Have the devs responded to Dawntrail reception?

[Xellith]

Of course it is.
SHB and EW were the pay-off of 10 years of world building. No new origin story can compare with that.
It's basically WoW post Wrath, where you stopped caring about so much because the story you began in Warcraft III was concluded.

That's not necessarily the case. I enjoyed Endwalker and shadowbringers because of the story, sure, but also the character interactions. Most of Dawntrail is *Wuk Lamat says something about culture, friendship, and is overall very naive. Everyone else nods along and agrees.* Most people appear upset because the story was disappointing; and it didnt have to be that way. For example; I went into the story very curious about Krile arc and felt like she was almost completely neglected to fit in more Talk to Wuk Lamat quests. In fact ALL the scions were mostly neglected this expansion.

[hydralus]

I don't think it would have been much better if they focused on Erenville and Krile since they're both very boring characters that can't be made the focus of a story for too long before you start to notice. Obviously that's also the fault of the writers, but it is what it is. If Krile had something going for them aside from "Muh grandfather" (Honestly every damn thing with her seems to be about him aside from one sassy comment way back in Heavensward) then sure, maybe. Then we've got Erenville with his "I'm too cool for everyone" attitude when he's a glorified torch bearer.

That said, reducing the amount of dialog and story relevance that Wuk Lamat got would have been an improvement even if they're kinda boring themselves.

[Granyala]

I went into the story very curious about Krile arc and felt like she was almost completely neglected

Dunno, I like Wuk. Yeah she's naive. That was the point. And she needed to learn the ugly way that not every conflict can be solved by holding hands and singing Kumba-ya. She's grown a lot and I'm curious to see where her journey takes her.

Scions being on the back burner I can kinda understand, we just had 2 expansions that were basically Scion centric.
Krile: totally agreed. It's a shame that her "story" amounts to like 5 minutes of screen time.

[CamuiKushi]

Hmm...I mean we'll see in the patch quest of 7.1 to see what their response is to the feedback is

....if it starts with Speak with Wuk Lamat again....

My primary alt is up to the "Game is on" quest in Endwalker. I logged in to do retainers on it and saw the prompt "Speak with Wuk Lamat" and thought to myself "no... I don't think I will", then logged into my alt that's still in Stormblood lmao.

I don't want to be a cutscene skipper, but man... I really want to try out the new raids, but I still have the level 98+ quests to do and I just have no hope for the ending of 7.0.

[Zelda206]

Also the Warrior of Light didn't feel like him/herself (depending on which you're playing): We're supposed to mentor Wut Lmao and instead of offering constructive criticism or insight on how other nations were embroiled in war and met in the middle, we were reduced to constantly praising, cheerleading or defending her. Why were we even there in the first place if she was going to replace every facet or improvement we could have brought to the table instead of being reduced to a "In Case Of World-Ending Threat Break Open", and even THEN we got sidelined so that the Power of Heart from Captain Planet could appeal to a genocidal robot with the AI-attunement of an overlong teenager? Getting beaten over the head with nothing but "understanding" while simultaneously being 'resolved' to kill an adopted sibling that was open to worldwide dominion without bloodshed (on the condition of surrender) to prove a point (a point overlooked and unattended to by the Dawnservant), and ONLY granting 'understanding' to the robot's universal crusade was a flaw that seriously needed refinement and revisal.

Not to mention the Versus in Yak T'el (don't get me started one everything wrong with that place), where one of the two was qualified to have 'resolve' to be granted absolute power and victory over the opponent, who had just as much reason and resolve to fight to win the throne (as we discover in that latter portion of the zone's story). If it was that crucial to have that kind of power, then it would have made sense for both of them to have ascended and at least met in the middle or even drawn into a stalemate. It would have garnered respect from both sides without beating the two-dimensional setup to a bloody pulp. So what were we even there for when we were literally surpassed by a young idealistic adult with less than a fifth of our battle experience?

[Daralii]

Also the Warrior of Light didn't feel like him/herself (depending on which you're playing): We're supposed to mentor Wut Lmao and instead of offering constructive criticism or insight on how other nations were embroiled in war and met in the middle, we were reduced to constantly praising, cheerleading or defending her. Why were we even there in the first place if she was going to replace every facet or improvement we could have brought to the table instead of being reduced to a "In Case Of World-Ending Threat Break Open", and even THEN we got sidelined so that the Power of Heart from Captain Planet could appeal to a genocidal robot with the AI-attunement of an overlong teenager? Getting beaten over the head with nothing but "understanding" while simultaneously being 'resolved' to kill an adopted sibling that was open to worldwide dominion without bloodshed (on the condition of surrender) to prove a point (a point overlooked and unattended to by the Dawnservant), and ONLY granting 'understanding' to the robot's universal crusade was a flaw that seriously needed refinement and revisal.

Not to mention the Versus in Yak T'el (don't get me started one everything wrong with that place), where one of the two was qualified to have 'resolve' to be granted absolute power and victory over the opponent, who had just as much reason and resolve to fight to win the throne (as we discover in that latter portion of the zone's story). If it was that crucial to have that kind of power, then it would have made sense for both of them to have ascended and at least met in the middle or even drawn into a stalemate. It would have garnered respect from both sides without beating the two-dimensional setup to a bloody pulp. So what were we even there for when we were literally surpassed by a young idealistic adult with less than a fifth of our battle experience?

The framing and execution in general is just so weird that I have a hard time even guessing what the intent was. It's a "fun summer vacation" where you're essentially doing mercenary work to help someone become a monarch, but you aren't actually needed, so you just stand in the background and clap as your employer solves everything herself up until the developers remember that there's a gameplay quota. Even ignoring that, I don't think even Alphinaud's arc in ARR and HW was this lopsided with character interactions.

[Ramiee]

Probably nothing until the run up of 8.0.
Considering most of the post MSQ is probably already written it won't get any better. I at most expect them saying something along the lines "We have learnt a lesson from last expansion" or something.

[Fawkes]

suffice it to say this is the weakest and lowest point for FF14 (besides 1.0); Even with JP players not enjoying the expansion.

have the devs put out a statement or do you think they will at somepoint?

Here you go

Hello everyone, this is Naoki Yoshida, Producer and Director of FINAL FANTASY XIV.
First, I would like to thank you all for your patience and cooperation in dealing with server congestion during the early access for Dawntrail. With your support, we were able to reach a record number of concurrent users we’ve not seen since the release of A Realm Reborn in 2013.

The only thing they look at is numbers. More people playing at once means everything is good.

[TaleraRistain]

I'm still mystified as to what happened, though. The writer did the Bard and Black Mage role quests and those are both really friggin solid. I want to hold onto some optimism that the guy can fix things up in post--not even as a "Dawntrail Defender", but as a Black Mage main who holds this guy to better than that.

Isn't there more than one new writer? Maybe we're getting things from that person.

[Alchemii]

Isn't there more than one new writer? Maybe we're getting things from that person.

Oh most certainly. That other writer only did a couple of side quests for Shadowbringers, and before that wrote 2 Adult Visual Novels. That's it. That's all they've done. I'd get you the name and links for proof, but I'm at work right now and all those sites are blocked, I'm actually amazed the forums aren't blocked.