Unpopular Opnion: Dawntrail MSQ one of the best yet! [Spoilers]

[Eyrilona]

Why could we not have just had Turali warriors alongside us as trust NPCs? In the expansion all about learning the culture of Tural, surely fighting alongside the Turali people would have been the best thing for this! I would have loved to have gotten to meet some Turali warrior who has dialogue over the course of the dungeon, explaining the world by pointing out dangers, or telling stories about the place we're in. It's one of the few places where characters simply turning around and explaining what's happening around you makes sense, because you're in a combat situation!

Right? In 6.55 we have Wuk Lamat all about how there is no better way to get to know people than through hunting together. We then go into an expansion where the entire first half focuses on Wuk Lamat having to get to know her people, and she proceeds to never ask to go hunting with any of them even once. In fact the only time we actually needed to hunt something because we needed meat for the cooking competition, Alisaie was volunteered to go fetch that by herself and Wuk didn't even go, being too busy making us walk with them through being told (not shown) the middle school comprehension level version of the local culture. It is as if the story went out of its way to contradict even the established character of the Wuk Lamat from 6.55?!

[Solsbeary]

Overall the ideas behind the story were fine.

A throne succession contest: Fine
Exploring new regions and learning about their cultures by actually being shown: Fine
A long lost gate to another world/reflection: Fine
Connection to lost world of long known character (Krile): Fine.
Lost world being a digitised version of that lost world: Fine

There were many things wrong however:
Scions: Use them extensively or not at all, Estinien doesn't need to be a cowboy, Y'shtola wasnt needed whatsoever. To use Thancred/Uri as competition was a great idea but the depth of their involvement had them as throwaway side characters, not those we've known for 10 years.

Theme: Give the themes you're trying to convey the depth and complexity they deserve, this is what was great about EW, Garlemald was a nightmare because of the themes it touched upon. The ones in DT were stepped on too lightly or not given the time to breathe at all..

Apologies this is as much as i can type right now due to work, will continue later

[Satell]

I have personally enjoyed the MSQ quite a lot, both the characters and the plot itself, so I finished the story with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes. I do think there were some pacing issues here and there, but it was nothing that really threw me off. I'm definitely looking forward to the next patches.
The only thing I think the community as a whole need to stop is being arrogant. By that, I mean that people who enjoyed the story (like me) shouldn't bash people who didn't or that have plenty of criticisms regarding the MSQ. It's true that some of the criticism is quite silly, but there are plenty of fair points being said. On the other hand, people who didn't really enjoy the MSQ as much shouldn't clown on people who enjoyed it. There's really no reason to try to convince people they are wrong for enjoying something or not.
Idk, I just think it's super arrogant to say stuff like: "I enjoyed/didn't enjoy the story, and I AM RIGHT, so if you disagree with me, you're wrong/must be memeing/have bad taste" lol

[Voidmage]

I have personally enjoyed the MSQ quite a lot, both the characters and the plot itself, so I finished the story with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes. I do think there were some pacing issues here and there, but it was nothing that really threw me off. I'm definitely looking forward to the next patches.
The only thing I think the community as a whole need to stop being arrogant. By that, I mean that people who enjoyed the story (like me) shouldn't bash people who didn't or that have plenty of criticisms regarding the MSQ. It's true that some of the criticism is quite silly, but there are plenty of fair points being said. On the other hand, people who didn't really enjoy the MSQ as much shouldn't clown on people who enjoyed it. There's really no reason to try to convince people they are wrong for enjoying something or not.
Idk, I just think it's super arrogant to say stuff like: "I enjoyed/didn't enjoy the story, and I AM RIGHT, so if you disagree with me, you're wrong/must be memeing/have bad taste" lol

Thank you, thank you, thank you.
That's literally it.
There's liking and criticizing without going down to stealth insults or just open ones.

I loved the lore implications but hated the narrative and Wuk Lamat's center focus.
Both the normal criticism and the normal liking of the story comes from people who generally loved the story of ff14.

I wish I could like this comment more then once.

[Abriael]

Personally, I found the story great. I enjoyed every bit of it from start to end.

Yet, I can see how people who don't enjoy Wuk Lamat as a character would likely be prevented from enjoying the story as much as I did. Like most characters who lean heavily on the stereotypical (which isn't a bad thing in itself) and on comedic relief, she's simply not for everyone.

The issue is that too many chips have been bet on Wuk Lamat to have a story with universal appeal. Had they split the attention more evenly between Wuk Lamat and Koana and possibly had the WOL in a more active role, they'd have greatly widened the chance for most of the audience to enjoy the story.

So yeah, while Dawntrail is a solid 8.5 or even a 9 for me, I hope for future expansions they do not bet all their chips on one character, but they distribute the spotlight more broadly including the WOL (who is the one character that basically everyone will automatically enjoy because people simply fill them up with their own headcanon). This will ensure that the vast majority of people won't be at a disadvantage in enjoying the story because it's not fully based on a character who did not click with them.

Also, as someone who worked on anime localization for several years, I can see that the English scriptwriting and voiceovers did not do Dawntrail any favors with the Western community. While I don't pretend to know why certain choices have been made, the dialogue wildly swings between the oversimplified and the overly fancy compared to the Japanese one (Dawnservants? Promises? Resilient Sons? What am I even reading here?), and while I'm not gonna point any fingers at any voice actor because I don't know the conditions they had to work in (conditions and budgets largely impact voice actors' performance), it's obvious that there's a massive gap in overall quality between English and Japanese voices.

[Nyxs]

Nah the writing was bad and woke lmao is annoying

[JustinSolstice]

Nah the writing was bad and woke lmao is annoying

Do you violently cum to people falling for rage bait?