One small worrying issue I have with Dawntrail (Ending Spoilers)

[NegativeS]

Dawntrail was advertised everywhere as the 'story reset' expansion, something on the level of ARR that would "provide the foundation for another 10 years of story". That's all well and good, but after going through the Dawntrail MSQ, I find that it's lacking pretty much any of the keystones needed for such a foundation.

In ARR, we were introduced to the following story beats that weren't resolved during the course of it's MSQ:

• The Ascians. They would go on to be the main antagonists of the entire ARR arc, and we'd see them in pretty much every expansion.
• The Garlean Empire. Another, more tangible and political antagonist that filled in when it wouldn't make sense for there to be Ascians everywhere.
• Hydaelyn and Zodiark. The dicotomy of the two pretty much defined all of our actions from 2.0 all the way up to the end of Endwalker.
• Ishgard. While we couldn't access the city itself or anything north, they were present in conversations and the story, and we could tell they would have more to do in the story in the future.
• Ala Mhigo. Same deal as Ishgard, probably even moreso because the presence of the Ala Mhigan refugees were probably responsible for more than half of the political strife stories seen in ARR.
• The Allagans. Their past actions are pretty much entirely responsible for the events of ARR-forward, and we deal with them until the end of Endwalker as a result.

Seems like a good foundation.

In DT, we were introduced to the following story beats that weren't resolved during the course of it's MSQ:

• Another reflection, potentially already rejoined (jury still out, although wasn't it heavily implied that the Source's Calamity of Lightning happened because of what happened in Alexandria?), that we summarily dealt with, cut off from the Source, and likely won't be seeing again soon.
• The "ramifications of interdimensional fusion."
• Another Azem macguffin.

...and that's about it.

This doesn't seem like a fantastic foundation for another 10 years of story. It just feels like 'another expansion'.

This doesn't have to be a problem, but I foresee it being one. Not because I have any doubts that Square Enix will be able to pull another story out of their corporate cheeks, but because this is the same pitfall that caused me to abandon WoW for FFXIV in the first place.

[NegativeS]

3000 character limit lulz

In WoW, a main problem people had was the lack of a cohesive story. After a certain point (I think, maybe Cataclysm?), when one expansion ended, it was pretty much entirely bookended. You'd count yourself lucky to see a reference to past expansions in future ones unless they A. had their roots in the old Warcraft games (see: Lich King), or B. had new races or classes, which meant that they had to be included for the sake of the players playing them. There are some exceptions, such as Gul'dan from Warlords of Draenor being the catalyst for the events of Legion, but otherwise it's exceptionally slim, and it not only made it difficult to immerse yourself in the world, but also made the new player experience horribly fragmented.

FFXIV's long, continuous MSQ made this a non-issue in the past, although I started getting those same question marks hovering above my head in 6.5. The entire post-MSQ was a side story almost completely unrelated to the events that came before it, and then found out in 7.0, also completely unrelated to the events that came after. This is a first for the MSQ as far as I can tell (memory somewhat hazy, although skimming the patch cycles seems to confirm this).

So, is this what we're doing now? Because the Hydaelyn saga is over, we're just going to do the same thing as WoW and fragment the expansion stories to be entirely self-contained?

Before, we could somewhat tell what would come next. Even before 2.1, there were so many established story beats to explore that it was almost certain that there would be more to come exploring them. We get an Ascian story with HW, then a Garlean story with SB, then another Ascian story with ShB, and finally the end of the whole saga. It made sense.

Now... I have honestly no idea where they could go from here. Tural's problems seem solved, and other than the weird cyberpunk city that appeared on Tuliyollal's doorstep, there don't seem to be any threads we can follow. Well, there's also the key/chalice/Azem macguffin that everyone decided it was okay for me to hold onto, but as far as I can tell from the story, it's just 'thing that will help us go to some isolated locale for an adventure and then come home'. The only other people who knew of its existence are now either dead or couldn't care less.

Things seem dim for the progression of FFXIV's story, and with all the complaints most everyone has had with DT's MSQ, it doesn't give me faith that things will improve.

[Musashidon]

well with how things go next expansion is the void as it was set up during post EW. like with the first being set up with post HW.

i will say i feel there is a ton of ways to go with the story the biggest is we will continue our adventure to follow in azems footsteps while doing whatever good we can do. we now have 2 full worlds to choose from not counting more of the source they could choose to explore too. not only that we now have a unstable but possible way to unsunder the world that if looked into and explored can be done without the death of every being ever. we also can look into the creator of this relic that seems to be even more advanced than the ancients.

