This story is really underwhelming - it's opened to mixed reviews.

[Wyssahtyn]

i kept seeing people saying that the second half gets better, but uh, i finished the second trial and i still found myself tabbing out during cutscenes throughout that second half of the msq because i'm just not engaged with the story. so "second half being better" seems like a massive cope to me.

[Swad]

Especially with the WoW expac coming at the end of august. If the FF14 team don't deliver something actually good, and fast. We might end up seeing a reverse situation of what we saw just before endwalker.

This expansion will be the single biggest boost to WoW in a long time. Atleast in that game you know the story telling is horrible and can chuck on 80 addons that help you blaze through the story in 6-10 hours.

[Rhysati]

i kept seeing people saying that the second half gets better, but uh, i finished the second trial and i still found myself tabbing out during cutscenes throughout that second half of the msq because i'm just not engaged with the story. so "second half being better" seems like a massive cope to me.

I think people just say this because the story finally goes somewhere. It takes half the expansion to finally move on from the quest to make Wuk the Hokage via spreading friendship and love. So when something finally happens that isn't that, it feels incredibly refreshing. Unfortunately there's still not a lot of substance to be had from there. At least that I've seen so far. I'm not done yet.

[Lieri]

Usually it's the story that is better than dungeons and battles. This time it's the other way around.
I believe even ARR has a better script and story telling than DT so far (I'm halfway through it). ARR is the beginning so things feel very slow but most of the scripts (in game texts) were well written. In ARR you get to know each character naturally as well, in other expansions too even if they're faster paced. Whereas DT is packing so many things in the span of several hours and tries so hard to make you get to know this one character that everything is about that character. Strange direction they've taken considering XIV has always been about the WoL.

Moenbryda was only in the game for a short while and I could relate to her much more than the main character in Dawntrail (which is not us, obviously).

[Zaniel]

Well, Wuk Lamat is Naruto rip-off, so its only natural Zoraal Ja is spouting same motivations as Pain

I hate that you are right.

[Tsumdere]

i kept seeing people saying that the second half gets better, but uh, i finished the second trial and i still found myself tabbing out during cutscenes throughout that second half of the msq because i'm just not engaged with the story. so "second half being better" seems like a massive cope to me.

I mean... it technically is better. The only direction from rock bottom is up.

[Kanotoushi]

Especially with the WoW expac coming at the end of august. If the FF14 team don't deliver something actually good, and fast. We might end up seeing a reverse situation of what we saw just before endwalker.

Not only WoW is in the horizon, Grim Dawn, and other games I play, are getting expansions or quality of life upgrades, all of this aside from the STEAM sale, I already marked two games I'm going to get

[LittleArrow]

I've often thought our forum is a bit of a small community bubble. Many times when Id' see complaints, maybe 1 complaint out of 4yrs of complaining would get addressed if the community was consistently persistent about it. The state of the MSQ seems to be an anomaly. Despite fluff pieces obviously paid for by SE or just by the nature of their job to defend the hand that feeds them, I've seen so many reputable sources reflecting the same criticisms that I've read in this thread. It's so easy to just say, "Oh you're the small loud minority," but I've never seen so many sources outside of these forums agree with many of the individual comments about this MSQ.

Not only that, I've never in the history of me using these forums, to my knowledge, have seen so many posts stating, "I've never used the forums, but I came here," "I don't read or join discussions regarding this game on these forums, but I came here," over and over I've seen these. Sure, maybe there are some that are exaggerating or hyperbolic, but it really looks like to me.. this is actually a problem. Not just a few askewtually nerds coming to layout their gripes; no, this is legitimately harming the longstanding reputation this game has held for 10yrs+ from veteran players that have defended this game - me being one of them. I could see the argument of this being too soon to make this statement, but I really think the Devs need to pay attention to this now than later. As far as XIVs reputation goes, only time will tell if this is a small blip in its history or a longstanding stain.

[Tethan]

snip

Yep. I hear people say "oh someone will always complain" but this isn't normal at all. I've been around since early Heavensward, I attended every launch from Stormblood on. In my recollection, nothing like that has ever happened before. Not on this scale.

It's not just the story either. Between that, the controversy of the graphics update + related bugs STILL not fixed, the general sense of animosity regarding class changes (or lack thereof), rather sloppy implementation of f!Hrothgar (scaling on arms still not fixed), underwhelming dye system update and so on..... I get the feeling that things are not quite right at CBU3. Is it because of FFFXVI? Other projects? Pressure from higher ups? Yoshi-P stopped caring? Who can say... But something is up.

EDIT:
That isn't to say it all bad. It takes many people and many different teams to make a game like this. Certain aspects are as good as ever, encounter design and environment design being standouts. But it appears that certain departments are struggling more, either from lack of time or care, or perhaps they have had replacements and internal changes to the point where the quality begins to suffer (looking at the writing team in particular here).

[LittleArrow]

Yep. I hear people say "oh someone will always complain" but this isn't normal at all. I've been around since early Heavensward, I attended every launch from Stormblood on. In my recollection, nothing like that has ever happened before. Not on this scale.

It's not just the story either. Between that, the controversy of the graphics update + related bugs STILL not fixed, the general sense of animosity regarding class changes (or lack thereof), rather sloppy implementation of f!Hrothgar (scaling on arms still not fixed), underwhelming dye system update and so on..... I get the feeling that things are not quite right at CBU3. Is it because of FFFXVI? Other projects? Pressure from higher ups? Yoshi-P stopped caring? Who can say... But something is up.

I was thinking something very similar as well. Stormblood, imo, doesn't even come close to the problems in writing I've seen in DT so far. The plotholes are so out of character for this team. This is the team that took characters from the 1.0 trailer and actually gave them all full backstories in Shadowbringers years later, without any request or complaint, on their on, and in ways there were just beautifully and memorably done (role quests / if you know you know), and we can't even contact Cid to try to see if there's something we can do to help the people in the end? We have time to hangout even after increasing the time for the big bad world ending problem but before we don't even consider how similar this situation is to those living in Ultima Thule??? I digress.

Stormblood, people didn't like the MSQ, and hated Lyse, but so far as I can tell, most people consider that peak job design, peak raid design, peak everything design. Despite Stormblood having such a disliked MSQ, people still loved the expansion. I'm not seeing that here. it seems people are very discontent with most of what this expansion has brought. If I hear one comment praise one thing, it'll give a heavy criticism on another - not just in the forums either.

I'm not saying everyone hates this expansion. There are people that love the story and love the direction the game is going in. I don't want to put any words in those people's mouths. I'm just saying, from what I've seen, there doesn't seem to be a universal positive padding to this expansion that is universally loved.