I totally agree with you that the plot is a low level comedy and not an adventure, in some moments i felt i was in the Hildibrant quest and not in the Main Story Quest. I mostly felt annoyed, bored and at the very end angry. There were almost no feelings in this story, I still feel emotions when i replay the story or watch videos of it when Haurchefant says "a smile better suites a hero", when Ardbert offers his axe, or when in Ultima Thule when we remain alone all the voices of our past keep us going reminding us every second of this long journey. This is how you build a story creating emotions, not building a story where pathos is shattered with bad comedy, i felt only the fake laughter were missing in some points to tell me when it was time to laugh. There are huge story inconsistencies. The main examples are when we arrive to the Golden City door and all of a sudden the King arrives from nowhere and takes us all away, and right after we go to the Far West instead of going to investigate this super technological portal we found. Second one after the Gugol Ja and Zoral Ja duel, we see that that his headgear is the reason why he won or at least it has something to do with it, we arrive in the 5th area where all wear that thing and of course we go to investigate the agricolture for how long 2 3 quests before anyone comes up with the question of what is that thing. Well what to expect from this area of the planet that not even the Endsinger dispair dared to reach? From the dungeon to the first trial we are sent astray for 30 minutes following a finger minion killing all the Hype for the trial itself in the process. The story is not just poorly written it is a patchwork of fillers that no matter what would lead to the same result. The alpaca story overall, they make it seem like a trading minigame but in fact it is nothing more than talk to some random guys and they will give you all the money you need. I could have payed in gils and in the time i wasted following the quest make twice as many. A lot of defenders of the story claim that it is a new start so it has to be like this and ARR was like this too or worse so we have to accept that it is poor and score it higher than its worth. Nothing can be more wrong, I was there in 2013 and there was nothing after the 1.0 distaster they had to rebuild the game fast and furious to save SE and the FF franchise. So while developing things they had to slow the players a bit to gain time and still tehy gava us a lot to do. Here what is the reason to make all this slow and pointless? It feels like they have all the base code for everything and a team that is way larger and a lot more money. I wrote too much already so I will not step in the overwhelming presence of Wuk Lamat, the totally out of place ending Disney song and the trash mobs arriving 2 by 2 to make every dungeon slower. There are good things but some are minor or easily forgettable in this annoying supposed to be vacation turned into babysitting.
Honestly, 100% on all of this. I think MSQ was blatantly just fine but it was a huge quality drop from even endwalker which was a drop from shadowbringers. Great opinion here and points to old expansions!
Was Dawntrail everything you hoped for, or was it like a trip to the worst theme park for summer break? Let me know in the comments and like and subscribe for more XIV content!
The world felt far to peaceful and if it wants to be the new ARR then it should be prepared to also be compared at other parts then the questbuildup. ARR had slavery, racist elementals, butchering of our friends in the waking stones and machinations in the political spectrum. DT is so extreme black and white it was so predictable. ARR also slowly build things up while DT feels rushed and slow at the same time without building anything in the zones. The only two tribes with culture for me were the Mamool Ja and the giants. All others didn't really have anything at all going for them and were one dimensional. The DoH and sidequests actually have stuff about them, things that should have been in the MSQ. Wuk Lamat overshadowed all other characters and the sad thing is the characters had a good foundation. Zoraal Ja was interesting, Koana had a good inner conflict, Otis was an honestly great character but all of them were drown by her. The second half for me was entirely soured by her presence till then, so much I couldn't enjoy anything anymore. It's like an extrovert sucking the energy of my introverted self. The absolutely biggest problem for me though was that the WoL had no reason to be there. It all felt so unpersonal, like a step back from what they had learned since ARR, to capture the player through their character. We and the scions felt like the tree's in the backstage of a stage play. And that's what DT seemed to me. A stage play with things just waiting to happen and be resolved and Wuk Lamat in the spotlight. I wanted to like DT because I'm probably one of the few who liked ARR but it completely fell flat and if they don't change things it might lose me completely because the MSQ is the main reason I love this game. I still have hope in the devs but I really hope they take all that feedback serious.
