Dawntrail is the first expansion where I started skipping cutscenes. The story is bad

I finished the MSQ on my PLD and also finished the lv100 dungeons. I've been playing since ARR and I have to say, Dawntrail is the worst expansion. For the first time ever I've completely skipped cutscenes because I do not care whatsoever about any of these characters. I reached my level of patience with Wuk Lamat by the third zone and basically didn't start watching cutscenes again until the big story twist around lv 95. Even this part I have to say is not really that interesting to me. Most of the story is just plain boring.

I did go back and re-watch some of the scenes I skipped. I was correct to skip them, they added absolutely nothing to the plot. The first half of the game is largely filler content.

Yes, I have heard all of the defenses that some brand loyalists give. They say this is a new expansion and start of a new story arc so my expectations should be lower. No, my expectations should not be lower. This is a product I am paying for. I expect the quality to be at least similar to what I previously paid for, especially if a lot of that story is in dialogue boxes that must be sat through in order to advance the gameplay. Every expansion has been a new story arc. This game is no different just because we have closure on the Ascians and Hydaelyn and that doesn't excuse poor story-telling.

Quite honestly, the message of the story is self-defeating. We spend 80% of the game with Wuk Lamat constantly preaching about how all problems between people can be overcome with understanding only for that to actually not be possible in the end as we

basically genocide an entire civilization in order to save our own, especially since it turned out we didn't need to shut down the AI databases in order to defeat Sphene, as she didn't stop just because the Endless were now gone

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So the writers themselves don't seem to actually understand what their goal with the theme of the story even was.

I'm probably not going to do the rest of the content for this expansion if they continue to make it centered around this incredibly annoying lion girl and her continent of forgettable zoo characters. Wuk Lamat is an extremely annoying character even without the voice acting. The character constantly complains, constantly boasts and constantly lectures about love and peace. It's clear she has been made to be the center protagonist of the story arc, but the character is a poorly written Mary Sue who experiences no actual character growth and throws all her claimed values to the winds in the end, yet never reflects on this. The voice acting is worth mentioning is very poor as well, with extremely wooden acting. The voice actor sounds like she is trying to understand what the character is even saying. This is going to be obscure but the best way I can compare her line delivery is to how Ricky Ricardo in I Love Lucy delivered his lines. Go look up some old clips of the show, and you'll quickly understand what I am talking about with this comparison. Wuk Lamat is basically Ricky Ricardo.

Additionally, I think the setting is stupid. It seems to be South American themed, and yet it's just a rehash of zones we've already gone through in prior expansions. The only really unique one was the American old west style town, but we don't spend that much time in it. It seems a wasted opportunity.

I wish they had saved the world of Darkness / Void for this expansion instead of the rush job they gave us in Endwalker. It would have been a million times more interesting to go through zones of the Void than these recycled ideas from previous expansions. We've got plenty of jungle and desert themed areas we've gone through already. We really don't need more.

Speaking of dungeons, the first dungeon is actually completely pointless story-wise. We get off the boat and start running on what is apparently an island and by the time that we beat the boss the boat catches back up with us because it was repaired and then we travel the rest of the way to the region on the boat. So what was even the point of us getting off of the boat in the first place? We could have just stayed on the boat the entire time and waited for it to be repaired. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever plot wise for us to have gone through this dungeon. This is further evidence that the writers didn't have a clear picture of what they were planning for this story.

As for the FF9 references, this is another missed opportunity. First of all,

the entire reason why the castle was called Alexandria was because it turned into the summon Alexander, which has nothing to do with its usage here in FFXIV. We have some loose inspired ideas from FF9 involving stealing life energy to revive another doomed civilization, but we don't have anything involving someone who can be considered the Kuja antagonist, instead we get a villainized version of Garnet in Sphene. That's all well and good, but a big part of Garnet's character was her being a Summoner. There's no major story arcs involving Summoners, or even Black Mages for that matter, in Dawntrail despite that these two classes are important to the world of FF9 and its story. So why even bother pulling inspiration from FF9 if you're not going to use them? Instead we have a poor fascismile version of Garnet and Adelbert, and that' it.

There's a lot of other characters were part of FF9 being left out here and underutilized. I mean they didn't even use the Black Waltz.

Last expansion we literally saved the entire bloody universe, defeating an enemy that could literally kill all life everywhere throughout all of the galaxies and this expansion we're spending our time battling assorted wild animals and some robots?

