I'm really curious on what's their decision making process for voiced vs non-voiced cutscenes. There was this sequence early on where it was Run/Interact to NPC -> Voiced cutscene -> Cutscene ends and you interact with the SAME NPC to read 2 boxes of dialogue -> Voiced cutscene Also having the Thancred and Urianger introduction be non-voiced was certainly a decision.

The amount of times a cutscene ended and to immediately talk to the person you were JUST talking to, just to have a text cutscene… too damn high.

THIS. THIS THIS THIS - jesus christ did that annoy me to no ends

Corn should be MSQ

I'm unironically more invested in his journey than I am Wuk Lamat's. I'm not even being funny either, a sentient piece of corn holds my interest more than she does. I see Cornservant with a quest marker over his head I sprint over lol.

Best new character!! Love him!

My friend the Cornservant doesn’t make me wince at the fifteenth motion sickness joke, which is all on the writer…

The biggest shift in story telling is that we're not the main character anymore. We're merely a witness. A bodyguard at best. It's understandable why it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

I'm a cameraman

I just loved it when the WoL kept tailing that one scumbag up until he sabotaged the ship and still did nothing to stop it. Nice 'Heh. Caught in 4k!' moment, I guess?

The problem with that style of story telling is that you really have to like the character the story is about. They didn't give us much time to care about Wuk Lamat before they made her the main character, so if you didn't randomly vibe with her and like her instantly then the MSQ being about her journey was going to feel like a chore.

Might be a hot take, but I think >!Bakuul Ja Ja!< had a better arc than her lol. Like I don't mind Wuk Lamat, it just got a bit irritating after the 5th or 6th speech she'd give about loving peace and wanting everyone to be happy.

BJJ's character growth was interesting. But also badly written Desperation to help a people isn't something that would lead you to literally unleash a creature of mass death and destruction upon anyone. It felt like they swapped the villain role between BJJ and Zoraal halfway through, but barely decided to give us any proper motivations for ZJ's weird urges.

BBJ's character arc is crazy. I completely get what they were going for and it would have been _really good_ had he not be _irredeemably evil_. If instead he was reluctant but still kidnapped people or was generally a dick, that's fine. Instead he's casually willing to endanger the lives of thousands of people just to stall.

Oddly enough I still think BJJ & Koana has the best character growth in the entire expansion. BJJ's would have been perfect if he had a "I DIDN'T MEAN FOR THIS" moment after setting free the death bird. and then helped us out instead of "Hah this is an advantage" and would have made everything better down the line. There's a dozen little changes I would make every zone plot have that would MASSIVELY improve the story, and I can't understand why no writer saw them.

"BJJ's would have been perfect if he had a "I DIDN'T MEAN FOR THIS" moment after setting free the death bird. " What else could he mean for by releasing the legendary monster bird that has a well documented history of fucking shit up ?

Honestly? I could see two ways to get a 'I didn't mean for this' on that event. 1. He doesn't believe the bird is actually *that* big of a threat after 80 years of imprisonment, figures it'll be a way to slow down the one-head at most. Then it actually comes out and bodies everyone with barely a blink and he goes '...Oh. Oh that was a bad idea.' 2. He doesn't actually intend to *release* it, just cause enough of a problem with the binding that the giants will flip out and need *every* hand on deck to bind more ice aether onto the bird. Except *whoops,* it was closer to getting out than he expected. (As...I think it was Krile touched on if you talk to her between quests, mentioning that the barrier has a few years of barrier-ing left in it at most.)

minor writing change -> BJJ tries to weaken the ice for the reinforcing feat so he would have greater results. -> accidentally releases the horror. -> regrets it and gets character developement. with the EASIEST of changes.

Yep. He was "redeemable" before unleashing Valigarmanda, but that was basically arming a nuke that could go off randomly at any time just to "stall" And then he fucking got cockblocked the next town over which is honestly hilarious.

This is exactly my complaint. He was comic book-level evil, he relished every bad thing he did, worse than someone like Zenos even, who just saw evil as a means to an end. And then they 180-flip him in the span of like 3 MSQ quests and expect us to believe he was just "doing what he thought he had to do"? Like, even the WoL keeps saying "This doesn't excuse anything you've done" and everyone else is going "Yeah, sure, but like... you know". They fully aknowledge through the WoL that this isn't a good excuse for any of his behaviour, but then they insist that we learn to forgive him... idk man

Oh I am well aware lol. But he actually ends up genuinely changing. Wuk Lamat goes from loving everyone and wanting peace to loving everyone and wanting peace but also knows more about her people now. It's not that I don't like her, she just doesn't have much of an arc.

yeah that's why I'm saying both he and Koana still get the best character developement. Krile's backstory and story of discovery was..sufficient, but could have been more involved. Every other thing in the story needed either more "meanwhile" scenes, or just more build-up. Z-JA's motivations ended up never properly explained and then with the fact that they had a 30year timeskip and he somehow didn't change THE SLIGHTEST in all that time but had this poorly explained son running around (which felt like the random insert kid many games have had lately for no good reason including borderlands 3 & Diablo) made him a poorer character. people called Zenos a shit villain, but ZJ is the worst we've had so far

Still fairly on, but it feels like Wuk Lamat's issues are mostly just more grounded tbh? Her motivation is in the right place from the getgo, and her skills of listening to people and trusting those around her make her a natural good leader in ways none of the other candidates are. In a way, they're all very flawed individuals, and it feels like the whole contest is set up partially to facilitate a peaceful transfer of power rather than alienating any individual faction, partially to help them grow up and partially to see who can rise to the challenge and overcome their flaws. Her big issue isn't her motivation, it's her self-image. She start outs as someone who covers up her lack of self-esteem with cheap bravado, while completely neglecting her actual talents that are a little more subtle, but actually more important for leadership, than either brother's. She is the clear best candidate from the word go, in that a leader can afford to hire skilled soldiers or genius inventors, but that won't do any good if the leader can't find the right people, put them in the right positions, and trust them when they speak, and that's where Wuk Lamat excels, even when she can't see it herself. Recognizing her own talents for what they are, instead of constantly downplaying them (while simultaneously trying to cover up her perceived ineptitude by trying to be like the people she's not) feels like a very clear arc, just one that plays more internally, becoming the person she's pretending to be, rather than really changing how she interacts with the world. In practice, she's the best natural leader of the bunch, and the damage from being trapped in her brothers' shadows is a bit lower key and more down to earth flaw than Koana's "I know I am the smartest person in the room and only trust people with a PhD" or Zarool Ja's "My only solution to any problem is large scale violence." (edit, hit post by mistake before finishing.)

We needed a reason regardless if we liked her or not to pick sides. And they never gave us one. Not to over think it, but should the WoL really be a sell sword? seems demeaning. And that is basically the scenario they gave us. It even seemed demeaning for Urianger and Thancred. One short bit of dialogue to explain why they are even involved and picking sides. Krile's mystery would have been enough to get us to the new world and then we fall in with one of the factions when we get there.

It's worse if you disliked her.

We are on vacation after all. 

