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The last Zone was the worst one, it was pointless beside Erenville and Krile, everything else was pointless, painful boring and dull, after 7 years of ff14 i have see myself skipping cutscene because i just wanted to be done with this god awful Side quest Expansions

FFXIV is supposed to be an MMO RPG with a central focus on the story. If the players are saying they were bored out of their minds while playing MSQ, there is a big problem...

Best take on dawntrail thus far and I’ve watch a ton of reviews .

Honestly I feel like the MSQ in DT both panders to and insults the player. It sort of expects us to do the heavy emotional lifting during moments that they desperately want to be impactful. Instead of providing characters or plot beats that naturally invest us in the narrative, it seems like they want us to force ourselves into having a reaction (or rely upon real world experiences to lend weight to what are, imo, mostly empty platitudes). Some of that is due to bad choices in the writing, but i think it really boils down to not giving the narrative the space to breathe. I would have loved a genuinely scaled down sense of danger, but they just couldn’t quite commit to it, or couldn’t find a way to entertain us without resorting to another apocalyptic, world ending threat.

Wuk Lamat embodies such virtues as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. She's a very brave and stunning character. Her voice actor simply brought it (just like the Australian break dancer in the Olympics brought it) Blackrock cash well-earned Square, fantastic expansion. 10/10

My disappointment with Shalaaoni is based on how wasted the zone feels. You start the zone by gettingbto this really cool town torn right out of an old western. You spend *one cutscene* there and then poof, off to the next town. Then you spend a few small cutscenes at the next town, establish the story of the zone which is just "Get bracelet back. Stop bandits." And then you find another cool town thats cut out of a cliffside. Nothing happens there. Then you stop the bandits. Talk to the train people, then go to the final area of the zone which is this cool Miqote Native American-esque settlement, chat with them for 2 seconds, ignore their concerns and say "We'll make sure Koana doesnt let things get outta hand. Trust us!" and then the area is over...

Sphene fucking ninja looted the dimension key after Zoraal Ja before we were done rolling on it, wtf

I would have liked to see the end of the tourney Bakool ja ja won, could have had a few more characters or something instead of Wuk Getting kidnapped cause the writers wrote everyone braindead

The right of succession storyline Is just the first part of the storyline of final fantasy 10. But I liked The right of succession storyline It's hard to go from an end of a era like endWalker You're going from six gear Back down to first, Also I didn't watch any of the Hype of Dawntrall.But I am One of those that didn't like the ending of Endwalker And thought Post patch Of endWalker was a lot better. endWalker's boss was dumb And the explanation of the world Shattering is stupid. A whole world ending with very powerful people Over a emo girl Thats sad And has daddy issues was just wow

Totally Dawnfail, worst expansion.

They pretty much said we "disbanded" as the Scions, so I thought that we'd be with only a few. Even having the twins was something I didn't expect, I thought it would be me, best buddy raha, and the ever wandering Estinien. Honestly I'd have loved like a vacation/"you were super injured from your fight with Zenos" arc, but instead felt like.... kind of how I'd feel the WoL would have felt. A person who has saved the entire world, or even all of existence, and we're just sitting back and watching someone else's story and... I just wanted a little bit more. I just wanted to either try to become back to most of our strength or something. But with the lower stakes for 80% of the MSQ just felt.... boring. Like we weren't travelling for our characters entertainment, but neither did we really feel like we were helping, despite being the strongest on the planet at this point.

Not to cheapen the story of living memory with my take, but, the message I took from the zone was: "Abandon technology. Get off the cell phone, and go touch grass."

It really is Stormblood 2.0 all over again, shaky story but fun gameplay. The story sounds good on paper but I think between this and Post-EW storyline you can tell without their golden goose Ishikawa piloting the helm anymore they're really struggling on the execution part again like they did in ARR and Stormblood.

23 minutes is long? That's like an appetizer.

