I also really enjoy some of the flavor/context that the sidequests can offer. I feel like a lot of people miss the quests with the pelu where the WoL >!literally digs around in bear shit for coffee beans!<, or how the mobbies really >!like to fish in a certain river because people that go searching for the golden city usually crash their boats in it!<, or the how the hanu >!use their feathers to supply the guards with their armor and how each color represents certain attributes!<.
I'm only up to 92 MSQs right now, but I've been unironically having a great time with the full breadth of content.
The sidequests continue to be the GOAT'ed actual lore-delivery-system. Even just starting with some of the Aether Current continuation stuff.
Though I can't shake the feeling that people say this "feels like Beast Tribe Quests" because the people they're interacting with *look* like some of the former Beast Tribe quest givers.
Players when Endwalker: "It's about the journey, not the destination. Take it slow. Walk. Appreciate life and its beauty."
Players when Dawntrail: "BORING! WHERE'S MY DESTINATION?! DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY OF THIS. WHY AM I NOT THE MAIN CHARACTER?!"
I've been stuck at work this week so I only just now made it to the level 91 dungeon. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason the quests so far have been annoying is **because I am annoyed and exhausted.** It's finally time for my weekend, so I'm excited to be well-rested for the story.
Eh, my issue with the story wasn't the story per se, but the sheer amount of "you've been playing for 5 seconds, how about you watch half an hour of cutscenes?" (exaggerated obv) moments.
I don't mind a slower story, but let me play at the very least.
Yeah, there's the problem... you don't even get the "kill 6 mobs" part here.
Plus in the rest of the MSQ there was at least some variety in who we talked to. For the first half of the DT MSQ it's almost always the same person and they just keep repeating the same tidbits/story beats at nauseam.
The transition into the second half was great because it offered some variety, but the first half was just so monotonous with only talking and no actual gameplay inbetween the talking.
People just don't fucking understand, man. It's *extremely* important to me that my character nod in response to someone *before* Alisaie and Alphinaud handle all the actual story progression.
Bruh nodding is peak character design, we’ve been doing it for 10 years and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
We killed gods because people said it was a good idea and we just nodded away.
You're half right. There's no stakes because "the infinite multiverse is at stake" or "the world is about to be destroyed" has literally no chance of happening. We all know Disney would never pull that trigger.
There's been like 2 multiverse movies and 1 show since Endgame, and they havn't branched out into affecting any other MCU property. Otherwise most have just been random slop with no stakes, no overarching storyline, and little reason to care.
TBF SQE didnt pulled the trigger on any Scion since Papa, and we know they won't problably ever due to not risking enraging fans of any of these characters. I really wish anyone had died in EW just to keep us on our toes when it comes to thinking "well somebody COULD die", now I dont think anyone meaningful will die until the game itself dies
Or, you know, World of Warcraft? We went from defeating The Burning Legion and Illidan in the Outlands, to defeating the Lich King and the Scourge, to beating up Deathwing, to slapping Garrosh juiced up on Old God Heart milk, to kicking the ass of the Warlords of Draenor roided by advanced technology, to ending the Burning Crusade on top of killing a mother fucking Titan (two if you count Agrammar), to killing a full powered/released Old God, TO GOING INTO THE AFTER LIFE TO GET THE DUDE WHO HAD PLANNED ALL OF THAT BULLSHIT TO HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE... Dragon stuff interlude... And now we are about to embark on yet another journey to defeat the biggest baddest threat we've ever seen.
Yup. Raising the stakes sure does wonders for a story.
Jokes you the dude in the afterlife was a robot sure didn't see that coming, that shit was crazy. Like wow a guy you didn't even know was a robot? Oscar winning writing.
Sort of? EW's threat is more immediate and more threatening since if the big bad guy wins everything in the universe gets wiped out even the reflections.
This does have stakes in the second half and it is serious but nowhere near EW level threat universe wise.
Imagine if we could go out and grind or fight stronger monsters for more valuable items to trade, or figure out how to buy a house with a paperclip ourselves instead of having someone else tell us all the solutions for the trades...
Other people not liking the game doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to, I don't really understand the point of complaining about people having an opinion. Let people feel how they want about it.
EDIT: Nevermind I thought I was in the main subreddit; fuck those people, buff WAR again until morale improves.
The start of DT is a bit slow but all the complaining about it confuses me because it's not any more slow than every other start of an expansion other than ShB and one route of EW. The split story has always had almost nothing going on so it surprises me that people suddenly have an issue with it now.
Even ShB was slower in the same way. Nothing really “happened” in ShB in terms of major events until level 74. I’m at lvl 96 in DT and I can assure it ups the stakes before that point
Considering a lore bomb necessitates consuming all the lore up to that point you could argue the buildup to that was even longer than any DT complaints are about DT.
I feel like everyone just forgot how torturous it was to go back and forth from the great elevator to the second Dwarf camp in ShB. Northern Kholusia stresses me out just looking at it now.
I'd say DT actually did the split story better than all the other expansions besides ShB. You were actually progressing the story and collecting a keystone in each so it felt like natural progression regardless of which one you chose first.
It's because people only remember the payoff, not the buildup. Every expac's start has been *painfully* slow, by comparison I actually think DT has been pretty good. I love how they're riffing with the normal MSQ formula and low key subverting your expectations, it's cute. Also how the final zone plays into the greater themes of DT with zero compromise has me mad respecting the writers. It's the most impressed I've ever been with the MSQ. Can't wait for the patch story.
I didn't say anything about story hooks, I said the pacing was shit. It was glacial. It had a cool opening, and then did the exact same thing DT did. Your investment was naturally gonna be higher because it was building on established plot points.
I think part of the issue is it keeps happening. The start of a new story doesn't *have* to be boring. Plenty of games and stories have intros that really hook you. So why can't FF?
And the fact this is normal is sad. There should be improvement, not stagnation.
god forbid I can have gameplay alongside my worldbuilding, like they couldn't even let me drive the alpaca alongside mablu and had it fully automated with subtitles on top, its like I'm watching mgs4 cutscenes the entire time
that's been true for the past two expansions that everyone loved, too
every MSQ quest has been walking to the next cutscene location for like five years and people are just now noticing
I mean, the content of an X.0 patch, the gameplay, is 6 dungeons and 3 trials. Then they craft a somewhat interactive story around it. That's all it's ever been. Not sure why people are suddenly pissed off about that.
It's possible that the story didn't tickle their prostate in the first three hours and their dopamine-addled brains don't know what to do without the instant gratification.
> It's possible that the story didn't tickle their prostate in the first three hours and their dopamine-addled brains don't know what to do without the instant gratification.
The average movie is 1.5-2 hours long and tends to include a full range of character development and events to tell a meaningful story. In twice that time, Dawntrail has you slowly doing chores without any gameplay, just to repeatedly tell us that Wuk Lamat is naive and incompetent as a precursor to her later character development.
Now before anyone with the reading comprehension of a gnat misunderstands, I am not saying that the MSQ should only be 1.5-2 hours long like a movie, I'm saying that it should not take 3-4 hours to establish the starting point for character development. A story in a video game is longer than a movie by necessity because it needs to make concessions for including gameplay. Dawntrail's 90-91 introduction is 3-4 hours without gameplay or intrigue, which is why its being poorly received.
Shadowbringers similarly introduced us to a new world without significant combat sections, however, it established a significantly more compelling setting in that time, which is what engaged the player in wanting to know more. Dawntrail's opening quests are just a series of exposition dumps while Wuk Lamat behaves so incredibly juvenile that it makes you question why you're even there to help her become ruler in the first place. Shadowbringers' opening act showed us just how fucked up The First is while Dawntrail can't even be bothered to show us the payoff of Wuk Lamat overcoming her fear and taming an Alpaca.