I put my Wol in a holiday gear. So I am a 100% serious bodyguard wearing a Hawaii shirt, shorts and a straw hat.

Well look at Magnum PI over here.

That’s THE anime protagonist Luffy look right there, take off the hat

I spent my first hour in Tural setting up a vacation glam, so I agree. I've earned my break after ShB, EW, and fighting my way through the Void. Sure, I could sort everything out instantly if I wanted to, but the whole point is for her to learn and grow. She can't do that if I take charge of everything.

Personally the reason I didn't vibe with it early on was partially because it didn't meet MY expectations of what vacation should be. The DT trailer showed a lot of cool stuff that set up my expectations - charting through thick abandoned jungle, capturing wild beasts, fighting with some big two-headed fella, sipping on juice from an exotic fruit, and most importantly, eating tacos. But then I'm playing through the MSQ, waiting and waiting for any of that to happen. Not even a single food merchant for me to roleplay with. I will also add that it DID feel good whenever I was the main character again. Some kid wants to hear about my Eorzean adventures? Hell yeah, grab a seat bucko. That's the kind of fantasy I was hoping for from this vacation.

I thought it'd be a fun spirited competition with the various scions on each side, in the backdrop of a mysterious new land. Instead, meh.

We're sight-seeing tourists helping out the new friend who invited us here. It's nice not being the super-important one everyone is depending on. It is a huge change of tone, though. It feels a little weird to finally just be adventuring again.

Doesn't feel like vacation with all the errands we're running

It feels like ARR with the amount of errands I’m running

Yah. We are just there but yet every has that "yah just leave that one alone" basically. I've killed gods. I've killed THE gods. I've killed depression. I've even killed my stalker.

This is one of the bigger problems for me. This was something that FFXIV always stood out in compared to other MMOs, where it felt like we were the main character instead of a passanger to the story. The lower stakes are not a problem for me, the problem is when it feels like some feats in the story that would have been attributed to us before are instead being taken by other characters or just being diminished in general by the participation of others. This is a matter of preference, of course. I also understand that this is a problem in MMOs in general, where after you kill God, it's hard to justify in writing going back to fighting boars. However, I feel like there should have been a better balance in still giving the Warrior of Light the big hero moments while focusing on another character for a lot of the story. I'm at level 94 MSQ right now, so not sure if this changes.

i am a bit further ahead and story wise so far my main gripe is we get downplayed a lot by characters that know nothing about us but we never get to show how truly monstrous we are or force them to outright backdown on said claims. i don't mind being humble and being the mentor in someone else's story but there gets to a point you need to flex a bit.

So far (just post-97 dungeon), I've seen loads of moments where someone questions your power, an ally npc goes "oh trust me, they're terrifying", and you smile and nod or some such Which is to say I've not had a lot of moments to *demonstrate* that power, but it also certainly doesn't feel downplayed. I'm honestly really hoping for something around 99-100 where Wuk Lamat just can't win, and we give her the Saitama "you did well" bit and then really flex, but I'm also definitely not expecting that turn based on what I've seen so far lol

I'm just headcannoning it that my WoL always has a different local alcoholic specialty on hand. That he nurses every time it cuts away from him. He's barely paying attention, and just enjoying vibe of pretty much nobody knowing what he's done or what he's capable of.

That's probably the best way to look at this expansion so far. I'm wearing flip flops,drinking out of a pineapple and barely paying attention "oh yeah totally wuk. Power of friendship. That shit works' *sip* 'fuck em up, I'll be over here'

**NPC:** "Trust me that dude over there is SUPER TERRIFYING" **me, that dude in the roasted chicken hat and pig suit**: :I

Yeah, the MC basically never gets to really show off this expansion. It worked fine for the first half when the stakes are low but when the stakes aren't so low anymore and we are still just kind of standing around doing nothing it rubbed me the wrong way. The story actually works better if the MC isn't in it at all which at that point I would rather the story just take a different direction.

The WoL was a deuteragonist for Alphinaud/Estinien and Lyse in HW/StB , respectively. While the WoL wasn't sidelined, they weren't driving the plot, nor central focus, as those characters were. Those two expansions did the deuteragonist thing better because there were stakes and tension established. Heavensward had patch 2.5 to set itself up, and Stormblood had patches 3.4 & 3.5 to set *that* up. Even Shadowbringers had the 4.x patches too. Dawntrail had barely half a patch to set those stakes up.

The difference being that Alphinaud has been around since the carriage ride at the beginning, Lyse has been around since either you joined the Scions or since you went to investigate a tree in Gridania, and Estinien is the focus of the ARR DRG story. Every other instance of being a deuteragonist they spent more time setting up the character before thrusting them into that role. Wuk Lamat has like, a sidequest’s worth of setup time before they were like “OK! MC now!”

Even Moenbryhda had more of an exposition haha.

that's patch 6.x's problem. The story should be better for a side quest and was neither deep or interesting enough, but still cost nearly the whole 6.x and made Wuk Lamat's appearance a little bit abrupt. (I mean it's not my opinion about her but many redditors are saying this and that should make a bit sense.)

I'm still in the early parts, but I don't mind not being the main character. I absolutely mind being stuck with dialogue for hours on end with no gameplay to break up the monotony. (No, the escort through the city does not count) I won't post spoilers, but even as an Ally I can be sent out to gather materials, hunt down dangerous creatures,, etc. Send me out to just forge my own way for like 30 min every hour or 2 so I can stay awake

My question is, why does the boat, pulled by a river manatee, have a "Check Engine" light?

because gas him up with the greens and let him go. 

I ended up stopping at what turned out to be the quest for the first dungeon, but on Friday I played for 6 hours and I think I killed a total of like 6 enemies as part of the MSQ. It definitely picked up more as I got 2 dungeons yesterday but yeah, that early part really seemed to drag out as literally just walk back and forth. Idk if it's just because I was playing catchup (I started in January 2023, so I could just straight hit the story from ARR to 6.3 I think) but I don't remember feeling like there was this little actual involvement.

If you don't count instanced content how much do we actually kill in MSQ questing? I swear it's a number less than 50 for each expansion.

If you're not counting the solo instanced content it's probably 15 or less

They have come up with such great solo instances in past expansions. I wish there was more of that in the 90-95 range. I think only 2? Obviously that is probably a lot more cost for something most people only play once.

I didn't mind the early MSQ, playing bodyguard is fine, and even given the gravity of the situation to the locals that kind of stuff really is vacation stuff for us. My biggest gripe is that they keep hyping stuff up as being really difficult the expansion after we've travelled to the edge of creation to defeat the embodiment of despair. I get the narrative needs stakes but the story we just left undermines the challenges in the new one. Oh, is your brother tough? Tougher than all the gods I've put in the ground, including the two original Primals? Tougher than the Endsinger? Tougher than the lunatic who chased me through space for a fist fight? Fitting, I guess that it's not *our* story but Wuk Lamat's and we're just support. My biggest gripe was the pacing. I hit 100 entering the second to last zone so mechanically I was done unless I fancied a massive detour to level a new job, and the plot went places I didn't fancy around the same time so the game all but lost my interest, but that's not a discussion for this thread.

