Gofr5: They did Krile so dirty this expansion. First they forget to put her in the EW poster art, then they take what was supposed to be a big expansion for her and just gave her a little 10 min side story arc and that was it. Ignored for the remainder of the expansion. C'mon!

Someone said it once and I've been repeating it as I agree, Estinien got the vacation adventure we were promised. Every time he was leaving I was just screaming at the screen "TAKE ME WITH YOU!!"

OldSoldier21: I never thought the promotion of Ms. Ishikawa would have such a tremendous impact on the MSQ story. I thought her guiding the younger writers would keep the story relevant for years to come. It seems she is much better at writing than editing.

Jwight1984: We've had relatively little time with Zero . . . And yet everyone loves her way more than Wuk Lamat. It's not about how much time Wuk Lamat has. If she was well written no one would care.

B_MoreJ: The most Pictomancer Krile we've seen in the story is the Dawntrail intro.

rischea7902: It's simple. Would Dawntrail be better if we had 10 years of Wuk Lamat before she becomes the ruler? No, probably not.

Tom-Pendragon: Dawntrail gave me Post-game depression, but not in "whoa this is amazing, I will never experience something like that ever again!", but more like in "Holy shit there is something wrong in the writing, is this the same game I have been playing for 5 years...? What the hell happened?" It was so horrible that I thought maybe the game was always so bad. I thought maybe "they were setting up stuff", Until I went ahead checked what they tried to set up. We got like 3 things from 7.0 and its the cup, the group preservation and...idk the kid? A realm reborn had like 20 different things, dragons, ishgard, fucked up politic system in eorzea being completely fuck and requiring help to fix, meracydia, garlemald, ALA MHIGOOOOO.

Something happened, and I don't know what the fuck happened.

I would pay so much money just to understand what happened, what was the writing process, why did they do certain stuff like that, why did they invest so much into wuk lamat.

jf4156: the step down in writing was so noticeable, it was the very first time throughout all of the msq i was tempted to skip. wuk lamat was such a tiring character and i really wish after her ceremony that was the end of her

fahd3155: To be honest all I want is a long blog post from Yoshi P addressing all of this. He has to know at this point. Just give me hope.

JaybeeAU: The first 7.1 MSQ Cutscene is unforgivable. Father and son coming to terms with the time shift and having a heartfelt conver... Never mind, Wuk Lamat forces herself into the conversation. Like piss off.

Lizard14: Thank you so much for sharing your honest feelings!!! I feel the same. You talk about the game evolving since we change as people, but I don't think it even had to evolve, it just had to at least be able to stay at the same level as it was, and people would be happy and still feel the connection there was before. I hate the argument of "EW just finished, it wouldn't have the same emotional heights" because no one was expecting that! We expected a low-stakes adventure that was as nicely written as what we had before. We got a high-stakes, badly written story that it's hard to tell who it was written for. Some people like to say "it's supposed to be ARR 2" but it's not! I remember when you first went through ARR, without the buildup EW had, and it was very different from this.

Dawntrail has so many basic storytelling and writing problems that feel like could be avoided with simple care and revision before having it out to the public. How could they miss the mark so much, when we know they were capable of doing so much better? I was asking all of the same questions as you did at the beginning of the video.

And sure, there might be things to do eventually as in endgame and I'm going to do them, but it's not as exciting anymore. The MSQ is a huge part of why people feel the connection to the game! I still love FFXIV and I'm still playing, but I don't feel like logging in as often. I don't feel like going to Dawntrail zones when I am online, in fact I find myself avoiding them. I'm not excited for the next part of the MSQ, I'm dreading seeing what they're going to ruin now - everytime the characters I love speak, I just see cardboard cutouts of them. It's not just Wuk Lamat, it's everything and everyone! Every character speaks the same way, every character thinks the same way. They often repeat and overexplain things. Characters are not consistent and situations don't make sense.

I just hope the feedback reaches them eventually and whatever went wrong with production for Dawntrail (because I assume something REALLY wrong must have happened...) gets fixed for 8.0, and we get to see more of your FFXIV videos again in the future!

mismismism: I hate to say this, because I've played since ARR, I love the game, but Dawntrail was the first time I felt like the devs didn't care. The other expansions had hits and misses but there was polish and things felt fully thought through.

Dawntrail, the MSQ was a mess, plot holes everywhere, lack of consistent cause and effect. Characters were inconsistent, most damning being Wuk since she's the entire focus but they couldn't even keep small things, like fear of heights, consistent. Scenes like the throne room that could easily have been fixed if we had been fighting outside and couldn't help. The voice acting was crazy in English for a bunch of the characters and again most damning being Wuk, letting the main character go to launch with bad line delivery is insane. Soken almost never misses but Smile, the pitchy vocals being left as they were, I still cannot believe it as the main theme of the expansion. The tone was all over the place. The new dye channels barely changing anything on so much gear.

It's hard to believe that everyone, in every department seemingly, fumbled. It feels like no one really cared so they didn't check or take the time to fix these things. How hard is it to tell a VA what happens in the scene and have them read the line again with a different delivery? DT shook my faith in the devs and I hate to say that.

hank9112: Ya. The constant “with the power of friendship there is nothing we can’t do” made me want to take a break from MSQ for long periods of time.

