Unenthused About Dawntrail

I'm mildly excited which is kind of upsetting compared to how excited I was for endwalker.

Most of that is new content and story stuff... I have low expectations for Job design one of the more important things to me.

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

Yeah, I remember this got brought up in a different thread. The WoL and company are again meddling in foreign affairs of which they have no business being involved in.

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Remember when Endwalker ended with the Scions publicly disbanding and retreating into the shadows like they were in early ARR? That sure was short lived.

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

Yeah, I remember this got brought up in a different thread. The WoL and company are again meddling in foreign affairs of which they have no business being involved in.

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I find it funny that this is still a thing given how much the game emphasizes quite strongly that wuk lamat is asking you and graha going "hey would it really be okay for outsiders to muck around with this", all but looking at the camera while doing so

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Originally Posted by Ancalagon_Blacktalon

I find it funny that this is still a thing given how much the game emphasizes quite strongly that wuk lamat is asking you and graha going "hey would it really be okay for outsiders to muck around with this", all but looking at the camera while doing so

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Yeah but in the very next cutscene it's acting like we've agreed to be her champion and go along with her plan. No talking to her about "we'll go and check it out but no promises"

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Remember when Endwalker ended with the Scions publicly disbanding and retreating into the shadows like they were in early ARR? That sure was short lived.

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I remember when the very next sentence in the same exact cutscene makes it abundantly clear that the disbanding is merely the "official" line, followed by several more sentences about the whole purpose of it being to get other nations off the Scions' back and give them room to be their own group and do their own thing once again...

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

Yeah, I remember this got brought up in a different thread. The WoL and company are again meddling in foreign affairs of which they have no business being involved in.

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I don't particularly disagree, but I'm also not convinced a major point of Dawntrail's story won't be "intervention versus nonintervention." I suspect that'll be the two camps the Scions are divided in.

I'm not overly hyped about DT, I don't think it's gonna be anything super amazing. I'm curious to see what happens, it may well surprise us all. I'm just glad that we're finally over this whole dark/light conflict, and the imperial army crap. It was so dragged out and annoying for so much of it. Not to mention, generic as all hell. I quite enjoyed the EW story though, it felt good in both the story and the gameplay. Felt more like an actual Final Fantasy game for the first time. If they can continue building on that, Ill be hooked. We'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Sayo_

I don't really care that much for Wuk Lamat and I don't like how our characters became suddenly so keen to help her out so quickly.

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I don't feel that was the case. I mean, yeah, it gave us an additional reason/excuse to journey to Tural but it seemed pretty clear from the final scene of Endwalker - where we reflect on Emet-Selch's words ("Even of your little Eorzea, you know precious little") - that the stronger motivation is returning to our Adventurer roots and finding "The fabled golden cities" Emet-Selch teased.

What I'm excited for
-New content, hard easy ect.
-New zones and areas in general, always nice to have pretty new areas.
-More co-op zones and stuff.

What I'm worried about
-Job design, likely going to be a repeat of endwalker from what we've heard and endwalker wasn't great.
-Story using a lot of the old cast, I feel like the older cast members needed to take a step back for this expansion to have any stakes or high tension. Time will tell though.
-Graphics update, I was looking foward to this but with the build that we got to use, was worrying.

I got to say I'm feeling mixed about dawn trail, I could be wrong and I hope I am but all I advise is to not expect too much, this is what I did for endwalker, that didn't go so well.

More tribal setting is eh, seen so much of it. Sci fi solution 9 is eh, seen it already.
I dont see why we suddenly care about the politics of some foreign continent. Oh theyre soooo strong and want to invade now that garlemald has fallen? Dude garlemald fell because the eorzean alliance is even stronger.
The worst is just, i will not be able to bear to see the scions, after having defeated depression at the end of the universe, saving all of creationg, falling to infighting over a foreign succession crisis in a place that never mattered before.

you don't pay my sub so i don't care how mad you are about it i am going into this new content with a open mind and to enjoy the game i am paying for.

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Originally Posted by george357

you don't pay my sub so i don't care how mad you are about it i am going into this new content with a open mind and to enjoy the game i am paying for.

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This thread has nothing to do about the people who are enthused about the game. But those who aren’t. It’s doubtful anyone here is bothered just because you’re happy.

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I'm a grumpy grump

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https://media1.tenor.com/m/CkASCfIfa...pinion-man.gif

haven't been disappointed in anything from an expansion yet, besides parts of stormblood 4.0 msq so should be pretty fun!

If I was expecting every new expansion to be the next most amazing best written game I've ever played and be even better than Heavensward or Shadowbringers, and if I expected every new expansion to give me the same sense of wonder and amazement ARR did after playing the game for over 10 years, I'd be insane, I'd be delusional and I'd be miserable.

I'm just happy to enjoy some new adventures, experience a new story and have new challenges to tackle with family and friends.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

If I was expecting every new expansion to be the next most amazing best written game I've ever played and be even better than Heavensward or Shadowbringers, and if I expected every new expansion to give me the same sense of wonder and amazement ARR did after playing the game for over 10 years, I'd be insane, I'd be delusional and I'd be miserable.