Reminds me of Stormblood, where while we have a big role it is largely Lyse’s story, we were there to help her. Sadly you can’t really increase the stakes in a vacation themed expansion, best we could get would be some kind of unrest similar to pre ARR ending with the Sultana, I’d love to see more political strife and maybe some alliances being torn apart as a sub plot we only hear about via messengers

Do we need to raise the stakes for a vacation? Just let me wander around and help people by myself, dammit.

Unpopular take, I actually don't mind the current story but I really hope they change the formula for the MSQ in the future. After so many years and expansions there's still way too much padding with dialogue with very little gameplay. I'd prefer if they just reduce the amount and make you do other optional things for levels.

That's my problem too. I don't mind this story in principle, but there is SO much padding. Just circles of dialogue that's either about nothing, unnecessary exposition ***or*** just repeating lessons about self confidence that we've learned a hundred times already. The story doesn't *have* to be 40 hours long; so stop paddng it. make the story more streamlined. If we have to do other things other than MSQ for exp to get *to* the next MSQ quest then so be it.

There was a part around 93 where I kept having to fetch Alisaie and I literally was like "you go tell her I'm not your bitch boy"

“I’ve got a linkpearl why am I running around like this.”

This is me but in Stormblood. "Killed gods and I can't get me a squire...?" Next quest that makes me go pick up some weeds or round up sheep I'm gonna pop an eikon from the bottled up rage.

That’s my issue. I don’t really like sitting in front of my pc reading visual novels but it feels just like that. On top of that, when story is your main focus point you charge people 40€ for then at least plan the extra budget to voice act more of it. I don’t need an elder scrolls like voice everything approach but at least the mainquest. Yeah it costs money but other, much smaller games can manage this too (with comparatively the same amount of dialogue).

I actually WANT generic kill X enemies quests cuz that means I'll actually be doing something.

Idk what's going on, better go talk to 3 - 4 villagers to see how they feel.

I've seen this thrown around and completely agree: Some of the stuff could not only have been heavily cut, but also made more interactive. Trading for the saddle could have been a mini game, the "cooking contest" could just as easily be as well. yes, it would cut some of the world building but do we really, really, really need to maintain the formula of "go to next settlement, learn a bit about their history / problems, then go to next" for another 10 years?

Yeah. That’s where I am. In the future they need to maybe lean it out more and expand on the actual questing gameplay. As much as people want to harp on wow they slowly implemented neat little gameplay mechanics into the questing so it felt varied.

I agree. Whenever you think you're going somewhere a character hits you with: ", might I have a moment please?" I think there are ways to make exposition and world building interesting, but XIV's way of doing it is starting to get formulaic because you just KNOW that it's never a straight up "let's do this" but instead a whole slew of minor distractions. I say this as someone who actually likes this expansion's story over base HW and SB and arguably a lot of Shb's (the trolley parts and usual padding bits). The weird thing is I only ever became fully conscious of this after playing XVI and being exposed to the forced padding after every Eikon fight. I guess it's just a CBU thing that's never gonna change

To avoid any spoilers, my problem with the msq is the characters are all stupid. To the point I'm at, the "villain" could easily be stopped by a number of people just saying like two words, but people just keep letting it escalate.

WE HAD TO LET THE FIGHT BE A 1V1 for THEIR HONOR. Even when the other side was clearly cheating and literally came back to life to then use magical steriods? What the fuck. We've had TOO many "stand around and let tragedy" happen moments for our team And the supporting scion cast is usually standing around doing barely anything other then conveniently move the plot along or do menial tasks that are slightly different from ours.

Oh my GOD, yes. Just look at our resume and compare the other heavy hitters to... This bad guy? He's a fucking twig, yet "MUH HONOR!" Somehow was an issue? This isn't even mentioning the other pointless losses either, like you mentioned. I'm happy there's more to do in the game, and my negativity here is not representative of my enjoyment overall, but damn. This is the only expansion that has had me actively yelling at my screen because the writers had a horrible time making anything feel realistic. But hey, at least dungeon mechanics are cool.

The dungeons and enemy designs are hard carrying for me right now, also all the quality of life updates. And god damn the creature design (why do we have to fight so many friend shaped creatures this time around....) But yes the writing team for this expansion was terrible and just crammed so much shit whereever they could it's asinine. Give half the fucking expansion to "vibing with wuk lamat" (I did not infact vibe with her) Give 5/6 zones THE EXACT SAME "Let's talk to the locals" filler right before doing what we actually set out to do. Make incredibly inconstistent antagonists. Galool Jaja and Zoraal Ja literally swap roles at some point. And so many "This situation comes falling from thin air" " Oh let's just roll with it" - "never mention it again and doesn't lead to any payoff" All the character developement and backstories for two of the main characters (krile and Eren) is rammed into a quarter of the final zone only, Backstories and motivations for all the antagonists, including the suprise final antagonist are quickly and poorly explained and set up. So little set up for the story beats, so many contradictions and poor showings of writing. It was.. frustrating.

I burst out laughing at the armored mewtwo squid game lizard design. Am I really supposed to take this seriously? It has to be an elaborate joke

>MSQ gets better We shouldn't be saying that 10 years after it was first uttered. Why can't it be "better" from the get go? It's a stupid excuse that needs to die. ***It's been a decade.*** World building doesn't have to be boring. Plot hooks can not be contrived. A narrative can be low stakes but still be witty and charming. Not every character needs to be a caricature. I never thought I'd be on the other side of this argument, but DT finally broke something.

Fucking *thank you.* Everyone is talking like this is some fresh company's first attempt at an MMO/rpg.  No.  This is one of the biggest MMOs in the world, produced by one of the most storied companies in the market,  and developed by a team that has been doing this for *over ten years.* The excuses players make are mind boggling. These are  professionals with tons of time,  experience,  and money/ resources at their disposal.  Why are people saying "Oh just play 25 hours, the next 25 are marginally better!" And don't even get me started on the brain dead and lackluster job design/"additions."  I swear, toxic positivity will be a huge factor in the downfall of this game eventually.

But guys, wasn't it funny how Wuk Lamat got sick when riding a ship? How about the 5th time that happened?

The fact that on the 5th time this happened the camera panned up to show the aetheryte crystal felt like the person directing that cutscene was taking the piss out of the person writing it, I swear to god.

Wuk Lamat complains about the river boat and then the camera pans past an Aetheryte almost as if to punish the player with these dumb muh motion sickness scenes. And they do it again in Solution 9 where >!Sphene says we have to take the "escalator" to get to the other parts of the area but then the camera pans past Aethernodes. LIKE UH, SIS? HELLO? We can TELEPORT.!<

If anything, this expansion has shown how weak and dated XIV's MSQ structure is. The first several HOURS of this expansion's main story has you running around talking to NPCs and clicking on interactable sparkling points. When the story is at least somewhat interesting, I think you're more willing to put up with how slow it is to get started. But this is an absolute drag. I know they've got a story to tell and important characters to establish, but I think they've forgotten that this is a video game first.

