentor figure is such standard adventure/fantasy fare it's cliche almost. They've done it multiple times in the series. And in FF14 specifically too. Hell, they do it in Dawntrail perfectly fine in the role quests. With WoL.

Why is it only in MSQ the writers are suddenly incapable of writing us as the Aragon of the story, not Frodo?

*WoL protagonist head nod* is about 90% of what we do, other than the occasional obvious choice of wording lol

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Originally Posted by Elkanah

*WoL protagonist head nod* is about 90% of what we do, other than the occasional obvious choice of wording lol

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*nods stoically*

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Originally Posted by Karkarov

It is really simple. Player Agency is needed in a video game story. Yes in FF14 no matter what the story always plays out the same way, always has, always will. But in previous expansions you would have moments where your character was clearly central to what was happening. You did something that saved the day when others were failing or maybe you showed up to support a friend in need? Sometimes you fought the villain on your own and won. You got dialog options where every line was not a different flavor of the exact same statement. Your character mattered and was important to the story, even when they weren't the most important person in the room.

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This 100%.
I'd like to compare a few instances where we control other characters in previous expansions.
Stormblood, we take control of Y'shtola against Little Sun after our character fought Sadu. We've already beaten Magnai, so this is just meant to humiliate him more, and give Y'shtola a chance to prove how capable she is after two expansions being sidelined.
Again in Stormblood, we control Hien as he desperately holds his own against Elidibus to stall him enough for us to arrive and start doing some real damage.
Shadowbringers, we control Thancred as he fights an uphill battle against Ran'jit, and nearly dies in the process, only getting out of that alive because of his skills and quick thinking. Later on, we fight Ran'jit and win without any such tricks.
Dawntrail, we control Wuk Lamat as she fights against Bakool Ja Ja. Our character is standing there watching, and it's only level 93, so I thought she'd lose, and we'd have to step in to save her. Instead she gets a massive power boost out of nowhere (Dynamis I guess) and sends him running away crying.

All of the previous ones exist to show the massive gap in power between our characters and all other characters, while giving them some good moments that aren't in cutscenes.
We never even try to fight Bakool Ja Ja. We don't even know how much of a pushover he'd be.

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Originally Posted by fioravictorine

Wuk Lmao is shoehorned so forcefully into everything, I am not sure if the writers genuinely thought all players will like her or they are just trolling us at this point

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Worst part is Yoshida green lit this, and said it was going to be better than EW, craaaaaaazy

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Originally Posted by IvoryHawk

Worst part is Yoshida green lit this, and said it was going to be better than EW, craaaaaaazy

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It's called lying to sell a product the company depends on. I don't know how anyone above the writers cleared it, or how people that co-wrote Werlyt didn't reject it themselves, but SE's made so many boneheaded decisions over the last several years(last decade?) that they rely on the reputation CBU3 previously had to fund their multi-million dollar flops.

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Originally Posted by Tethan

Can we stop pretending like this is somehow special or unique to DT?

Every. Single. Expansion. Had this. And did it better.

HW? You learn about Ishgard, their faith, their politics, their social issues. You learn about the Dravanians, how they differ from other races, the truth behind the Dragonsong War. You learn about the Vath, the Vanu, even the moogles get their lore expanded.

SB? You learn about Ala Mhigo, about how the people are tired from war, about their views on Rhalgr, about the Ananta. You learn about the factions of the Far East, pirates, undersea cities, cutthroat merchants, ninja turtles. You meet the Xaela tribes of the Azim Steppe, how they all have different beliefs and cultural traditions.

ShB? Hello? Whole new world? I don't even know where to start. I could go on. DT did exactly nothing new, nothing better and set up nothing but give us a random McGuffin we could have acquired in all sorts of other ways. My god what a waste of time.

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Yeah the so called theme of Dawntrail has never been exclusive to the expansion. It's been part of XIV from the beginning. The MSQ was more than just a chosen champion saving the world, it was about getting different nations and races joining together as an alliance against coming threats.
Learning about each race, government, spiritualism, their problems, origins is part of world building 101. Dawntrail didn't invent that. It's funny how they want to sell Tural as this diverse nation when Eorzea already started off with at least 5 races co-existing, embracing even more different ones by the start of Endwalker. Did people forget Limsa Lominsa since 2.0 already accepted "beast tribes" walking in city grounds?