DawnTrail basically turned the WoL into a killer-for-hire. We’re the Frank Nitti to Wuk Lamat’s Al Capone. We breeze into a new area, round up the tribal leaders, and say “Nice village you have here. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it.” Then Wuk eats a taco, declares that she now understands the rich history and culture of the people we just extorted, and we move on to subjugate the next group of yokels. The worst part is when the WoL literally commits genocide because Wuk orders us to. We’re not even given a chance to disagree, or try to find a solution that DOESN’T involve murdering all of the Endless. We’re basically Emet-Selch, wiping out a species because we don’t believe they’re “real people”. (Which is B.S, they’re obviously sentient and had free will. If they didn’t, Erenville’s dimwit mom wouldn’t have been able to betray them and orchestrate their murder.) Also, and I shouldn't need to say this, but Bakool Ja Ja was the clear and obvious rightful Dawnservant. He knew the Death Dragon was thawing from the ice and would be free soon, and he also knew that even his all-powerful father couldn't beat it. So he did the only thing he could to save his people: he tricked his halfwit sister into having her WoL sidekick kill the dragon, thus saving millions of lives.

I respectfully disagree Re: the Rite of Succession. I’m actually glad a country maintained something of a monarchy. It’s a bit tiresome that every single time we overthrow a country, we institute a representative republic/democracy. It’s kind of unrealistic to expect people that have only known one way of life - monarchy - to just be able to handle such an extreme change of leadership style with no issues.

Zoraal-J being overwhelmed by souls and him losing himself for a moment made me cry so much......... then of course the moment is ruined by Wuk Lamat

Its Vision not aligning with story. The Vision of the MMO and I think Yoshida has said something along the lines that the world is living and breathing, with you just existing in the game as a player character that can exert some external force into the story. While the story itself is quite linear and Ishikawa did a remarkable job weaving nearly every loose plot thread from ARR to EW. The biggest issue that the writing team has currently is that without Ishikawa at the helm its a boat without a rudder. The lead writer for Dawntrail is the same lead writer that did the first half of Stormblood. The second issue was that there was absolutely no clear plan how to mingle the consequences of the Final Days with the living world aspect. If anything the game's lore in Dawn Trail is ignored for plot convivence by the lead writer. In some writing circles you just cannot put the "end of the world as we know it" genie back into the bottle and not expect continuity consequences. That is pretty much what we had in Dawntrail headed by the SB writing lead, a consequence filled start of an expansion from the consumer's point of view. The game became more of Wuk Lamat and I, people are overblowing the WoL's stand as a mentor from two to three lines of throw away dialogue. Again the writer created what is called a black hole sue, where everything in the plot services their chosen character at the expense of all prior character development. Lets just prattle the missed opportunities that needed to be explored: The Claimant and their follower's motivations. We get political headline serviced level taking points when it comes to the first and second promise. There's no push back from Wuk or the WoL in debating these talking points....my favorite is the Palupalu where half of them are behind the First Promise because they think war will open up new markets. Yet there could have been a good discussion on how War is inevitably bad for the economy and conquered people are more worried about survival then buying luxury goods. In the Bird area, there could have been a discussion about how elder wisdom still has its place in a ever growing modern society. There's no touch about the Mamook's biding their time to take over the country, at the expense Bakool Ja Ja and his clutch mates. We never get the ability to explore Koana and Zoraal Ja as characters, they serve more as plot points for Wuk herself as the whole MSQ bends to her will (because of the writer). Zoraal Ja being the most criminal one out of them and in a game that made villain's like Emet, Lahabreaha and Elidibus sympathetic. Its down right criminal and I'll get to Sphene soon but this is a bigger sticking point. These were miss issues in just the first half of the game. What could have been a great story from a political standpoint its comical on how bad they botched it. The succession story could have been self contained as the first half of the MSQ. If anything it would have given great focus for the writing team to zero in on that issue, have underlying issues with people not being fully happy with who became Dawnservant. It just devolved to Wuk Lamat and I, where the player was hamstringed with zero agency. Forget being the strongest person on Eythiris, this was strait to TV movie plot. The second half pretty much was just "oh look do you like FF9, where here's FF9 in your MMO". They overdid the callbacks to the point and on top with Wuk being stapled to you. The story just spaghetti all over the place, made worse by Sphene who tries to act more like a Mirror Universe version of Emet with genderbent angle. They did the whole Time bubble (Alexander) and beach head merging and very little ties into the plot point of "oh right the WoL is very strong, so we have to give him strong enemies". I continually ask how did this even make it past editing let alone get greenlit to be put into production.

SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN in first cutscene shown. LESSGO! Btw food for thoughts: King was free for 80 years, right? And he knows about Mamook shady stuff? And he does what exactly? 80 years sitting on his ass, doing nothing? Or he wasn't a living character until DT plot was conceived by writers and just appeared as NPC with backstory being pre-written?

In the moment? I was fuming and mad, in the moment, and not from immersion but lack thereof. It wasn't until AFTER that I thought about it more and I changed my opinion and started to like what they did, or tried to do, with Dawntrails story. For example how the Trial 2 just are lovely dripped with the father-son dynamic and relationship, like the Raid AoE is named Patricide and how he would almost commit filicide as well, so they know what they are trying to do here. But for real, in the moment during 11:05 I couldn't stop thinking about WHEN our character would intervene, but we are the Warrior of Nodding still it seems, so nothing that makes sense in that moment happened, completely shutting out any believability of the scene as the question _"Are we just letting him go for NO reason?"_ still lingers IN THE MOMENT. So yeah, execution was trash but they got good themes and worth experiencing. Well made video talking about this, it's so great to see others' view on it and seeing that maybe I am focusing too much on the details.

As someone who doesn't care about the story in the slightest, I think DT is.. okay. I play to level jobs to max level, then do extremes, so I'm basing my opinion entirely on these experiences only. The dungeons are cool at first (Except the 1st dungeon, it sucks in every way I'm not sorry) but after you run them a few times you realize just how poorly designed the pulls are. Vanguard and the 99 dungeon especially (F YOU TURTLE), the music is just not as epic as ShB dungeon or EW dungeon themes but they're not bad. 6/10 overall dungeon experience Leveling.. It was a slog to get all 100 just simply because almost EVERY job had nothing new. "Oh look at this flashy animation that over rides an old ability" and maybe an OGCD? But you basically don't do ANYTHING new. If I wanted to do the exact same rotation every time I play a different job I'd just main a crafter. Some are fine, but not most. 4/10 I haven't touched the Ex's yet (I just got all 100's today, so maybe soon) but the trials were fine, a little hectic at first but once you do it twice it's not so bad. 7/10

Wuk Lamat legit ruined the entire expansion for me. Without her it would have been a 6.5-7/10. But with how much they pushed her, DT is now a 3/10. The dungeons and trials are the only reason it's not a 0/10

So I think the problem is that we're bar none without a doubt the mightiest person in the world. "Normal" people are not a threat to us at all. So how do you make anything less than a multiversal threat interesting? You could "depower" the WoL, but no one likes that and is severely lame (looking at YOU Metroid series. "Oh, I got smacked hard and lost all my powerups!"). They instead decided that the WoL would play an advisory role, only stepping in if it was necessary. Which makes sense in a way. If our job is to help Wuk Lamat become Dawnservent, sure, we could just simply go nuclear on anyone or anything that challenges her...but how would that prove she's a good leader? It's a decent idea, but it's clear that the idea just was beyond the writer's ability to tell well. I'm also of the mind that once the second half kicks off, they should've shifted the focus to Erenville and Krile. Wuk Lamat could still come, seeing that she still has an interest in what's happening, what with her brother flipping out and attacking her country and all, but she definitely should've been in the back seat at that point because, as Alphinaud pointed out, at that point it's a Scion problem to solve. I will say though, the idea that the WoL is just going around just training up and installing good world leaders just so they can deal with threats themselves so the WoL can go adventuring for, like, two frikkin minutes without someone whining for help does amuse me a bit.

i didnt mind the 1st halve of the game so much sure it has its issues like most of the Scions that where there didnt even need to be in there. but it felt likt they where to keep familiar characters in the trust system.

midwit take: Have ya considered muh communism! also, Wuk Lamat eats dirt

Oh my GOD! This youtuber is the reason... in the most feminine voice you can imagine " I'm just saaaaaaaying these people should have democracy"... JESUS this game has the most weak and kame community in mmos.