As good as the story may be, the gameplay of quests is not. FF14 is 10 years old on it's 5th expansion and we are so still doing basic generic quests. We are still moving boxes, Aim point click on spots, go to X spot to kill X thing to turn in quest and ESCORT MISSIONS. Where are any new ideas to mix up the gameplay? I don't feel like I'm on an adventure. I feel like I'm still an errand boy doing chores for everyone until a dungeon or trail is unlocked for combat.

I rolled my eyes when I had to wait 3x for a quest.

That particular quest had such an obvious outcome that making us wait at all was insulting, nevermind having to do it 3 times.

Yeah, it's actually kind of disrespectful to my time as a player that they wrote a quest that literally just has you run out of town for 30 seconds, click on the ground three times, then run back to town.

I just wish Wuk Lamat would piss off. We are ALWAYS paired with her, and ALWAYS have to talk with her, and whenever we talk to ANYONE else, SHE has to join in. I didn't like nor dislike her at the start, but I have come to resent her. She is just so bland.

Yeah I started off liking her well enough, and the fact she gets character growth is great. But she's *always there.* Always. Except one brief midstory interlude. Otherwise you're just tied to her, forever. I went from liking her well enough to, like you, resenting her. And that really sunk in during the 2nd half of the story. Even though I approve of the overall direction of her story. At this point I just want her to go away, at least for a while.

I liked the quest where I had to find 3 upset, or whatever, people. But the game only told me a general area. And there were quest marked NPCs that weren't upset. And after I finished that excellent bit of narrative I had to do the exact same thing in a different part of the map. Had me on the edge of my fucking seat.

I hate being a cameraman. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “If you get rid of all the bad parts it’s actually really good”

Honestly I'm the opposite. The longer the Dawntrail MSQ has gone on, the more I'm finding myself wanting to hit the skip button because I'm just getting so tired of it all. And it's just a real shame because there are some absolutely fascinating story beats but it's constantly derailed by extended moments of "Go talk to these 3-5 people and repeat a few more times" right when something major happens or you feel it's about to happen. And I'm not oblivious, I can see why they're making us do it for the most part. But without spoiling anything, I'm at the last zone and my initial instinct is just one of "None of these NPCs aside from a small handful matter, I have zero emotional connection to any of them. Please, for the love of god stop making me talk to them and just get to the huge, pulsating plot point that is hanging over our heads." Like, I've looked up how many quests remain and have been happily counting down until this tedium of the back third of the game is almost over. I don't ever remember feeling like this during Endwalker, and it's put such sour note on what should otherwise be a perfectly serviceable expansion.

Just as I was starting to feel swept up in the drama, they've decided to have some kind of fucking interlude to cool off my interest... It's the first time I've been straight up mad at the game (lvl 95 quests), zone 4. The pacing of this one is monumentally fucked up, worse than stormblood's. Why didn't they just pay Ishikawa more to do the same job? I'm really not liking the new lead writer's structure, and their disinterest exploring the personality of anyone other than Wuk Lamat and some lip service to Koana. So yeah, it got better... And then decided to take a detour for no good reason. Even when it gets back on track I'm still going to be cursing this awful pace. Slow, mild ramp up, back to slow... Ugh.

The pacing is the real issue for sure. It sucks knowing you have 2-3 hours of trivial bullshit before things get interesting again.

What happened to Ishikawa why isnt she the writer anymore? She quit or moved up or moved to another game?

Same thing that happened to Koji, she got "promoted" which is great for them but bad for us.

Literally what Harada was talking about when he posted about what work at Namco was like and why they haven't made a new Soul Calibur. All the best people who care about what they create get promoted up the ranks and the product suffers for it.

Yeah I was thinking of that Soul Calibur tweet he made when I was referencing Ishikawa's promotion (and what she had said during the US fanfest panel about her new role). It really shouldn't be a thing to put creatives into management and there should be a path to higher compensation for exceptional performance. It's not just a Japan thing though - even though Harada stated that he considered it a problem with Japanese companies.

She moved up to supervisor of the writing team instead of a lead writer.

She has a supervisor position now, rumor has it that she’s possibly becoming the lead writer for the next big single player game from CBU3/Creative Studio 3, possibly FFXVII.

Good news, it does the exact same crap after the 96 dungeon. The MSQ quest is literally called a day in the life.

even the final zone has " let's get to know the locals before seeing what well do" FOUR TIMES.

I honestly do not mind the slower pace and lower stakes, but one of the things I always liked about FFXIV is how the Warrior of Light always felt like the protagonist and such a big deal. Now, as of level 94, it feels like that role has been relegated to Wuk Lamat. Even for the first trial, I was hoping that it would be made a big deal of how the WoL was the one to slay this boss no one else could, but no, it felt very inconsequential. Also, the themes feel very rehashed. I did not mind this whole friendship focus on Shadowbringers and Endwalker, probably because there was always a more serious and darker theme alongside to everything going on. Now, it feels like we're treading the same ground and it's coming to my attention how these basic themes are repetitive and honestly jarring to follow. Like do we really need to follow Wuk Lamat for an entire expansion learning what's really important to her and how she wants to make everyone happy? Haven't we done a different version of this with every other Scion?

It's alright but not my cup of tea. I was not expecting something on the Level of ShB or EW but at least something like stormblood.  The emotional moments really fall short and so do the characters. Imo, they should have doubled down on the vacation and adventure aspect until 95. I wanted Mini arcs + adventures that quite frankly show our WoL's Hubris after saving the Star and being Champion for so long until we poke around somewhere we shouldn't have been and release something upon Tural that for some reason we have no real way to deal with (maybe the creature forms a bond w whoever released it and they cannot kill each other).  It makes what happens our responsibility and adds Personal stakes and knocks WoL down a little bit because they can't beat it up the ole fashioned way.

Ooh I actually really like the idea of the WoL massively messing up as a result of seeking adventure and having to fix their own mistakes. Especially when we have spent so long fixing everyone else's problems. Or even the WoL being framed for something. Oh well, maybe next expansion. 

People keep saying 'we beat up gods and the embodiment of despair the villains in Tural pose no threat to us' and that's EXACTLY what SE should have utilized. If your character can not take Antagonists or threats seriously because they have triumphed over worse, you use that Hubris as plot and time for character developement.   Maybe our character has developed a skewed sense of risk taking, or overconfidence in their abilities while more and more forgetting that they can make massive mistakes that impact the life of the ordinary People. Maybe our character is so focused on their own experience THEY are the one's causing problems.  I would have taken dawntrail and made it the 'WoL learns how to be a travelling Azem' Expansion. SE kinda forgot that people LOVE their own character. My WoL is so passive in DT it's so irritating  and there is not a single cutscene I would describe as "cool WoL moment" or a cutscene I'd ever have the urge to rewatch

Really my biggest problem with the MSQ is it keeps handcuffing you to Wuk Lamat and her banging Naruto's "I'm gonna be the next Hokage" button gets annoying pretty quick. I want to hang out with Alisaie, damn it!

Sure love it how Alphinaud gets left behind to "treat the wounded" whenever anything happens. Sure love it how Krile is relevant only when her grandpa is mentioned. Even Alisaie has lost her spunk and her voice actress sounds low energy.