The whole "Tural is so much more diverse than Eorzea!!" is just another case of tell don't show from this terrible writing.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

You did learn about each region's culture, its people, and the activities they engage in. The side quests further elaborate on it and many have cutscenes. The vistas now give historical backgrounds, so I am not entirely sure what you actually mean.

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Bro we spent 2 hours learning that Pelupelu likes to barter and the only thing they do in the MSQ is barter barter barter.

Imagine if Assassin's Creed had a game set in France and everyone is just like "baguette baguette baguette". That's how shallow (and frankly insulting) the writing is.

If anything it's a NET NEGATIVE that we're learning about their culture because the writers didn't bother to think of any sophisticated culture at all. It's all tropes. My time was wasted learning about tropes more apt for a picture book you read to your little 4 year old toddler tucked in bed at night.

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Originally Posted by HighlanderClone

Bro we spent 2 hours learning that Pelupelu likes to barter and the only thing they do in the MSQ is barter barter barter.

Imagine if Assassin's Creed had a game set in France and everyone is just like "baguette baguette baguette". That's how shallow (and frankly insulting) the writing is.

If anything it's a NET NEGATIVE that we're learning about their culture because the writers didn't bother to think of any sophisticated culture at all. It's all tropes. My time was wasted learning about tropes more apt for a picture book you read to your little 4 year old toddler tucked in bed at night.

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I can't agree more. I'm tired of hearing this from people defending the MSQ. They had tens of hour to do some world building and ended up doing less than some amateur cartoons do in their 20m pilote episode. I don't care we have side quests that give more informations, I want the actual important content to be in the f**** mandatory MSQ so I don't feel robbed out of my time while doing it. It's asinine how low your standards have to be for you to be fine with the "world building".

Hmm I would have said for the PeluPelu that it was more "Barter, barter, barter, barter... alpaca alpaca... "

Excuse me, now I have to go watch a certain video about badgers and mushrooms....

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Originally Posted by Ozmandis

I can't agree more. I'm tired of hearing this from people defending the MSQ. They had tens of hour to do some world building and ended up doing less than some amateur cartoons do in their 20m pilote episode. I don't care we have side quests that give more informations, I want the actual important content to be in the f**** mandatory MSQ so I don't feel robbed out of my time while doing it. It's asinine how low your standards have to be for you to be fine with the "world building".

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The story was so long yet and had so little depth and completly forgot to actually set up the villains arc it's so badly written

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Originally Posted by Ozmandis

I can't agree more. I'm tired of hearing this from people defending the MSQ. They had tens of hour to do some world building and ended up doing less than some amateur cartoons do in their 20m pilote episode. I don't care we have side quests that give more informations, I want the actual important content to be in the f**** mandatory MSQ so I don't feel robbed out of my time while doing it. It's asinine how low your standards have to be for you to be fine with the "world building".

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I don't even know what that commenter is smoking to think that side quests "further elaborate." There is nothing to elaborate on and consequently the side quests do not give any additional information at all. I did all side quests for the first two maps including the questlines that eventually connect two location inhabitants together. There is nothing there. It's all just water. Pelupelu continue trading. None of them stop trading. There's no side quest about not trading. When the giant's quest eventually crosses over all we learn is that Pelupelu are willing to hire them as bodyguards. Because they aren't ultra racist... Though one of the first quests kind of made me give it a side-eye. Said something along the lines of "I always dreamed of hiring a Yok Huy, but they look scary so I didn't." Which uh. Certainly not something I would say irl - "I always dreamed of hiring a person of X skin color, but they kinda look scary so I didn't." Maybe the race of an employee shouldn't be something to dwell on THAT much, but what do I know.

Not that I care personally, because this is a silly a video game and all that. But this sort of thing along with the shallow and stereotyped depiction of the peoples sure comes across as tone deaf, especially in combination with nonsense like renaming beast tribes to "allied society quests." Essentially virtue signaling while doing the exact opposite.

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Originally Posted by BakoolJaJa

Though one of the first quests kind of made me give it a side-eye. Said something along the lines of "I always dreamed of hiring a Yok Huy, but they look scary so I didn't." Which uh. Certainly not something I would say irl - "I always dreamed of hiring a person of X skin color, but they kinda look scary so I didn't." Maybe the race of an employee shouldn't be something to dwell on THAT much, but what do I know.

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One thing I noticed in the story is her people may be "at peace", but they don't seem to know or like one another. You would think a good leader would remedy this since peace is difficult to achieve if one cultural group is suspicious, fearful, etc of their neighbor. For all of my dislike of StB, at least they showed this which I now have to respect. All of the previous expansions try to show that peace between nations is more than just talk and saying "you should like one another."
I understand some may find those topics too heavy, but this is way too light.

