Part 8:
The WoL was there and was still important but many other characters also had their time in the light. Dawntrail compared to that was : We need to push Wuk-Lamat. Even the scions who were for another candidate soon changed their tune and were pushing Wuk-Lamat. Only Estenien didn't cause he was the only char who was written true to himself. He wanted to fight, if there was nothing to fight for, he went away. Everyone else just felt like a caricature of themselves. We don't have the scions of the seventh dawn. We just have “The Scion” and its a hive-mind. I also miss the time when FF14 Storytelling wasn't so direct and so much in the face. A Gaming world is most fun if we can discover things. Talk to NPC to get more lore. But we don't get that anymore. FF14 has become afraid to let people discover the world. They need to make sure every player has exactly the same experience. We don't need to think. We don't need to come to our own conclusion. Its all spelled out and if not, we sure have Alphinaud or someone else have a 10 minute monologue saying everything we need to know. The way they tell the story also makes it super predictable when duty s will happen. It happens always at the same time in the story and I think this leaves the developers inflexible so that they have to stretch certain segments and fill em with useless bloat. They also pretty much removed all Solo duty's from the game. It is just the same boring Quest Design of go from NPC a to NPC B to NPC c. Talk 3 random NPC or find 3 Random things where you have to wait for 2 seconds. Maybe write a word or line in a text field. Go back to final NPC and Quest done. Now you have 10 minute more cutscene and bloated dialogue where if you are lucky its voiced. The WoL being a useless observer in all of it. If you are lucky you see a Purple ring and get to fight 1-3 Mobs. They really need to find ways to make it way more interesting and stop following their own formula so strictly.
But that's enough of story and pacing. We will never all agree on it. And as I said before, I like the ideas and concepts they have. I just don't like how they execute em and drop plot-lines left and right to start new ones.