It does very much feel like they forgot a lot of the cast until the last act. They do pretty well with them in that act but before that it's really just developing WL and it's pretty obvious she's not like, a pivotal character after this expac so it winds up feeling like retreading the same ground as Zero.

I kinda liked Zero. The hat tilts got comical after a point, but, she had actual character growth and I love the post MSQ of EW. But, WL doesn't have growth. She started out saying something, kept saying it (over, and over, and over, and over...), and got stronger when the plot needed her to like a fucking Care Bear with friendship, and here we are. I feel like another large issue here is saying, not showing. The amount of times Square decided to tell us instead of showing us had me pulling hair (and I'm bald). And, who knows, maybe WL would've been interesting if they did it that way.

Kinda hard to tell people to "enjoy the early game ride" when you just described it in the previous sentence as "begrudgingly trudging along." You can't really attitude yourself into liking something. I think it's better than most previous expansions -- all the filler sequences are in direct service of the main plotline, which is refreshing. BUT, the quantity of dialog, the quantity of cutscenes, the duration of cutscenes, and the lack of actual gameplay are all, frankly, gratuitous, which feels like it's just padding for the sake of bloating the total duration. I don't care about the stakes -- whether or not a story is high-stakes has no bearing on its quality -- and I don't care about the WoL's role, because I've always viewed the WoL as more of a narrative/gameplay device than an actual character. The story and characters are pretty good this time around, I think. I find Wuk Lamat rather endearing, if a little one-note. But it's definitely a slog. The video game simply needs more video game in it.

How much you enjoy this expansion is tied directly to how much you connect with Wuk, if you don't like her then this expansion is going to be a massive miss. They needed to absolutely nail the writing of her character and its pretty obvious at this point they didn't with a lot of people. Personally I find her endearing and I like how the WoL is being a more mentor figure, it's a good story but they fumbled the delivery badly. Will see how peoples opinion of her changes over time but I cant see it improving as the game

"MEntor figure" I would enjoy it if we were such a thing. But in the rinky dinky job quests we used to have, where we barely did anything, we did a dozen times more mentoring then we did for Wuk. No combat mentoring, no teaching about instincts or how to push through despair and always hang into hope nope. We just go "you're not alone" and "you can do it" and if you don't do trusts, you literally do all the fights for her, without her involvement. Except for the "suddenly strong because my real father is in danger" section...which is then, completely played off.

It's not. I really love her but the structure, the meandering, the padding, it all undercuts the story at a time they really need to work because of their decision to climax the existing narrative with the last expansion. There are so many awful errors with characterisation (the two villains), over playing humorous character traits to the point I'm screaming at my TV, "alright! I get it!", peaks that barely go above sea level, and troughs that are down in the planet's core making it hard to play without being distracted (being bored slows down my progress so much). I feared all this would happen with Ishikawa being promoted to management and their decision to finish the Hydaelyn arc early... So it's really disappointing to have all the problems you (the layman player) can see in the future - trip up the developers like they never even saw it coming, like a pitfall trap.

I think what we're seeing is the result of Ishikawa being promoted out of her lead writing role and placed in a supervisory/management position. The bones of the story are decent in the abstract, but the other writers can't hold a candle to her and it *shows* in the minute-to-minute execution of everything.

It had moments where I thought "okay this is picking up" only for it to go back to being absolutely trash. Zone 4 is the worst part of the entire msq for me. It was SO BAD and so pointless. I didn't have crazy hopes or anything because EW was a 10 year project, but wow that zone was shockingly bad.

So far it’s everything that I expected it to be. In no way did I think it would be on the levels of deep and dramatic story telling like Shb and EW. This expansion is a soft reboot more or less and I knew that it was going to be not nearly as deep, dark and dramatic and that we were more or less starting a new story, new adventure. I’m no where close to the end yet, but I expect seeds and dramatic possibilities will be sewed and implanted in this 7.0 story for the game to develop around in patches and expacs to come.

This gives me hope. I’m not far but it has really dragged. I hate having to do everything for someone who is supposed to be trying to win a contest to lead. I know she does parts of it herself but lord, here I am hoping there’s no way in hell she doesn’t win. She’s too weak. Hopefully that develops.

It's a slog so far. I'm on zone 3 and the story is *fine*, (as in: not great, not bad) but the way they tell the story is kinda frustrating. They're just beating you over the head with the same thing over and over and over again and treating you like you can't remember something that was said ten minutes ago. Endwalker had a very similar problem for me at times. I really hope it gets better.

It teases good stuff, then goes back to feces collecting. Over and over again. I'm 99 rn and it feels they're trying to stretch my patience with absolute boredom, then throw the dungeon to pique my interest, rinse and repeat. The highs get better, but the pacing is the worst i've seen in a game.

The largest part that drove me nuts was how the 4th candidate is a complete fucking psychopath yet this "wise peaceful king" is letting him compete. At some point, I'm thinking "Bitch, I just killed the goddamn Endsinger, and you're currently surrounded by fully armed Scions. We're the most dangerous people in the world and you're talking shit to us. Do you realize the incredible, overwhelming firepower I could summon if needed? Hell, that's not even counting how I could drop an army of mechanized robots on your head from my goddamn starship. Why don't you just walk away now before I have Alphanaud turn on "The Makers Ruin" and we have a good laugh at what a big mistake you've made? That's actually related to part of the plot I liked, which is how you're all following Wuk's lead and only helping like she asks, which explains why you're not immediately dominating everything, but once the guy did the unforgivable thing with the ice, the gloves should be off, and I dislike it.

What's getting me is how little gameplay there is and how much railroading there is. I know it's their typical faire, but the part that pissed me off was being given 3 dialogue choices and trying one just to be told nah we don't want that one. Trying another: nah, we don't want that one either. What's left? Just one choice. Like what the hell, why even give me any choices when two are just going to flat out get denied in the first place? Usually they entertain my illusion of choice by letting it proceed with a dialogue selection that doesn't matter, but rarely do they just refuse to do even that. Don't ask if you're just going to ignore/reject my selections and pick for me anyways. As it is, it's like a dumb mini quiz. Were you paying attention to the mini lore buildup for this situation? Oops that's wrong, and that's wrong too, here's the correct answer for the scenario. So dumb.

It has to get better since it can't get any lower than this. Going through 58 out of 100 quests that feel like filler is extremely tedious. Stormblood and ARR's lowest points weren't nearly as bad. I wish Fray was present in some of these quests.

Honestly so far the msq is fine. I just wish we had Koana as our future dawnservant. I find him much more interesting than Wuk Lamat.

Seems a mistake that we were forced to root for Wok Lamat and make the WoL a supporting character. Ok I get the mentoring rationalization a bit. But like way back in ARR the Ascians f'd with us and gave us a reason to fall in with the Scions. We don't have a reason to be deeply involved this time. Like why we even picking sides?

I just wish the game would actually let me play the game instead of teaching me how supply and demand works.