Not only light but especially in the beginning partially ridiculous. They actually had a solid foundation in the beginning where they talked about the different factions that supported each Promise but they never explored that beyond a few quest lines, never created intrigue behind it or even let it affect the MSQ to make it slightly more interesting.

And it did not help that Wuk Lamat's endless "peace and love" drivel kept appearing nonstop and for nearly every quest without fail to the point it became cringe.

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Originally Posted by BakoolJaJa

Though one of the first quests kind of made me give it a side-eye. Said something along the lines of "I always dreamed of hiring a Yok Huy, but they look scary so I didn't." Which uh. Certainly not something I would say irl - "I always dreamed of hiring a person of X skin color, but they kinda look scary so I didn't." Maybe the race of an employee shouldn't be something to dwell on THAT much, but what do I know.

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I don't think that's a good comparision. The ff14 world has different races unlike the real world.
Being intimitated by a being two to three times your size with a different anatomy is not really wrong. Prejudice yeah but understandable.

A better comparision would be hiring an intelligent elephant that had conquered the continent in the past.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I don't think that's a good comparision. The ff14 world has different races unlike the real world.
Being intimitated by a being two to three times your size with a different anatomy is not really wrong. Prejudice yeah but understandable.

A better comparision would be hiring an intelligent elephant that had conquered the continent in the past.

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I'm not bothered by any of it, but my focus wasn't even on the scared part. I found the idea of dreaming of hiring a person of a certain race more weird than the being intimidated part. Your elephant example probably is good, but that's sort of the thing, it almost sounds like they were talking about an animal and not a person. And that might be completely appropriate to the world of ffxiv... Eorzeans did use to call everything foreign "beastmen" and kill them in droves just for existing, so... But we're supposed to believe that Tural is so different and the cultures are so deep. Which I'm not seeing. They COULD explore these issues. I'd be perfectly happy with that. They just don't.

I've read a lot about the criticisms of DT's MSQ and the ones that resonate with me the most came down to this. Dawntrail's story outline IS interesting, but this execution is the worst one they've ever done, topping even Stormblood. That translated comment I've seen in another thread said it best, that this feels like a marriage of ARR's errand boy questing and Stormblood's preachy moralizing.

Whatever you think about DT's story however, I think this comment in OP's post is my overall general feeling of the whole MSQ:

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Originally Posted by HighlanderClone

I'm very sorry to the person in charge of the [Dawntrail MSQ] scenario, but I don't want them to be involved in the story of the First World and other areas that are filled with memories up until now, and I don't want them to touch it.

To be honest, I'm scared that even my memories of the story from A Realm Reborn to [Endwalker] will be destroyed.

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This talk reminds me of one of the biggest character developments in the game: The entirety of Ishgard. We went from collectively going "fuck these elf bastards", to seeing "FOR ISHGAAARD!" being earnestly shouted in game chat.

They threw in almost every trope of a backwards ass nation and then somehow turned everyone's opinion around in one expansion. And not by magically making them all "peace and love" and one dimensional (we still dealt with their nonsense all the way up to the restoration content), but just by giving us a broader picture of their society, and having characters whose development and faults mirrored their society.

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

This talk reminds me of one of the biggest character developments in the game: The entirety of Ishgard. We went from collectively going from "fuck these elf bastards", to seeing "FOR ISHGAAARD!" being earnestly shouted in game chat.

They threw in almost every trope of a backwards ass nation and the somehow turned everyone's opinion around in one expansion. And not by magically making them all "peace and love" and one dimensional (we still dealt with their nonsense all the way up to the restoration content), but just by giving us a broader picture of their society, and having characters whose development and faults mirrored their society.

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We were still dealing with the fallout in the EW caster role quests. The root problem was that the Church never agreed to undergo any reforms, and they finally agreed to work with Aymeric by the end.

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Originally Posted by BakoolJaJa

... nonsense like renaming beast tribes to "allied society quests." Essentially virtue signaling while doing the exact opposite...

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You realize that Beast Tribe, in universe, was a term created by the Syndicate of Ul'dah explicitly to dehumanize the Amalj'aa, right? Like, the first Encyclopedia Eorzea had a blurb where some Sharlayan scholar questions if it should even be using the term. We've also not really had a "tribal" beast tribe since Stormblood really. With Dawntrail, all the potential "beast tribes" are integrated fairly well into society.