Dawntrail has been my second favorite expansion !

[Darty123]

Shadowbringers of course is and will always be the best

I will say that I have been seeing big criticisms of the expansion and everyone's opinion and voice matters. Positive and negative voices are needed so the Dev team can better serve the community in the game we play. I wanted to share some of my highlights of things I have enjoyed so far!

Battle content

The raids, dungeons, trials and chaotic has been a massive improvement from Endwalker's battle design. I was so disappointed in the endwalker alliance raids, some EX trials and all the post 6.0 dungeons feeling very basic and boring. I am quite impressed by the combat design team and the amount of improvement that has been made for everyone and want to thank the dev team for doing such a great job! It is great that the devs are making more multi target bosses and actually fun engaging adds phases that challenges the players in unique ways.

Story

Look there was plenty of issues to be discussed here with the villain Zorall ja and Wuk Lamat, the lack of focusing more on Krile /Erenvile ect. however, I think the majority of the player base didn't quite understand the concept of the overall story. If endwalker was a story about what it means to live and the joy of life then Dawntrail was a story of what it means to let go and die. This story is really turning into a gripping saga of the concept of life and death and most people who are college age and younger than me have not experienced great loss of someone they love and might have missed the deep meaning of the regulators or turning off the terminals in living memory. Overall I think the story is finally fleshing out with 7.2 and I am so hyped for 7.3!

Graphical updates

There are plenty of areas in the game that look so much better, I remember stepping into places like Sycrus Tower and Shiva's battle arena to be really impressed with the lighting/ coloring of the zones.

PVP Balance

For Crystaline Conflict it looks like they really have the jobs balanced near perfectly, sure some tweaks can be made but for the PVP enjoyers out there , every job feels viable in CC. Finally we will be able to queue with a friend for casual matches and this will allow a greater audience of people to engage in PVP and play with a friend!


Issues I have seen
I have plenty of issues with job balance ( looking at you pictomancer for 2 patches !) MCH/SMN feel underwhelming , The awful forked tower launch
I feel the devs are not doing that bad of a job compared to previous expansions I went through like the Gordias tier or the initial launch of Eureka in Stormblood. The game has seen much worse moments but I am loving the expansion and want to put that good positive vibes into the day!

- Skylar Spirit Excalibur

[BigCheez]

Dawntrail was a story of what it means to let go and die.

[Miradelle]

I generally enjoyed the Dawntrail story, but what really took me out of it was the voice acting at times--not just from Wuk Lmayo. It's also such a missed opportunity of letting the WoL ACTUALLY have a fun adventure and chill with the homies, but there was a lot of sentiment how people are done with the scions and don't want them anywhere near, so I get it. The scions were kinda pointless in DT, they were there just for us to do trusts.

There was also a lot of questing that didn't really build up to anything, like in Kozamauka, or Shaaloani, or even Urqopacha (even though I kinda liked getting to know the Pelupelu), I just had no interest in learning about some dumb reskin of the Vanu Vanu, and don't care about them at all. Shaaloani was pretty, but a big "why is this here?" besides just a zone where the world fusion happen--I care literally for 0 of the characters there, except the miners due to ShB.

Solution 9 stuff was fun, not the most interesting, but it was all right. Learning about Gulool Ja, Otis, Sphene was pretty neato, but I didn't really form a similar feeling of caring for people of Alexandria as I did for the people of Norvrandt.

Zoraal Ja was a good and a bad villain, good in the sense that he was just a broken guy without a super deep purpose behind his motivations ( like Zenos), who resorts to cheating the game after failing to measure up to his self-placed expectations from being called "the miracle" his whole life. And he's bad because he suffered from the same disney PG13 dialogue that Wuk Lamat and other characters suffer from.

Sphene good, Living memory good, coulda had more moral struggling rather than Cahciua's memory going "it's all good, they're not really alive," after we spent Endwalker recognizing that life and meaning can emerge from non-living things. Obviously we couldn't keep feeding them souls, but discarding them like that rubbed me the wrong way. Living memory probably my favorite final zone out of any, and makes me depressed to return there to this day, 9/10

7.1 is a disaster. Really? Rroneek and Koana? Ugh, felt like I was playing a game for 8-year-olds.
7.2 good *SNIFFA*
7.3 not high hopes, 'cause nerd kid isn't really that compelling of a bad guy, and literally showed up this patch, so basically no build up.

[DiaDeem]

Dawntrail is an expansion with a lot of issues and some good things, and there's always an interesting take to be made about it. I believe it's important to share takes that have not been seen before within the community, and I'd like to weigh in.

I believe Dawntrail could have been more fun if there was an enemy like this:

[Mawlzy]

Dawntrail is an expansion with a lot of issues and some good things, and there's always an interesting take to be made about it. I believe it's important to share takes that have not been seen before within the community, and I'd like to weigh in.

I believe Dawntrail could have been more fun if there was an enemy like this:

Many aspects of the game and life would be improved with an enormous vibrating lemon.

[Hallarem]

I think the majority of the player base didn't quite understand the concept of the overall story.

Woah buddy

[Mawlzy]

Woah buddy

I had a feeling this would all be the fault of the players.

[Gwenkatsu]

This story is really turning into a gripping saga of the concept of life and death and most people who are college age and younger than me have not experienced great loss of someone they love and might have missed the deep meaning of the regulators or turning off the terminals in living memory.

Uhm... you're refering to those souls in Living Memory that desperately fought death for hundreds of years... until the WoL comes around and then they're suddenly perfectly fine with him just pulling the power cord from their little simulation? Those souls?
Sorry, but that story was just a hot mess. And no matter your age or how many losses you had to suffer in life - a hot mess stays a hot mess.

[Astronis]

Uhm... you're refering to those souls in Living Memory that desperately fought death for hundreds of years... until the WoL comes around and then they're suddenly perfectly fine with him just pulling the power cord from their little simulation? Those souls?

Rather...the soulless memories of the dead. That was entire point of harvesting souls from other shards--the Ninth was scraping the bottom of their soul-barrel because they kept feeding their living to their dead to keep them animated. They didn't have any souls of their own. It was necromancy.

Dawntrail was about letting go of what's lost. It didn't always tell that tale well, but that's one of its overarching themes.

[UNDEAD10000]

I find battle content being bit disappointing when normal group content is still too easy (NOTE: i simply refuse to do any of extreme trials, savage raids, ultimate raids and chaotic allaince raid when i had really bad experience with The Coils of Bahamut raid back in 2.0 that i simply started to fear doing any of endgame content).
Tanks overpowerd self-sustain and mitigation is still huge problem, healer issue is still not being fixed and some DPS suffers being simply bad to play.

For me story of Dawntrail so far have being really boring that i almost fell a sleep few times and there was only few decent moments.

Graphics update is complete mess that made glow effect being too bright, most of shadows are broken, some older areas looks worse due to new textures and many other graphical problems.

I never player PvP, so i can't say anything about changes on PvP.


Dawntrail so far have being my least favorite expansion.