You don't need high stakes to tell a compelling story, but you do need to establish meaningful intrigue and motivation for the player to want to see what comes next.
i think it may have been a mistake to do a split zone start with the same main character. in ShB you are catching up with a Twin in each zone, and learning more about the world. there’s not a lot of repeat content. vs DT poor wuk lumat has to learn the same lesson 3 times before it sticks (the two split zones and then the third zone) so the story is the same regardless of order you pick. and like you say, that’s like 10-15 hours in
this take is so weird to me, the premise of the xpac is an adventure, you go to this new place, meet the characters, all good, and then they immediately send you to do fetch quests for reskinned beast tribes for hours with no gameplay and if you dont like it you have tiktok brainrot? Isnt it possible that it just is not engaging to help the birds hold a farming festival or trading up farming tools for tea leaves, and it is in fact boring?
Not to mention that at this point it has been hours of "gameplay" without a dungeon or even a solo duty, just critters that die in 4 hits, the start of dawntrail is quite frankly just boring storytelling and offensively bad gameplay, and it has nothing to do with the stakes, you dont need to kill a god in space to make a story, but i am pretty sure that on the scale of "how high are the stakes" there a million better things in between that and "watch wuk lamat trade goods for a saddle to catch an alpaca".
The only things the story is doing im this part beyond these menial tasks is some VERY SURFACE LEVEL stuff like the pelupelu wanting to switch jobs but being insecure about just how wuk lamat is insecure, i think it is just not engaging stuff that people dont resonate with, and putting it at the forefront has a bigger impact since first impressions matter, and at dawntrail beginning the story does not mask the dogshit gameplay of walking to an npc and speaking to them 140 times in a row, so people notice it more
> they immediately send you to do fetch quests for reskinned beast tribes for hours with no gameplay and if you dont like it you have tiktok brainrot?
Seriously, I was expecting Tomb Raider with rivalry and competition amidst exploring this new land, not hours upon hours of exposition dumps without gameplay or intrigue.
This is kind of where I'm at. I was hoping for an expanded version of what 6.1 MSQ gave us, basically. I'm not sure why I needed a 4+ hour retread of all these beast tribes we already know, slightly modified to throw the teacher off the tracks of the copied homework. I'm not having a horrible time - I love just being in the world with these characters. But as it is right now, (around level 92 msq) I'm quite disengaged. It doesn't help that every single one of the Promises is insufferably annoying in the way that the story presents their "flaw". It's very cliche and you can just see how the ones that will overcome their flaw will do so, and the ones who don't.... won't. Gee, I wonder if the Fourth Promise Garrosh will have to be put down?
Yeah I didn't mind the content of the story. Just the way it was presented. Up untill the first dungeon it unironically feels like i'm playing MGS4. I think you fight less than like 10 things before you get to the first dungeon. And if you're not cutscene skipping that's like 4+ hours.
https://preview.redd.it/r1rznn46bz9d1.jpeg?width=980&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d0a56ce026ed772282d95129a2cc7dc1064b0ba
Me to the nurse: THIS COULDVE BEEN ME
why are you dullards acting like this is a new problem that is in dawntrail specifically and not something that’s been criticized about the game for the past five years. like endwalker was just wall to wall action?
I guess for a lot of people, including me, it got old by now. Endwalker was better cuz we knew it was going to the end and blablabla so I was intrigued with where it was going, but here my eyes are going into the back of my head because not only is nothing happening, there is barely any gameplay. You can only do the same thing so many times, and it seems like this expansion is too many times for a lot
for me, the world building is really great, and i appreciate how the overworld map cities and towns feels like places ppl live in instead of three houses by the aetheryte
a lot of love and crafting went into Tural and ppl are rushing past it because it isn’t ShB (i also adore ShB, but that expac was a perfect storm which utilized a lot of mysteries/themes from ARR-StB)
they also didn’t do the “get locked out of completing all the aether currents in the first zone until way later in the expac” which i really, really appreciated
i’m at 95/96 and the mystery of the expac has properly been built up and the tension before things pop is getting me excited
if i had any complaints, it’s that i forget the twins came with me because they have no presence in the story so far, it should have been just WoL, Erenville, and Wuk Lamat imo
On a replay of Stormblood on my FT char for Yokai prep, I realized it had a LOT of solo duties. Especially towards the end. I think there were like, 4 in DT overall? At least two of them were like boss fights with full party mechanics.
True, but then there's like 3 of thoses solo duties that are basically "Fight for 10 minutes then proceed to get rekt by mandatory lose mechanic, but hey, you lost a little bit less this time".
While I like the idea, in practice it got kind of tedious after a while in my opinion, and we could have had a better experience instead of the "you totally lost even though you were breezing through every mechanic". There were also solo duties un StB that were pretty good though.
But as of now I found the solo duties in DT better, although I haven't finished the expac yet.
I'm not that deep in the story, but for me it's not about world builiding but the story for now repeats common tropes and motives, so for me it is little boring. Some humor I found little cringy too. But firstly as I've said I'm not that deep in the story and secondly I'm not young. I've seen like basilion different storylines, so it is hard to make something that would surpise me.
But remember, Yoshi-P directly said "you should have high expectations" so I don't criticise people that have high expectations. You can do interesting world building by storytelling. It was the thing that FF I to X did great.
yeah, I actually enjoyed the vast majority of the story (I like wuk lamat, fortunately for my dt experience lol), but the quest design definitely needs to improve in the future. I always look forward to the actual cutscenes and duties, but the in between stuff is still so tedious. The new stuff they added (the tailing quests) are honestly even worse than the "talk to 5 npcs" stuff to me, because you just walk behind someone for a minute. The stealth quests from ew like the thancred duty and in from the cold were really cool, but the pointless tailing quests really suck.
I also think they should voice more cutscenes, if they're not going to improve the non-cutscene quest design.
I was thinking it could use a couple more unique solo duties like those, but they probably didn't bother because too many dummies complained last time.
See, I personally think Dawntrail is brilliant for making it the focal point of its story. Meeting the locals and currying their favor is a recurring trope throughout all the game, but this expansion actually gives you more of a reason to do it than just helping them out until they do what you need them to do or point you in the right direction: here getting to know them better *is* the focus, you're trying to understand their culture and their history alongside Wuk Lamat. "Understanding begets appreciation", as Gulool Ja Ja said.
People have been complaining that this leads into Wikipedia style info dumps, that past story at least had the decency to be show don't tell, without understanding why that is even a thing: if you're going around and explicitly asking people how they live as Wuk Lamat does from the very start of the expansion to the end, it's only natural they'll share it without always having a thing to show you.
I know it's not for everyone and I can't exactly be mad if someone finds this kind of thing underwhelming, but the complete negativity as well as denying that this is just what FFXIV was always about is what baffles me.
Honestly I truly don’t get why some people play FFXIV.
Like…this is the story MMO
Why are you mad about story being in the MMO known for its story
It’s like those people that move to New Orleans for the culture and then start complaining about loud music and drunk people
I don't like this fact, but:
There's a fair amount of people for whom 'story' means plot progression and rising stakes at blistering speeds-- where things like character, setting, and so on are considered *distractions from the almighty plot*, and a plot is regarded as a series of spectacle events, reveals, dramatic moments, and solved problems lined up in quick succession. Those people have a conniption when a story includes slice of life elements, exposition and worldbuilding, and the stakes must always be rising.
Yeah but it’s not like this series hasn’t been doing this for three expansions now, why are they STILL here if they don’t like it?
Shadowbringers had LESS fights than this and that’s regarded as beloved
Stories can have varying quality and the discussion is usually about the quality of the story, which is perfectly valid.
A story can be good or bad or mid or slightly above average or outstanding or... You get the point.
