MMT399561: I don't know dude. We also met new people and cultures in every other xpac to some degree and I never was bored before. The first half of DT was nearly unbearable.

babarrett1: I’m all in on the idea of only certain scions being present in future expacs, we all have our favs but they don’t always need to be there, we’re the Warrior of freaking Light, our endurance and stamina is in a whole other world, we can adventure endlessly and never really need a break but the other guys I say let them take breaks. Let ‘Shtola chill out on a beach somewhere sipping a margarita, while the WoL and the twins go into the depth of a chasm to fight a ferocious beast, works for me.

Yajnaji: Support eurogamer? The same eurogamer that boycotted (or tried to) that other Yoshi-P game, FFXVI because it was "not diverse enough"? That eurogamer?

No, I don't think I will.

clintonwilcox4690: I don't understand why Yoshi-P says it's so hard to make the Scions stand out as a bigger part of the story. From the beginning, they established Alphinaud, Alisae, and Krile would be accompanying the Warrior of Light on his quest, and that Thancred and Urianger would be part of the rival team. It shouldn't have been very hard to include them more and make them bigger parts of the story, especially since they did away with Thancred and Urianger's rivalry almost immediately. In my opinion, the entire story should have been about helping Wuk Lamat obtain the throne, and they should have played up the rivalry against the Scions as a bigger part of the story. Save the second-half story for the next expansion and keep this expansion more grounded and lowkey as a pallette cleanser from the world-ending stakes of Shadowbringers and Endwalker. And let us hang out with Alphinaud, Alisae, and Krile more instead of forcing us with Wuk Lamat all the time.

HiddenEvilStudios: Would've been nice if the Scions' part of the story felt more organic and less like a contrivance to have NPC's for Trusts available. If anything, it might have even been cooler to use a mixture of local NPC's AND the Scions for that like they did with the old story content.

furbyoats1: Speak with Wuk Lamat

TheDarkThunder: Every response/excuse he gave, I thought to myself: “yeah but you did it in Shadowbringers, and it worked great.”

michaeltoy1813: Personally the most frustrating experience in this game was my response options. For me some parts need more thoughtful responses while others needed the stay silent option. My character felt pretty daft not gonna lie.

TheDarkestPhoenix: This is easily the worst MSQ in the entire game, it's not even close. I kind of want to do a deep dive into the myriad of issues plaguing the story, of which there are a lot, but at the same time, I don't want to suffer the MSQ again. The main overview of gripes I had, I don't think any of them could be summed up with "Wuk needs to be more confident". If anything, that character and basically all of the new cast were shockingly not really well realized at all, in either a story context or personality-wise. Almost nobody reacts the way I'd expect a human being to react to almost any situation they're presented with.

fourthhorseman04: I didn’t like the msq. It was a personal and spiritual journey for a npc that I had no personal connection with.

KarasuMayonaka: Probably my most disliked expansion msq. I got so tired of having wuk lamat around, I don't hate her as a character but I don't want to see her for a good long while

danielc3029: I agree with his statement about the importance of taking some time to introduce new people and environments at the beginning of the story. However, the amateur execution of the storytelling in DT confused me to the point where I wondered if that was an intended experimental approach or purely negligence of the dev team. It doesn’t take an experienced writer to understand that having a single character on 99% of the screen time is not a good idea, not to mention a team seen as a master of storytelling.

So, what went wrong if it was more than just an experiment or "taking a different approach"? I was hoping YoshiP would address it in more detail.

warllockmasterasd9142: I found the MSQ fine.

I just didn't like the parts where Wuk was over-used personally.

Daniikar: Mate they had u do a bloody cooking show in the msq. That's when I was like wtf is this writing!

Direwolf1618: I just tappered out and quit in Zone 4, I know everyone was like oh the second half of the story it gets good, but by the time I got there and started getting involved I was like ehhh, I have other things to play.

The zones and vibe was great, I just couldn't give a crap about anything if Wuk Lamaht was on screen.

GaryTaro45: The 1st half of the story they were teased we were compete with Thancred and Urianger, I don't see any "Competition", I just know they are helping Koana, but what did they do? No idea, they just appear in some cutscene nodding and staying besides Koana.... well, same as WOL, we just exist to nodding to Wuk Lamat.... lol They should have make some solo instance which we compete with Urianger or Thancred in some sort of mini game or even make a dungeon to fight against them, for example, the first dungeon, they can be the boss trying to stop us passing through instead of just having landslide blocking our way in the middle...

WatsonsPipe: I didn't think DT was bad but the rite of succession was a big miss if they wanted it to feel like an adventure. All 4 contestants immediately knowing where every feat will take place killed a lot of the sense of adventure, and the nature of the feats themselves made it feel more like a rushed guided tour than anything (even if that was the intention for us the players, it didn't need to literally be that for the characters). Then as soon as we finish the feats and its time to go look for the legendary golden city, Krile pretty much figured out where it was off-screen and then if there was any doubt left Bakool Ja Ja's mom just flat out told us the location. Thats not an adventure, its a mystery if someone spoiled the big reveal for you as soon as you reach the climax.

pandoraMVS: Idk, I am not exactly satisfied with this address to the DT MSQ issues. I still have no idea what age group they targeted with this writing. Definitely not me- an adult female. I think I’ve seen better writing for little children’s cartoons. I did not care about DT random tribes nor the main protagonist- Wuk Lamat.

EspyMelly: Just convince the ShB/EW writer to come back and it'll probably be immediately improved in the next patches.

ashtorith: Kill off wuk lamat and I am ok with the current story arc

Clouds23x: Sadly, this expansion was a massive disappointment that made me quit FF14 after only few MSQ. It was just so boring and lame. At the end of the day nobody cares what devs thought was right. If the game isn't fun to play - they have failed.