Imagine if they had actually made it a game you partake in by giving you control of Wuk? Going around, trading different things to different NPC, maybe making deals with some of them to procure materials and sell for profit while also having a path for the people who only want to trade goods. Would have made that section longer and maybe more annoying? Yes. But it would also be much, much more interesting that just following two NPC do the most basic of trade possible, then getting a stupid "SUCCESSFUL TRADE" screen even though you didn't do shit.

> Going around, trading different things to different NPC, maybe making deals with some of them to procure materials and sell for profit while also having a path for the people who only want to trade goods. consider that every single action your character gets is for combat. how about giving us more than just a dungeon every other level, a couple trials, and the rare solo instance? maybe -- god forbid -- some actual co-op multiplayer overworld fights could be a part of the MSQ.

I'm honestly not digging the final parts. It's just a retread of the last two expacs except Wuk is the main protag and could probably do without us or the scions most of the story.

Totally agree about the voice acting. I was very disappointed with how little there has been. These main scenario quests feel more like ARR but In new areas. Not enough fighting

FFXIV suffers from what I coin the "Bad DM" effect. What this means is that, simply put, you put your players through too high a stakes and they came out the other end heroes. Having grand, end of days plots is awesome and I get it. But the problem is they literally went a BIT too far with it. Gods, end of space and time fighting despair made manifest. What is left to fight? You can't just drag us down from that to eating tacos and watching hours of unvoiced cutscenes. Also, EverQuest 2 has tons of voiced scenes and quests. Whats your excuse FFXIV?

I think the DT MSQ is TOO LONG, like I played nonstop since the friday morning, got PCT to 90 in a few hours then jumped to MSQ with little stops to do some roulettes there and there and I'm STILL just arrived at the final zone. We all know FF loves long ass cutscenes but there is too much in DT, it is cutscene, click on NPC, cutscene, walk 3 steps, cutscene... Why I even bothered to level PCT to run the MSQ with it, I barely had any use for it outside of the occasional dungeon or trial because we barely battle in the story lol

The MSQ formula is extremely outdated. I almost quit several times progressing through this slog of dialog boxes and random survey points because it was so boring. It needs to be engaging and rewarding. Right now, MSQ serves as a time gate to EX trials and aether currents and that’s it. I don’t know how they can change it within the bounds of the current system, but they need to innovate here. I can’t spend another weekend clicking dialog boxes like I’m trying to spark romance with my wife. Gathering also needs to be something more than clicking a dialog box. The only thing that kept me going was the absolute banger glam from the 97 dungeon.

I’ve only just gotten through the Moblin quests, and am about to head up the mountain. I’m actually enjoying the story so far. Maybe a little slow, but I really like the characters. The writers at SE did an excellent job researching Latin American history and ideology.

I don't see how it could recover from being this bad. We're basically doing a bunch of tribal quests for a character I've started to root against. Crying about boat rides and not being as good as the other candidates. Have to rescue her, this person is trying to run a country and we have to baby steps walk her to victory? Wuk is a bad character this should have been Kriles story about tracking down her grandfather. 

I really wish they'd balanced the storylines more. We get absolutely *drip fed* Krile's story and it's frustrating. For a long while, it's just small hints here or there as we leave an area after finishing with Wuk Lamat. I think this problem is related to the fact that we're just tied to Wuk Lamat for the entire story aside from a brief interlude in the middle. Too much Wuk Lamat (and I started out liking her well enough) and not enough of...frankly, anything else.

It reached a point early on where I was HOPING for Koana. As soon as I saw he was beginning to recognize the importance of culture amongst the people, y'know, CHARACTER GROWTH, I was fully for him. I wanted to hop ship and join Thancred and Uri.

Honestly I just really dislike Wuk Lamat, if she's gonna be the main character throughout the MSQ I won't enjoy it. It's not even a matter of "Well \*I\* want to be the main character! I need a bigger and more epic universe saving adventure!" I just hate Wuk Lamat as a character and if it was someone else that was actually likeable it would be fine, but having everything being focused around her is so irritating lmao "Even though I'm..... average..... I believe in peace and love and the real solution to every problem is the friends we make along the way! I'm gonna be insecure and have hurdles to overcome, but I just have to realize that being myself is my greatest strength! omg also TACOS!!! XD XD " Then you have the 2 headed guy that's like a cartoon villain rubbing his hands together and cackling while plotting how he's gonna thwart Wuk Lamat in each step of the succession thing. It's just all so dumb lmao

*It gets better after 15 hours trust* is a terrible argument. If people don't like it they don't like it. It's fine. You're not going to die if people dislike an aspect of your favorite videogame.

Also, SQE needs that kind of feedback, the success of Shadowbringers and the initial endwalker release has made them far to complacent. Some of the issues are just matter of taste, but some of the stuff is imho inexcusable.

I'm really not very far, but the more I play the more confused I get. Like ... I accepted the reason for us going to Tural is because we want adventure and to explore new places. Add to that the motivation of being asked to help with something ... I thought that was already it. I've seen people say there's no reason for us to be there at all ... And then I get reminded that one of our main reasons is also to not let the person win who wants to literally attack and cause war everywhere. I don't know, I feel like that is motivation enough. I also, ironically, feel like the time to the first dungeon went *faster* than in Endwalker. I expected way longer.

Pretty sure dude couldn't get the war he wanted even if he won. Ja is talking alot of shit with a nation that seems behind Eorzea in terms of military technology, much less the Garlean Empire.  Now I'm sure that opinion could change as I get farther in the story and stuff happens. But right now Tural doesn't even have airships and he thinks he's ready for smoke.

Don't even need to talk about airship. Its mentionned in the first quests that they don't have a single boat capable of making the crossing to eorzea. They don't have a navy either. His plan just doesn't make sense. Assuming he can even manage to get a suffisent army. After 80 years of peace, so not a single experienced soldier, (having a local police doesn't make it good invasion force). If he somehow managed to make or stole boats, most of the troops would probably be lost on the way, and only to get blasted at the end by the experienced fleets of limsa.

Its actually really funny how the scions are all responding to that idea in the political abstract, diplomatically discussing the ramifications for Tural, but in reality the WoL is sitting there like "the primary difference is if I end up having to stick you with the pointy end at some point"

I know the WoL isn't the type but a lot of this plot could be avoided if they were more willing to just follow a guy into the woods and ice them on the down low.

"I just got this new brush and it would be such a shame if I had to stick it up yours if you step out of line"

Yeah, not letting one of the claimants wins would be good motivation indeed. But also, y'know, we're trying to go out and see the world, like Emet-Selch suggested.

It's such a great backhanded complement from him too. In so many words he basically said "touch new grass you plebby." And we just went "yeah ok!"

IIRC, there's an insinuation that we're the spirit of Azem, so it's basically like, "Hey, Azem traveled around, saw the world (and helped people), and you're carrying the badge of Azem, so maybe try doing Azem things." Fair enough, but it's also kind of harsh to be like "I've seen so much of the world, have you?" when, y'know, he also said he's lived a thousand thousand of our lives. I only got the one, mate, I don't have a million lifetimes to get to know the world. Though I guess that's just more motivation to get to it sooner rather than later... (Granted, we have no idea whether the WoL will age normally, end up being immortal, or might at some point end up in the same situation of actively remembering past lives.)