Valid criticism of Dawntrail is completely okay. Sadly much of it is rather subjective, so while one person is bored out of their mind, another is having a blast. Makes quantifying the actual problems much harder. Some like slop indeed, while others get angry if their favorite story becomes sloppeh.
Because they expect that story to be consistently good and engaging, which FFXIV has just never succeeded at. It’s all well and good to say “it’s about the story” but that story and it’s presentation can still be criticised.
So if someone doesn't like the MSQ in FFXIV, they shouldn't play? There are no other individually redeeming qualities about this game?
Why is it that people who _like_ the MSQ in this game feel infinitely justified in dismissing people who play the game and enjoy it _but do not_ find the story interesting.
I play it for the dungeons and raids. You know, the gameplay part. But ignoring that, their/my complaint isn't that it has a story, it's that the story is uninteresting and/or delivered in a very dull and unengaging way.
First off it's down right immoral what the WoL is doing. The slayer of gods, savor of the world several times over is personally backing what is essentially a child in an adults body. Her ONLY credentials is "SHE LOVES PEACE AND THE PEOPLE", which frankly is insulting that they portray that as some sort of unique trait, but what ever. Ignore the fact that despite being the ruler's child, living there her entire life, and that she just loves the people so much, she apparently knows jack shit about literally any of their homes or customs. I get the point is to groom her into leader material through the trials, but for one there are far better candidates like her half kitten brother, and two, the WoL didn't know that when they took the job. They just saw this idiot and was like "yeah, I'll put her on the throne of a nation. It will be funny."
That's all second to the big problem with the story. It's all tell, no show. Go here, talk to 3 random NPCs, talk about what you learned with your group, introduce yourself to main character of the zone that you'll interact with for all of 30 minutes, discuss what you learned from this introduction, talk to 3 more NPCs, discuss what you learned, repeat. Several times. For each zone. They rehash the same information multiple times too. It's mind numbing and kind of insulting. The real kicker is when the story really picks up and the tone shifts, it had the audacity to go back to that formula again for the 5th fucking time in a row. All urgency is thrown out the window because you got to talk to 3 more random NPCs and have a little culture tour.
It's actually kind of annoying that people are downplaying and strawmanning people's complaints to such ridiculous degrees. "What's wrong, is reading too hard for you"? "It's called world building, sweetie" ."Can't handle a story without MCU stakes"? No, dickhead, what I can't handle is the combination of an extremely slow shonen story AND it being delivered in a way that's both boring and insulting to the player's intelligence.
All I'm saying is, shadowbringers also did the same thing, and they succeeded. Brand new location with storybuilding? A reason to care right from the getgo? They cooked!
Meanwhile the only reason you're helping wunk lamat initially is because your character has nothing better to do. Like, I get that was essentially how arr started, but I wanted more y'know? Most I felt during the first few levels was "damn I hope Hitler one and Hitler 2 and his Siamese twin don't win the election"
I know we are memeing, but I fail to see how this expansion set up a "new arc" or was "ARR 2.0" at all.
Levels 90-96 felt like an entirely contained, predictable story, which is why it was boring. Sure, afterwards there was a couple of things that will obviously set up future expansions, but there was nothing here that screamed "THIS is why it had to start so slow!"
Like, people act as if you can't possibly set up the next 10 years of this game AND be interesting at the same time lol. People dog on ARR for being super slow and boring, but then they are trying to defend this expansion for doing the same thing? AND it sets up the future even worse (imo)? I just don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something.
All we can do is speculate on what the setup is, in my opinion it's the >!Azem trophy looking thing that's the key for shard travel. The lalafells of the south sea isles used it during the 5th umbral calamity and then traveled to what seems like the 12th shard, then the people on the 12th demanded it so they could sustain their life for much longer than normal. We solved the problem of the invaders but we still didn't get an answer as to who built this tech and provided it to them, Y'shtola mentions it's immaculate in its design which is not the MO of the Ascians which crudely used portals to move themselves around. This shard travel tech has use for preservation and safety by being able to move large groups of normal people across it, that's something the Ascians would never bother with, life doesn't mean shit to them. So that being said, who built this and why? That's what I think the next slow burn will be about. !<
That being said it almost has fuck all to do with the slow burn of DT and I gained almost nothing by experiencing it, same with a lot of the S9 bits really, what mattered were some of the tidbits near the middle and end.
Completely agree. ARR is usually a new player experience, which means that being slow is not that bad. I've never heard a thing about it from friends, who recently started playing. They are usually overwhelmed by amount of things and systems to figure out. DT doesn't have that luxury because everyone knows the game at this point. There is also nothing to cover msq design flaws because writing isn't good.
The beginning was really slow but you learned sooo much abaout the culture of Tural. And Mid-Dawntrail the Emotional Damage began. And in the last map of the Story... this contant emotional damage FUKING BROKE ME
Both sides are getting ridiculous by now and show a clear lack of understanding of what the opposite side is saying.
Both the doomsayers and the "enjoyers" are two faces of the same shit-dipped coin.
i don’t know how to break this to you but most of us are purposefully being silly about this
i mean erm i’m going to return every soul that doesn’t like dawntrail to the aether
I don't mind if you like or hate the expac. I enjoyed it, but I can understand the flaws. What annoys me are the people who suddenly make it some kinda fucking act that they're the valiant minority defending from the evil side.
Seeing people go "You're so right for saying this, the XIV subreddit would NEVER let you speak ill of Wuk Lamat" as if 90% of the top comments aren't criticizing her character/the pacing. Or the massive mixed reception via Steam and other websites. You're not a minority just because someone feels differently about the expac.
I usually prefer the slower stories in ffxiv but Dawntrail hasn’t been great so far. It’s not that there isn’t stakes or that there isn’t some world-ending threat, the problem is that it just isn’t compelling.
I think people are conflating "low stakes" with "has to be boring" somehow? Idk man Dawntrail has you impaling a legion of vampires with the amount of stakes it has compared to fucking Stardew Valley and somehow it is more boring?
Linus backstory or whatever the fuck we call it nowadays is more compelling than this. Can't the game give you a reason to care before we are halfway through a 30-40 hour storyline? It's not that hard imo
I've seen this argument way too many times myself. "It's a low stake story"...yeah but that doesn't mean it has to be boring.
One for our World of Warcraft players out there: There's a zone called Drustvar. It has its own self-contained story about dark magic, witches (actual witches with the classic crooked nose style even) and at its core the story about the ruling family of this area. Compared to the storylines about defending the world form an all destroying army of demons or defeating the Lichking it's very low stake...and it's quite often quoted as one of the best questzones in the entire game with a very compelling narrative.
I 100% agree about Drustvar, was my favorite Alliance quest zone during BFA days and was (IMO) a lot more compelling than the garbage Horde vs Alliance bullshit that never goes anywhere but Blizzard loves to bring up again and again. At the end of the day, it's not that small scale stories are boring, it's the writers that make it boring.
And seeing as the main writer for this xpac isn't Ishikawa but a random guy who did like... the patch quests for 4.2 and the bard quests I guess, you can see why there was a sudden drop in quality.
Yeah, thank god they set aside several hours for worldbuilding, to introduce amazing new concepts like goblins... with different armor! And Vanu with more colorful feathers! And get this one - one tribe is full of MERCHANTS!
cause half ppl are normies from main reddit now who cant tell a difference , almost under every shitpost you can see standart mainsub ff14 resposes. It is what it is.
This sub is just contrarian and it shows. When the other subs are happy with the game, this sub shits on them for liking it. Now that valid criticisms are coming out, this sub insists that they're actually brainrot ADHD victims who don't know how to enjoy 3-4 hours of exposition dumps before you get to actually play the game.
