Take your time with Dawntrail...

I think one of the problems people are facing is burnout.... They trying to burn through the dawntrail MSQ in one sitting, so now they irrate with Wuk and whatever.

Im Taking my sweet time. I take time off between MSQ by doing the side quests and simply logging off and doing other stuff in RL. My advice if you all not enjoying, maybe slow down a little, breath the fresh air.

I stop playing and take a break once I notice I'm skipping the text or scenes. I paid for this expansion... I'm making for damn well sure I'm reading through the story!

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Originally Posted by midnitdragoon

I think one of the problems people are facing is burnout.... They trying to burn through the dawntrail MSQ in one sitting, so now they irrated with Wuk and whatever.

Im Taking my sweet time. I take time off between MSQ by doing the side quests and simply logging off and doing other stuff in RL. My advice if you all not enjoying, maybe slow down a little, breath the fresh air.

I stop playing and take a break once I notice I'm skipping the text or scenes. I paid for this expansion... I'm making for damn well sure I'm reading through the story!

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Smart, I'm doing something similar, I got to the midpoint 2 days ago, yesterday I didnt even play any games tonight i lvl's VPR 5 lvls which was fun and tomorrow I have things to do so I wont be playing then either, I have no idea why people are in such a rush for things that are gonna be there for months until the next update *shrugs*.

Definitely not, I wish I was trying to burn through the MSQ in one sitting because that would mean I'm actually engaged and interested in it. I'm having a hard time bringing myself to finish it, I'm taking my sweet time, believe me.

I don't think so, I paced myself quite a bit with it honestly, compared to how I usually do, which is pretty hard with ShB and EW.

If you're doing all of the side quests, then yeah, quite a lot of them are pretty decent, so I think with this in mind, the problems are a lot less glaring, since you're getting some flare from that. But the MSQ as a standalone... The problems will always be there.

It is one of those expansions where if the protagonist being pushed is not someone you entirely like, can get behind or relate to... Then it's going to be a rough journey, whether you do all side quests or not.

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Originally Posted by midnitdragoon

I think one of the problems people are facing is burnout.... They trying to burn through the dawntrail MSQ in one sitting, so now they irrate with Wuk and whatever.

Im Taking my sweet time. I take time off between MSQ by doing the side quests and simply logging off and doing other stuff in RL. My advice if you all not enjoying, maybe slow down a little, breath the fresh air.

I stop playing and take a break once I notice I'm skipping the text or scenes. I paid for this expansion... I'm making for damn well sure I'm reading through the story!

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No, that's not the problem. I play a bit everyday and I can't with Wuk Lamat anymore, she tires me, she doesn't add anything to the pacing or story, she overshadows any character, not only the wol, it's purely bad writting. Stop trying to excuse why people don't like it.

All the time in the world doesn't matter if you don't like what's being presented. Plus, the game is structured in a way that almost everything is locked behind MSQ progression. I spent three days doing the first act because I didn't move on from a zone until I exhausted side quests, earned flying, and finished the exploration achievement. By the time I finished the first act, I was so sick of what was being presented that I stopped playing.


I fully expect this MSQ to get an ARR style pruning at some point.

I wish SE would just reopen their movie division and send all these folks that want to make movies back over to it. These folks don't want to make a game, they want to make a film, and it sucks. Back in the XI days a cutscene was a reward for completing a challenging and interesting bit of content. Folks wanted to complete the missions because it meant enjoying a story and some nice bits of gear. I don't even really know how to describe what MSQ has become here. More treadmill than anything, I suppose.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

I wish SE would just reopen their movie division and send all these folks that want to make movies back over to it. These folks don't want to make a game, they want to make a film, and it sucks. Back in the XI days a cutscene was a reward for completing a challenging and interesting bit of content. Folks wanted to complete the missions because it meant enjoying a story and some nice bits of gear. I don't even really know how to describe what MSQ has become here. More treadmill than anything, I suppose.

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I agree regarding 11....completing a major main story quest, getting that awesome cutscene. Final Fantasy xiv is such a different kind of game. What I would hope is that square is quietly developing a Final Fantasy 11-2 or a mmo in the light of 11.

