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!

In no way is this expansion worse than ARR. However, it's not better than any of the others. Boring overall, and Wuk Lamat is around way to long. The biggest issue for Wuk Lamat is she experiences no Character Growth; She is perfect from the start.

Everyone seems to be feeling everything I felt during Endwalker’s MSQ. Hope it feels great. I loved the Dawntrail MSQ and Wuk Lamat has been nothing but great for me.

I had a huge issue with the last zone. It felt so disrespectful to the people they were going to unplug. Hey, I know we are going to delete you but lets get to know you first! Oh noes, the tower is going off cause we took to long, who could have foreseen this? /s Just really cringe. Wuk is the new "Doh ma", if you know you know.

What happened to the Final Days? Why don't we heal the sick kid in Solution Nine with Angelos? Why are we still on board with Soulsucking maniacs after learning in ARR how Bad it is to delete Souls from the circle? Why is Estinien there? He is not even a side character. DT is atrocious.

It's for clicks, people hate EVERY expansion now for views

It was the first expansion that was so good I didnt skip ANY dialogue. Wuk Lamat is 1:1 Luffy from Onepiece.

The expansion has two big problems. It gambles everything on the playerbase absolutely loving Wuk Lamat every step of the way and go out of its way to ensure that a good chunk of the playerbase will be sick of her halfways in. It's not even a problem of her personality, when she starts she makes a nice contrast to the serious Scions. It's that they chain her to you for the whole journey and turn you into not even a mentor but a sidekick. Wuk Lamat started okay but the story doesn't really help making her a compelling character. Alphinaud put it well, she's like he would have been in ARR had the whole Crystal Braves thing never happened, but it was that incident that turned him from an annoying twat into a good companion. The only moment she was challenged on her ideas about peace, she immediately went with "Oh well, we can't talk, we have to kill Zoraal Ja after all" . She starts and ends as a naive brat. Her backstory goes nowhere, and everything and everyone, including your character bends to her in universe in such an unnatural way that the player are the ones feeling the whiplash. FF XIV has reached the levels of goodwill it has now because Square Enix and Yoshida knew when something wasn't working, apologized and did their best to correct course, so I have faith that at least the patches MSQ will do their best to actually direct the game to where it's supposed to go for the next 10 years or so. But if they don't, well, I'm not married to any videogame, WoW lost me for good in the final patches of Battle for Azeroth, I am really not afraid of quitting FF XIV if I keep feeling that experiencing the main story is a drag.

I think they should have had a lot mroe of stuff after the rite (im avoiding spoilers). The succession rite was just wayyy to drawn out

This is the worst MSQ I ever played, worst than ARR. Everyone got mind controlled to love Wuk Lamat I would've thought she is secretly a Primal or the final villain

I thought she was going to confess to my character my chara is not a furry so it would never work u , u but then she was just asking us to stay there absolutely not xD I like Lamatiy but i also skipped a lot of unvoiced cutscene the xpack needs more voiced cutscnes Aside from that I had a blast and the raids were good the dungeons were peak IU look forwards to what they have next! xD

Nice Bakuul Jaja cosplay 🤣

It wasn't too bad honestly, it had that Stormblood syndrome of not being very centric and jumped around too much especially with Wuk Lamat's character. Granted i play on Japanese and her VA wasn't too annoying like what i've heard of her EN VA. Once the reveal happens it does get better but it still suffered from pacing & continuity issues. Hopefully the subsequent patches improves the overall expansion just like how the content patches for Stormblood vastly improved the quality of it and by the end of Stormblood it was a very good expansion. Judging by the new raid tier it looks promising cause just like with Stormblood the content patches gave us one of the best raid tiers in FF14 with Omega and the Arcadion has a very similar vibe.

i just play for combat , fun content & glamour, my only issue with the game currently is it feels like GNB has no purpose and is falling behind in damage, and i don't want to hear about parses and FFLogs, those aren't reliable there's too much variability in it for it to be used to gauge a classes efficiency, if they are going to keep complicating things for GNB there should be a benefit to it, if not and they just want to push it along like a failing child in the education system, then they need to simplify it a bit so that people aren't pressing twice the amount of buttons just to do the same or less damage as other jobs in the same type.