I totally agree with you that the plot is a low level comedy and not an adventure, in some moments i felt i was in the Hildibrant quest and not in the Main Story Quest. I mostly felt annoyed, bored and at the very end angry. There were almost no feelings in this story, I still feel emotions when i replay the story or watch videos of it when Haurchefant says "a smile better suites a hero", when Ardbert offers his axe, or when in Ultima Thule when we remain alone all the voices of our past keep us going reminding us every second of this long journey. This is how you build a story creating emotions, not building a story where pathos is shattered with bad comedy, i felt only the fake laughter were missing in some points to tell me when it was time to laugh.
There are huge story inconsistencies. The main examples are when we arrive to the Golden City door and all of a sudden the King arrives from nowhere and takes us all away, and right after we go to the Far West instead of going to investigate this super technological portal we found.
Second one after the Gugol Ja and Zoral Ja duel, we see that that his headgear is the reason why he won or at least it has something to do with it, we arrive in the 5th area where all wear that thing and of course we go to investigate the agricolture for how long 2 3 quests before anyone comes up with the question of what is that thing.
Well what to expect from this area of the planet that not even the Endsinger dispair dared to reach?
From the dungeon to the first trial we are sent astray for 30 minutes following a finger minion killing all the Hype for the trial itself in the process.
The story is not just poorly written it is a patchwork of fillers that no matter what would lead to the same result.
The alpaca story overall, they make it seem like a trading minigame but in fact it is nothing more than talk to some random guys and they will give you all the money you need. I could have payed in gils and in the time i wasted following the quest make twice as many.
A lot of defenders of the story claim that it is a new start so it has to be like this and ARR was like this too or worse so we have to accept that it is poor and score it higher than its worth.
Nothing can be more wrong, I was there in 2013 and there was nothing after the 1.0 distaster they had to rebuild the game fast and furious to save SE and the FF franchise. So while developing things they had to slow the players a bit to gain time and still tehy gava us a lot to do. Here what is the reason to make all this slow and pointless? It feels like they have all the base code for everything and a team that is way larger and a lot more money.
I wrote too much already so I will not step in the overwhelming presence of Wuk Lamat, the totally out of place ending Disney song and the trash mobs arriving 2 by 2 to make every dungeon slower.
There are good things but some are minor or easily forgettable in this annoying supposed to be vacation turned into babysitting.
Honestly, 100% on all of this. I think MSQ was blatantly just fine but it was a huge quality drop from even endwalker which was a drop from shadowbringers. Great opinion here and points to old expansions!
The story is a netflix adaptation of ffxiv.
Was Dawntrail everything you hoped for, or was it like a trip to the worst theme park for summer break? Let me know in the comments and like and subscribe for more XIV content!
The world felt far to peaceful and if it wants to be the new ARR then it should be prepared to also be compared at other parts then the questbuildup.
ARR had slavery, racist elementals, butchering of our friends in the waking stones and machinations in the political spectrum.
DT is so extreme black and white it was so predictable.
ARR also slowly build things up while DT feels rushed and slow at the same time without building anything in the zones.
The only two tribes with culture for me were the Mamool Ja and the giants. All others didn't really have anything at all going for them and were one dimensional.
The DoH and sidequests actually have stuff about them, things that should have been in the MSQ.
Wuk Lamat overshadowed all other characters and the sad thing is the characters had a good foundation.
Zoraal Ja was interesting, Koana had a good inner conflict, Otis was an honestly great character but all of them were drown by her.
The second half for me was entirely soured by her presence till then, so much I couldn't enjoy anything anymore. It's like an extrovert sucking the energy of my introverted self.
The absolutely biggest problem for me though was that the WoL had no reason to be there. It all felt so unpersonal, like a step back from what they had learned since ARR, to capture the player through their character. We and the scions felt like the tree's in the backstage of a stage play.
And that's what DT seemed to me. A stage play with things just waiting to happen and be resolved and Wuk Lamat in the spotlight.
I wanted to like DT because I'm probably one of the few who liked ARR but it completely fell flat and if they don't change things it might lose me completely because the MSQ is the main reason I love this game.
I still have hope in the devs but I really hope they take all that feedback serious.
Great video - cheers