I took my time and still want to throw Wuk Lamat off the nearest bridge.

Have you never heard of being gripped to a story so tightly that you can't put the book down and end up reading until 6am because you just have to know what happens next?
If a story causes burnout that fast, that's usually a red flag... It also doesn't help so much content that many people want (combat content and even gathering from new zones) is gated behind the msq, so they have no choice but to push through to access the side content that they enjoy.

I just arrived in Tural and suddenly feel burned out. Not sure if it’s burnout or maybe just overwhelmed, but I immediate get the urge to logoff and play another game. Maybe i should take a longer break.

I dunno. As oppossed to EW I only do msq for 1 or 2 hours before I have to stop. And this is after months of not doing msqs. So I wont call it a burnout. DT msq is so boring. Im basically dragging myself to put 2 hrs each day to progress and so I can do dungeons with my friends. Thats it. Thats my reason. I just want Lamat to get the throne so I can be done with it and do other stories if they exist at all.

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Originally Posted by midnitdragoon

I think one of the problems people are facing is burnout.... They trying to burn through the dawntrail MSQ in one sitting, so now they irrate with Wuk and whatever.

Im Taking my sweet time. I take time off between MSQ by doing the side quests and simply logging off and doing other stuff in RL. My advice if you all not enjoying, maybe slow down a little, breath the fresh air.

I stop playing and take a break once I notice I'm skipping the text or scenes. I paid for this expansion... I'm making for damn well sure I'm reading through the story!

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That wasn't really an issue with any other expansion story I've played. This was the only one where I was just so aggravated I had to take breaks to level gatherers.
Not even A Realm Reborn caused that kind of reaction in me. I took breaks to try new things, but it was mostly out of distraction, or mild boredom. Not the fact that I was just getting genuinely angry at everything going on, like it is in Dawntrail.
Hell, I even ran all of Shadowbringers and Endwalker almost immediately together instead of the usual pseudo-endgame stuff I do in between all the others, and I still had a great time.
I was completely ready for ten levels and six zones of pure story-going, and I was hoping to feel hungry for more afterwards. I'm trying to like it, but it's just not working for me.

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Originally Posted by FlowerMilk

Definitely not, I wish I was trying to burn through the MSQ in one sitting because that would mean I'm actually engaged and interested in it. I'm having a hard time bringing myself to finish it, I'm taking my sweet time, believe me.

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I did the same. I didn't rush it, read extra dialogue options. The story is awful with tons of plotholes, redundant useless dialogue, lobotmized characters (including your own), plus much more. If I had skipped through it, I would've had a much better opinion about this expansion.

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Originally Posted by midnitdragoon

I think one of the problems people are facing is burnout.... They trying to burn through the dawntrail MSQ in one sitting, so now they irrate with Wuk and whatever.

Im Taking my sweet time. I take time off between MSQ by doing the side quests and simply logging off and doing other stuff in RL. My advice if you all not enjoying, maybe slow down a little, breath the fresh air.

I stop playing and take a break once I notice I'm skipping the text or scenes. I paid for this expansion... I'm making for damn well sure I'm reading through the story!

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Yeah, nah. I've been taking it very slow. Because I can't handle this awful story more than one hour to one hour and a half or so per day. It's not burning out - you did not see people complaining about SHB or EW because they were "playing too much and got tired" - infact, people overplayed the hell out of those MSQs because they were gripping and good.

Yea hes awful

Nah, I like Wuk Lamat, but by the end I was like girl PLEASE let me talk to someone else PLEASE. It has nothing to do with burn out. I wanted to see the story to the end, and I finished it in 3 days like most of the launch stories.

as someone that is still in the 3rd zone (2nd not counting city)
who is taking my time,
I can tell you:

Nope it still sucks.

thank god for my breaks, its the only thing keeping me from deleting my account :p

I don't hate Wuk Lamat, but they make her so stupid at times. Certainly not ready for the crux of the story and why we are helping her.

