I believe I finally understood why some people have issues with Dawntrail

[GrizzlyTank]

No he was not, he was one of the most based and single minded villain in FF14. And while in some context that maybe called "shallow" and "one dimensional", in FF14 he's a unique - one of a kind.

I'm actually tired of how the writing always always ALWAYS try to humanize the villains at the end. 95% of the people we go after always gonna turn out symapthetic at the end, to the point it starts feeling pathetic. Like ... in Dawn Trail there is literally zero bad guy because everyone has a reason. I feel if you ask FF14 do an adaption of World War 2, they probably gonna try to make Hitler "isn't actually that bad".


Zenos was 101% selfish and un-apologetically evil, we need more such villain in FF14.

The writing doesn't always try to humanise the villains. As seen with Valens and Asahi, both irredeemable, Yuyuhase and Laurentius to a lesser degree. Yet none of them were used as a deus ex machina to quite literally kill off half the plot because the character was bored.

Look at Stormblood, the most disliked expansion, and look at how it's patches were much better received once Zenos was out of the picture.

[Isala]

The writing doesn't always try to humanise the villains. As seen with Valens and Asahi, both irredeemable, Yuyuhase and Laurentius to a lesser degree. Yet none of them were used as a deus ex machina to quite literally kill off half the plot because the character was bored.

Look at Stormblood, the most disliked expansion, and look at how it's patches were much better received once Zenos was out of the picture.

You know who else was out of the picture? Lyse. And let me tell you, that was MUCH more of a happy impact than having Zenos disappear for a bit.

[Raven2014]

That's not evil, it's selfish.

So ... which part of the "Zenos was 101% selfish" I said that you missed, or disagree with?

[Silver-Strider]

I liked the Rite of Succession arc of the story, although I would've absolutely preferred to support Koana than Wuk in that regard. He started out a bit rough but he grew to learn about his people in a realistic and satisfying way that I enjoyed. While I do feel Wuk is just Lyse 2.0, I find her to be inoffensive for the most part but wholly unworthy to actually lead her people.

My problem is really everything after the Rite is finished. I didn't like the genre shift that the story went with and literally wanted that whole part of the expansion to just burn off and die really, even more so than what they gave us. It just left a bad taste in my mouth that I honestly felt that I should've just skipped cutscenes because of how indifferent I felt to it all.

[Ryaze]

Mini-games ok, if they are done well for modern standards, but not TT type mini-games. Keep relative control of the WoL. Like new types of quest gameplay. Yes to more overworld experiences with control of your character, but the story also needs to be cut down. More showing, and far less telling.

Playing through DT there were multiple times I went 2+ hours from cutscene to cutscene, walking around an area clicking on 3-6 NPCs and having no meaningful player engagement. So many redundant cutscenes of 4-8 people standing around in a circle narrating to each other, with a camera angle just above the group but at a slight angle. You know what I'm talking about. These "cutscenes" need to go. Like right now. Things often either already said, or implied. Cutscenes that could have been far shorter with NPC text and didn't need to completely remove me from the game. There were multiple amazing cutscenes in DT so I know the team has the talent, but unfortunately they were few and far between compared to the rest of the it. I don't expect to have more of these cutscenes and they should remain as these major impressive story moments, but the rest of the clutter needs to be seriously pruned down.

I know people love this game for the story, but the time and energy spent on the MSQ has ballooned to ridiculous proportions. It hasn't made DT a better game for it. Sometimes less is more.

[CKNovel]

When talking with friends about MSQ, we've identified multiple problem:

• Pointless padding that could be replaced with something much more interesting
• Hildibrand writing spilled onto the MSQ, annoying jokes
• Lacks of diverse activities, fetch quest, trailing a NPC, spot something
• Wuk Lamat has good point but is sometimes written as a dumb, joyful shonen protagonist

Rolequest also have too much of Hildibrand writing, I get people asked for more Hildibrand but not to be included in the MSQ.
Also, the conflict that would "split" the scions? Just a meaningless interaction.

[ravenfyhre]

I think you could say Zenos was one dimensional or shallow, but people liked him a lot because he had personality.
Sometimes it's not ONLY about the way it is written, but the way it's conveyed.

[genuine_stranger]

Rolequest also have too much of Hildibrand writing, I get people asked for more Hildibrand but not to be included in the MSQ.

IMO, the role quests encapsule the theme of what this whole expansion should have been like. A more lighthearted palette cleanser in which we go around and solve small local problems, some more serious, some on the sillier side.
Instead, we got yet another potential world ending threat that we have to deal with. What an outstanding summer vacation! ������

[Honalee]

The main error is: they have tight the entire expansion to Wuk Lamat. If you do not like her then it ruins the entire expansion for you. It is like having a more extreme version of Lyse, the entire SB expansion. And i guess, many more people would hate SB.

I never felt this in any other expansion with Lyse, or Ryne, or Hien, or any other NPC... They need to go back if they need to and see why those models were working, and get back to that. Dawntrail was such a huge step down from every other expansion in most respects in this way.

And it's not because the "story" was poor... It's because the implementation of all of it was very poor. I want to be able to enjoy FFXIV MSQ the way we have in the past... They need to make some pretty big changes and step it up in the next one.

[FuturePastNow]

When talking with friends about MSQ, we've identified multiple problem:

• Pointless padding that could be replaced with something much more interesting
• Hildibrand writing spilled onto the MSQ, annoying jokes
• Lacks of diverse activities, fetch quest, trailing a NPC, spot something
• Wuk Lamat has good point but is sometimes written as a dumb, joyful shonen protagonist

Rolequest also have too much of Hildibrand writing, I get people asked for more Hildibrand but not to be included in the MSQ.
Also, the conflict that would "split" the scions? Just a meaningless interaction.

It works in Hildibrand imo because those quests make the protagonists and antagonists both ridiculous with the WoL in the middle. The role quests only have absurd antagonists with everyone else (for the most part) serious, and that just makes them pathetic instead of funny.