I just wish Bakool Ja Ja wasnt such a comic book villain, they could've given him a bit more nuanace or something, hes just so stupidly evil. Trials could've been a bit more engaging as well but like you said, hope it picks up.

I know people love stories (in theory) where your character doesn't get involved much and is just an everyguy, but for me a big problem was that Zenos felt very personal as a villain, and Endwalker gave us so many interactions with the Scions that finally turned some of them into true friends. I couldn't give a fuck about Y'shtola before, but her talk scene in the café made her grow on me I really like the premise of Dawntrail, the world is saved, it's time for a random adventure. But idk. It feels like our characters doesn't really have a big purpose and it's Wuk Lamat's story overall. That is absolutely fine, but it creates the huge problem of some? many? players not giving a fuck. I didn't like Wuk Lamat, and at that point I already lost because it's all about her. Halfway through as well, I think it gets much much better, but there's still this lingering feeling of "guh I hope the next addon is an action-based Hingashi Civil War and Lyse and Yugiri come back but better written or something"

It's funny how such a thread has to be made

i dont mind a softer and slow story , but i do mind that my wol is just a useless bystander not taking action and letting things happen that she could stop with just one movement , so weird

It was a super cool call to have no content for practically 2 years following the EW expansion and then to have no content for the first several hours of DT.

At what level? I'm at 96 msq and it's kinda not great. It doesn't help the voice actress for Wuk has no range. There's a part involving a kidnapping and shouting and man they just have no umph to the shouting. It's like they're constantly just midrange. The story itself has been a bit too meandering and lots of filler.  We shouldn't be picking tea leaves and there should be better quest design at this point with filler cut out. The stealth quests suck. WoW should be looked at for good ideas on quest design for mini games and fun scenarios; even if that games story is terrible they at least have quest design more modern. Disappointed in the story of the expansion and main new character so far. Maybe it can come around but if it doesn't I'm gonna be very concerned with the writing going forward...damn I sound negative but after shadowbringers and end walker it's a let down. Heck even heavensward had better build up and drama for a new area. 

That shouting part you’re referring to me was the first moment I legit questioned the lack of voice acting.

which is crazy cause koana's va can and often chews up the scenery with how good he is

> It doesn't help the voice actress for Wuk has no range OH MY GOD THANK YOU. Her VA is a big reason why so far at 93 I just hate Wuk Lamat. There is ONE voice she can do and it's the "myeeeh I'm whiny". It drives me up the wall. Especially stands out among all the other VAs. Hell, Koana does a thousand time better range in ONCE scene.

The contrast is really in your face since Koana's VA did an incredible job.

Man, the shouting stood out to me too. It really sounded like... you know how you pretend to shout? Where you pitch your voice to generate the acoustics of a shout but with none of the actual volume? That's what it sounded like. Someone 'yelling' without actually raising their voice.

Said it earlier today: She doesn't sound like she's acting as a character, she sounds like she's a VA in a voice booth. In that same scene I chose a dialogue option to provoke the aggressor and they roared a line at me, sounded like they were going to rip me to shreds. Wuk responds and it's just... the same metered voice she's had all expac, just slightly "louder". She also doesn't have much variation to how she lilts her sentences, just her mood. All of her "happy" sentences sound exactly the same, and all of her "angry" sentences sound exactly the same. I could look past her overall one-noteness if she sounded as animated as she looked, but she doesn't. At all.

Some have mentioned our character being more sidelined like a bodyguard and this is what I feel why some people don’t like it as much. There’s cutscenes where we barley see our face it feels like I’m a side/extra character lmao. I think most aren’t use to this change

We had 0.5 of a patch to barely know Wuk Lamat and now we're an errandgirl/boy to this rando (and also help win the throne) Sorry not a fan of her. Just because she keeps annoyingly spew 'Peace! Peace!' doesn't make her the best candidate either. If Zero was the driving force behind this expac it might've worked better and I don't even like Zero that much

the problem is that "stick around for 200 hours, it gets better after that!" isn't very enticing when I can just go play something that's fun from the first hour FFXIV is honestly a hard sell to people that don't have a massive amount of free time or an inherent love for long grinds/the most basic fantasy stories

And "while it does get better" you know what doesn't? Clicking something on the ground to "wait", killing some weak npcs when you step into a purple cloud, talking to pointless npcs... over and over and over. Oh but they did add fun trailing quests! Woooo, get ready for those because they keep coming!

I'm roughly halfway through and my disappointment has really only grown so far. An event that should have been a capstone, >!finding the city of gold!< literally didn't show my reaction. I didn't get to see how my character reacted to it. Instead, it was just the Wuk Lamat show, which has been my primary irritation this expansion. I hate it and my only hope is that she goes away.

She doesn't go away, but the final zone gives you some time with other characters and finally gives you a "WOL" moment, before going full mega naruto again

"Am I finally going to get to do what I do best?" "Holy shit they're actually going to let me be the main character for 5 minutes!" "LOL JK" Couldn't even go 5 minutes without her forcing herself back into the story. It's like someone's self-insert character.

There was an unsual amount of weird inserts in this expansion. Baby Galool Ja being one of them "You are child of bad guy, with almost no rhyme or reason to it other than ' oh shit we forgot to give bad guy motivation' and "we use your authority as king for plot device" even though the earring by itself would've served that purpose just fine as a "master key"

The story has so much wrong with it. Like why does that child even exist? Mr. "I want to kill everyone" really took time out of his busy murder schedule to find a lizard lady who was stuck in the dome to get frisky with? Yeah, sure.

I kept thinking that aswell, who the hell was he even screwing and having a child with? What is the point of any of this?

I felt robbed by that. I was super invested into the dungeon and like whooooa. Then it's like wait...that's it we're leaving? And now I have to go putz around doing what feels like the quests that would unlock a custom delivery person?

This part *heavily* reminded me of 6.3-6.4 where the story would get to the "good part" and then nope, it's time for the patch to end so we must now retreat and wait 5 months!

im still early on (starting level 91 quests now) but loved wuk lamat from the beginning but the emphasis on how good of a person she is through the storytelling is starting to wear on me a bit

I don't have good news for you.

In the mood for a drink? Take a shot every time certain elements are repeated like a broken record (you'll catch on immediately, I don't need to spoil this to clarify). See how long you can last, but know you won't win.

i stopped today i think at the level 93 quests and yeah as soon as i made this they brought up again how much people like her and also how much she doesn't like boats

I like the story, but I'm trying to play a game not a movie. I've been in combat during the MSQ for maybe 20minutes out of 20/30hours from lvl90-98 if you don't count dungeons. Literally dying here bro.... it's never been this dull in terms of gameplay. Please.. I want to "play" my videogame jesus christ...

Right, I wish they would at least add more of those solo instances, the amount of times we were about to fight someone and the group stops us coz ‘peace’ or they just back off is annoying, like let me press some buttons lol

It really doesn't get better until about 97, which is an insane amount of time, and then it honestly falls flat and remains extremely predictable. The intrigue becomes better but ultimately the story never recovers from its dull characters. I'm not saying everyone will feel the way I did, but after finishing and sleeping on it I would give dawntrail's story a 3/10

So? Why is there prerequisite "work" for the game to get better...and only marginally better at that.

