The Actual Problem With Dawntrail

[StormChase]

I agree that Wuk Lamat is not solely the problem with DT, but her 24/7 presence was more like icing on somewhat edible cake.

I don’t agree that the story was too short though, the length is decent but I feel the split priorities between right of ascension arc and then cyber city arc hurt the story, and mostly because the merging of the two areas was a bit of whiplash when you get to the second half. Plus I think because they tied up like all the plot threads real quick making a lot of the story arcs seem short because how quickly issues were resolved.

I think if they had tied more of the golden city/S9 into the first part, like throughout the entire story and not just bits and pieces when we get to the Giants area. And also not doing the whole, you can’t see what the Golden City now come back later, thing either.

Then if we see it sooner or what have you then it wouldn’t feel like all these plot threads were rushed to finish. And then it could maybe set up Sphene for an heel turn type antagonist for later patches, kinda like Yotsusu getting more story and stuff later in StB.

I'm guessing they did what they did with Shaaloani because they realized there wasn't much break time, so they wanted to give the player a breather before going right into the Alexandria stuff. Also to set up the whole deal with Erenville and his mom.

The main reason I think it's an issue with the expansion's length is because some story beats feel like they happened too soon and some feel like they happened too late. The point where Wuk Lamat admits she has a problem is at level 91. We don't get to see Alexandria and be actually introduced to Sphene until level 97, and we don't get much time with her before it's revealed she's a villain. Maybe if they cut out the Shaaloani part that could've helped, but I'm not sure if even that would be enough with 100 quests.

[StormChase]

I'm guessing they did what they did with Shaaloani because they realized there wasn't much break time, so they wanted to give the player a breather before going right into the Alexandria stuff. Also to set up the whole deal with Erenville and his mom.

The main reason I think it's an issue with the expansion's length is because some story beats feel like they happened too soon and some feel like they happened too late. The point where Wuk Lamat admits she has a problem is at level 91. We don't get to see Alexandria and be actually introduced to Sphene until level 97, and we don't get much time with her before it's revealed she's a villain. Maybe if they cut out the Shaaloani part that could've helped, but I'm not sure if even that would be enough with 100 quests.

I looked up how many quests that section is. There are seven quests from the point you travel to Shaaloani to before the dome appears.

[Raven2014]

I think the actual problem is this: Dawntrail is too short. 2.0 had about 160 quests (even more originally) to reintroduce players to Eorzea. 7.0 has only 100, even though we're exploring a whole new landmass and a nation from another shard. That's why these players feel exhausted.

I don't think that's a fair comparison though. 2.0 is the base games so it always gonna have more content than an expansion. And the first 20 level of ARR are 3 unique stories for the city states you start out with before they converse.

Everything is crammed together and there's not enough time to fully explore what the writers want to explore. Wuk Lamat takes the blame for this larger issue because she's the most prominent character

I disagree, the reason they didn't have time because they WASTED whatever time they had. One of the main complains about Wuk is while she has the most lines ... they are rarely about anything important. Even if you skip most of the her dialogue, you'll hardly miss out anything important because the majority are just her repeating her belief.

Comparing to other principal characters like Hien, G'ara, Aymeric, Ice Heart ... most of the time when those characters talk, they give you more and more insight to the world.

For example in HW, lady Ice Heart acts as a gateway for us to understand the Heretic, a faction we had little information at that point. Whether in DT, Wuk Lamat is a gate way only to ... her own head because the story set up in a way that makes her almost as oblivious to her own world as a complete stranger like the wol is.