I was really shocked to see all these "shit"posts here as if the people complaining are crazy or something. I'm almost done with the main story and it is really bland. They took the worst of Heavenward and ARR's constant tribal quests and fused it with Lyse from Stormblood (who I actually preferred because I had two expansions of background information for the political stuff going on). It might not be so bad if we had new races but they're mostly just reskins. I am a girl and Wuk Lamat still drove me nuts, and I really really tried to like her. She's just so dumb 😭
I found it fine, the pacing was weird and some of the characters were a little out of place and poorly written. But by the end it was fine, really drags on in zone 6 I feel. Woulda have been way better if they kept all the sci fi stuff out of the promotional material. Just the concept art of section 9 and the Arcadion
I don't wanna come off as a dick, but did you do fates, hunt targets and level gatherers while doing that run, or did you sprint as often as possible between quest points, always taking the most direct route like a mouse chasing cheese laced with crack
I haven't even done half the story yet but I can already tell people are mad/bored because they were expecting high stakes from an expansion that's supposed to be like step 1 of a new arc/saga
The start of a new arc or saga is allowed to be interesting though. But they want to adhere so rigidly to very specific dungeons and duties at specific levels that they shoe horn story and quests around it. It really throws the pacing off. Some parts get rushed, some get cut short. Both lead to unsatisfying payoffs story wise.
Heavensward never had any slow parts about dealing with various random peoples' in areas... except the vanuvanu, and goblins, and gnath and moogles and... Heavensward was FULL action with NO filler, NO buildup, ALL payoff.
Shadowbringers, the allmighty can do no wrong expansion, also never had these moments, no meaningless darkness cultists to deal with, no random dwarf village disputes, certainly no trolleys whatsoever, it was only Eulmore and Exarch and Emet and Amaurot and nothing else
my god people, you know you can build up a story and still be interesting right?
this toxic positivity is what gave us the dawntrail story in the first place.
I'm a certified DT Enjoyer, but I definitely see merit in a lot of the more consistent and less unhinged complaints. Especially the ones that are carrying over from Endwalker.
I’d like to remind people that until today it’s been mainly people who’ve rushed through the story (takes have been posted since the 2nd day of early access), so of course they’re gonna not like the pacing, they forced themselves through it.
I made the mistake of being hyped / coming in with high expectations ( My first new expac ). My friends that didn’t and came in expecting a filler arc enjoyed it more.
Though, while it took them longer, they also noticed that the story sucked. They had such a cool premise that could have been political intrigue, cloak and dagger etc etc. But it just felt like the “Amazing Race” with some 1D villains thrown in.
Dungeons / trials / gameplay (when you get to play) is fun though! So it isn’t a complete letdown!
> 1D villains
People keep saying this and it makes me think that folks skipped the cutscenes that hint at, or explicitly state, the villains motivations.
I don't think I once considered any (villian) a threat (like 10 quests left), and their motivations never moved me to feel anything. So they're 1D. If only the WoL could move during cutscenes this expac would be over too soon.
Zenos was scary / intimidating. He's messed up and wants nothing but power. These others are just jumping in your way all the time for no reason other then to remind you they exist.
At least it picks up around the 70 quest mark.
Yeah, the power scale is indeed a problem sometimes. To actually succeed as a villain you must out-maneuver the WoL, as direct confrontation is akin to suicide. This causes the problem of stuff needing to happen off-screen to blindside the WoL but not the player (otherwise its an "ass-pull"). They did that decently well in Shadowbringers with Emet. You knew he was up to no good and probably actively scheming against you but you had no reason to actually pull the trigger on him. Then he shot first and everything went tits up. It was great. I wish they could have done the same with the Mamool Ja antagonists.
There are great worldbuilding scenes in Dawntrail.
There are great payoff scenes in other expansions.
The MSQ in this game is plagued with 90-95% filler and basic exposition. People who are playing this game for the story baffle me. It's a great game _in spite of_ the MSQ.
Honestly, it's fine for me, and the game could've used some world building, it's also one of the things made ShB feel as good as it did. The problem is having to follow Furry Lyse whether you like it or not, especially when the story presents you with a much more likeable character right off the bat.
World no building
Tfw a new story starts at the beginning
BORING can I get a TL;Dr on tiktok while subway surfer plays on the bottom?
Tldr I'm sexing the cat warrior
Oh you too?
We aren't furries, though. Not at all.
nope definitely didn't start reconsidering that stance when Wuk Lamat took her turban off, no sir
Totally not, 100%.
she gets around
We're out of margarita mix.
my GOD
Worst. Someone stomp the tacos.
i really appreciated them taking the time to reintroduce us to the vanu and goblins. i'd nearly forgotten about them.
Vanu(but not depressing) Goblins(but competent)
I also really enjoy some of the flavor/context that the sidequests can offer. I feel like a lot of people miss the quests with the pelu where the WoL >!literally digs around in bear shit for coffee beans!<, or how the mobbies really >!like to fish in a certain river because people that go searching for the golden city usually crash their boats in it!<, or the how the hanu >!use their feathers to supply the guards with their armor and how each color represents certain attributes!<. I'm only up to 92 MSQs right now, but I've been unironically having a great time with the full breadth of content.
There is at least one poop quest every expansion. >!We dig in pterodactyl poop in another main story quest in Xak Tural.!<
The viper quests have you inspecting poop too!
>!While Erenville goes and gets the "hard to identify" stuff that you can get from the gemstone vendor.!<
>!Yeah, Erenville definitely feels like he's gonna come back as one of the next jobs in the next expansion like Krile became a Picto!<
oh that bastard
Been doing all the yellow quests as they pop up and they are pretty good lots of fluff and flavour
The sidequests continue to be the GOAT'ed actual lore-delivery-system. Even just starting with some of the Aether Current continuation stuff. Though I can't shake the feeling that people say this "feels like Beast Tribe Quests" because the people they're interacting with *look* like some of the former Beast Tribe quest givers.
mobbies not gobbies
With some things I've seen people complain about, a good amount of people probably needed to be reminded about goblins and vanu
Haven't played since 6.0, is a Vanu like a Venat? Is it an evolution? I also don't remember what a Zodiark is.
Yes it goes Vanu, Venat, Venonat, Venomoth
zodiark, zubat, golbat, crobat
You can also evolve your golbat to a golbez with a shadow stone.
I mean, they aren't exactly the same, the Hanu and Moblins have their own unique culture from the Vanu and Goblins.
The Hanu sure but the Moblins also wear masks and tongueflap in gobspeak. They feel too similar imo
But a lot less about explosives
Sooo different.
Players when Endwalker: "It's about the journey, not the destination. Take it slow. Walk. Appreciate life and its beauty." Players when Dawntrail: "BORING! WHERE'S MY DESTINATION?! DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY OF THIS. WHY AM I NOT THE MAIN CHARACTER?!"
My favorite is, "it's a terrible slog, but just enjoy the ride and the pace for what it is." WHICH ONE IS IT MOTHERFUCKER
reddit has ruined the term slog for me. Every game is described as a slog on here
Me with the term “braindead.”
ARR is a terrible slog but it's MY terrible slog
I've been stuck at work this week so I only just now made it to the level 91 dungeon. I have to keep reminding myself that the reason the quests so far have been annoying is **because I am annoyed and exhausted.** It's finally time for my weekend, so I'm excited to be well-rested for the story.
what if i disliked both expansion's story?
That would make you a based centrist. The coolest (and rarest) of opinion holders online. Congratulations!
>I just wanna grill Mezcal-marinated Swampmonk for gods sake Based and CUL pilled.
You're really cool and I want to sit next to you in class
You just want to grill for god's sake.
Players with DT: The Wuk Lamat show.
Eh, my issue with the story wasn't the story per se, but the sheer amount of "you've been playing for 5 seconds, how about you watch half an hour of cutscenes?" (exaggerated obv) moments. I don't mind a slower story, but let me play at the very least.
The MSQ is 400 hours of "run for 15 minutes, kill six mobs, and talk to Thancred." Why would it turn into a game now?
