Dawntrail is so painful; is it on purpose?

[Arrius]

The moment I witnessed the young seaman from the first Main Scenario Quests having a voice of a grizzly 60-year old, I knew I was in a wild ride.

[fioravictorine]

By now I have seen several comments in the English Forum questioning if...or stating that the Japanese version is better. As someone who plays every expansion in JP and on JP DC, I will testify that bad writing is bad writing in 7.0 regardless of whether it is in English or Japanese.

If people need more evidence they can go to the megathread on the Japanese forum, many critics there express similar concerns as those in English. They tend to be a bit euphemistic but are still clearly pointing out the problems, and some of them are just outright criticizing, which is a rare situation.

Edited to add the mentioned megathread link here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...81%84%E3%81%A6

Also on one aspect Wuk Lamat is even worse in JP: she is strangely impolite in her choice of second person pronouns and how she almost never speaks in polite form. It might be a shonen trope thing, but to be honest, can't say the JP players receive that very well, since it is also stated she is a princess and would be queen.

Thanks, I am glad JP players are also having the same sentiment (no idea what is being discussed in there tho since I don't speak Japanese)

I hope the devs notice that both EN and JP players are extremely upset about the storytelling (and Wuk Lamat)

[PaleYonder]

I find the "it's only about the VA" rebuttals disingenuous with all the actual story critique that's been posted already. But I'll respond seriously anyway with my own perspective: It's not about the voice actor or acting; I don't care who an actor is, I'm part of the alphabet faction myself, it'd be idiotic of me to mind. The quality itself was not what I was used to from before, but it's not the point.

Over time I've played the game in three different languages, trying things out, and eventually settled on all-English because I used to really enjoy what the English localiser team did with the extra writing flourishes (not to everyone's taste, but I had fun), and I thought the British theatre-degree actors were overall the best. In Dawntrail, I gradually noticed a difference in quality, saw everyone recommending a switch to JP voices and did that, and while the voice quality improved drastically, the writing did not, and that's what bothers me.
As a disclaimer of sorts, I can understand enough Japanese to rely mostly on the audio while playing, but I keep the text in another language for difficult vocabulary and cause my kanji are very rusty. But I'd say I got enough from the Japanese voices to get the main part, and the written-only text would hardly be changed to such a significant degree as to turn a good story into a bad one. It's a linear game story with all kinds of factors coming together, gameplay, animations, what have you, a few choices of words won't make the difference.
And the overall improvement was barely there, and it didn't save anything about my experience as a player and normally-MSQ-enjoyer.

For the most blatant example:
The infamous uninvited trial entrance was voice-acted well in JP, I thought; she did a really good job at portraying the character in the scene and bringing on all that shounen energy. The problem was that the entrance itself was a horrible idea, narratively, for the player experience, and just on every level. It shouldn't have happened at all. The whole forced setup of Wuk Lamat and Sphene as having any sort of connection didn't land for me. The way they keep talking over the last part of the trial and the aftermath, making it about them, didn't work. The whole section disregards the experience the player comes to expect of the final trial of an expansion. It tries to copy a formula that worked in different contexts, with different characters, in different ways that were organically part of the story (Zenos, Gaia, Emet, "Light the way"...) and simply does not work here. All after forcing the one character in for the whole game and making her unwelcome no matter what. No amount of voice acting skill, and no amount of linguistic flourishes can salvage that.
And that's just one scene; the whole MSQ is full of these moments because the entire setup and structure is incredibly flawed from the ground up.

[Voidmage]

Thanks, I am glad JP players are also having the same sentiment (no idea what is being discussed in there tho since I don't speak Japanese)

I hope the devs notice that both EN and JP players are extremely upset about the storytelling (and Wuk Lamat)

They really discuss the same stuff as this side here.
Many comments are almost the same.
It’s about Wuk Lamat being too focused, the WoL sidelined, the story too childish at parts, the writing just being bad and so on.
There are a few voices liking the story but really not so many and far, far less then usual.

Really. The only thing not being discussed there is the voices.

I find the "it's only about the VA" rebuttals disingenuous with all the actual story critique that's been posted already.

The whole stuff about criticism just being about the voices is just pathetic bait at this point.
No one who spend more then 5 min on the internet and actually read at least a handful of criticism would post that take in good faith.
It would be best to just ignore it at this point. Something I will probably also do from now on.

Some people just love to rile up the crowd.

[ThorneDynasty]

how is it not true?

Have you actually played the tank role quest for example?

MSQ: We have to catch an alpaca > Wuk Lamat goes to catch an alpaca in a cutscene.
Role quest: We have to stop these rampaging monsters > Find someone attacked by monsters and defend them in gameplay.

MSQ: Oh no the villain is trying to get away > We stand there haplessly in a cutscene as the villain leaves, not even trying to stop them.
Role quest: Oh no the villain is trying to get away > Immediate transition from cutscene to gameplay, you are attacked by villain's goons as they make their escape, using gameplay to explain why the plot beat makes any logical sense.

[Zyvex]

None of the previous MSQ writers were involved in the making of DT.

Apparently the EW writer was overseeing some of DT, but left the team of two quite a lot of freedom as it seems.
The DT writers previously were involved in a random side quest and a fairy beast tribe quest afaik. Take this info with a grain of salt, as I didn't go out of my way to double check the details again, I just know I've read that somewhere before. Feel free to confirm it yourself.

tl;dr They let some known to be bad writers go wild for whatever reason. The Raid story shows some potential though

[Solsbeary]

Imagine commenting on the MSQ before actually completing it.

[Mnemy]

Imagine commenting on the MSQ before actually completing it.

There's nothing wrong with it. They didnt say that the MSQ in its entirety is bad, they're saying that they are not enjoying what they have seen so far. So they are feeling the outdated formula that SE has for its MSQ because of the fact they are not enjoying what they are currently experiencing.

[Serenitey]

It is so dull I am taking it in chunks. It is hard to finish tbh and do not really care to. :/ The story isn't the same quality as Stormblood or Endwalker and if people were honest, they could admit that.

[Zaniel]

Imagine commenting on the MSQ before actually completing it.

Imagine the MSQ being terrible at almost every single step so no matter where you are on the path you have some garbage to be justifiably annoyed about.