[Kirika-]

3000 character limit lulz

For this, if you are making a post and you will exceed the character limit....
All you have to do is post what you can, then go back and Edit the post, adding anything over 3000 characters which basically lets you exceed the character limit.

[Gortys]

3000 character limit lulz

So, is this what we're doing now? Because the Hydaelyn saga is over, we're just going to do the same thing as WoW and fragment the expansion stories to be entirely self-contained?

When YoshiP said something to the affect of them going in a new direction and that, if we like it, then it may lead into the direction of future expansion? I think we all assumed that the direction will be built on the 7.0 story, but not last more than 1 or 2 expansions even then. The more I think of this expansion, the more I think maybe he did mean the WoW style of expansion stories. I know he does still look at WoW (as any MMO dev should), but I don't know if he fully understands why many of us were disappointed with the expansions.

It was not just "Torghast" and it was a mixture of issues. For many of us the "bookended" stories were also a factor. The stories were not always congruent with lore and some characters just seemed to age or act as needed for that expansion's plot. For players that care about lore, it reduces their investment in the game.

[Ririta]

I'm pretty sure that Doma and Zodiark were the only new elements that ARR added over 1.0. Plus nothing stops them from taking 1 existing element and extrapolating it, the few that were added actually have bigger consequences than any older one.

[DaveFishnomer]

I agree, I dont think 7.0 established anything that should be built upon, it felt like a standalone story, the writers could just ignore it and write another xPac with 0 connections to 7.0, damn, I hope they do that.

[Striker44]

A.) I feel like several of the "different" stories alluded to in the original post could just as easily be combined. The Ascians, the Garleans, Ala Mhigo, and Hydaelyn/Zodiark are all just different facets of the same proverbial coin. In other words, it sounds like individual stories are being separated when considering ARR but conflated when considering DT and then concluding there's more in the former.

B.) Remember that the end of EW featured Emet-Selch teasing multiple different future stories, and we've only seen a little bit of that. In addition to the new plotlines to expand on from DT itself, there's also several remaining "loose ends" of EW still to go.

[GartredZW]

I think they'd do well to not try for another 10 year long epoch of five expansions.
A sweet spot might be three. We've got the preliminary setup, then we can have rising action and stakes, with a cohesive conclusion.
Though I don't share this criticism, a lot of people found Endwalker's story cluttered and unfocused. So it might benefit to wrap it up quicker next time.
Plus, they admit to not having a full idea on where the story was actually going until the early writing stages for Shadowbringers. So they planned Shadowbringers, and a bit of Endwalker together, and started on that path from Stormblood patches onward.
They've talked about how they're sort of seeing how things go with Dawntrail for now, so I think it'd be a perfect opportunity to figure out where this story is ending. Assuming that hourglass key isn't just going to be handed off to G'raha and Y'shtola to be fully reverse engineered in a fade to black, they could use that to keep going with the stories in the future.
Although, I'll be honest, having a "you can explore every shard now" McGuffin sounds downright terrible, as it makes it seem like visiting a new shard will just be as simple as waving a wand, as opposed to the very specific circumstances that brought us to the 1st and 13th. Plus, after the 2nd (I'm not calling it the unlost world, you can't make me) There's only three left that haven't been rejoined. I worry that we'll just blow through them as one zone each next expac, sort of like how the 2nd was two zones this time.

[GartredZW]

B.) Remember that the end of EW featured Emet-Selch teasing multiple different future stories, and we've only seen a little bit of that. In addition to the new plotlines to expand on from DT itself, there's also several remaining "loose ends" of EW still to go.

The only one we haven't seen yet is Merycidia. All the others he mentioned were Alzadaal's Legacy, Mount Rokkon, Dawntrail, Aloalo, and the Endwalker Alliance Raids. I was almost certain that we were going there for the latter half of Dawntrail. It could also give an opportunity to tie in the Azdaja story since that's seemingly where a lot of dragons live (Don't quote me on that, I can't remember where I got that from aside from some enemies in the Bahamut raids)
It's a bit disappointing that we just blasted through all of those amazing plot hooks, when they could have actually been used to set up the next massive story.