Dawntrail's MSQ story is a disaster and waste of potential. [full spoilers]

[Lersayil]

...These are obviously sentient beings able to experience emotions and create memories, not just some crazy computer simulations.

To be fair, they still could be. They might just be extremely elaborate ChatGPT666 chat bots, running on the memory input of dead people. What we see could all be an outwards illusion. It would be stupid (more so than we already know the Endless project to be), but possible. The main issue is that we see absolutely no evidence of this, and I'm not sure why the heroes think it to be such a clear cut situation.

[Manamaru]

To be fair, they still could be. They might just be extremely elaborate ChatGPT666 chat bots, running on the memory input of dead people. What we see could all be an outwards illusion. It would be stupid (more so than we already know the Endless project to be), but possible. The main issue is that we see absolutely no evidence of this, and I'm not sure why the heroes think it to be such a clear cut situation.

That seems to be a main hiccup for 7.0 . A lot of telling and exposition, but not showing.

Also, why is the guy that's supposed to be infamous for his tacos and whatever else not actually a [b\Food Vendor]/b]?

[koko-on-da-forumz]

tldr: The latter part goes hard, but the first half is kinda hit and miss

The latter part is just Shadowbringers again, Endwalker again, and the 13th again.

It kind of worked in those cases because in ShB it was new, Endwalker was a direct sequel so it makes sense that they'd be playing with those themes again, and the 13th was part of EW so I thought their goal was to mirror it.

But pulling this again? It feels like they have no ideas at all left in the tank.

[illushiona]

I spent 30 hours to try my best to appreciate it, and now at lvl96 I’ve decided to give up and skip text/cutscenes. Genuinely, the side quests have been so much more entertaining and fun than the MSQ. 30 hours just to accept that it’s been horrible from the start and I’ve thoroughly not enjoyed it

The best part of the story so far has been when we finally go on our own adventure without wuk Lamat, to the Wild West style place with Erenville. I tried so hard to like Wuk Lamat, tried so hard to like this expansion’s MSQ, but it just isn’t enjoyable.

If this was a book or a comic I was reading, I would have dropped it after the first few chapters. I need to re-do Shadowbringers MSQ as a genuine palette cleanser and to renew any faith I have in this game.

[Sephi_Ravour]

To be honest I think the fourth zone would be far better suited as a first zone. With how robust the servers are now there's also really no point in splitting the MSQ anymore.

In a vacuum I would've liked the fourth zone but after the tedium that is the first three zones by the time I got to the fourth zone I was just bored out of my mind.

To be honest we should've been introduced to Erenville's family at Lv90, so that Cahucia's eventual death feels more resonant for us. This should've been Krile and Erenville's expansion. IMO the main arc should be us trying to investigate what Galuf did at the Golden City, piecing together clues from the places we visit, while the battle for the throne was in the background that we interact with once in a while. This way we get exposed to Wuk Lamat, Koana, and Zoraal Ja in equal measure, and more importantly flesh out Koana and Zoraal Ja more. Putting it in the background would honestly make Wuk Lamat much more bearable. I honestly would've rather focused on Krile and Erenville.

This would have been a much more enjoyable adventure. Instead we got... whatever this is. One of the great mysteries was the location of the Golden Cities (yes plural, it has been retconned to just one), yet instead of piecing clues to it's location together, we just get it handed to us on a golden plate, ruining all the mystery around it.

And don't get me started on the 2nd part. They tried to do a 2nd Endwalker, without the buildup and failed miserably. So many plotholes... Like when Sphene closed the portal and the barrier disappears showing us blue skies, only for it to still be there in the zone.

They tried to copy themes from their successful expansions, but instead made something worse than StB.

[Ahelissa]

Were people this critical of Stormblood when it launched?

I'd like honest answers without the rose-tinted glasses or the benefit of hindsight regarding the MSQ patches or appreciating the threads that Stormblood introduced and were later tugged on.

Anyway, I'd agree that it's the weakest. I don't think it's bad. I'd give it a 7/10. But I'm easy to please and always prefer to focus on the things I enjoy rather than the things I don't like.

