This story is really underwhelming - it's opened to mixed reviews.

[Zaniel]

- Alise was behind the biggest medical break through in history (curing the tempered) that opened the door for total diplomacy and unification.

Mah girl is so overlooked for this. Possibly the single biggest achievement by any character not the WoL in modern history. Sure she relies on other's technical skills but she made it happen.

[AnotherHighlander]

I honestly feel that people will look on Dawntrail unfavourably, but come to realise that much of the blame does lie with Endwalker. It was just a bit too crazy compared to what came before. Now we're back with our feet on the ground and the grass is not greener for it.

Stakes aren't the problem, genuinely. There are so many stories in literature that have far lower stakes than whatever was going on in EW, but they manage to make them compelling and engaging to read through. The problem is bad writing, and not just bad writing but insultingly bad characterization of the characters, themes, and world, wrapped with incessant moralizing more apt for a toddler than any functioning adult.

[Raven2014]

Gotta agree with the general consensus here. It was a tough job for CBU3 to take on, but it's a mess of their own making at the end of the day.

Throughout all the expansions we raised and raised the stakes, but I don't look at the trials in Heavensward and think 'that's such small fry' compared to ShB.

Had nothing to do with that, the problems lie more with they can not buckle their own trend. I said it many times, if they want they can commit Dawn Trail to a full adventure ala Lara Croff/ India John, those games often very interesting story without the world ending thing. But instead, they decided to half-arse and back pedal in the later half. The whole Sphene/new reflection was totally unnecessary given what they said would be the main theme of DT. It would have been much better for the 2nd of the MSQ to be introduced at 7.3, and give Sphene/Endless their appropriate attention as the center of the next expansion kinda like how they set up Zeros and WoD. The fact that they had to jam an out of place world ending threat in the back half of their "fun and adventure" expack make me think SE is incapable of writing something with low skate.


Another problem with the writing team is their obsession with the "everyone is nice deepdown no matter how bad they look at the surface", this eliminate a lot of their options to diverse the narrative and thus they gonna keep go down the same road.

[flipwizardmagoo]

My biggest issue with the MSQ is the lack of setup and payoff. In fact, I thought Koana was being set up as a future dictator type villain who would end up trying to force communities in Tural to become advanced technologically, but nah, instead they (again) introduce a character never before mentioned over halfway into the story, and that’s the real big bad we’re supposed to care about. But we’re not supposed to hate her, because she’s a cute little girl with *good intentions*?

They’ve completely forgotten how to plant the seeds of characters and stories that grow and invest us. How am I supposed to care about any of this when it’s suddenly shoved in my face out of nowhere?

[Underscore]

Do you base all of your opinions on what review websites say?

[HighlanderClone]

Do you base all of your opinions on what review websites say?

Your two remaining neurons really can't figure out that most of these threads and criticisms were made before Metacritic even went live huh.

[Underscore]

Your two remaining neurons really can't figure out that most of these threads and criticisms were made before Metacritic even went live huh.

Read the title of the thread we are currently replying to.

Why are you so mad?

[xxmiamorecadenza]

What really bothered me was the amount of repetitiveness from the writing. I read/heard the same lines said in slightly different ways a zillion times. If you took a drink every time the word "peace" was said, you'd die from alcohol poisoning.

* camera zooms on my hand curling into a fist * what do you mean you don’t want a zillion shots of my fingers curling so I can convey upon you my emotion.

[SwadTheFrog]

* camera zooms on my hand curling into a fist * what do you mean you don’t want a zillion shots of my fingers curling so I can convey upon you my emotion.

I was vaguely keeping track of this, as it started happening NONSTOP on the second half. I want to say there were eleven shots of this happening, but my count may be off. There may have been more, or a bit less.

[ThorneDynasty]

What do you mean, the devs get weirdly obsessed whenever they get a new emote/canned animation and overuse it in scenes where it just looks unnatural?

>:J