Wow, Dawntrail was bad

[Feina]

Dawntrail is perhaps the first piece of FFXIV content where I've actively skipped cutscenes. By the second zone, I was seriously bored of the storyline, and I don't think any other piece of XIV content has done that to me before.

I was hyped for the expansion for a good 5-6 months before release and within the first week or so playing, I'd already had enough and took a break from the content.

Certainly didn't enjoy that they kept the Scions in the expansion solely because of Duty Support/Trusts, whereas I was excited for an expansion with 6.5's Wuk Lamat, Erenville, Krile, Alphi and Estinien. Also, it's funny how a talking corn cob is perhaps the most popular character lmao.

Not to mention that the supposed light hearted vacation exansion also included another end of the world scenario, a culture's eugenics programme to form the perfect being, more sci-fy themes, a cross-shard invasion and so on.

Anyway, can't complain too much, Dawntrail managed to help me cut down my playing time

[Barwara]

I agree that the story was bad. But the extremely bad pacing you mention above has basically been a "feature" of FF14 from the very beginning.

Remember ARR?

You're absolutely right, but ARR is far away and I would argue you shouldn't keep newer expansions to the same standards. If anything, we should be seeing less and less of these 'writing' mistakes. But you are right - every expansion suffers from time to time from these pacing issues. You just feel it less when an expansion succeeds at all the other things - telling an interesting story and evoking emotions in you.

I personally found SB to be sluggish as hell as well, in a similar way to DT. Too much dialoguing with NPCs. But, in SB our character still had some agency, and there was a certain amount of action to counterbalance all the politics. I mean at least that's how I remember it, but its also a bit far away by now.

In DT I found there was just not enough action to counterbalance the... talking.

We arrive to Tuliyollal, and we talk to NPCS, get to know the place. Cue in cutscenes of NPCs talking.

We visit every other place in Tuliyollal, we talk to NPCs, get to know and understand them. Cue in cutscenes of NPCs talking.

We get to Solution Nine, we talk to NPCs, get to know and understand them. Cue in cutscenes of NPCs talking.

We get to Living Memory, we talk to NPCs, get to know and understand them. Cue in cutscenes of NPCs talking. Cue in some actually heartfelt moments.

I get it that the main theme was coming to understand other people that have different views from you, and different cultures, and getting to accept them, but this happens inevitably in every single expansion anyway...

The duties and dungeons felt so far in between I felt starved for action during the entire expansion. I got all glamoured and ready for WAR before entering Living Memory and then realized I over-dressed for the occasion.

And least people forget, walking from NPC to NPC for dialogue and watching a cutscene of NPCs talking doesn't constitute good gameplay. I mean, FFXIV is ultimately a combat and a role-playing game.

If there's no combat to be had because we're talking everything out, and if we as the main character have no role to play other than standing by, then what is the point? And if people want to argue that there's no combat to be had because this is a vacation-themed expansion, well I'd argue there's plenty of different kind of instances and duties that could have been imagined to just keep us more engaged. Mini-game kind of instances, solving puzzles, more exploration-type duties, idk... anything.

But lets not kid ourselves, vacation wasn't the point of this expansion, we essentially went through another doom plotline that was a slight rehash of SHB and EW.

[Zarkovitch]

Yeah the story is kinda ass on that one, but gameplay felt better imo.

[Awful]

It's called Yawntrail for a reason and 7.2 doesn't hype me up at all been playing other games and I'm probably just gonna come back for Savage and probably not do the story again until way later.

[Basteala]

I agree that the story was bad. But the extremely bad pacing you mention above has basically been a "feature" of FF14 from the very beginning.

Remember ARR? The Garleans kill half the Scions, capture the other half. We even see an Echo cutscene where Livia mentions regarding Minfilia "The High Priestess of the Scions... I cannot wait to hear her scream". And the WoL's immediate reaction is... to completely ignore the Scion's plight, and instead go onto another bug hunt (Garuda this time). And while they're at it, they also fix all the self-inflicted problems of the braindead papists in Coerthas. The Scions suffering and dying? We look into this another day.

First of all, if we're comparing to ARR, that in itself was a problem. I understand both are beginnings, but holding the current xpac to the standard of the oldest version of the game most of us played is not good.

Secondly, in case you have forgotten, the WoL and survivors were in hiding, and ultimately rebuilding some measure of ability to strike back in a meaningful way. That arc with Cid *did* happen, you know. So did navigating the politics of Ishgard while trying to get the Enterprise, which plays an important role in taking the fight to Gaius and rescuing the Scions. Certainly more than trading wool for an alpaca saddle that Zoraal Ja didn't even need to get the job done, or standing and waiting while Wuk Lamat was obviously in trouble. Come on. At least try.

Or take Titan. Being immune to tempering does not qualify you as a Titan slayer... being able to follow even the most stupid of orders does (i.e. to waste hours of precious time by dishing up a dinner from all around the world, including recovering a lost vine sort THAT NOBODY EVER ASKED FOR in the first place).

Okay I spoke too soon. This IS a good argument. The Company of Heroes arc was terrible beyond words. Honestly this may be a hot take, but most of Limsa's MSQ is pretty bad, and just has you playing errand boy like a level 5 alt in World of Warcraft.

I'm not defending this garbage writing. But I think it's unfair to hold it specifically against DT, when the series has been plagued by this from the very beginning.

I think the issue is that we got out of it with HW and certainly with SHB, EW, and even STB to an extent. DT is such a huge step back to a lower standard of writing. It's only natural that fans are going to push back so SE takes the hint that we're got going to sit tight and let it stay that way.

[Xuled]

was?? still is

[Basteala]

In DT I found there was just not enough action to counterbalance the... talking.

We arrive to Tuliyollal, and we talk to NPCS, get to know the place. Cue in cutscenes of NPCs talking.

We visit every other place in Tuliyollal, we talk to NPCs, get to know and understand them. Cue in cutscenes of NPCs talking.

We get to Solution Nine, we talk to NPCs, get to know and understand them. Cue in cutscenes of NPCs talking.

We get to Living Memory, we talk to NPCs, get to know and understand them. Cue in cutscenes of NPCs talking. Cue in some actually heartfelt moments.

It wasn't just the amount of talking, but the quality of it, too. Like if the dialog was good, and the character interactions were enjoyable, people would rightly bitch about the attack on Tullyolal not being a duty (solo OR dungeon. Come on Square, that was bad), and maybe some memes of MGS4 or past FF games that skimped on gameplay in favor of being a VN or movie.

But the thing is that if the game is just a glorified VN, the story is even more under a microscope because gameplay isn't going to be there to save it. "There is no Game", ironically, had better story and gameplay.

I get it that the main theme was coming to understand other people that have different views from you, and different cultures, and getting to accept them, but this happens inevitably in every single expansion anyway...

EW literally did this in a way more interesting way with Garlemald and the Void, too, while telling their own stories, not having "diversity good" be the ENTIRE story