Dawntrail's MSQ story is a disaster and waste of potential. [full spoilers]

[fioravictorine]

They should have just make us create a new character after Endwalker if they were going to write us off like this

I can't feel a larger disconnect from myself and my character who is all of the sudden Wuk's no. 1 fangirl along with Wuk's fansquad the Scions of Lamat

[Turtledeluxe]

Just to clarify, Zooral's plan wasn't "make war so they appreciate the peace they have", it was "Make war, so they appreciate peace under MY rule." His plan is to make the idea of fighting back against HIS rule unappealing, because it will just lead to more war. He doesn't want peace, he wants people to bend the knee to him, and his method of getting that is making it so their only other option is endless war with him.

Indeed. It was really stupid.

A lot of the praise he's getting as a villain is totally unjustified and largely based on him having little to no dialogue.

[Zakuyia]

After really lurking and reading. This goes beyond the Wuk Lamat drama. Honestly this is just overall bad mis management from sound, va, to world building, writing department. We not even gonna dress the job issues and the actual technical bugs and possibly health risk with the eye straining going on. Yes Dawn trail is possible another messy launch since 1.0 but at least it works . All jokes the game detractors to its defenders do not full articulate the issues or the things they like as well....Naw i kid. There just too many problems that have already been said and sad part there are ppl who pretend these problems dont exist. Some like the story no problem to each their own but yes i agree this game is uh debatble when it comes to good.

[All_Nonsense]

The biggest jump is from Lv95 to Lv96 when he disappears into the golden city, killing his follower, and then suddenly launch a futuristic assault from Alexandria (from his PoV, 30 years has past). Perhaps more development could be done in this part of the story, or some flashbacks to this period later on.

Yes, 30 years passed for Zoraal Ja, but the devs are telling ME the story, not Zoraal Ja. I need context here, not just "lol it's been 30 years who knows what happened anyway here ya go. Need an explanation? It was 30 years lol anything could have happened that's how this is happening" and then I just kinda accept it? It feels completely disjointed and out of nowhere and horribly paced. From a writing perspective it feels super rushed, like they were trying to cram a story through without taking the time to develop proper exposition - which is ironic considering how useless the rest of the story up to this point becomes when space ships start flying out of portals.

[Mickmann]

My GF and me waited for the story to kick off. We waited and waited... and then at the end, when finally SOMETHING happens we get ... Meteion 2.0. Really disappointing.

What we would have liked would be if after the trails, wuk lamat would actually be revealed to be the real antagonist of the story, who just used the WoL and his friends to get what she wanted. At least I would have had the chance to kill her then...

[savarna]

The pacing of the story is pretty abysmal and remains consistent throughout 85-90% of the game. The remaining percentage is attributed to only a few, short-lived, sporadic moments of excitement. This is by far the weakest MSQ of all the expansions, followed by Stormblood. Wuk Lamat, being the Jar Jar Binks of Star Wars, does not help the narrative and only adds more cringe and a*% beating to an already dead horse.

This was the most painful chore I have ever been subjected to, just to be able to play the rest of the content. Fluck a proverbial duck...

[XPhobic76]

I cannot express how disappointed I am with the MSQ. What sucks is that the team had so many good ideas and a great premise. They had everything for a great story and good MSQ experience. IDK if it was laziness, inexperience, time constrains or whatever - but all it would have taken were some adjustments and it would have been good. Almost like this was a first draft. I honestly think narcissism came into play here. I've seen this very thing in many western franchises that have been ruined because of it. Wuk Lamat comes across as a self insert for some narcissistic member of the team. She is already great (the bestest eva) and only needed to discover she was great. Every other character exists to affirm her and tell her how great she is. She snuffs out any good idea and character in the story in service of her. I really hope this shallowness and low quality experience is not the future of FFXIV. It is a $40 expansion with a monthly subscription; it needs to be better than this to justify the price.

[MatthiusAbysswalker]

But guys it's a new arc! Wait until 9.0 when it starts to pick up!!! -_-

[Laerune]

I like Wuk Lamar, but this is the first time since A Realm Reborn, where I took a break from doing the MSQ.

[ThorneDynasty]

But guys it's a new arc! Wait until 9.0 when it starts to pick up!!! -_-

It's wild people are actually using that as a cope for a 30 hours game, which, mind you, most of us were expecting to be a light self-contained thing with the plot hook for future expansions right at the end.

Do people actually think it had to be this mess of a story for the conclusion to be "the Golden City is a portal to another shard and we find a mysterious artifact relating to Azem there"? 95% of the plotline could have been changed to literally anything, preferably something actually good, and it wouldn't have made the expansion any less of a setup. 30 hours is long enough to tell a good story when the only set end-point can be as tangentially related as it was.