It's wild how indifferent I feel after DT for the first time in 11 years.

[lolnotacat]

I think people are reading too much into the non existent subtext of the endless

They were just terribly written because the writers wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Depending on if we were trying to generate meaningful moments for krile and erenville or focusing on the threat to tural the endless are both mindless victims of sphene’s machinations and meaningful living human beings

They wanted us to feel something for krile losing her parents again or erenville losing cauchia but they didn’t want to make the WOL out to be a genocidal maniac for killing an entire city of people and we ended up with a weird incongruous mix of the two. It didn’t help that the background endless have zero personality or agency and we don’t actually know how they feel about anything. The closest we get is the proposal and a vague “we probably can’t stay like this forever” but the game never seems to allow the endless to say they want to live which really just one dimensionally forces the whole “perversion of nature” point down your throats because the endless aren’t allowed to show humanity opposing their own demise

It was so bad I actually rewrote the whole endless in my headcanon because due to horrific circumstances in my WOL’s past they refuse to deny humanity to the endless and so defy the scions and wuk Lamat to keep the endless online and substitute the endless aether deficit with his own aether

What sucks is one little change to the writing could've fixed the endless (the rest of DT would've still been garbage though). If at some point, we started talking to the first/oldest groups of endless and found out they were bored and depressed about being stuck in Temu Disneyland for eternity, and Sphene wouldn't let them die, that would've changed everything. Now Sphene is a rogue AI keeping trapped, sentient, people bound to a weird state of undeath and killing living beings to do so all in order to satisfy her programming. Now we have a definite enemy that is imprisoning very tragic individuals who we need to sacrifice, (even if some most aren't exactly ready to go yet) so we can move forward and end the threat and their suffering. Not only that, the theme of 'immortality not being all that great' which was established in EW would've been maintained.

Hiroi is a hack.

[gumas]

i stop my sub a week ago (i shouldnt be able to post in here in a couple days)

i just dont feel anything toward this expansion, everything just feel... meh, its not because we dont face world ending threat or something like that, it just the general story just felt boring for me, especially when i play ff14 for the story, so when the only thing that make me keep playing the game didnt even get me, i just didnt feel like it anymore

iam thinking to sub ff11 after this, always want to try it but the old UI and old mmo style (no quest marker, everything is "manua" kind of thing) always get me, maybe this time i will try it for real

[TaleraRistain]

DT's story fell flat on its face with me but I do enjoy the Arcadion gameplay and story. And I enjoyed the DoL and DoH questlines. I'm also interested in the breadcrumbs they've left about where we might go in the future with the key. So they haven't lost me yet but I definitely didn't jive with the story they presented.

[BadAtGames]

I've been playing on and off since Stormblood, but I finished Endwalker for the first time last year and had such a fiery passion for the story that I made a whopping 160 unique drawings of my wol in 9 months. Needless to say I was excited for DT, and then deeply, profoundly disappointed by the time I entered the final zone. My interest in the game pretty much immediately fizzled out and my trust in the developers was quashed, so I have very little remaining affection or excitement for the game. I remain subscribed because I play frontlines with my husband sometimes.

[Archeron]

I was expecting Dawntrail to be the beginning of a new story... FOR US. I did not imagine from the promotional materials prior to launch that I'd be treated like a useless side character and have Wuk Lamat force feed exposition down our throats, while she steals the spotlight from everyone else over the duration of the story, including characters we actually care about, (Not her.). I don't care about Wuk Lamats journey, I care about my Journey, and if the MSQ isn't going to feature our WoL, They can shove it where the sun doesn't shine, I'm skipping every single cutscene again.

Then you have the lack of reassurances from Yoshi P, and the lack of acknowledgment of how serious the communities problems with the MSQ are. For a man who claims to value feedback, he sure loves to be "selective" with what feedback he chooses to take. From some of his interviews you'd have to wonder if he's even playing the same game as us.

It's hard to care about a story thats honestly more poorly written than WoW's Shadowlands expansion.

[TDawnstar]

Why are you hating on Rp'ers ... We are the ones that keep this game going?

Because raiders. They already turned WoW into a raiding simulator with Ion's help, and now they are looking to do the same with YoshiP's.

[lolnotacat]

I was expecting Dawntrail to be the beginning of a new story... FOR US. I did not imagine from the promotional materials prior to launch that I'd be treated like a useless side character and have Wuk Lamat force feed exposition down our throats, while she steals the spotlight from everyone else over the duration of the story, including characters we actually care about, (Not her.). I don't care about Wuk Lamats journey, I care about my Journey, and if the MSQ isn't going to feature our WoL, They can shove it where the sun doesn't shine, I'm skipping every single cutscene again.

Honestly, I think us turning into a mentor could've been a cool change for the WoL if it was done properly. We've seen and done a lot, and had this stupid cat following us everywhere. It would've been interesting to see her actually grow over an expansion or two. Imagine how much cooler it would've been if she tried to solve everything with her axe, and over the course of the expansion, we (along with Alisae who also liked solving problems with violence) taught her that cooler heads prevailed. Or imagine the good character interactions we could've seen if Alphinaud taught her about failure and leadership. Or if Y'shtola taught her to actually appreciate other cultures and knowledge deeper than just tacos and alpacas. A mentor role where we had to step in and save the dumb cat from her own failings so she could grow would've been a real good change of pace for the WoL and something we've only had small glimpses of with other characters so far.

Instead we just got a Mary Sue who is ackshully the bestest evar and just didn't realize how awesome she ackshully is and had the power inside her all along.

[Laerune]

Story has been *meh* since 6.1, so I dont have much hope for 7.1 - 7.55, lets hope the content is still fun.

[PercibelTheren]

No. What I said was correct. They discontinued it in Shadowbringers. They brought it back in Endwalker (EO) due to popular demand. They felt the same way about it, that it wasn't different enough, so they are going to make it different somehow in Dawntrail they said. They haven't been clear exactly how though.

I hope it won't be too much like EO, then. I've been doing EO with a group of friends and it's easily my least favourite DD in the game. By a LOT. Our last wipe on floor 78 happened because a Sasquatch spawned right as we entered the floor teleporter and did its instakill AoE when my screen was already fading to black. Mechanics like that need to go. They have nothing to do with skill, they're just a massive annoyance.

[Xelanar]

It's hard to care about a story thats honestly more poorly written than WoW's Shadowlands expansion.

This is basically it.
While I do blame journalists for asking Yoshi-P the wrong questions and therefore getting the wrong feedback (focusing on Wuk Lamat, instead of asking about the plentiful, horrible plot holes), the story has always been THE FFXIV thing. One of its major selling points. I used to tell people to try the game out and how the story alone was worth it. Well, I can no longer do that, because now I feel like I have to spare them the feeling of utter disappointment the MSQ of Dawntrail induces.

And the worst part of it? Dawntrail's story will stain the MSQ FOREVER, unless the decide to rewrite or trash it completely. At least with ARR they could retroactively do adjustments, because the fundamental story was really good. There were just pacing issues, and there still are some to be honest. But Dawntrail? 2-3 expansions from now Dawntrail will unsalvageable be the new "it gets better after this" threshhold, and only IF they even manage to course-correct.

This might be a hot take. But in my opinion they should do what they did with 1.0:
- Acknowledge that they screwed up (this is the most difficult part).
- Reset the MSQ after Endwalker.
- Do it again, but good.

Nothing other than Dawntrail Reborn can fix this without leaving a permanent stain on the MSQ. They will never do that. But they should.