I'm just happy to enjoy some new adventures, experience a new story and have new challenges to tackle with family and friends.

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Once again, this isn't a thread about people enthusiastic about Dawntrail. A majority are and I'm happy for them 100%. This is a thread discussing why people not might be as hyped as others and their reasons.

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Originally Posted by xxmiamorecadenza

This is a thread discussing why people not might be as hyped as others and their reasons.

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I'm telling you exactly why I'm not as hyped as others:

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

If I was expecting every new expansion to be the next most amazing best written game I've ever played and be even better than Heavensward or Shadowbringers, and if I expected every new expansion to give me the same sense of wonder and amazement ARR did after playing the game for over 10 years, I'd be insane, I'd be delusional and I'd be miserable.

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I'm not dying with anticipation and counting each minute until servers go live (just playing Shadow of the Erdtree), I'm just waiting for more stuff to do in a game I love.
I'm not even gonna stay up, I'll just sleep and then play sometime tomorrow.

I am, in fact, not as hyped as others.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

I'm telling you exactly why I'm not as hyped as others:



I'm not dying with anticipation and counting each minute until servers go live (just playing Shadow of the Erdtree), I'm just waiting for more stuff to do in a game I love.
I'm not even gonna stay up, I'll just sleep and then play sometime tomorrow.

I am, in fact, not as hyped as others.

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I see. My apologies for misreading your post. I appreciate the clarification.

It would be an achievement to top Endwalker as the worst expansion.

I already have a hunch I'm going to dislike the plot of DT given they seem be retreading the same themes about "utopia bad" and "do the ends justify the means" that we just got done covering in ShB/EW to extremely questionable effect depending on who you ask.

As far as actual gameplay goes, the patch notes are already showing it's just more of the same until we get into the "meat" of things later in the patch cycle, but it's dubious if even that is going to meaningfully shake things up.

The feelings I have is like back when Blockbuster was still a thing, I'd go in there, look at the movie box covers, piques my curiosity, I check the back for a summary, hold it in my hand as I keep browsing the store, found another movie that really got me wanting to watch it, about to put back the other movie and then thought "heh, what the hell, I got enough for it too. Might surprise me", then I head to the cashier and check them both out.

For me I'm someone who isn't very enthusiastic about Dawntrail. Earlier in the year I was extremely excited. It was pitched as a fun adventure in new lands and a hard earned vacation for my WoL. That sounds perfect for me and what I needed right now to relieve all the overwhelming stress of real life. But I lost all that enthusiasm when I saw how different my character looked to me in the graphical update. It doesn't feel like the same character I spent years with going through the whole story. Now that character doesn't get to go on their hard earned vacation in my eyes and I can't manage to feel any excitement anymore.

I've been mocked for that opinion but what am I supposed to do? Can't help how I feel. A big portion of my enjoyment of this game turned out to be my attachment to my character, and the personality I'd built up in my head for her. I don't find the combat fun aside from some fun newer raid mechanics and the incredible work done on the environments in them. The only other thing I've been mostly enjoying is the story so I guess I've lost a lot of my drive to play.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

It would be an achievement to top Endwalker as the worst expansion.

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If you're talking overall among the playerbase, EW is consistently ranked as the 2nd best expansion (with ShB as #1)...

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Originally Posted by Striker44

If you're talking overall among the playerbase, EW is consistently ranked as the 2nd best expansion (with ShB as #1)...

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*The people asked only played Shb and Ew

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.

Honestly, I'm most hyped for the graphics update. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised by the rest.

Narratively, I'm about as hyped for Dawntrail as I was for Stormblood, which is basically "this ain't really my fight." Both are scenarios where my Warrior of Light doesn't have any personal investment, at least not initially. And without having any skin in the game, he just seems to be along for the ride, which is... okay? Stormblood really picked up the pace towards the end though, so by the post-patch storyline I was a lot more invested, so maybe the same will be true as we get further into the Dawntrail story.

Now that Dawntrail is underway and some of ya'll have finished up the story and some of the content.... I'd like to revive the thread to see some honest perspectives following launch and if folks were pleasantly surprised, 'whelmed' or disappointed.

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Originally Posted by xxmiamorecadenza

Now that Dawntrail is underway and some of ya'll have finished up the story and some of the content.... I'd like to revive the thread to see some honest perspectives following launch and if folks were pleasantly surprised, 'whelmed' or disappointed.

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For me the expansion was...Okay. I typed up a spoiler-ish review on a few Discord servers and I'll post it here if you'd like to read it. Is there a way to do spoiler coverings on here so others who haven't beaten it yet won't be spoiled?

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Originally Posted by OgruMogru

I know my experience of the base expansion will be solid. I'll have a nice time exploring the new zones and experiencing the story with my partner

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What a naïve baby I was
Monkey's paw straight up curled into a fist and punched me in the face :C

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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.