Catching this thread early before all the spoilers show up as I still have a little more left.

I just beat the second trial, and am presumably about to enter the 6th zone. While I don’t have much of a complaint regarding the story itself, the pacing of it is absolutely atrocious. I understand that they were challenged by having the story take place on two different fronts, in a similar vein to Stormblood, however, this expansion makes me feel like Stormblood was a masterpiece by comparison.

Everything happens far too quickly, every problem is resolved immediately after it’s presented and it really makes it feel like the “growth” of the involved characters is completely undeserved. On paper, the “main” character goes to all the villages, collects the gym leader badges, gets hard carried by the WoL, and is suddenly on par with fighters that were already implied (proven in one instance) to be able to wipe the floor with them. In comparison, Lyse, was already shown to be a capable fighter, but not a leader, who does end up going through a similar journey of visiting different peoples and learning of their cultures to see how they’re led, while her role is significantly downplayed during that expansion it’s at least somewhat possible to suspend our beliefs and accept that wacky ol’ Lyse can lead by the time we finish everything.

And then we have Dawntrail… we’re introduced to this wacky character that loves eating and being cheerful, but she gets seasick easily oh noooo. The beginning establishes that this character is well appreciated by their countrymen, but not exactly respected on account of their lack of major status or accolades, unlike the miracle child, the scholarly contributor to society, or the blessed siblings. And yet somehow just by running around an island and learning about cultures, none of which are combative cultures like the Xaela tribes were in SB, this character goes from getting swatted like a fly to being able to fend off enemies that give the godslaying WoL a challenge, suuuuuure.

Now, despite that, I don’t hate this character as much as others do, I didn’t mind their inclusion at all, HOWEVER, I absolutely did not appreciate how much their inclusion affects the treatment of other characters. Krile has been a fan favourite since she was first introduced and has been teased at joining the party multiple times across the different expansions, she finally gets to officially do so with DT, and she gets sidelined for the basically the entire thing so far. Granted, I’m still not done so the game still has some time to expand on her before it ends. But up until this point everything in relation to her feels like an afterthought, the amount of times the entire group is together and she immediately gets put into a separate group from the WoL.

The second character is Erenville, his inclusion feels incredibly forced as soon as you start the second half. The first half is fine because as a gleaner, it makes sense that he is well-travelled and familiar with locales everyone else isn’t with. However, making him a native of Tural feels like someone pulled it out of their ass. This becomes especially apparent when you arrive in the area he’s supposedly most familiar with as it’s close to his home, we have this extremely standout character with a unique accent and somehow we’re supposed to believe he’s from this area where no one sounds like, let alone looks like him. It’s incredibly jarring, it makes it feel like they included him in this expansion just because we were fresh off the heels of EW and he was a surprise hit, so rather than making a new character (that could’ve still been a gleaner) and actually having them fit in with the story, we have Erenville being a black sheep of the continent and the story. This is all the more ironic because he’s the narrator of the expansion.

I feel like I’ve ranted long enough, I should hopefully be done with MSQ before Sunday, we’ll see if anything changes between now and then. But all in all, I feel like FFXIV is far too late in the game for the pacing to feel this amateurish, especially in comparison to the least favoured expansion according to most of the community. The voice acting was all over the place, like they focused more on finding actors for the sake of their nationalities or ethnicities rather than for the quality of their work, and even the good ones seem to have been directed poorly. Nothing about DT tips it into ‘bad’ territory, except for the pacing, but overall this expansion feels like a downgrade compared to everything that’s come before it. We’ll see what I think when I’m actually done.

I hate it so much. This is Krile’s story and she might as well not even be there. We carry her around like a key and she can’t even open the door. We will never have another chance to have a story focused on Krile and her family, her people, her queen ever again and it was stolen from her.

I expected a nice chill story where we vacation and chill out meeting people and following in the footsteps of Krile’s grandfather, but instead we get this dragged out but somehow rushed story that could have been a background story.

Wuk being an anime character where every problem is immediately solved, powers up really fast for no reason besides plot, and everyone praises her for the work of others ruins the whole expansion. The best zone was hanging out with Erinville, but even that is short lived because they can’t have you forgetting Wuk exists.

Then we have the rush to the end for no reason. The second half of the msq could have been our patch note content, but it doesn’t matter because within minutes of meeting these people Wuk knows best and their whole culture is wrong. And that last fight was so good but they ruined it because you must love Wuk. You are tied to Wuk all the way to then end and it sucks.

