The Actual Problem With Dawntrail

[StormChase]

I'm guessing they did what they did with Shaaloani because they realized there wasn't much break time, so they wanted to give the player a breather before going right into the Alexandria stuff. Also to set up the whole deal with Erenville and his mom.

The main reason I think it's an issue with the expansion's length is because some story beats feel like they happened too soon and some feel like they happened too late. The point where Wuk Lamat admits she has a problem is at level 91. We don't get to see Alexandria and be actually introduced to Sphene until level 97, and we don't get much time with her before it's revealed she's a villain. Maybe if they cut out the Shaaloani part that could've helped, but I'm not sure if even that would be enough with 100 quests.

I looked up how many quests that section is. There are seven quests from the point you travel to Shaaloani to before the dome appears.

[Raven2014]

I think the actual problem is this: Dawntrail is too short. 2.0 had about 160 quests (even more originally) to reintroduce players to Eorzea. 7.0 has only 100, even though we're exploring a whole new landmass and a nation from another shard. That's why these players feel exhausted.

I don't think that's a fair comparison though. 2.0 is the base games so it always gonna have more content than an expansion. And the first 20 level of ARR are 3 unique stories for the city states you start out with before they converse.

Everything is crammed together and there's not enough time to fully explore what the writers want to explore. Wuk Lamat takes the blame for this larger issue because she's the most prominent character

I disagree, the reason they didn't have time because they WASTED whatever time they had. One of the main complains about Wuk is while she has the most lines ... they are rarely about anything important. Even if you skip most of the her dialogue, you'll hardly miss out anything important because the majority are just her repeating her belief.

Comparing to other principal characters like Hien, G'ara, Aymeric, Ice Heart ... most of the time when those characters talk, they give you more and more insight to the world.

For example in HW, lady Ice Heart acts as a gateway for us to understand the Heretic, a faction we had little information at that point. Whether in DT, Wuk Lamat is a gate way only to ... her own head because the story set up in a way that makes her almost as oblivious to her own world as a complete stranger like the wol is.

[Boblawblah]

Remove 80% of Wuk from the 2nd half of the expansion and it becomes REALLY good imo.

[ReynTime]

She's not the only problem but she is a problem.
She's written horribly, like 90% of the main cast in Dawntrail. She gets more egregious because she also hogs 90% of the spotlight and the story makes it all about her.

[Basteala]

Remove 80% of Wuk from the 2nd half of the expansion and it becomes REALLY good imo.

I don't know about really good, but certainly better. Given how the xpac was basically two stories in one, would it have killed them to focus on Krile for the second half?

[lolnotacat]

Too short? If the MSQ was any longer I would've tossed my monitor out the window. Wuk Lamat isn't the issue, she's a symptom of one of the many issues DT has, the biggest one being bad writing.

[Turtledeluxe]

Dawntrail may be short but the content before the plot twist makes it feel like all expansions long combined.

I literally could not wait for it to be over until we finally met Sphene.

[Kes13a]

Dawntrail was as expected (unfortunately) and an adequate release.

the problem is, as you say, not Wuk Lamat (entirely), the issue lies entirely with:
1. this is the start of a new arc, and as such, could be expected to start slower.... but this was a bit glacial
2. the main selling point of FFXIV is the story, and while not a hideous story... the story we got.. was not worthy of a AAA studio that prides itself on a story based MMO

Wuk Lamat seemed to be a problem with VA direction (or entire lack thereof)
not sure how they test things these days but its fairly obvious that a play through of ten levels by play testers could have found places to improve.
the release was decent. the delivered product however... seemed ... low effort.

[hydralus]

Didn't Dawntrail have almost 24 hours worth of cutscenes?

[Swordsman]

This may or may not be me about the kick a hornet's nest but I'll say it anyway.

I think a lot of players are missing the forest for the trees. Wuk Lamat isn't the problem.

If she wasn't around during most of the scenes where she is then it'd look like she's just sitting on her hands and doing nothing. The first half is her journey to leadership and the second half is how she handles leading. We can help her but we can't do the job for her. She has to be the driving force. When the game tried something like this in Stormblood there weren't many scenes showing Lyse's skills as a leader until the patches, and players thought she was unqualified because of it. The writers didn't want to repeat that.

I think the actual problem is this: Dawntrail is too short. 2.0 had about 160 quests (even more originally) to reintroduce players to Eorzea. 7.0 has only 100, even though we're exploring a whole new landmass and a nation from another shard. That's why these players feel exhausted. Everything is crammed together and there's not enough time to fully explore what the writers want to explore. Wuk Lamat takes the blame for this larger issue because she's the most prominent character.

Dawntrail isn't a bad expansion and the patches might improve it, but Square Enix should be less afraid to make longer expansions. I know a lot of people dislike A Realm Reborn for being tedious, but in the case of Dawntrail I think that kind of length could help.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. Asking the writers to create a story with a longer runtime isn't suddenly going to improve their writing skills. It's just gonna end up being more of the same.