As I've said in another thread, there are WAY TOO MANY cut scenes now. I used to love when I saw that film icon after getting to a certain part of a quest. Now, it's annoying and pretty boring. Let us play the game, not listen to a cut scene for 5 minutes to tell us to pick 5 plants that aren't even hard to find, only to have another 3 minute long cut scene. I'm surprised Yoshi let this go out like this.

I tried to take it slow doing the MSQ, doing some side quests, reading everything, but I just felt so bored and unengaged even from the first couple of hours. It's good advice though. I'm taking a few days off from the game before I finish the story. I will be able to enjoy it a bit more.

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Originally Posted by midnitdragoon

I think one of the problems people are facing is burnout.... They trying to burn through the dawntrail MSQ in one sitting, so now they irrate with Wuk and whatever.

Im Taking my sweet time. I take time off between MSQ by doing the side quests and simply logging off and doing other stuff in RL. My advice if you all not enjoying, maybe slow down a little, breath the fresh air.

I stop playing and take a break once I notice I'm skipping the text or scenes. I paid for this expansion... I'm making for damn well sure I'm reading through the story!

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I'll second this. I'm known for taking a long time to go through the stories. I've enjoyed all the expansions so far, but I still take my sweet time. I also get hooked on all the side content, so I deviate from the MSQ rather often. This isn't an MMO where the story is simply an excuse to get you to endgame and the intention is to just power through; the story itself is the meat of it. Trying to power through what's likely 60 or so hours of content is going to burn anyone out.

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Have you never heard of being gripped to a story so tightly that you can't put the book down and end up reading until 6am because you just have to know what happens next?
If a story causes burnout that fast, that's usually a red flag...

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I've heard of that. I love reading. Have a ton of books I've really enjoyed over the years. Even still, there's only one book I've ever read where I had that "can't put it down" feeling early on, and it's not even my favorite book of all time (but definitely near the top). Right now, I'm reading and really into "The Name of the Wind" and "Abhorsen", but I'll still only read maybe 2 chapters a day. Not a red flag at all, just the reality that my brain tires and loses focus trying to do any one, single thing for hours on end most of the time. The only exception to that is many of the good books I've read, I'll finally get that "must see what happens next" feeling when I get near the end, but at that point we're talking maybe reading 4 chapters in one run instead of 2. And that's not even taking into account the different effect blue light has on our eyes and our bodies - there's a difference between reading a book and staring at a computer screen for hours. FFXIV's story is also long compared to other MMO's. Imagine trying to read the unabridged version of Les Miserables in one go...

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As I've said in another thread, there are WAY TOO MANY cut scenes now.

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Yeah, I feel the cutscenes are excessive, too. Not that having so many cutscenes is itself an issue, but too many of them leave me wondering why they were made a separate cutscene instead of just normal dialogue, because they seem to only contain...normal dialogue...

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Originally Posted by DBriggs304

I don't hate Wuk Lamat, but they make her so stupid at times. Certainly not ready for the crux of the story and why we are helping her.

As I've said in another thread, there are WAY TOO MANY cut scenes now. I used to love when I saw that film icon after getting to a certain part of a quest. Now, it's annoying and pretty boring. Let us play the game, not listen to a cut scene for 5 minutes to tell us to pick 5 plants that aren't even hard to find, only to have another 3 minute long cut scene. I'm surprised Yoshi let this go out like this.

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I agree. The constant interruption by cut scenes is the main cause of boredom and frustration for me. And in between those scenes, we don't do anything very engaging either, except dungeons and trials.

I had a thought a while ago that the MSQ has become something that would only be enjoyable for someone playing 30 minutes a day. Like how someone might watch an episode or two of anime a day. They log on, watch their 30 minutes of cutscenes, log out. It's probably less frustrating that way. But this is speaking to the boring nature of the story telling/story delivery. When I play single player Final Fantasy games, I want to play for hours at a time. That's stopped being the case with XIV's MSQ. It's getting hard to stay engaged with it due to the unnecessary cut scenes and lack of gameplay.