I am just a few cutsceens past the first dungeon and I'm fucking STRUGGLING... It's SO boring. Text text text text because you all suk yoshi p 6 ways from Sunday for literally anything they give us.. I like the graphics update but that does NOT excuse the trash I'm dealing with just to get to the next dungeon. It's bad.

So I came in late and was playing through previous expansion MSQ then right into DT. Honestly, most of the complaints are unfounded. I think there are 3 main camps of people who did not like it: 1. Those who have not done any quests for a while, and 2. Those who get caught up in the whole trans voice actor thing. 3. Those who were hoping that a new arc means a revamp of the questing design and flow to be more exciting and less grindy with meaningless fetch/talking tasks. Coming from previous expansions right into DT, the questing is extremely similar. The only actual issues I've had with DT is that the decisions on which cut scenes should be voice acted - in previous expansions if you only watch voiced cutscenes and skip all others, you will still get all the key moments of the story. In DT, a lot of important information are in unvoiced cut scenes, so if you didn't read then the voiced scenes are a bit confusing (this was me). The other thing is the forced focus on Wut Lamat at the end of the MSQ. where she has run her course but was forced into narratives which put her out of place. One example is the last fight, out of everyone who were 'sent away', was she really the likely person to come back? I feel like the 2nd half of the MSQ should have switched the main character from Wut Lamat over to Krile, that would have made so much more sense.

its there any kind of endgame on dawntrail, like bozja and eureka?

Wuk Lamat: "I love peace!" Also Wuk Lamat: "I order you to commit genocide." ...and the WoL just goes along with it. "Sure, I'll kill an entire race of people for absolutely no reason."

Yup the msq desperately needs more battle content. People trying to give it pass because its supposed be like "ARR" and I say fuck that why can't it be better? Stop giving these devs excuses this isn't a free to play game. Gearing is boring still the only saving grace was the endgame dungeons and the raids but you beat that in like 3 hours.

05:20 To be fair, this is literally called out in the story by her dad. She is not fit to rule at the start of the journey, because for all her bluster she really has been just a city girl with a surface level experience of the country as a whole. The same applies to Koana, who ditched the country to study in Sharlayan and completely dropped any connection he had with the local culture. Zoraal Ja is ironically the most experienced of the three Promises, but he decided to not give a shit. Hence why the journey is so important, and we see the effects on both her and Koana as we carry on. You could argue that she should have had a bit more experience, and I somewhat agree, but it is very unlikely she ever had the freedom (or interest, admittedly) to gain that experience. When visiting the Hanuhanu for example, she was there as part of the Dawnservant's procession. She probably didn't get to talk to any of the locals outside of an official interaction.

Personally I disliked Wuk Lamat. I thought the voice actor was very very subpar. As far as the story goes, it dragged on and was so slow. I would have just wrapped up her part of being the new leader in the first quarter of the expansion msq storyline. Then I would have let your character go exploring this new world like they promised (without Wuk Lamat). Let's face it she should be way too busy at being the new leader and all. Then instead of the end of the world (I think we already saved the world several times over), maybe we are only handling a minor territorial dispute or crises. Then maybe add the whole Alexandria thing in the post msq of Dawntrail.

The twins are there for the trust system, thats all lmao

Wuk lamat feels like she was written into Tural rather than someone who grew up there. She mentions somewhere in the story that someone has been in their positons for over 20 years, even longer than she is old, so she is ATMOST 20 years old, how doesent she know stuff like the hanu greeting when theres fucking hanu IN her city.