Yeah, there's the problem... you don't even get the "kill 6 mobs" part here. Plus in the rest of the MSQ there was at least some variety in who we talked to. For the first half of the DT MSQ it's almost always the same person and they just keep repeating the same tidbits/story beats at nauseam. The transition into the second half was great because it offered some variety, but the first half was just so monotonous with only talking and no actual gameplay inbetween the talking.
I'm tired of the hero worship but those fucking npcs better not fucking talk to woke lamat instead of me, don't they know who I am!?
Well... No, they don't. Maybe we should kill a couple of their Gods. Teach them who's boss.
That worked out for the past 10 years, I say we keep doing it
I would have but the game didn't allow me to choose discount Hitler instead of discount Naruto.
People just don't fucking understand, man. It's *extremely* important to me that my character nod in response to someone *before* Alisaie and Alphinaud handle all the actual story progression.
Bruh nodding is peak character design, we’ve been doing it for 10 years and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We killed gods because people said it was a good idea and we just nodded away.
One of the critical problems of not having a voiced protagonist.
Just do constant raising of the stakes! It's done wonders for the MCU
Final Fantasy XIV would just become a constant tournament arc
Make it like DBZ. This is my final form. And this is my FINAL final form. But wait! This is my better final form.
You thought Billy Mays was the final boss but wait there's more
Just kidding. Chuck Testa.
gurren lagann has entered the chat
You fool! You forgot about my finalest form!
Super Duper Saiyan!
Then there's super dee duper saiyan
Err, I think the current problem with the MCU at the moment is there's no stakes.
You're half right. There's no stakes because "the infinite multiverse is at stake" or "the world is about to be destroyed" has literally no chance of happening. We all know Disney would never pull that trigger.
There's been like 2 multiverse movies and 1 show since Endgame, and they havn't branched out into affecting any other MCU property. Otherwise most have just been random slop with no stakes, no overarching storyline, and little reason to care.
TBF SQE didnt pulled the trigger on any Scion since Papa, and we know they won't problably ever due to not risking enraging fans of any of these characters. I really wish anyone had died in EW just to keep us on our toes when it comes to thinking "well somebody COULD die", now I dont think anyone meaningful will die until the game itself dies
Or, you know, World of Warcraft? We went from defeating The Burning Legion and Illidan in the Outlands, to defeating the Lich King and the Scourge, to beating up Deathwing, to slapping Garrosh juiced up on Old God Heart milk, to kicking the ass of the Warlords of Draenor roided by advanced technology, to ending the Burning Crusade on top of killing a mother fucking Titan (two if you count Agrammar), to killing a full powered/released Old God, TO GOING INTO THE AFTER LIFE TO GET THE DUDE WHO HAD PLANNED ALL OF THAT BULLSHIT TO HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE... Dragon stuff interlude... And now we are about to embark on yet another journey to defeat the biggest baddest threat we've ever seen. Yup. Raising the stakes sure does wonders for a story.
Jokes you the dude in the afterlife was a robot sure didn't see that coming, that shit was crazy. Like wow a guy you didn't even know was a robot? Oscar winning writing.
I was devastated to learn the nipples were fake
I genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. Well done!
So, funny story. It turns out Zodiark was just a puppet for The Jailor all along.
By the way, Dawntrail raises the stakes higher than Endwalker did.
Sort of? EW's threat is more immediate and more threatening since if the big bad guy wins everything in the universe gets wiped out even the reflections. This does have stakes in the second half and it is serious but nowhere near EW level threat universe wise.
Honestly I just wish they weaved a bit more combat into the beginning. I was trading stonks so long I forgot my weapon glows
Imagine if we could go out and grind or fight stronger monsters for more valuable items to trade, or figure out how to buy a house with a paperclip ourselves instead of having someone else tell us all the solutions for the trades...
Other people not liking the game doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to, I don't really understand the point of complaining about people having an opinion. Let people feel how they want about it. EDIT: Nevermind I thought I was in the main subreddit; fuck those people, buff WAR again until morale improves.
The start of DT is a bit slow but all the complaining about it confuses me because it's not any more slow than every other start of an expansion other than ShB and one route of EW. The split story has always had almost nothing going on so it surprises me that people suddenly have an issue with it now.
Even ShB was slower in the same way. Nothing really “happened” in ShB in terms of major events until level 74. I’m at lvl 96 in DT and I can assure it ups the stakes before that point
ShB is 10/10 but Il Mheg and Raktika are so fucking boring man
But raktika had that beautiful lore bomb in the end that made me forget about the slow quests prior to it.
Yeah that does help
Considering a lore bomb necessitates consuming all the lore up to that point you could argue the buildup to that was even longer than any DT complaints are about DT.
>Il Mheg and Raktika are so fucking boring man That's a weird way of spelling (west) Amh Araeng
rollercoaster tycoon if it sucked ass
I feel like everyone just forgot how torturous it was to go back and forth from the great elevator to the second Dwarf camp in ShB. Northern Kholusia stresses me out just looking at it now.
I'd say DT actually did the split story better than all the other expansions besides ShB. You were actually progressing the story and collecting a keystone in each so it felt like natural progression regardless of which one you chose first.
Shoutouts to EW for making only one of those split quests actually interesting. And HW and StB for making me forget what even happens in them.
It's because people only remember the payoff, not the buildup. Every expac's start has been *painfully* slow, by comparison I actually think DT has been pretty good. I love how they're riffing with the normal MSQ formula and low key subverting your expectations, it's cute. Also how the final zone plays into the greater themes of DT with zero compromise has me mad respecting the writers. It's the most impressed I've ever been with the MSQ. Can't wait for the patch story.
No it's cause SHB and EW had interesting hooks to motivate you through the boring start
I didn't say anything about story hooks, I said the pacing was shit. It was glacial. It had a cool opening, and then did the exact same thing DT did. Your investment was naturally gonna be higher because it was building on established plot points.
I think part of the issue is it keeps happening. The start of a new story doesn't *have* to be boring. Plenty of games and stories have intros that really hook you. So why can't FF? And the fact this is normal is sad. There should be improvement, not stagnation.
god forbid I can have gameplay alongside my worldbuilding, like they couldn't even let me drive the alpaca alongside mablu and had it fully automated with subtitles on top, its like I'm watching mgs4 cutscenes the entire time
Yeah, I wish they would have gone an extra mile and given us a song to go alongside the ride like WOW did.
dot and dolly
that's been true for the past two expansions that everyone loved, too every MSQ quest has been walking to the next cutscene location for like five years and people are just now noticing
I mean, the content of an X.0 patch, the gameplay, is 6 dungeons and 3 trials. Then they craft a somewhat interactive story around it. That's all it's ever been. Not sure why people are suddenly pissed off about that. It's possible that the story didn't tickle their prostate in the first three hours and their dopamine-addled brains don't know what to do without the instant gratification.
