Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[Rueby]

I've been sitting on the MSQ for awhile, and honestly, after finishing the totally not rigged cooking contest, what is exactly the point of the trials at all? Wuk Lamat and Koana will get grouped together always. Even the Dawnservant has a bias, but apparently we see nothing of him educating his other two sons. He wants Wuk Lamat to win, everyone wants Wuk Lamat to win. We're helping Wuk Lamat win. I think everyone else is just a decoration for Wuk Lamat.

I hate how the story manages to find ways to have Wuk Evu exposition dump. Oh he just HAPPENED to be here, and happened to KNOW the information we need so he can bestow upon us his boundless wisdom so it may overflow and hopefully put my WoL out of her misery. I hate being right about that.

The little 'escort' quest prior to the Skyruin sucked the little 'oh nice' I had for it. They...seem too fond of whatever 'tension/spooky' music that was used in ShB for when Vauthry attacked the crystarium. It honestly overstayed its welcome in this case. Spooky/scary music in the BG, meanwhile, just escort this goofy hand minion as it points at the wrong fire aspected thing that you have to kill. Wow, so threatening and lethal. Skyruin was...actually a let down, or maybe I was just...too burnt by it.

Of course, they say I can finally rest in the awesome cabin? Rest? Nope. Wuk Lamat, and you open the door, she invades your space and now you must follow her outside because she's a ball of stress, so she can talk to you about peace, while showing you actual nightmare fuel of an Old NPC, what's with the hyper-realistic wrinkles...I've started to skim through dialogue, especially Wuk Lamat's because her dialogue is just..predictable and there's not much for her to add. She's not here to 'show us around' this new culture/place- which would've been great honestly, to help someone knowledgable and passionate about her people rather than whining about mundane shit and talking about ~peace~, even Zoraal Ja is extremely boring, existing to be a Krile jumpscare, I get it, he has ~ambition~ can we stop talking about his ambition and actually SEE?

Also stop dropping this hear feel think bullshit, it's so cringe out of the context of EW. Why the hell is Wuk Lamat of all things saying that to me?????

I have no interest in Zoraal Ja's ambitions, Wuk Lamat's bizarre adventures, or even Koana who I thought I'd warm up to but I ended up not. Bakool Ja Ja, I don't understand wtf he's doing, but at least he amuses me. I have no interest in Gulool Ja Ja anymore.

I'm inhaling some severe copium that the golden city might be interesting but then I remember I have to put up with Wuk Lamat and the gang...and it just sucks the enjoyment and fun out of me. I don't recall being so discouraged from the MSQ since post ARR. I guess writing this out is somewhat relieving...

[Plumbago]

So I'm only at about level 94-95 quests in DT. Stopped for a bit just after the solo duty with wok lambchop against bakool ja ja. And I have to say, it really sucks that I'm so bleh about this expansion so far. I was poised to give it a fair shake despite what a good amount of trusted friends said about it, but I just can't shake the fact that this feels so lackluster. I don't think Wuk herself is the problem, I think the team of people who wrote her is. But even then, she and her siblings, except maybe Zoraal Ja since his entire personality consists of scaring Krile (mean) so far, have at least some personality, even if it's not to everyone's liking. The Scions feel so... flat. Like I'm talking to one-note cardboard cutout versions of them instead of the people they were developed into over the course of the Hydaelyn/Zodiark saga. I hear that the second half isn't as bad as the first, but the bar's getting to be pretty low. I rarely skipped cutscenes when I played through the game, save for the beginning of ARR and a few points of Stormblood because parts of it made me super impatient lol, but most of these cutscenes are so... nothing. They make me feel nothing. And that's worse that feeling angry, I just feel nothing.

[Zaniel]

I hear that the second half isn't as bad as the first, but the bar's getting to be pretty low..

You just exchange one flavour of nonsense for a different flavour of nonsense.

[Eyrilona]

Skyruin was...actually a let down, or maybe I was just...too burnt by it.

Wow, it is sad to have to acknowledge this, but even that straight-forward pun has more layers to it than what the MSQ got out of Valigarmanda.

[SwadTheFrog]

I think everyone criticizing Sena needs a little perspective is all. They asked the VA to play an incompetent, loudmouthed narcissist that spends all expac failing upwards and using others to her own ends, all while surrounded by a team of fawning sycophants telling her she's the best thing ever, and us, the player/WoL, being dragged along for the ride and shamed whenever we go to criticize her. The casting was perfect when you look at it like that.

Sweet mother mary of jesus christ, that's the best post I've seen on this.

[Fiel_Tana]

You know, when someone posted that Dawntrail parody of that years long "Lackluster Endwalker story" thread before the expansion's release, I hadn't realized how prophetic it would end up being.

A lot of the complaints in the "Lackluster Endwalker" thread about plot-holes, flaws in writing, flat characterisation, lack of WoL agency etc. became even more obvious in DT. There were a lot of arguments and some overreactions (understandable, emotions run hot when people love something that feels like it's heading in a terrible direction) but overall a lot in that thread feels rather prophetic now.

To me it felt like something about the writing quality shifted half way through EW, became more pronounced in the patches and now is glaringly obvious in DT. I truly hope the devs listen to the current complaints and correct their course.

[Hallarem]

Valigarmanda shouldve been the main boss in DT instead of Sphene. DT suffers from (aside from like a million other things) of the same problem as EW. For some odd reason, they insist on jamming two expansions into one.
EW I understood as "we want the Hydaelyn Zodiark saga to end" soooooo.. whats the reason to badly pace and rush Dawntrail then? These decisions baffle me.

[Eyrilona]

Valigarmanda shouldve been the main boss in DT instead of Sphene. DT suffers from (aside from like a million other things) of the same problem as EW. For some odd reason, they insist on jamming two expansions into one.
EW I understood as "we want the Hydaelyn Zodiark saga to end" soooooo.. whats the reason to badly pace and rush Dawntrail then? These decisions baffle me.

I could actually get behind that, because it would force the writers to completely rethink how they bring tension into a story instead of trying to go through the motions and reheat story elements from previous acclaimed releases.

The big thing would be, every expansion up until now, the final boss has been 'the BBEG with a plan'. Valigarmanda as an entity on the contrary is simply a single beast with no plan and no political agenda, but the power to bring destruction to all civilization on the continent all by itself. It doesn't deploy minions, doesn't rule a nation, and it doesn't scheme against the player or any other faction. It just exists as a destructive force. If THAT is the final boss of the expansion, the story leading up to it is going to be a completely different experience and largely involve mini arcs to overcome obstacles that the final boss probably either wasn't even involved in or didn't intentionally put in place. It would be much more the story of a complicated journey with the goal of slaying the beast eventually, instead of the story of the player spearheading some large scale conflict like we have already been doing expansion after expansion.

And if the MSQ were a wondrous journey across the continents instead of a silly competition and a war, it could have done SO much more into exploration, discovery, and the joys and rigors of being on a difficult journey, that it might have actually been the 'beach vacation episode' the marketing promised us.

[sylphlands]

Valigarmanda shouldve been the main boss in DT instead of Sphene.

This was my wish as well. I would have loved for Vali to be a Nidhogg-like character with a real motive and personality. Vali should have caused us a lot more trouble than it did, but instead we defeated it like 20 minutes after first seeing it? So lackluster.

[Rin_Sato]

As someone mentioned, it's not a high stakes story. But it's a story where we help someone succeed who is trying her best and it just makes you feel good. And like stomping on the faces of everyone who was mean to her in the past.

"Not a high stakes story".

Did we play the same expansion?