In retrospect I am looking back at Lyse and I was way, waaaaay too harsh to her. At least she had more than one character trait! Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of "My people suffer!" - but at least there was more to her than just that! Additionally she allowed the story to move on without her, when her part was done. Wuk steals your spotlight even after her story should have ended. Just look at the Deus Wuk Machina moment. That was the greatest insult to the WoL of all times! Most of the quests felt intentionally dragged out as well. "We need to change the light bulb" -Speak to Wuk Lamat -Speak to someone who might know where to get a new one -Speak to Wuk Lamat -Speak to Wuk Lamat again -Speak to Wuk Lamat yet again -Use /rally to encourage Wuk Lamat -Put the ladder down at the destination -Wait at the destination -Search for Wuk Lamat -Speak with Wuk Lama -Speak with Wuk Lamat near the ladder -Watch a cutscene of Wuk Lamat denying her fright of heights, only to approach the ladder and have a mental breakdown. You have three dialogue options and the one that sounds the most snarky and reasonable thing to say is being seen as a joke and as encouragement. Everyone else motivates her to climb the ladder and she finally comes out of her shell and climbs it carefully with a shaking body. She reaches the top, changes the bulb and everyone declares her a hero, even the WoL is impressed to have witnessed such great deeds! While climbing down Wuk Lamat, our perfect hero slips on the last step and falls onto her rear. Everyone laughs and sheers her up. -Speak to Wuk Lamat and praise her incredibly brave acts! -Speak to the NPC who gave you the replacement bulb to proof yourself worthy to paint a wall -Pray return to the Wuking Lamat one last time -Just kidding! Do it again.

ROFL man yall are out of touch, go replay a realm reborn then come back and say it's worse when your done your 30th hour of running back and forth talking for the 90th time

No they are not unique, it happens in all expansions. It just that DT has 2 hours less of cutscenes than EW, and that's fucking hillarious. I wish it had more gameplay

Dawntrail is better than AAR and Stormblood, but worse than HW, ShB, and EW. But i went into it with low expectations. There was no way anyone was going to top EW. So i feel like this expansion has met my expectations.

When our character was forced to like Wuk lamat in 6.55 I knew this was doomed

Worst MSQ yet = People only played the first third or so of it. Great MSQ = People who finished Dawntrail.

wuk lamat has a very stereotypical accent that is downright racist and no one says anything. on top of that we're supposed to care about her learning about the Tural cultures... when SHES LIVED THERE HER WHOLE LIFE? then its a D-tier friendship is magic anime beach episode for 70% of the expansion until they show off villain 1 who dies after a dungeon and friendship is magic train making sequence, then we get to the MOST interesting part with the endless just to ruin that world and kill villain 2 in the last 5% leaving nothing interesting behind because it all solved itself. This expansion was only for one thing- to get the key thingy to other reflections... which we've been on the hunt for since the end of Endwalker. What was Yshtola doing all that time studying to look for it? Then people said we shouldn't have to be the main character in the expansion... in a ROLE PLAYING game. I'm not playing a damn NPC, I want to be the main character. We literally didn't have to be there other than be stronger than the main expansion character- wuk lamat which shows she's not strong enough to lead. Galool jaja sure was though. Terrible expansion.

Presentation is all there in terms of like music and the last area I felt was really good, but in terms of substance elsewhere it's not really what we've come to expect. Some people will eat it up regardless and that's fine, but being dissatisfied is not the same as outright hating the entire thing just to hate it.