I would honest appreciate it if one of the MSQ was to kill 100 of some enemy just so I could spent some time actually playing, actually doing something, not watching heads nod in agreement.

I dunno I find my experience to be quite the opposite. Dawtrail is the first expansion that took my nearly a week to finish, every other expansion took me 3 days, even Stormblood. Previous expansions kept me invested, kept me playing for longer at a time, kept me doing silly things like staying up an hour or two later to get through a particularly exciting part, so they passed in a blink.

Yawntrail, took me about six days to finish despite wanting desperately for it to end by the midway point, unengaged, bored, though through it all I grit my teeth and read every line and watched every cutscene. Wuk Lamat is annoying and all the npc's I actually liked like Alisae, Alphinaud, Graha, etc, were empty characterless husks.

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Originally Posted by Nitelancer

I would honest appreciate it if one of the MSQ was to kill 100 of some enemy just so I could spent some time actually playing, actually doing something, not watching heads nod in agreement.

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By this point, we should really ask ourselves why they even put in overworld enemies. They've been pointless for the longest time. We don't fight any of them outside FATEs, but those are their own thing and completely unrelated to the overworld mobs. Even quest objectives have their purple swirlies which summon the monsters you have to kill. So why bother to design and place them into the zones if the only thing we're doing is watching cutscenes and clicking through dialogue?

I absolutely agree with taking your time and also do the side quests as they show up. I have been loving the expansion, it is EXACTLY what I needed after Endwalker.

I believe the devs designed the MSQ with so many cutscenes for the story that if people wanted to skip everything, they could finish the MSQ in a few hours.

For those who love the story, it is all there for us but please do what Yoshi asked and do the side quests as they show up as they add a lot to the story.

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Originally Posted by genuine_stranger

By this point, we should really ask ourselves why they even put in overworld enemies. They've been pointless for the longest time. We don't fight any of them outside FATEs, but those are their own thing and completely unrelated to the overworld mobs. Even quest objectives have their purple swirlies which summon the monsters you have to kill. So why bother to design and place them into the zones if the only thing we're doing is watching cutscenes and clicking through dialogue?

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Some of the side quests have you kill mobs in the overworld (not extra purple swirly spawns), and there's always the hunt bills which are for overworld mobs.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Some of the side quests have you kill mobs in the overworld (not extra purple swirly spawns), and there's always the hunt bills, which are for overworld mobs.

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I cleared all side quests, and the only instances I can recall in which I had to kill mobs without swirlies are those in the ARR and maybe HW zones. After that, it has always been the case of summoning or stepping into a circle.
And yeah, hunt bills, but I don't think anyone is really doing them. Perhaps I'm wrong, and they're popular, however from what I have seen, people either join hunt CWLS' or use an external site on which hunts are reported.

I sure am taking my time with Dawntrail while skipping cutscenes.

I've been playing since 2.5. Every expac that dropped, I happily played straight until finishing the MSQ. The end of ShB and EW felt like fever dreams because I was so exhausted and hyped up on caffeine at the same time, forcing myself to stay awake to finish them. Dawntrail on the other hand has been so bad and boring I've had to take multiple breaks just to tolerate it. I've taken a week off work to play starting with pre-release, and I only reached the last zone today because of how much I've had to step away, either out of boredom or frustration. Even at the worst parts of Stormblood, I was just able to power through the MSQ until getting to better parts. The problem isn't burnout. The problem is a bad fanfic story that can't even contend with Stormblood in terms of engagement.

the MSQ so far is extremely boring, and any form of character building is forgettable and that's a bad thing honestly.

Are you trying to suggest this wouldn't have been a problem for literally any expansion?

Sorry but this is just more coping.

You have to go fast. Reddit, discord, twitter, clickbait article writers, etc. They all churn out content asap to be the first, and don't really care about who they spoil on the story by doing it.
At this point the people who are finishing now are going on a week of chat and social media blackout, you want them to go even slower than that?