My problem with Dawntrail is the same exact problem I had with EW but worse; It felt like the story was originally meant to be longer, but had to be cut short to fit in the initial release.

I had low expectations this expansion. Im enjoying it, not Shadowbringers caliber but is the first one of the new era. They are trying something new. We’ll see what comes next.

My problem, thus far with the story, has to be how disjointed it is. We go from learning about cultures, then oooo wait the villian we have had up until this point has a tragic backstory and bam hes forgiven and a friend. BUT WAIT this other bad guy who realistically has just been a creep the entire time, goes 30 years in the future with another civilization while we go out and play with cowboys because.. we can? BUT NOW its cowboys vs aliens but we dont stop there we need to make sure we do the FFIX references and make zarall ja the kujs of the story but also not the main villian like he was in IX because we need to include a world ending threat because were the WOL. to me they didn't do enough development in both areas of the characters of wuk and zarall Ja to make any of them feel like they actually developed. Learning about the cultures was awesome IMO, however it did drag on often times i felt like they could have dont a lot more minigames which would have made learning about the stories more interactive instead of read 50 million lines of dialouge.

The story was weak and clearly trying to cast a wider net into the younger and more weebish audience. I still want to support it, since I've been playing since pre realm reborn, but if I see the next xpac doesnt get a little more serious and better written, I may have to retire with endwalker as my cannon end. Gameplay was essentially more of the same. P.S I love peace and friendship.

SPOILERS, and good review btw By itself it's a very mediocre expansion, I'd go as far as to say it's stormblood levels of mediocre, if not worse. I found out that the writer that wrote SHB and EW did not write this expansion, and it shows. The weird story beats have always been a thing but I'd say in DT it was way more noticeable. Sure we got to go somewhere new and see some cool new things, but we were told we'd have a vacation, we did not get a vacation, someone showed up and once again needed our help, which in turn, turned into us saving literally everyone again. Want to know who went on a vacation? Estinien, literally whenever I saw him I wished I would have switched places with him, instead of being tied by the ankle to Wuk Lamat. We didn't go on a vacation/adventure, we were the chauffeur for Wuk Lamats adventure, I can see how this has upset a lot of people. People don't like being told one thing and getting something else. The writing/story of the first half of the story is the definition of "ok". Same crap different pile, someone shows up, needs our help. How creative. We couldn't have at least went there on our own? The writing and story of the last half is lazy. Sphene is a copy paste and lesser Emet-selch, literally, she's fighting to preserve her people from an age long past etc, ALSO why didn't the Ascians know about the key to fuse reflections? Seems like that would of helped them a great deal? Plot hole? More lazy writing? "Prey return to Wuk Lamat", I don't recall this being used on any other character, besides in ARR, and we all know why it's a thing from ARR. This goes into my other point in how this expansions writing and story is overall mediocre, because it all hinges on if you like this singular character, and if you don't like her well be prepared because out of the 100 MSQ she hands out at least 34 of them, and she's in a dozen more of the other MSQs as well. I'm pretty sure the only time you are truly apart is when you go to that one western place with Erenvile, and that doesn't even last long lol. The game has felt rushed for awhile, the patch quests with the gods could of been an expansion, The Endless and Sphene could of had an entire expansion around them to flush them out, maybe I would of given a crap about them then. All good ideas, wasted. I think there's a reason as to why so many people are split on this character and expansion, and I think that in of itself is very telling since I only recall something like this happening in ARR, and Stormblood, which are both seen as the lesser parts of ff14. To end my rant on a positive note, The zones are AMAZING and the dungeons are pretty dang spicy!