I want to start off by saying. I love this game. I'm late to the party having come around during stormblood (An expansion I actually enjoyed despite the common perception) and I am in love with this game. The story from ARR to current has hit a lot of beats with me that I really enjoy. Every expansion pack so far has left me starving for more and at the end of each I am left eagerly awaiting more.
But then I did the MSQ for dawntrail and for the first time since I picked up FF14, I felt like "Thank god this is over" Instead of feeling sad that the journey had come to an end (For a bit anyway) I can expand on these points a bit and this is all my subjective opinion of course.
- Wuk Lamat: Between the voice acting and the writing I genuinely dreaded any scene she was in. For the first half its not as noticeable but the second half...she ruins the entire vibe of the story and her sudden appearances during certain scenes just grinds the experience to an exhausting halt emotionally. With endsinger, I was wowed and stoked when our allies prayers empower us. I was nearly cheering out loud. When Wuk Lmao makes her appearance, I groaned and just emotionally checked out.
-The scions: Some people hate them. I adore them. The characters that show up in DT are not the scions we've been with all this time. They are printer paper cut outs plastered into this Expack for what I can only presume is promotional material.
-The plot: Not unsalvageable but it feels so...underwhelming for what I expect from the writing team. While I was glad to not be "Hydaleans champion" for once. It felt like my only purpose in the story was to fluff the writers self insert OC character do not steal.
-The pacing: It was boring. I know that's subjective. But I was genuinely spacing out through quite a lot of dawntrail because of it. We need more combat, more interesting things to do. "Talk to wuk lmao" Is not very engaging.
-Krile and erenville: These two were pushed so hard in promotional material. Only to be shoved aside for more Wuk Lmao naruto moments. PLEASE. Give us more of them. We never even got to comfort Erenville after the events of the last zone. Thats...so jarring especially for the WoL.
I think thats all for now. I'm not going to threaten to quit or anything weird like that because in the end I am still a FF14, Yoshi-p, Soken, scion fanboy. But Dawntrail is the first expansion I can honestly say, I don't want more of that. please. God bless.