Gatsby3737: Tbh, I kinda wish the Scions weren’t in this expansion at all. Give them a break and give us a mostly new cast to hang with. They seemed really noncommittal in telling both a new story and including the same characters we already know.

JimC1984: Yoshi p went from saving the game in 2.0 to someone who wont budge from criticism and will tear it down. Dawntrail MSQ sucked. The story wasnt bad as a blueprint but terribly executed plus wuk lamat.

FFXIV is not going to be #1 anymore

fatalfeline: I think it’s fair for any of the scions to have a story relegated to sidequests except for Krile. You might have personally not liked her story, but this is her first chance to shine in the main story. Not to mention, she literally has had her story relegated to side content before with Eureka. Let her have one little chance in the sun.

kosbebot6360: SPEEN

c.q.32: Besides the whole Wuk Lamat being an ok to please go away already character, it doesnt help that Dawntrail's villains are just shallow boring characters themselves. Besides Bakool JaJa of course.

dannybirch6149: Yoshi-p can make any and all excuses that he wants but at the end of the day it hasn’t worked and the majority really didn’t enjoy this MSQ. I’ve seen a lot of comments that shadow my own feelings and experience regarding this being the first ever MSQ I actually started skipping after playing for multiple thousands of hours this made me take a break for the wrong reasons. Wuk Lamat and the voice actor since have really dragged the whole tone down.

vulgaritar48: "The expansion was slow because we were meeting new people and exploring different cultures" ...You mean the same thing we do literally every expansion, Yoshi P? That's a hollow excuse for bad writing.

ministabber4927: MSQ was the worst ever, childish and boring, nothing to do with the scions! I loved Zero in the first hour, hated Wuk from start to finish.

cosmicneko7225: i personally really liked DT as a whole, the rite of succession was maybe a little too short, but there was never a moment where i was bored and asking "am i done here yet?" if i had to critique, i wish we got more unique trusts this time around, and i wish two specific characters weren't just suddenly dropped into the story without any buildup (not saying who just in case people are still playing). but overall, i absolutely loved dawntrail's initial launch story

BHS289: I liked DT a lot, even the parts I felt were slow or I wondered where they were going were usually just before big reveals, so pacing felt fine or at least comparable to Endwalker's first two zones. I think DT was just always going to be a victim of coming directly after the high point of Endwalker, though my only real moment of "I would have changed this" was some of the musical choices, like saving Smile for the credits (or use the version with full lyrics like how Tomorrow and Tomorrow was saved for the credits of SHB MSQ) instead of the Dawntrail ascension and the train-building scene - felt like the third time was the charm. I think the story directly acknowledging Wuk's faults and her coming to grips with them were sufficient, and how it uses her to directly contrast with Sphene and the almost unfair timing of them meeting each other was nice and added to the final trial. People tripping over themselves to talk about how bad Wuk is feel like they are telling on themselves (not saying you can't critique her as a character any more than someone similarly divisive like 4.0 Lyse, but a lot of the louder voices come across as pushing it too far For Some Reason).

kat_cobain: Personally I didn't like the second half of Dawntrail. I didn't find the story slow, I found it to be way too fast. I would've loved to spend more time with each of the cultures. I wish the rite of succession was longer then it was. I enjoyed the idea of battling against Urianger and Thancred and Koana and I wished they had explored the rivalry more; it was fun. I enjoyed partnering up with the Twins and being almost a mentor to Wuk. I enjoyed Estinien randomly popping up and then leaving again. I loved the moments of Wuk when it showed her weaknesses and how we helped her grow....

I didn't enjoy when suddenly Wuk became strong out of nowhere and was able to defeat Bakool(?) Ja Ja on her own. I didn't enjoy when the story suddenly took a futuristic turn and now robots were going on murderous rampages and now worlds collided in this big dumb sphere and-oh look, Endless!

Honestly, I think the story would've been better had they focused on the rite of succession and learning more about Tural and left all the futuristic Sphene crap for the next expansion, so they could expand on the different reflections more there and made it more interesting to me. As for what to do with the scions, I think how they dealt with them in the first half of the story was good enough; Only include the scions in the story if it makes sense. The twins will probably forever be by our side, and I don't mind that since I like their character. Yshtola and G'raha didn't serve much of a purpose in this story so they could've been in the back researching or doing what they do, I honestly had no idea why they were there at all. Thancred and Urianger were in Koana's team but once they had their fun they should've left. Estinien will be Estinien and pop and go as he pleases, so again (biases aside) that doesn't bother me. Krile, on the other hand, should've had WAY more screentime. This was her story too, no? But instead Wuk took about 80% of screentime from everyone else, and there was a point in the story where I was like,

"Dang, can we get a break from her?"

Overall, the story was just...too much. It felt like they had to rush certain parts of the story to get to the conflict, but they should've just took their time with the beginning more.

oEXTRA: It's both very interesting and alarming that very few people see/talk about the true problem of not only DT's MSQ, but the MSQ in general. SE need to realize that the actual problem is the gameplay, or lack of it (especially in DT) is the main problem here. After all this is a GAME, not a visual novel.

Yeah DT's story was weak and didn't make sense at certain points, but I guarantee you the reception would've been MUCH better if there was actual gameplay throughout it instead of only in the dungeons/trials/solo instances. Not only would this have been the perfect time to experiment with gameplay, but it would've fit the mentor narrative perfectly if done halfway correctly.

Imagine if we taught Wuk how to hunt, bargain, cook, etc through a few mini games. Not only would that simply be more fun than watching a visual novel, but it would intuitively SHOW development vs them TELLING us in walls of text or a cutscene that may or may not be voice acted. More people need to realize and discuss this so they can truly improve the MSQ outside of having a greater story.

Sep 01 2024

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