> It's possible that the story didn't tickle their prostate in the first three hours and their dopamine-addled brains don't know what to do without the instant gratification. The average movie is 1.5-2 hours long and tends to include a full range of character development and events to tell a meaningful story. In twice that time, Dawntrail has you slowly doing chores without any gameplay, just to repeatedly tell us that Wuk Lamat is naive and incompetent as a precursor to her later character development. Now before anyone with the reading comprehension of a gnat misunderstands, I am not saying that the MSQ should only be 1.5-2 hours long like a movie, I'm saying that it should not take 3-4 hours to establish the starting point for character development. A story in a video game is longer than a movie by necessity because it needs to make concessions for including gameplay. Dawntrail's 90-91 introduction is 3-4 hours without gameplay or intrigue, which is why its being poorly received. Shadowbringers similarly introduced us to a new world without significant combat sections, however, it established a significantly more compelling setting in that time, which is what engaged the player in wanting to know more. Dawntrail's opening quests are just a series of exposition dumps while Wuk Lamat behaves so incredibly juvenile that it makes you question why you're even there to help her become ruler in the first place. Shadowbringers' opening act showed us just how fucked up The First is while Dawntrail can't even be bothered to show us the payoff of Wuk Lamat overcoming her fear and taming an Alpaca. You don't need high stakes to tell a compelling story, but you do need to establish meaningful intrigue and motivation for the player to want to see what comes next.
i think it may have been a mistake to do a split zone start with the same main character. in ShB you are catching up with a Twin in each zone, and learning more about the world. there’s not a lot of repeat content. vs DT poor wuk lumat has to learn the same lesson 3 times before it sticks (the two split zones and then the third zone) so the story is the same regardless of order you pick. and like you say, that’s like 10-15 hours in
this take is so weird to me, the premise of the xpac is an adventure, you go to this new place, meet the characters, all good, and then they immediately send you to do fetch quests for reskinned beast tribes for hours with no gameplay and if you dont like it you have tiktok brainrot? Isnt it possible that it just is not engaging to help the birds hold a farming festival or trading up farming tools for tea leaves, and it is in fact boring? Not to mention that at this point it has been hours of "gameplay" without a dungeon or even a solo duty, just critters that die in 4 hits, the start of dawntrail is quite frankly just boring storytelling and offensively bad gameplay, and it has nothing to do with the stakes, you dont need to kill a god in space to make a story, but i am pretty sure that on the scale of "how high are the stakes" there a million better things in between that and "watch wuk lamat trade goods for a saddle to catch an alpaca". The only things the story is doing im this part beyond these menial tasks is some VERY SURFACE LEVEL stuff like the pelupelu wanting to switch jobs but being insecure about just how wuk lamat is insecure, i think it is just not engaging stuff that people dont resonate with, and putting it at the forefront has a bigger impact since first impressions matter, and at dawntrail beginning the story does not mask the dogshit gameplay of walking to an npc and speaking to them 140 times in a row, so people notice it more
> they immediately send you to do fetch quests for reskinned beast tribes for hours with no gameplay and if you dont like it you have tiktok brainrot? Seriously, I was expecting Tomb Raider with rivalry and competition amidst exploring this new land, not hours upon hours of exposition dumps without gameplay or intrigue.
This is kind of where I'm at. I was hoping for an expanded version of what 6.1 MSQ gave us, basically. I'm not sure why I needed a 4+ hour retread of all these beast tribes we already know, slightly modified to throw the teacher off the tracks of the copied homework. I'm not having a horrible time - I love just being in the world with these characters. But as it is right now, (around level 92 msq) I'm quite disengaged. It doesn't help that every single one of the Promises is insufferably annoying in the way that the story presents their "flaw". It's very cliche and you can just see how the ones that will overcome their flaw will do so, and the ones who don't.... won't. Gee, I wonder if the Fourth Promise Garrosh will have to be put down?
By the end of FF16 I was literally only playing it for the cutscenes and I still thought DT had a few too many.
Yeah I didn't mind the content of the story. Just the way it was presented. Up untill the first dungeon it unironically feels like i'm playing MGS4. I think you fight less than like 10 things before you get to the first dungeon. And if you're not cutscene skipping that's like 4+ hours.
MGS4 at least had Otacon.
On your death bed to the nurse “I couldn’t control the alpaca”
https://preview.redd.it/r1rznn46bz9d1.jpeg?width=980&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d0a56ce026ed772282d95129a2cc7dc1064b0ba Me to the nurse: THIS COULDVE BEEN ME
why are you dullards acting like this is a new problem that is in dawntrail specifically and not something that’s been criticized about the game for the past five years. like endwalker was just wall to wall action?
Man heard sephiroth say ‘dullards’ once
(teleports behind you)
I guess for a lot of people, including me, it got old by now. Endwalker was better cuz we knew it was going to the end and blablabla so I was intrigued with where it was going, but here my eyes are going into the back of my head because not only is nothing happening, there is barely any gameplay. You can only do the same thing so many times, and it seems like this expansion is too many times for a lot
for me, the world building is really great, and i appreciate how the overworld map cities and towns feels like places ppl live in instead of three houses by the aetheryte a lot of love and crafting went into Tural and ppl are rushing past it because it isn’t ShB (i also adore ShB, but that expac was a perfect storm which utilized a lot of mysteries/themes from ARR-StB) they also didn’t do the “get locked out of completing all the aether currents in the first zone until way later in the expac” which i really, really appreciated i’m at 95/96 and the mystery of the expac has properly been built up and the tension before things pop is getting me excited if i had any complaints, it’s that i forget the twins came with me because they have no presence in the story so far, it should have been just WoL, Erenville, and Wuk Lamat imo
They're there for duty support basically, feels like it anyway
On a replay of Stormblood on my FT char for Yokai prep, I realized it had a LOT of solo duties. Especially towards the end. I think there were like, 4 in DT overall? At least two of them were like boss fights with full party mechanics.
True, but then there's like 3 of thoses solo duties that are basically "Fight for 10 minutes then proceed to get rekt by mandatory lose mechanic, but hey, you lost a little bit less this time". While I like the idea, in practice it got kind of tedious after a while in my opinion, and we could have had a better experience instead of the "you totally lost even though you were breezing through every mechanic". There were also solo duties un StB that were pretty good though. But as of now I found the solo duties in DT better, although I haven't finished the expac yet.
I'm not that deep in the story, but for me it's not about world builiding but the story for now repeats common tropes and motives, so for me it is little boring. Some humor I found little cringy too. But firstly as I've said I'm not that deep in the story and secondly I'm not young. I've seen like basilion different storylines, so it is hard to make something that would surpise me. But remember, Yoshi-P directly said "you should have high expectations" so I don't criticise people that have high expectations. You can do interesting world building by storytelling. It was the thing that FF I to X did great.
I feel like this is one of those classic internet moments where I'm not seeing the complaints, I'm just seeing the complaints about the complaints.
if you goto r/ffxivdiscussion every other top post is shitting on the MSQ for the most generic of reasons.
Unsurprising no one hates ff14 more then ff14 fans
i like story but im so god damned tired of having to talk to locals every new area
"Comfort the distressed civillian" x100. In the middle of a battlefield.
yeah, I actually enjoyed the vast majority of the story (I like wuk lamat, fortunately for my dt experience lol), but the quest design definitely needs to improve in the future. I always look forward to the actual cutscenes and duties, but the in between stuff is still so tedious. The new stuff they added (the tailing quests) are honestly even worse than the "talk to 5 npcs" stuff to me, because you just walk behind someone for a minute. The stealth quests from ew like the thancred duty and in from the cold were really cool, but the pointless tailing quests really suck. I also think they should voice more cutscenes, if they're not going to improve the non-cutscene quest design.
I was thinking it could use a couple more unique solo duties like those, but they probably didn't bother because too many dummies complained last time.
In from the Cold my beloved...
See, I personally think Dawntrail is brilliant for making it the focal point of its story. Meeting the locals and currying their favor is a recurring trope throughout all the game, but this expansion actually gives you more of a reason to do it than just helping them out until they do what you need them to do or point you in the right direction: here getting to know them better *is* the focus, you're trying to understand their culture and their history alongside Wuk Lamat. "Understanding begets appreciation", as Gulool Ja Ja said. People have been complaining that this leads into Wikipedia style info dumps, that past story at least had the decency to be show don't tell, without understanding why that is even a thing: if you're going around and explicitly asking people how they live as Wuk Lamat does from the very start of the expansion to the end, it's only natural they'll share it without always having a thing to show you. I know it's not for everyone and I can't exactly be mad if someone finds this kind of thing underwhelming, but the complete negativity as well as denying that this is just what FFXIV was always about is what baffles me.