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Originally Posted by genuine_stranger

I cleared all side quests, and the only instances I can recall in which I had to kill mobs without swirlies are those in the ARR and maybe HW zones. After that, it has always been the case of summoning or stepping into a circle.
And yeah, hunt bills, but I don't think anyone is really doing them. Perhaps I'm wrong, and they're popular, however from what I have seen, people either join hunt CWLS' or use an external site on which hunts are reported.

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Trying to avoid spoilers since it's still so early in the xpac, but I just did a side quest this very afternoon in the second half of one of the early zones that required killing 2 different types of mobs that just roam the overworld, and I'm 97% sure I did a different side quest from the same hub yesterday that had the same approach.

Taking your time with this MSQ doesn't make it better, I think on the contrary in fact

Since there is so much boring padding and filler you would have forgotten everything and lost all attachment after picking it up again

It's one to speed through, skip all the cutscenes and just let people spoil the story to save you the effort/toture. It's a less painful way than looking after some boring-assed teenage-furry grrrrrrrrrrlllll who can't keep her snout out of ruining our fun.

I forgot to add, I'm also slowly leveling some classes to 91 like ast and viper. It helps break it up for me. I don't know... I've yet to feel some level of anger with the expansion.

I took my time with levels 90-94 and by the time I got there I was so sick and tired of everything that I burned my way through the rest simply by custscene skipping the majority of it.

You can have all the copium you want, but there is not a single thing we can do to make this expac better. That lies soley on the shoulders of SE and they failed, big. Most of the overall story telling in this game has made me feel things. Happy, sad, hopeful, excited. The only thing this expac made me feel was fury, anger, annoyed, aggrivated, the list goes on.

The speed of consumption does not matter when the story is of this low of a quality. There is literally nothing to take in. Nothing to absorb. It's shallow drivel that makes twilight look like literary genius. I saw this coming with the nonsense and poor choices made in Endwalker and called it out back then too. But everyone just wanted to praise the team and shut down everyone with actual valid criticism and look where that got us. A story that would barely get a passing grade in a community colleg intro to writing course.

You want this game to be good? Stop making excuses for the team of writers and likely the AI programs that gave us this travesty and maybe, just maybe we can get back to some good story telling in 8.0. This white knight nonsense does nothing but damage the game you claim to love so much. If you really love something you need to know when to call it like it is.

If the story and content was actually good i'd hammer it out in two days like i always have. I'm taking my time now, not because of advice or it'll sink in better, but i literally have to work up the energy to sit through the garbage scenes and story.

Lol no, it's just bad writing and people need to stop excusing it. Thank the heavens it's over for me now. I'm finally free!

Tbh this whole expansion launch has been a fiasco. They ruined many people's characters, Hrothgals are buggy, there are lighting issues, the story sucks and now they're simplifying the most played job in addition to the ones they simplified on launch. What is going on? Someone else needs to take the wheel and fast. At least the encounter design, art and music are still good (minus the awful Disney track).

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Originally Posted by midnitdragoon

I think one of the problems people are facing is burnout.... They trying to burn through the dawntrail MSQ in one sitting, so now they irrate with Wuk and whatever.

Im Taking my sweet time. I take time off between MSQ by doing the side quests and simply logging off and doing other stuff in RL. My advice if you all not enjoying, maybe slow down a little, breath the fresh air.

I stop playing and take a break once I notice I'm skipping the text or scenes. I paid for this expansion... I'm making for damn well sure I'm reading through the story!

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For me, no amount of breaks would have spared me the feelings of disinterest and boredom that Dawntrail gave me. This was the longest and arduous MSQ story I’ve ever had to force myself to continue. I wasn’t engaged until around level 95—which, in my opinion, is just bad. And even after finishing it, there were still so many issues with the pacing and writing and things that were just hand-waved away or unresolved that I was left completely dissatisfied.

All other expansion stories have kept me thoroughly engaged and waiting to see what happens next. By the end of Dawntrail, I couldn’t have cared less about what happened. The only thing I will give it is that two characters had some decent development and resolution of their stories—it just sucked that said resolution was squeezed into the last 2-3 quests of the MSQ, and felt like a horrible disservice to them.