Dawntrail is so painful; is it on purpose?

[pclarkson85]

Did the devs go out of their way to make this so painful and unfun to play? I'm mainly talking about the MSQ here, I'm 94 and I've done one dungeon, and one solo event... the rest has been walking back and forth listening to NPCs that's it!

While FF14 has always been a lot of this (I've been here since 1.0 and love the game) but the story has alwasy been worth it; this time it's almost unbearable.

I wasn't expecting some epic thing, I knew after Endwalker we were slowing down a bit but I was just made to click a "destination" point 3 times to wait, this can't be what suffices as a MSQ quest.

I know some people are really enjoying the expansion and I in no way want to dampen their enthusiasm; for me though I feel really let down this time. It's not even burnout talking, while I've played since 1.0 I take regular breaks, I don't max out every job, I don't play 8 hours a day.

just feels kinda bad =(

[Gullis]

I feel this is every msq ever tho? People just notice it more in DT, due to not liking the story. I didn't feel like this was any more of a cutscene sim that the others

I do wish they would give us more actual gameplay for sure.

[Negeo3043]

I get what you mean but finish MSQ cause things take a turn as per usual with this game. There like 2 entirely different stories going on in this expansion and I saw a good video saying that this game story telling is like a test run for upcoming stories in the game. The video goes on to explain that they think square is doing it on purpose to see how receptive we are to smaller more focused stories like a character focused story not focused on WOL vs higher stakes epics. I'd say stay optimistic.

[Malthir]

I feel this is every msq ever tho? People just notice it more in DT, due to not liking the story. I didn't feel like this was any more of a cutscene sim that the others

I do wish they would give us more actual gameplay for sure.

I mean it's been proven that it has almost exactly the same amound of cutscene per quest as EW, which is nearly double the cutscene times of all the other expacs.

[fioravictorine]

Yeah....its like the devs were holding a competition to see who writes the worst and most boring msq ever...

[Teraluna]

I get what you mean but finish MSQ cause things take a turn as per usual with this game. There like 2 entirely different stories going on in this expansion and I saw a good video saying that this game story telling is like a test run for upcoming stories in the game. The video goes on to explain that they think square is doing it on purpose to see how receptive we are to smaller more focused stories like a character focused story not focused on WOL vs higher stakes epics. I'd say stay optimistic.

I don't mind them trying something different, as long as the same quality is there. Having finished the DT msq I don't see any change from mid-way to the end in the poor level of story telling and character portrayals. If this is a test run for more of the same, the first change they need to do is get new story writers.

[Dastan]

Idk what it is, but perhaps it has to do with our WoL taking a sideline role to the story this time around. We are not the main focus, and we are just there to explore. Helping Wuk Lamat in her rite is simply a side quest for us. There is nothing really major happening in the story. This needs to be built up, which was the point of Dawntrail. There is no major crisis where we are urgently needed to be there to save the day. We just exist currently.

[koko-on-da-forumz]

I do wish they would give us more actual gameplay for sure.

Kind of a monkey's paw situation.

Either the gameplay is going to be stepping in a purple puddle and using 3 GCDs, a story fight that takes 60 seconds, or it's going to be a full on sequence like In From The Cold. 'The Community' hated In From The Cold with a passion, despite it being the best bit of storytelling of the MSQ over the last decade. I don't think we'll ever see that again, and if even if we did, SE will go overboard like they always do and half of them will end up sub-par.

I'm only mildly discontent with FFXIV being a feature-barren visual novel. But they've gotta hit gold every time to make it work.

The biggest sin of Dawntrail's MSQ was how stretched out it was. It comes from having a pretty loose idea of what constitutes an expansion. In other games, especially back in the day, an expansion was a huge systems change along with the aesthetics. In FFXIV it's just the aesthetics, so they feel like they have to keep increasing and increasing the length and scope of the story even when the only story they have is on-par with a free update beast tribe quest.

[Kaurhz]

I think it's how they told it, honestly. Some cutscenes are just really obnoxious, followed by 1 random meaningless walk, then followed by a really obnoxious cutscene.

Like there are cutscenes in Dawntrail which really felt like they should have been solo instances and would've done so much to break it apart.

[Barachim]

Idk what it is, but perhaps it has to do with our WoL taking a sideline role to the story this time around. We are not the main focus, and we are just there to explore. Helping Wuk Lamat in her rite is simply a side quest for us. There is nothing really major happening in the story. This needs to be built up, which was the point of Dawntrail. There is no major crisis where we are urgently needed to be there to save the day. We just exist currently.

Even when the story isn't about us, we should do more than just exist. We're not even playing the supporting role in a show, we're almost like a background extra for the majority of Wuk Lamat's journey. We occasionally get to pick an encouraging dialogue option to remind us we're still there but that's it.

I was all onboard with not being the focus and getting sidelined as a support character. I didn't get why people were complaining about Wuk Lamat so much, until I experienced the entire MSQ myself.