Filler quests: the bane of Dawntrail's MSQ (Spoilers)

[Raikai]

I won't really discuss whether or not the main points of the storyline are not being well written, but after experiencing most of the MSQ, I came to the conclusion that what is hurting the experience the most is the obvious filler.

Dawntrail feels much longer than Endwalker's .0 story but just because of so many boring quests! I think this alone is ruining my experience much more than poorly written scripts, to the point that I didn't care anymore and actually spoiled myself with how it ends after my breaking point:

The quest where Otis cooks.

Not only you spend a good amount of time doing a boring search for Gulool Ja, when you finally sit with them because there's an obvious lore exposition point coming, bam - fetch quest for the cooking ingredients and stuff.

If this scene would just fade to black to the meal being ready it would have aboslutely NO difference. In fact, the awful fetch quests just had me in a terrible mood to go through the important scene afterwards.

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This, to me, is one of the most glaring examples, and goes not just with fetch quests, but the "talk to the locals" quests too, among others.

This MSQ does have interesting premises, in both halves, but the way they seem to want to artificially extend the length of it reminds me of how bad the ARR patch MSQ is. It's sad that since job design is at the bottom of the barrel, I expected both the MSQ and pve content to satisfy me and apparenlty now I just have the latter to look foward to.

[GrizzlyTank]

It's like if the shadowbringers trolley chapter was spread over 5+ levels.

[Raikai]

It's like if the shadowbringers trolley chapter was spread over 5+ levels.

That's actually a very precise comparison! Except ShB was a bit more involving at that point.

[GrizzlyTank]

That's actually a very precise comparison! Except ShB was a bit more involving at that point.

Yeah. Least shadowbringers to that point still had the supporting plot lines of both having to deal with the first and with garlemald looming in the background at the source.

Dawnbringer was just... dawnbringer, least until the 2nd part. And even then there is way, way too much emphasis put on one character when it's clear that the character focus should have been more spaced out over Koana, Krile and Erenville, than just Wuk lamat.

[Raikai]

Yeah. Least shadowbringers to that point still had the supporting plot lines of both having to deal with the first and with garlemald looming in the background at the source.

Dawnbringer was just... dawnbringer, least until the 2nd part. And even then there is way, way too much emphasis put on one character when it's clear that the character focus should have been more spaced out over Koana, Krile and Erenville, than just Wuk lamat.

I thought that they missed a HUGE opportunity there to have a branching story in the 1st part letting you choose to follow either Koana or Wuk Lamat, because if in the end they both are Dawnservants, there wouldn't be a big difference in the outcome. Plus, as we all saw, we actually get to bond with the competition, so no matter the choice we are close to both of them past the middle point.

They would need to fix the pacing, though, because boring quests with Koana wouldn't be much different than boring quests with Wuk Lamat, but in the end having 2 scenarios even add up more replayability either through NG+ or just running with another character.

I agree that Erenville and Krile should have a much bigger emphasis in the storyline than they currently do, especially in part 2. There's a small bit of breather from Wuk Lamat in Shaaolani, but then... back to the spotlight.