Maybe the MSQ in Dawntrail is bad because..

[Selvokaz]

They don't like the Americas?

Like think about all the past expansions that felt like they could be tied to a particular real-world culture, Heavenward felt like a medieval Europe-type vibe, with its knights, mystical dragons, controlling or powerful church/religious faith, Stormblood and the introduction of the East and of course all the cultures represented there, Japanese, Mongolian, etcetera etc, then Endwalker with its Indian like references, then Dawntrail and what seems like its Mesoamerican culture?

Or perhaps we don't like it? I don't know I'm just theorizing here, maybe they didn't have enough inspiration to draw from to make it feel as special as the previously mentioned ones? Again, just theory crafting here.

[Larirawiel]

No, this is not the reason. There are two reasons:

1. You do way too many mediocre/meaningless tasks.
2. You babysit Wuk Lamat.


And this was not in the past expansions. Even Lyse was not such a helpless baby like Wuk Lamat.



Cheers

[ConantSivrha]

Personally, I dislike Dawntrail’s MSQ for various reasons that aren’t related to the setting:
- It doubled-down on previous expansions’ poor balance between cutscenes/dialogue and gameplay (too many cutscenes, too much dialogue, not enough gameplay)
- Cutscenes were drawn out unnecessarily by characters silently walking on or off screen, or pausing dialogue for too long as the character performs an emote animation or changes their facial expression
- Dialogue is often repetitive, with the same concept getting reiterated a silly number of times, often in quick succession
- Yet more WoL “dialogue options” that are just the same opinion phrased in two slightly different ways
- The earlier parts of the story don’t feel exciting, and the later parts of the story feel like a bungled overcorrection, with a multi-world-ending threat whipped out near the very end without the buildup something of that nature deserves
- Everything surrounding the Endless feels like it was contrived for the sake of telling a story that just isn’t built to play nice with existing lore; for example, what is “life force” and why has it never been different from other types of aether that compose living beings before this point? I’m concerned about the effect this writing style could have on XIV’s world in the long run
…and so on.

The setting is one of Dawntrail’s strong points, in my opinion. I’d rather not give Square the idea that Dawntrail was disliked just because of the setting. I’d like to see more of Tural at some point in the future, preferably something beyond just the tropical and desert areas—I was hoping we’d get to explore the area the tank role quest NPCs come from, for example.

[Avoidy]

No, this is not the reason. There are two reasons:

1. You do way too many mediocre/meaningless tasks.
2. You babysit Wuk Lamat.


And this was not in the past expansions. Even Lyse was not such a helpless baby like Wuk Lamat.



Cheers

1 has always been a problem with this game's quest design. For example, post-ARR was full of so many mindless fetch quests that even the devs realized it was running people away so they tried to trim it down a bit. This game's quest options basically vary between "talk to npc," "click sparkly crap on ground" "pick up items" "deliver items" "kill thing" and when the narrative is compelling this isn't so noticeable because we're driven by a good story. But DT's story was terrible, and the quest variety was almost exclusively "talk to npc" so the stale system was SUPER noticeable and people finally picked up on how this quest format can be really boring and is basically carried by good writing which wasn't present this time around.

[Nebelheim]

The problem with dawntrail was promoting a junior writer who's only experience before dawntrail was sidequest and a few patches to write a 30-40 hour main story for an expansion with possibly no oversite from the senior writers to oversee and edit certain things or to check the pace of the story. Plus the overexposure of a certain character and way too many fetch quest style quest.

[BigBoom550]

The problem with dawntrail was promoting a junior writer who's only experience before dawntrail was sidequest and a few patches to write a 30-40 hour main story for an expansion with possibly no oversite from the senior writers to oversee and edit certain things or to check the pace of the story. Plus the overexposure of a certain character and way too many fetch quest style quest.

The quest design wasn't bad on a technical level, it's that everything was basically narrative fluff for enormous stretches.

Huge swaths can be cut with no impact to the story. Bakool Ja Ja could be removed entirely with a handful of changes to patch the hole. It was an endless series of episodes, all focused on Wuk rather than one cohesive story.

[Asari5]

1. small inconsistencies which are too small to be plot holes but there are a lot of them.

2. wuk lamat being so much main character it reduces everyone else to extras.

3. cutscene vs gameplay ratio.... which i didnt think could get worse than shb and ew. but here we are

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Two things

1. The pacing was God awful, I haven't skipped cutscenes since ARR, but the pacing here was so atrocious. It's a combination of the bad quest design and the story rehashing the concept of "getting to know your people" in every new area. Like, I get what you're doing, stop telling me that's what you're doing and just do it.

2. Personally I feel like they're leaning way too hard on the whole source and it's reflections story telling they've been doing lately. First Shadowbringers, then Endwalker, then Endwalker's post MSQ, now this. I feel like we're getting the same story over and over and over with a dying reflection and the lengths their leaders went to save their world.

To give you an example, think about how many dungeons we've had of us literally just running into the past and seeing how their world is being destroyed.
Off the top of my head and just MSQ related I'm counting 4 now. Amarout, The Dead Ends, Whatever the Void dungeon was and Alexandria.

They're in danger of becoming repetitive with this style of story telling and they need to move on. Shadow bringers was great but we're 2 expansions past it and still talking about Shadow bringers stuff.

[BigBoom550]

Two things

1. The pacing was God awful, I haven't skipped cutscenes since ARR, but the pacing here was so atrocious. It's a combination of the bad quest design and the story rehashing the concept of "getting to know your people" in every new area. Like, I get what you're doing, stop telling me that's what you're doing and just do it.

2. Personally I feel like they're leaning way too hard on the whole source and it's reflections story telling they've been doing lately. First Shadowbringers, then Endwalker, then Endwalker's post MSQ, now this. I feel like we're getting the same story over and over and over with a dying reflection and the lengths their leaders went to save their world.

To give you an example, think about how many dungeons we've had of us literally just running into the past and seeing how their world is being destroyed.
Off the top of my head and just MSQ related I'm counting 4 now. Amarout, The Dead Ends, Whatever the Void dungeon was and Alexandria.

They're in danger of becoming repetitive with this style of story telling and they need to move on. Shadow bringers was great but we're 2 expansions past it and still talking about Shadow bringers stuff.

Absolutely agree. The next expac needs to take cues from HW.

-smaller, more self-contained story.

-local threat with local agents

-WoL is a genuine outsider

-Be willing to set characters to the side for a bit if they're not relevant

Tidy up the pacing and focus issues HW had and it's a winner. Personally I want another frost/ice-based region.

[Nebelheim]

The quest design wasn't bad on a technical level, it's that everything was basically narrative fluff for enormous stretches.

Huge swaths can be cut with no impact to the story. Bakool Ja Ja could be removed entirely with a handful of changes to patch the hole. It was an endless series of episodes, all focused on Wuk rather than one cohesive story.

There did seem to be huge boring stretches with way too much fluff mixed with too much focus on wuk lamat and certain characters that seemed to not provide much to the story.