Ragnar0xx0rz: I've continued playing pretty steadily, but something weird I've experienced... If I have to go back to a Shadowbringers or Endwalker zone for something like hunts or a quest, I get this weird sense of nostalgia that I don't feel at all when I'm cruising through Dawntrail zones.

I port into Ultima Thule, and I hear "Close In The Distance" kick in... and it feels like I'm listening to "our song" from some long-lost broken relationship.

Dewulfi: Worst thing is knowing that all the bad stuff in dawntrail will be focus in next patches, which just scares people away.

mosselyn5081: DT has had the same exact impact for me. I am surprised (and sad) by the degree to which failing to feel emotionally engaged with the story has made me feel apathetic towards the whole game, even though the time we spend doing story content is small compared to the time we spend doing other content. There are things I could be doing, and would have been doing during ShB and EW, but now, I just...don't. Trust me that it is not because I have changed: I am in my 60s and fairly fixed in my personality, likes/dislikes, life. For now, I'm holding out hope that future DT patches will rekindle the storytelling spark.

boozie773: I can’t imagine Yoshi P thought the DT msq was actually acceptable. I suspect they knew there was a problem but they couldn’t afford to scrap it and start over.

Tamari001: The lack of "polish" gets me the most about DT. Polish can be elusive to define, but the best way I can express it in terms of DT is that the 14 dev team changed from doing "good" work to "good enough" work. And "good enough" was set too low, and you can see and hear and feel it in entire DT package.

We KNOW this development team can do better work, and yet they did not this time. We don't know the answer to the WHY? question yet, but in time I think we will. I can only hope it is for a good reason.

Celis.C: The storytelling for Dawntrail felt like they delegated it to interns that were forced to take everything that came before and cram it into DT.

I still have difficulty believing that Ishikawa had 'a supervisory role', because none of her style or quality was found in DT.

The BIGGEST mistake Dawntrail made, in my view, is that it tried to copy Shadowbringers and Endwalker. We did NOT need another emotionally taxing experience. I wanted an epic journey, full of silly situations and resolving in an epic finale. Estinien got the vacation that we should have gotten. Say about ARR what you want, but the Praetorium and everything that came before and after is epic.

ReaperSigma: Dawntrail is the first time the story, content and over all Polish of the game, the experience just was not there. I share a lot of your feelings here, the devs need to first admit there is a issue before they can move forward

CasualReaper: First time I found myself dozing off while doing the main story. Then she appeared at the final boss battle and completely killed my enjoyment. Never have I wanted to leave this island so badly.

talemsplash: I think the bleakest thing about the current state of FFXIV is that while the dev team may understand some or all of the feedback, the time it takes to steer the ship into a direction players will be happy with will seemingly take way longer than any of us would like. I'll still be here, but it saddens me to see the exciting aura that surrounded this game for so long fade so quickly. I think SE needs to find new ways to react to feedback faster than how they do currently.

OuchXXI: The 'Golden Formula' that Yoship and his team relied on for years is killing the game now. Also Hiroi should go back to writing side quests and Kate can't fill the shoes of Koji.

Gofr5: Well I think we can all agree on one thing. Story-wise, Stormblood can now happily claim it is no longer the weakest expansion. Congratulations, SB.

Adam.C: I understand you completely. Dawntrail disappointed me, but I don't hate it. I'll still look forward to the next expansion, but with a bit less enthusiasm. And that's a shame.

Corrderio: I sometimes wonder if they have a skeleton crew on FFXIV at this point or not. A lot of stuff so far has felt unpolished in both 7.0 and 7.1.

FuyuYuki92: No it's not just you. Dawntrail didn't connect with a lot of people, this is very very apparent, in my personal circle, in the circles of my friends, and many online communities. Some of the people I started the game with actually said they're giving the story a last shot in 7.2 and if it remains at this level, they'll quit the game. And to my surprise, even people who initially liked Dawntrail's story, are slowly waking up due to various reasons. For example, a friend of mine recently watched a sprout friend play through dawntrail for the first time and finally realized how devoid of logic the entire narrative is. This has nothing to do with "growing out of a game", this is the game falling short on basic expectations.

JulianneRegina: I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV since its original 1.0 release, and I even have a couple of 1.0 videos on this account. Before that, I was also there for the launch of Final Fantasy XI in the US. This game has given me countless memories and has been a significant part of my life. Through it, I’ve met so many incredible people, including my husband—whom I married both in-game and in real life. I've experienced it all: raiding, alliances, crafting, and even visiting RP venues.

However, 7.0 marked a turning point for me. For the first time, I didn’t log in on the day of an expansion release, and, sadly, I still haven’t. The story no longer captivates me, my friends have moved on, the game mechanics feel repetitive, and the content drip mirrors what we experienced during Endwalker amidst the pandemic. Despite this, I still cherish the music, the animations, and the boss designs. They remain top-notch.

Yet, I find myself reluctant to tarnish the wonderful memories I have with new ones that feel lackluster. If I ever had the chance to meet Yoshi-P, Koji-Fox, or Soken, I’d shake their hands and thank them for a job well done. But, as much as I’ve loved this journey, I’m beginning to feel like maybe this game just isn’t for me anymore.

Jan 21 2025

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