Honestly I truly don’t get why some people play FFXIV. Like…this is the story MMO Why are you mad about story being in the MMO known for its story It’s like those people that move to New Orleans for the culture and then start complaining about loud music and drunk people
I don't like this fact, but: There's a fair amount of people for whom 'story' means plot progression and rising stakes at blistering speeds-- where things like character, setting, and so on are considered *distractions from the almighty plot*, and a plot is regarded as a series of spectacle events, reveals, dramatic moments, and solved problems lined up in quick succession. Those people have a conniption when a story includes slice of life elements, exposition and worldbuilding, and the stakes must always be rising.
Yeah but it’s not like this series hasn’t been doing this for three expansions now, why are they STILL here if they don’t like it? Shadowbringers had LESS fights than this and that’s regarded as beloved
Not to mention, it's been pretty much communicated that it's gonna be a low stakes story msq and kinda start a new arc.
I like to call these people slop enjoyers
Stories can have varying quality and the discussion is usually about the quality of the story, which is perfectly valid. A story can be good or bad or mid or slightly above average or outstanding or... You get the point. Valid criticism of Dawntrail is completely okay. Sadly much of it is rather subjective, so while one person is bored out of their mind, another is having a blast. Makes quantifying the actual problems much harder. Some like slop indeed, while others get angry if their favorite story becomes sloppeh.
Because they expect that story to be consistently good and engaging, which FFXIV has just never succeeded at. It’s all well and good to say “it’s about the story” but that story and it’s presentation can still be criticised.
So if someone doesn't like the MSQ in FFXIV, they shouldn't play? There are no other individually redeeming qualities about this game? Why is it that people who _like_ the MSQ in this game feel infinitely justified in dismissing people who play the game and enjoy it _but do not_ find the story interesting.
I play it for the dungeons and raids. You know, the gameplay part. But ignoring that, their/my complaint isn't that it has a story, it's that the story is uninteresting and/or delivered in a very dull and unengaging way. First off it's down right immoral what the WoL is doing. The slayer of gods, savor of the world several times over is personally backing what is essentially a child in an adults body. Her ONLY credentials is "SHE LOVES PEACE AND THE PEOPLE", which frankly is insulting that they portray that as some sort of unique trait, but what ever. Ignore the fact that despite being the ruler's child, living there her entire life, and that she just loves the people so much, she apparently knows jack shit about literally any of their homes or customs. I get the point is to groom her into leader material through the trials, but for one there are far better candidates like her half kitten brother, and two, the WoL didn't know that when they took the job. They just saw this idiot and was like "yeah, I'll put her on the throne of a nation. It will be funny." That's all second to the big problem with the story. It's all tell, no show. Go here, talk to 3 random NPCs, talk about what you learned with your group, introduce yourself to main character of the zone that you'll interact with for all of 30 minutes, discuss what you learned from this introduction, talk to 3 more NPCs, discuss what you learned, repeat. Several times. For each zone. They rehash the same information multiple times too. It's mind numbing and kind of insulting. The real kicker is when the story really picks up and the tone shifts, it had the audacity to go back to that formula again for the 5th fucking time in a row. All urgency is thrown out the window because you got to talk to 3 more random NPCs and have a little culture tour. It's actually kind of annoying that people are downplaying and strawmanning people's complaints to such ridiculous degrees. "What's wrong, is reading too hard for you"? "It's called world building, sweetie" ."Can't handle a story without MCU stakes"? No, dickhead, what I can't handle is the combination of an extremely slow shonen story AND it being delivered in a way that's both boring and insulting to the player's intelligence.
The correct thing to do when moving to New Orleans is complain about the potholes, the job market, and the heat. Source: am New Orleanian
All I'm saying is, shadowbringers also did the same thing, and they succeeded. Brand new location with storybuilding? A reason to care right from the getgo? They cooked! Meanwhile the only reason you're helping wunk lamat initially is because your character has nothing better to do. Like, I get that was essentially how arr started, but I wanted more y'know? Most I felt during the first few levels was "damn I hope Hitler one and Hitler 2 and his Siamese twin don't win the election"
I know we are memeing, but I fail to see how this expansion set up a "new arc" or was "ARR 2.0" at all. Levels 90-96 felt like an entirely contained, predictable story, which is why it was boring. Sure, afterwards there was a couple of things that will obviously set up future expansions, but there was nothing here that screamed "THIS is why it had to start so slow!" Like, people act as if you can't possibly set up the next 10 years of this game AND be interesting at the same time lol. People dog on ARR for being super slow and boring, but then they are trying to defend this expansion for doing the same thing? AND it sets up the future even worse (imo)? I just don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something.
All we can do is speculate on what the setup is, in my opinion it's the >!Azem trophy looking thing that's the key for shard travel. The lalafells of the south sea isles used it during the 5th umbral calamity and then traveled to what seems like the 12th shard, then the people on the 12th demanded it so they could sustain their life for much longer than normal. We solved the problem of the invaders but we still didn't get an answer as to who built this tech and provided it to them, Y'shtola mentions it's immaculate in its design which is not the MO of the Ascians which crudely used portals to move themselves around. This shard travel tech has use for preservation and safety by being able to move large groups of normal people across it, that's something the Ascians would never bother with, life doesn't mean shit to them. So that being said, who built this and why? That's what I think the next slow burn will be about. !< That being said it almost has fuck all to do with the slow burn of DT and I gained almost nothing by experiencing it, same with a lot of the S9 bits really, what mattered were some of the tidbits near the middle and end.
Completely agree. ARR is usually a new player experience, which means that being slow is not that bad. I've never heard a thing about it from friends, who recently started playing. They are usually overwhelmed by amount of things and systems to figure out. DT doesn't have that luxury because everyone knows the game at this point. There is also nothing to cover msq design flaws because writing isn't good.
Worldbuilding parts were fun. The 20 hours of yapping of Wok was not.
enough YAPPING Wuk it's time for 20 hours of PLAPPING Wuk
TBF Theres a difference between world building and 2 hours of trading random shit to buy a saddle
The beginning was really slow but you learned sooo much abaout the culture of Tural. And Mid-Dawntrail the Emotional Damage began. And in the last map of the Story... this contant emotional damage FUKING BROKE ME
Both sides are getting ridiculous by now and show a clear lack of understanding of what the opposite side is saying. Both the doomsayers and the "enjoyers" are two faces of the same shit-dipped coin.
Sir, this is r/ShitpostXIV
i don’t know how to break this to you but most of us are purposefully being silly about this i mean erm i’m going to return every soul that doesn’t like dawntrail to the aether
he was probably referencing more than just this sub
I don't mind if you like or hate the expac. I enjoyed it, but I can understand the flaws. What annoys me are the people who suddenly make it some kinda fucking act that they're the valiant minority defending from the evil side. Seeing people go "You're so right for saying this, the XIV subreddit would NEVER let you speak ill of Wuk Lamat" as if 90% of the top comments aren't criticizing her character/the pacing. Or the massive mixed reception via Steam and other websites. You're not a minority just because someone feels differently about the expac.
I usually prefer the slower stories in ffxiv but Dawntrail hasn’t been great so far. It’s not that there isn’t stakes or that there isn’t some world-ending threat, the problem is that it just isn’t compelling.
I think people are conflating "low stakes" with "has to be boring" somehow? Idk man Dawntrail has you impaling a legion of vampires with the amount of stakes it has compared to fucking Stardew Valley and somehow it is more boring? Linus backstory or whatever the fuck we call it nowadays is more compelling than this. Can't the game give you a reason to care before we are halfway through a 30-40 hour storyline? It's not that hard imo
I've seen this argument way too many times myself. "It's a low stake story"...yeah but that doesn't mean it has to be boring. One for our World of Warcraft players out there: There's a zone called Drustvar. It has its own self-contained story about dark magic, witches (actual witches with the classic crooked nose style even) and at its core the story about the ruling family of this area. Compared to the storylines about defending the world form an all destroying army of demons or defeating the Lichking it's very low stake...and it's quite often quoted as one of the best questzones in the entire game with a very compelling narrative.