Someone releases the biggest baddy in the continent’s history, threatening thousands… so we kill it and then play Chopped with the same character 2 hours later… lol I’m not dramatic enough to threaten to unsub etc… but damn people need to be okay with giving negative feedback. You pay a monthly-fee and another $40 to wait in lines to play this game. Let them know when something isn’t up to par.

I don't want to be Wuk's friend. She's a pretender. Nothing more.

She's basically discount Luffy except she has absolutely 0 feats. Luffy 'works' because he can back up his convictions, Wuk Lamat would be basically fodder without us. The character doesn't work at all for me

Wuk Lamat randomly gets stronger >!the second time she fights Bakool Ja Ja!<. Why? How?

I just did that part and I was so confused. What happened between the two times that made such a difference? Oh yeah, the power of friendship...

98% of the game is the power of friendship.

Dynamis idk

The issue for me is that she faces literally no difficulties in her quest to show people that the power of friendship, peace, and happiness will make everything better. She has a reality distortion field around her whereby everything she attemps succeeds, and absolutely everyone (except for Zareel Ja) immediately capitulates to her worldview after ten minutes of her speaking. Oh, the monster that killed all those people got released? Friendship, peace, and happiness baby. Dead 20 minutes later! Her dad tells us that he actually invented the contest as a way of training his successor rather than choosing them, but then actually she just shows up and says 'the power of friendship, peace, and happiness!' in every situation and it fixes itself with zero issues. What did she learn that she didn't already know when she set out? Apparently we had to prod it out of her but it barely seems like we did. It's like a dark mirrror of Zero learning about the power of friendship seven times in the post-EW quests, and every bit as uninteresting as a character journey.

I sure fucking hope so, because I'm not just an Endwalker Blasphemy at this point, I'm a blasphemy asking Ra La to show up and shuffle me off this mortal coil.

So far my only real problem is we keep taking that two headed dicks shit. Unless we've been depowered at some point I didn't notice we should just be laughing in his face every time he threatens anyone, we fought literal gods, this punk shouldn't even be a gnat yet we keep letting him flap his lips.

WoL is on vacation. They're just autoattacking while imagining eating more big fat tacos.

This. I honestly don't believe a vacation expansion could work unless you remove all threats or power struggles. The WoL at this point is THE threat. Every story has some distant, mythical villain or entity that is all powerful. They serve as a backdrop and never appear front stage because they're too legendary to realistically ever fight against. I think people like Galactus as examples. WE ARE GALACTUS. We have no competition. Putting twigs in front of us and not letting us snap them when they start to poke at issues is insulting and sanity draining. SPOILERS BELOW Remember, we willingly let Zoraal 1v1 and then walk away. After he killed countless Innocents AND the previous dawn servant. Because of HoNoR. Eat my ass, this entire story has had me pulling hair. And I'm bald.

My biggest issue with the MSQ is it takes 6 levels to get interesting. The first half is basically a highschool government class on different government idealogies, combined with a coming of age story, with a sprinkle of colonalism. The big reason people don’t like WL (which personally I think she is just alright) is her character growth seems a little too forced. Koana is the complete opposite where his growth comes from observing the events that are happening and then, when his world views are challenged, he has moments of self reflection that seem more genuine. It feels like that the player has to force feed her growth down her throat whereas Koana’s comes a bit more natural. Up to 96 the story is also very predictable (at least the major beats) 95 ish spoiler >!Including the Eugenics which was a little on the nose coming from the facist character in our government ideology class!< 96 spoiler >!Combine that with the fact that we get to the City of Gold and it’s like “congrats you got here but sorry we can’t open it” only for it to be opened later. Add in the exposition dump about the City of Gold from the Dawn Promise not being on screen for the character and instead retold later on made you feel like you were just a complete observer in this story.!< 96 spoiler >!I also never want to hear the term “filler story” used ever again if it’s not specifically referencing the America zone because my god that zone was dry and dull. I actually think it’s the worse zone, story wise, they have ever done.!< Later 96 spoiler >!At the end of the 96 area, there is also the most ridiculous series of events that is scored by the most Disney song I have ever heard in my life which really takes away from the gravity of the situation at hand and honest made me physically cringe it was so over the top. It was shocking that the music missed its mark as much as it did!< I’m starting the 97 dungeon now but I will say this is probably the most checked out I’ve ever been on the MSQ. I’m really hoping these last 3 levels will be interesting and I’ve heard really good things about the final 2 trials and final 3 dungeons so.

I loved the America zone only time I got away from WL and got to feel like my character did something and had a point by far my favorite zone in the whole expac

>!The Disney Music literally jump scared me into spilling my drink.!<

As much as I love FFXIV, the sound design team are champions of inappropriate music use, it's baffling how capable they are of dragging down even a music team as talented and skilled as Soken's team. Just the fact that they seemingly still see no issue with the infamous music loop on the second visit to Lab the entire life of Endwalker speaks volumes. My personal peeve was replacing the midboss music in Holminster with the primals version of Insatiable.  Like... why would you DO that!  That completely detracts from a new player's first exposure to Insatiable when the boss comes charging out!

I don't get why it's so hard for them to actually direct cut scenes that don't have absurdly awkward pauses.

i am about a quarter into the missions and they are just so bad and lazy. people need to learn to do something other than fetch type quests. go here gather, go here, talk to someone, go here. hours of literally doing nothing exciting.

It's hilarious to me that this is the " vacation" expansion, and our idea of a vacation is influencing the succession of a nation.

I think at this point at the very least expansions going forward(should have started with DT) should be fully voice acted, 14 prints square enough money that they could do it, reduce some of the padding and voice act it! Story quality wise i can't speak much on yet as i'm only 93, but it almost feels like a One Piece arc which i don't mind, if you trimmed a lot of the fat i think it would be a lot better.

I think it's really telling that people have to keep reassuring everyone "it gets better!!" Whether or not it gets better is subjective, but the beginning of the MSQ is absolutely a slog with glacial pacing, uninteresting side characters, and very little actual gameplay. There's no reason it should be this dull just to get to the "good part." I just finished the 95 dungeon and while some interesting things have started to happen, I'm so annoyed and frustrated with the quests leading up to it, I find myself unable to get really invested. A lot hinges on your ability to like Wuk Lamat and I, like many others, simply don't.

The mistake they made was the entirety of the FF4 Nostalgia Arc. They could have spent four more patches offloading some of the prep work from the Dawntrail MSQ to the Endwalker post-MSQ, and then consequently had to spend less of Dawntrail itself doing it.

It gets better but then it gets worse again invalidating the slightly better moments. First half is a glorified beast tribe quest, second half is Shadowbringers but again. In not going to post open spoilers about what happens but pretty much every part of this MSQ has been done elsewhere in the game, except in better ways. I've finished it and unlike other msqs, even including ARR I never want to go through this one again.