This expansion would have been amazing if they just made it about Krile and put the dawnservent stuff in the background. We still would have gone to the zones, learned about the people, and might have even ate a taco at least once. Wuk was not needed for the second half at all because that was Krile’s queen and her people and she should have been front and center to learn about them. Heck she couldn’t even have time with her parents without Wuk interrupting twice because the writer was worried we would forget how amazing she is unless she solves some problem instantly with krile and her parents.

This whole expansion was handled so poorly that I don’t even know where they go from here. I guess another reflection? At least the raid is good, but to have an expansion where you can skip it and miss out on nothing is really sad to me.

The first half of MSQ was fine for me. Kind of cheesy but it’s like whatever, I don’t mind a silly low-stakes Final Fantasy story.

The ending totally lost me! The writers obviously have their own personal agenda regarding

The English voice acting was so bad this time around. And no, not just Wuk Lamat like the dumbass culture war losers would have you believe, but even established characters like Thancred and Y’shtola were really phoning it in.

At least the battle content is fun.

Just finished it yesterday. (THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS)

Starting from Heritage Found and Alexandria, it had a pretty good story to tell, and Wuk Lamat was no longer an annoying loser at that point. I respect their decision not to put too much focus on old scions, as there’s no character development to push forward there.

The patterns of tragedy they use to form ideas for their final zones/dungeons are perhaps a little bit predictable, but this was still a new twist, and it worked well. I also try to remind myself that Dawntrail would not be entirely unique for having a strong ending with a slightly more forgettable leadup. I want to recognize considering the longevity of MMOs, it was very daring of them to give us a “dead and empty” final zone with only a muted soundtrack; basically causing us to miss the golden lights every single time we see it now. It was obvious a lot of work went into Yesterland and all the other locations, so seeing them turned into a “WIP Hammer map” absolutely hammered the themes of loss they were aiming for perfectly.

It’s that leadup and the connecting of those strong themes I take the most issue with. The arc of the rite of succession, I think tried to connect to some of it later on, but didn’t manage it. The closest thing I can see is the prompt “A good leader wishes to achieve peace and happiness for their people. But, can you face the consequences of that price being the lives and happiness of others?” There are some ways I can see this working out:

• When Valigarmanda is freed, have it cause some death/chaos before being corralled and killed. The people, as a result, blame Wuk Lamat and Gulool Ja Ja for Urqopacha’s lack of a standing army to face the threat.
• The decision to “erase the Endless” is made before traveling through the gate, possibly through a recorded message left by Cahciua. Instead of going straight there, Wuk Lamat and Koana both reject the request and spend time angrily insisting to the more scholarly heroes to research a better way - since it’s such a betrayal of her values, and ending lives to benefit their own nation makes them no better than Zoraal Ja. Only through some mature self-reflection does Wuk agree to the task, and the burden of that erasure weighs heavily each time on her.
• Erase the western arc and the parade float arc. Neither of these gave any character development, and the parade arc even smacked of cultural ignorance. This can give more time to other individual trials that can each touch on themes of tradition, war, and conflict.
• Extend the question of why the younger Pelu Pelu embrace war as a chance for monetary gain. This should be a strong moment to challenge the simplistic viewpoint of “Peace and understanding above all else.” eg; “My grandfather made his fortunes selling weapons and medicine during times of strife. Before then, we barely had enough to survive. To us, the idea of ‘avoiding war’ is a folly. Everyone is at war - even if it’s one with starvation or poverty.”
• Somehow give more chances for the Mamool Ja to converse with Sphene. The direct connection between the genocidal crimes of the Skydeep Cenote and the City of Gold shouldn’t be lost, and given that Bakool Ja Ja’s arc of “forced into being a weapon of war” was one of the best parts of early Dawntrail, it could drive the future conflict a bit better.
• One idea for the Xibruq Pibil arc (the culinary competition): This arc could both acknowledge the message of finding common ground and getting to know each other for simple pleasures and smiles, but also address how, for all his legend and accomplishment, Gulool Ja Ja sort of “failed” to bring peace to the region. The Mamool Ja still felt trapped by their infertile land, and turned to horrific measures to work their way out of it. This could even pivot the rite of succession from “You’re good enough to be Dawnservant I guess” to “You’ve surpassed me where I’ve failed.”

There’s some other simple criticisms that I think are common - in most scenes I didn’t have direct issue with Wuk Lamat, and I recognize new stories need new characters with their own arcs. The most specific thing that comes to mind is the vicious yells in emotional scenes didn’t deliver much, mainly because of the forced accent. There was one scene towards the end of the rite of succession that gave a lot of “I’ve been thinking” buildup and really failed on writing by just cycling the stuff about friendship and happiness, when it could’ve put in a lot of work on those themes I mentioned above.