I'm not very far into the MSQ myself yet (only at the first dungeon), but I can definitely see what people take issue with. Wuk Lamat isn't a horrible character, but she also isn't interesting and knowing that I'm spending the whole expansion as her sidekick makes me exhausted from sheer boredom. At this point, I simply don't understand why Koana wasn't made the protagonist to follow instead of her. His motivations and character are far more interesting, his goals go farther than simply upholding the status quo and we'd get the other Scions at our side again whose separation doesn't even cause any interesing conflict to begin with. I'd also say that I definitely prefer ARR over Dt by a mile so far. ARR's writing may not have been very emotionally engaging most of the time, but it felt grounded and made me feel immersed in a detailed world with history that could be extemely dark, heartwarming and silly at the same time and I love it for that. ARR made me feel the stakes of the conflict I was in (massive Primal tragedies, interesting and deep sidequests, Waking Sands massacre, etc.) and I deeply appreciaed the nuance of the politics in which it didn't shy away from showing the ugly sides of the Eorzean Alliance which we're supposed to defend. So far I've seen none of that nuance and depth of worldbuilding in Dt and it's really disappointing. There are virtual stakes of global conquest, sure, but they never actually feel real. This lack of nuance already started growing in Endwalker, especially the patch-quests, and now it's front and center. It's just so strange for a game that prides itself on amazing story and character writing as well as deep worldbuilding to swing so hard in the other direction. If the writers don't improve from here on, I probably won't come back to this game for a long time.

The Dawntrail story is serviceable. It's not great, and it feels like it suffers heavily from the confinements of the low-effort boiler plate format the game uses for its quests. Some major notes I have so far are: In the very beginning of the story, while on the ship, Wuk Lamat is all but incapacitated by the storm, to the point she's collapsing on the ground from sea sickness. She essentially fails her first 'trial' of the story, but then afterwards the sailors on the boat all say "wow after what you did back there, we're all betting on you!", but what??? She collapsed and was useless. It seemed like a missed opportunity to have Wuk Lamat overcome her impairments to help everyone, or do something that spotlights her capabilities. Instead, your player character saves the day by activating the ship defenses. Overall I feel the story is a bit hokey. This isn't bad, but we're talking about hundreds of years of racial animosity between people being fixed in 15 minutes by a guy saying "don't fight just be friends :)" and then cooking some food. This is OKAY and isn't bad storytelling or anything, but it's definitely hokey and the entire MSQ moves at a very fast pace, meaning set pieces and villains don't get much development time before we either defeat or recruit them. This is definitely an issue with the MSQ being broken up between two distinct stories, so the "Dawnservant Trial" section doesn't get the time it needs to more properly develop characters. One of many issues with "not enough development time" was Bakool Ja Ja turning into a good guy. Okay, I get it, he has a tragic backstory and a personal investment in becoming Dawnservant. But it's told so quickly, and we're left to digest a character as evil as Bakool turns good on a dime just because "muh sad backstory". Bakool Ja Ja unleashes an ancient, unstoppable monster. First of all, WHY did he do this? What the fuck was his end game, exactly? He just kind of does it and says "haha it will kill lots of people >:)", but to what end??? We don't even get the tidy, predictable conclusion that he stupidly did it without thinking, instead there is simply NO conclusion as to what his (assumed or otherwise) plan was. He just does it, and then no one really cares afterwards. Yeah, Wuk Lamat is like "grrr you unleashed the evil turkey monster", but he's never held accountable for it lmao. Most of what Bakool Ja Ja does can be brushed under the rug. Kidnapping Wuk Lamat or even her biological father, all the mayhem and problems he caused. But unleashing Devil Chicken on the world and outright saying "NOW LOTS OF PEOPLE WILL DIE" is a step way too far and it's hilarious (in a bad way) that it's never properly addressed. His turn to good (and by extension his father's turn to good) happens very quickly, and I understand that it's simply because the story was trying to do too much without enough time, but I feel we could have gotten at least an extended moment when he snaps after the Wuk Lamat battle, where we see him really wracked by turmoil by his continual failures. Bakool Ja Ja doesn't have character development so much as his character just pivots after we learn context for his wicked ways. Instead of learning deeper and richer meaning for becoming Dawnservant, Bakool Ja Ja learns nothing. We only learn he has a personal reason for wanting to become Dawnservant, and this doesn't really explain why he was such an egotistical asshole. He's