I actually liked Stormblood a lot. Can't remember if people were critical at the time or not. My problems with Dawntrail mostly boil down to the pacing. Everything is excruciatingly drawn out. Every cutscene is 2-5 minutes too long. It's a story that doesn't have that much to say, and instead of telling a compact story, they're stalling for time.

[Raikai]

I don't think the first part would be as bad if we at least could choose between Wuk Lamat or Koana to support, given that both of them end up being Dawnservants, there would be no narrative loss. And the WoL ends up positively engaged with both of them anyway. It would be, of course, more development work to provide the narrative branch, but it would help. Plus, a reason to repeat it in New Game + or another character. However, that alone wouldn't suffice, they defnitely would need to address the pacing because a boring quest with Koana wouldn't be so different than boring quests with Wuk Lamat.

But ultimately, what hurts DT for me is not the premise of the first part, not even Wuk Lamat as a character. The plot's idea is good, but the execution of that writing is not, to the point I agree with the OP's perception that the only culture that is actually interesting is the last one with the children sacrifice conundrum.

I was super disappointed that the 'cultural quests' weren't special and just fetch stuff or talk to people. The cooking could be a minigame, where you control the contestant (just to make sure there's no CUL advantage from the WoL). The closest thing we have from a novelty is the Pelupelu quests with a special pop up with the trade, and I can hardly think that's remotely sufficient.

Said in another post, but the bulk of those quests resume to "Let's split our party and talk to the locals to learn about mundane aspects of their culture that totally could be explained in a few lines of dialogue."

Another thing that bothered me is the 'reason' for why the Twins wanted to embark on the journey. To help Garlemald? Why then they didn't bring someone from there like Jullus? Plus what ever the twins learned there that they didn't know already from similar cultures they found in HW, SB and ShB? Honestly I don't think their presence contributed with anything narration wise. Krile already could fill in the 'scholarly' niche anyway.

[Tehmon]

I'm worried that the writers feel the need to make every last zone, dungeon and boss be super emotional endeavors. I really don't think they need to be one upping Shadowbringers and Endwalker like that, or following the same formula. While I did shed some tears in the last section, it felt 100% hamfisted and not like any of these story beats were there organically, but rather they were really thinking of ways to how to make the player emotional in this last segment of the MSQ.

Honestly, it's not needed. The last zone, dungeon and trial should sound and look great, and the battle content should be top notch, and that is enough. The added melodrama that is so obviously forced because '' the last expansions did that as well and we expect players to be disappointed if we don't do the same again '' is not needed, and will eventually narrow down the kind of stories they can tell.

[xbahax92]

I cant believe I killed so many souls to safe the Source. Nice gg, thanks for letting me do another genocide!

Joke aside, the expansion suffers from 3 regions in 1 - Tural, Solution Nine (North Tural) and Alexandria. It lacked so much development and storytelling to actually learn the more important areas. Instead we spend 70% with beast tribes instead of Alexandrias issues.

Remember when we had a full expansion for 1 shard? Yeah, Shadowbringers made you journey through so many locations. The last map got so unbearable due to the constant unnecessary meetups. Holy hell, I was delivery boy for getting Krile ice cream?

It's super sad that we had no proper development with Sphene. It would of been so much better to get to know her and get attached to her. Such a wasted chance.
It feels like we're speedrunning the story, so the game can finally get into maintanence mode.

[Folsom]

Remember back when Alphinaud tried to unite Eorza with the Grand Company of Eorzea, with his visions of moral justice, the nations working together for a Lasting Peace, bound by the power of friendship, even though he really knew nothing about the lands of Eorzea and was just the grandson of a high profile savior of the land?

He learned a hard lesson about naivete and the complexities of ruling.

If only he had gone to Tural instead of Eorzea, where that would have been Super Effective™. No Merlwyb or Raubahn to put him in his place when demanding they do the Right Thing. No Ilberd to erupt from underlying tensions. No political complexity at all. He wouldn't even have had to go around commanding his Warrior of Light lackey to kill primals, either. All he'd have needed was some voiceless muscle to stand around making the "Wow, everyone is an idiot, but it's kinda funny" face, who would occasionally offer some forced words of encouragement and take care of the Obvious Villains. Alphinaud could even take credit for that while being seasick and getting spit on by some alpacas.

All would've been well.