They need to go back to the drawing board on this. Up until this point, FFXIV was a fairly perfect MMO experience. But if this is what you guys are going to be doing going forward, I don't think I'll be following because this content is boring, not respecting the source material of FF games it is drawing from and just not that engaging.

I hope the devs will listen to the feedback I and other players have been giving on Dawntrail's story. This game has been improved greatly when the devs listened to complaints on past game mechanics issues, but this time the problem is the story.

The only thing that might salvage this expansion for me is if they released another epic Euroka style Field Operation that was very well done with quality references to FF9 and has nothing to do with Wuk Lamat. I doubt that will happen since Field Operations are controversial with casual players, but Euroka has proven to have some legs to it so I can't be completely wrong here in thinking this kind of content is good.

I never skipped a cutscene but when I go through the story again on an alt 100 percent will do so which is a first.

I also hope they listen to the feedback. If we didn't care these threads would have been completely empty and wouldn't have gotten these many views.

I wasn't skipping cutscenes, but I was clicking through voiced dialogue, which is something I almost never do.

Especially when it was Wuk's turn to talk. I see the word "peace" and I know I'm not missing anything while she's on screen.

If I had a dollar every time Wuk said "peace" I would have been rich by now.

The first half of the Dawntrail MSQ strongly feels like filler, but I think the criticisms of the whole story are hyperbolic and overblown.

Yes, there is a "seven Macguffins" plot in the rite of succession, and Wuk Lamat carried a barrel of shonen tropes while taking up much of the screen time. I'm not swayed in either direction by Wuk Lamat, nor do I care either way for the English VA. I don't feel love or hate, but indifference.

Is it an issue of pacing? Probably is, but I managed my own expectations and didn't set a high bar in light of Shadowbringers/Endwalker tying up a very lengthy story block around the Ascians' meddling.

I would like to see more FF9 references around Alexandria, but the obvious bit of Alexander doesn't work as we've already had a raid series around it in Heavensward. What, then, did Alexandria symbolize in its Dawntrail appearance?

The Iifa Tree.

The entirety of the Kingdom wasn't itself part of the Origenics structure, but Alexandria's present status quo is deeply rooted in soul commodification. This hunger for souls also drove the warmongering and expansionist nature of the kingdom, which itself is a reference to Queen Brahne's overt villainy - all right down to the mechanical soldiers being a stand-in for the mass produced black mages.

We just assumed that Alexandrian king was the sole warmonger.

I look forward to further MSQ development past the initial release, and for what it was worth, the gameplay was phenomenal.

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Originally Posted by Keldion

all right down to the mechanical soldiers being a stand-in for the mass produced black mages.

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Personally:

still fully expecting little Gulool Ja to be a clone like the black mages were. They made it a point to say his mother and origin was a mystery and we see no mamool ja in either zone or S9. We're totally gonna run across a whole room full of failed versions of him and it'll be an identity crisis for him.

I never skipped a cutscene.... but by the final zone I was definitely checked out, not emotionally invested, and just wanted it to end sooner rather than later.

That said in the only defense I will give this story, your read on the final zone is wrong.

You don't genocide anyone, all of them are already dead, you are talking to computer driven AI facsimile simulation of people based on their stored data memories. They, like the zone they live in, are not real.

You shut down the nodes to make her vulnerable for a moment when she catches they are shut down, that works. You "hope" she will just stop when she realizes it is pointless and the endless have been deleted.

PROBLEM: Sphene is also just a AI simulation that has been hard coded to do anything to keep the endless simulation running. She has no choice, she is just a program doing what it was programmed to do. That is why she doesn't stop even when continuing will serve no point.

Without Ishikawa, its like the writers forgot how to write an engaging story with compelling characters. The first half of the MsQ is an abomination

Wuk's voice actor's inability to emote reminds me of Rex from Xenoblade 2. Honestly a lot of the voice acting in that game was pretty bad but more bearable at least because the writing and world were interesting. Tural is easily the most boring place we've ever visited.

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Originally Posted by Keldion

I'm not swayed in either direction by Wuk Lamat, nor do I care either way for the English VA. I don't feel love or hate, but indifference.

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I feel the same on this. I don't care about the real lives of the talent involved in the creation of games, movies or novels. I can separate the art from the artist. I'm just judging this expansion based on what has been presented in the game.