originally presented as a cliche might makes right bully who thinks he deserves the Dawnservant throne because he's a Blessed Sibling (which is an angle I like), but the revelation adds nothing to his character other than adding MORE context, but not DEEPER context to his objectives. The story basically blueballs us in a really stupid way by presenting the concept of Urianger and Thancred being our rivals. It's honestly a really cool concept and an interesting way to include previous allies in the story. The characters themselves even promise "if we have to fight we won't hold back", albeit in friendly rivalry terms. But unfortunately we end up doing absolutely nothing but directly working together with them, we do not so much as even mock-battle a single time. What a wasted opportunity. Keeping in line with "this did not get enough development", Koana's change to support Wuk Lamat is foreshadowed a single time in a SINGLE line of dialogue that doesn't even make sense. Koana muses at one point "wow, Wuk Lamat proved once again she's better fit than me", but... What? When did she exactly prove that before? We have some Koana-focused scenes throughout the story up to this point, but they're more about him putting into perspective his desires as Dawnservant. It would have been better to color these scenes with at least a little bit of "Wuk Lamat is better, though". The foreshadowing is very weak, doesn't even make sense and is shoehorned in just as an excuse for his objective to change on a dime. Zarool Ja is a shitty villain. His motive is dumb and while it works as far as being a cliche anime bad guy, it doesn't hold up once he escalates to main villain. His whole stupid motive is "I want to show people how shitty war is by killing them and conquering everyone", sure whatever, but then he's acting viciously evil and killing his own father and talking mad shit about everyone and it's like, where did any of this come from? It feels less like Zarool Ja is going mask off and feels much more like he's being retconned to be more of an asshole so his actions as main villain make more sense. He literally goes from a stoic man of few words to FUCK U DAD IM GLAD I KILL U NOW U ALL SUCK!!!!. Wut? I feel a lot of ire from players comes from Dawntrail being comparatively low stakes and more of a personal journey vs. world saving, as the story of the first half of the MSQ is purely the story of Wuk Lamat, a brand new character in a brand new land that you have no historical investment in. This is just a road bump of storytelling, however, as you can not carry on the same major storyline forever and eventually new people and places must be introduced and time investment must begin anew. However, I think Dawntrail's story is massively lost in the sauce of having a whole magic kingdom world beyond a portal, so the tale of the Dawnservant is told much too quickly for it to be properly satisfying. Not only that, but the story suffers from Jump Around Syndrome, where we're spending only small amounts of time doing mundane tasks while nominally meet and greeting a new segment of this multi-segmented empire. The ugly beast of low stakes shows its head in all of these, as we don't necessarily do anything especially important in any of them. This is a big reason I imagine many players feel uninvested and bored by the MSQ. It isn't necessarily because "every quest is talk to Wuk Lamat", it's because every quest is "talk to Wuk Lamat and then gather sticks for a campfire". The story attempts to tell a somber and heartwarming tale of disparate peoples being united under one banner and their various talents working in tandem for a better country, but the short amount of time allotted for each of them renders each step of the story as being one trivial task after another. Honestly I would have kept the Golden City to post-MSQ business and utilized the time that was lost to flesh out the Dawnservant story more.

Glad I skipped out and went to play elder scrolls online expansion. 🤣

I will be interested to see how your opinion changes (or doesn't) after finishing all of Dawntrail. (Left vague to avoid spoiling in either direction.) I will definitely agree that Wuk Lamat's writing is a major issue for me in the first half, particularly the "not knowing about the people in her own country" part. I understand you kinda need an audience surrogate as we travel through Tural, but it is a very weird choice to have someone who's lived her entire life here to know almost nothing. (Even something as basic as her not FULLY understanding things would be fine ... e.g with the Hanu, something like the following would show that she's at least somewhat familiar with her neighbors: "Oh I know they have some special greeting but I don't remember exactly what it is. Maybe it's ... 'Hanu-ho'?")

My only gripe about Wuk Lamat is how overly positive she is about everything. Annoyingly so. Toxicly, even. Could have done with less of that, and more of Alexandria!

from my subjective POV, it's ARR < Heavensward < Dawntail < Stormblood < Shadowringer < Endwalker. it's mid, especially after the last 3, but it's more than ok.

These writers sucked, Wuk's VA is cringe, I don't wanna hear the words happiness and peace again! Fck this MSQ!