I 100% agree about Drustvar, was my favorite Alliance quest zone during BFA days and was (IMO) a lot more compelling than the garbage Horde vs Alliance bullshit that never goes anywhere but Blizzard loves to bring up again and again. At the end of the day, it's not that small scale stories are boring, it's the writers that make it boring. And seeing as the main writer for this xpac isn't Ishikawa but a random guy who did like... the patch quests for 4.2 and the bard quests I guess, you can see why there was a sudden drop in quality.
Ah I forgot, there are exactly two kinds of scenes you can have in fiction - Boring as shit exposition dumps - superhero movie 3rd act CGI clusterfuck
FF14 introduced a third one: people standing around in a half-circle gesticulating and nodding at each other
Guy in full armor and helm having to exaggerate his movements when talking so you don’t stare at a non moving npc
For the life of me. I know when wol is about to nod and I nod irl first. Lmao
There is no world building and everything is introduced and payed off immediately though. It's all just so shallow.
Yeah, thank god they set aside several hours for worldbuilding, to introduce amazing new concepts like goblins... with different armor! And Vanu with more colorful feathers! And get this one - one tribe is full of MERCHANTS!
You know it's incredibly bad when people start to protect it in a Shitpost subreddit.
Honestly surprised by how many people are quick to defend DW in the shitpost subreddit. feels like I’m on the main Reddit now
cause half ppl are normies from main reddit now who cant tell a difference , almost under every shitpost you can see standart mainsub ff14 resposes. It is what it is.
This sub is just contrarian and it shows. When the other subs are happy with the game, this sub shits on them for liking it. Now that valid criticisms are coming out, this sub insists that they're actually brainrot ADHD victims who don't know how to enjoy 3-4 hours of exposition dumps before you get to actually play the game.
I think people on Reddit might just be stupid and like arguing. Yes I include myself in that statement.
I was really shocked to see all these "shit"posts here as if the people complaining are crazy or something. I'm almost done with the main story and it is really bland. They took the worst of Heavenward and ARR's constant tribal quests and fused it with Lyse from Stormblood (who I actually preferred because I had two expansions of background information for the political stuff going on). It might not be so bad if we had new races but they're mostly just reskins. I am a girl and Wuk Lamat still drove me nuts, and I really really tried to like her. She's just so dumb 😭
I found it fine, the pacing was weird and some of the characters were a little out of place and poorly written. But by the end it was fine, really drags on in zone 6 I feel. Woulda have been way better if they kept all the sci fi stuff out of the promotional material. Just the concept art of section 9 and the Arcadion
Mm yes, the run from A to B (repeat 10 times and talk to the same npc) worldbuilding enjoyers
Remember in endwalker when we went back in time and spent 10 hours walking in circles in a glorified farm 🙏🙏 peek gameplay
Sure the quest design is terrible as usual, but I think the post is mostly about story.
[Here, this game might be more your style](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNK4VKeoBM)
https://preview.redd.it/l5k3ntk6wy9d1.jpeg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19d824b679b0d6ebfea775749ce89e57e5735b76
I don't wanna come off as a dick, but did you do fates, hunt targets and level gatherers while doing that run, or did you sprint as often as possible between quest points, always taking the most direct route like a mouse chasing cheese laced with crack
Based Game Enjoyers vs Soy MSQ Speedskimmers
Ok this is just ridiculous lol Most people take the direct route when doing MSQ, give or take aether currents
“Why is the first chapter of this book constantly telling me peoples names”
I haven't even done half the story yet but I can already tell people are mad/bored because they were expecting high stakes from an expansion that's supposed to be like step 1 of a new arc/saga
The start of a new arc or saga is allowed to be interesting though. But they want to adhere so rigidly to very specific dungeons and duties at specific levels that they shoe horn story and quests around it. It really throws the pacing off. Some parts get rushed, some get cut short. Both lead to unsatisfying payoffs story wise.
Heavensward never had any slow parts about dealing with various random peoples' in areas... except the vanuvanu, and goblins, and gnath and moogles and... Heavensward was FULL action with NO filler, NO buildup, ALL payoff. Shadowbringers, the allmighty can do no wrong expansion, also never had these moments, no meaningless darkness cultists to deal with, no random dwarf village disputes, certainly no trolleys whatsoever, it was only Eulmore and Exarch and Emet and Amaurot and nothing else
partial ifunny watermark spotted, post invalidated
my god people, you know you can build up a story and still be interesting right? this toxic positivity is what gave us the dawntrail story in the first place.
Imagine thinking the only way to world-build is dozens on hours of exposition dump. The XIV cult really do need their hands held.
I'm a certified DT Enjoyer, but I definitely see merit in a lot of the more consistent and less unhinged complaints. Especially the ones that are carrying over from Endwalker.
weird how defensive this sub is when worldbuilding can be good. this just wasnt. it was boring af
HW good everything else bad
For many I have talked to, its the overall lacking story compared to what it could be. And a crap quest design.
I’d like to remind people that until today it’s been mainly people who’ve rushed through the story (takes have been posted since the 2nd day of early access), so of course they’re gonna not like the pacing, they forced themselves through it.
The 'Thanks Ion' is inspired lmao
I am feel uncomfortable when we are not about me?
I made the mistake of being hyped / coming in with high expectations ( My first new expac ). My friends that didn’t and came in expecting a filler arc enjoyed it more. Though, while it took them longer, they also noticed that the story sucked. They had such a cool premise that could have been political intrigue, cloak and dagger etc etc. But it just felt like the “Amazing Race” with some 1D villains thrown in. Dungeons / trials / gameplay (when you get to play) is fun though! So it isn’t a complete letdown!
> 1D villains People keep saying this and it makes me think that folks skipped the cutscenes that hint at, or explicitly state, the villains motivations.
I like that you can go "yeah, I understand your plight but your still a dick though." understanding but not forgiving.
I don't think I once considered any (villian) a threat (like 10 quests left), and their motivations never moved me to feel anything. So they're 1D. If only the WoL could move during cutscenes this expac would be over too soon. Zenos was scary / intimidating. He's messed up and wants nothing but power. These others are just jumping in your way all the time for no reason other then to remind you they exist. At least it picks up around the 70 quest mark.
Yeah, the power scale is indeed a problem sometimes. To actually succeed as a villain you must out-maneuver the WoL, as direct confrontation is akin to suicide. This causes the problem of stuff needing to happen off-screen to blindside the WoL but not the player (otherwise its an "ass-pull"). They did that decently well in Shadowbringers with Emet. You knew he was up to no good and probably actively scheming against you but you had no reason to actually pull the trigger on him. Then he shot first and everything went tits up. It was great. I wish they could have done the same with the Mamool Ja antagonists.
There are great worldbuilding scenes in Dawntrail. There are great payoff scenes in other expansions. The MSQ in this game is plagued with 90-95% filler and basic exposition. People who are playing this game for the story baffle me. It's a great game _in spite of_ the MSQ.
Heavensward was never good
Honestly, it's fine for me, and the game could've used some world building, it's also one of the things made ShB feel as good as it did. The problem is having to follow Furry Lyse whether you like it or not, especially when the story presents you with a much more likeable character right off the bat.
When did this sub become such a thoughtless circlejerk that shut down all ciritism?
Shitposting sub or not, this is it, this is the issue some/too many have with the expansion.
Ughhhhhhh why is there so much STORY in my STORY DRIVEN MMO… ughhhhhhhhhhhhh
Why is there a **boring** story in my **story driven mmo**?