My Summer Vacation in FFXIV: Dawntrail
[Spoilers ahead!]
I finished the latest FFXIV expansion Dawntrail last week and I’ve been thinking about it a lot - both in terms of my opinions on the expansion itself as well as my relationship with the game as a whole.
I wrote a post on the previous expansion Endwalker recently (which you can read here if you want) and my thoughts on that essentially boiled down to finding it to be so disappointing it almost made me want to stop playing entirely. Quitting an MMO you’ve been playing for almost a decade and especially one where you’ve met life-long friends is extremely difficult to do, so I decided to hedge my bets on Dawntrail and see if I want to stay, or decide to move to brighter shores.
I found Dawntrail to be a small step in the right direction with a lackluster story that felt like a chore to get through, but also with some of the best combat encounters in the whole series that has me hopeful for the rest of this expansion cycle.
To get my hottest (read: most lukewarm) take out of the way first - I can’t stand the FFXIV MSQ formula anymore. For nearly a decade I have been talking to an NPC, slowly puttering across a large map on my motorcycle mount to talk to another NPC, going back to the original NPC, killing a couple enemies or collecting some items, then watching a long cutscene. Rinse and repeat for 50 hours until the credits roll.
During Shadowbringers and most of Endwalker, I was okay with the formula because I found the story engaging enough for the most part to want to keep doing quests to see what happens. In post-game Endwalker and Dawntrail MSQ where the story simply isn’t as good (which I’ll get into more shortly), doing MSQ quests felt like a complete slog. Endwalker increased the amount of exposition cutscenes pretty substantially and Dawntrail continues this trend. The gaps between things like dungeons, trials and woefully underutilized solo duties especially seem wider and wider.
The formula desperately needs to be shaken up. The dev team tried to do this a little bit in Endwalker by adding NPC trailing missions and they were almost universally hated, for good reason. That experience seemed to scare them from trying something else so we got no shake-ups in Dawntrail. Unfortunately, based on my experiences playing FFXVI last summer, a game by the same developers that has an almost identical MSQ structure (and one that I also stopped playing after 15 hours because I got bored) I don’t think the formula is going to be changed. But god I hope to be surprised. I don’t know if I can stomach another full expansion doing the same quest and cutscene flowcharts.
The story I found to be a real mixed bag and kind of disappointed me by the end. The gist of it is at the end of the Endwalker post game scenario, you meet a character named Wuk Lamat from a nation called Tuliyollal on the western continent of Tural, where she is to embark on a rite of succession and seeks the player’s help in ascending to the throne and finding a mysterious “golden city” told in legend.
The new major city Tuliyollal
The vibe here is more of a summer vacation with lower stakes, at least for the first half. I’ve always appreciated the quality of FFXIV worldbuilding and I found Tural to have some of the best in the whole game. Tural is based on Latin and South America, and the developers took great care in building these new areas which are both beautiful and fun to explore. The first half of the game concerns the rite of succession, which sees the party exploring Tural and learning more about all the different people and cultures, while competing with the other electors who seek the throne for their own means.
This was my favorite part of the MSQ. I always found FFXIV’s writing to be at its best when it explores smaller, lower-stakes stories that really give you the chance to be immersed in its world. It’s genuinely fun to explore and it felt so refreshing to get more lore on parts of FFXIV that don’t involve Ascians, Ancients or anything of that nature that we’ve been dealing with for the last two expansions.
The second half of the story to me felt completely disjointed and while it delivers some good emotional payoff that FFXIV is known for, feels at odds with the beginning of the game and is a little too close in tone to previous expansions for my liking.
After Wuk Lamat ascends to the throne, the Warrior of Light and Erenville explore more of Tural only to find out that the “golden city” was a portal to another dimension called Alexandria, where Zoraal Ja, the main antagonist of the game, has fused part of it with Tural and has been ruling over it with their queen Sphene. Alexandria is a futuristic society in a timeskip, where 30 years have passed and a big part of the story is dealing with the repercussions of those who were trapped there and assimilated into Alexandrian society.
Solution 9, the major city in Alexandria. Same game as earlier btw.
The Alexandria part of the story didn’t grip me as much as the Tural portion did. As mentioned, it had some really good emotional set pieces, but the tone felt too similar to previous expansions to really make a big impact for me. The allusions to more alternate worlds and shards made me feel like they are going to be chasing the high of Shadowbringers’ narrative for the rest of this game’s lifespan. It also just felt really disjointed to the rest of the story and had the Endwalker problem of feeling like two separate games, only marginally connected by an antagonist that didn’t get enough characterization in the first half only to be suddenly elevated in the second half. Shaaloani, the fourth area, feels like filler. The radically differently designed fifth and sixth areas compared to the rest of Tural, while cool, don’t help either.
I had really mixed feelings over the final area, Living Memory. I found it to be some of the best environmental storytelling in FFXIV and had some of of the best emotional beats in the whole game (my first thought after finishing it was “huh maybe I should call my parents!"), but at the same time it felt almost exactly the same as going through Ultima Thule in Endwalker. Thematically it was perfect - learning about how the area is filled with the saved memories of Alexandria’s deceased citizens including certain family members of the party, getting to interact with them in “human” form, then having to shut down each section, erasing everything and everyone and turning the whole area gray over time was really memorable. But I really couldn’t shake the feeling that we did this all before during the last expansion in Ultima Thule, and that the writers just doubled down on it because it worked so well last time.
Wuk Lamat
Other gripes I had with the story include FFXIV’s famous poor pacing and tone which makes a grand return in Dawntrail. It genuinely feels that the writers can only write a scenario in which the WoL and their companions have to save the world from an otherworldly threat that’s afraid of the concept of death as we’ve had this for two expansions in a row. Like Endwalker (and ESPECIALLY Endwalker post game patches) pacing can be glacially slow due to XIV’s MSQ formula which I explained earlier, an overreliance on exposition cutscenes, and the classic FFXIV story issue of “oh no the world is ending! But before we can do anything about it, we have to talk to all these NPCs and collect berries for them first!” which completely kills the pacing of the game and sends the tone out of whack.
Character writing also seemed to have taken a hit from the last expansion too. Dawntrail is all about Wuk Lamat. You will either love or hate her. She is essentially a shonen protagonist who spends the game learning about the power of friendship and how to become a successful leader. I thought she was an okay character but the game spends the majority of its focus on her which I didn’t particularly like as everyone else takes a back seat to the detriment of the plot - which is especially weird since FFXIV has always been such a game about an ensemble cast. The other three contenders for the throne, Koana, Bakool Ja Ja, and Zoraal Ja don’t get nearly enough exposition. Koana is boring as the other “good guy”, Zoraal Ja kind of just exists until the game decides he needs to be evil right at the end, and Bakool Ja Ja, the most fun new character in my opinion, has an interesting arc that is cut too short and he will forever be known as the meme character that one girl on Twitter wants carnally. The other big antagonist, Sphene, has potential but she too kind of gets thrown at the back half of the story and her arc is entirely predictable. Erenville and Krile get their needed backstories, but they kind of ride the coattails of Wuk Lamat until the very end of the story where they get their sad emotional payouts then just kind of exist for the rest of the game.
Bakool Ja Ja. People really like him!
Also the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. It’s time to retire them. Dawntrail was described by Yoshi-P as a brand new era, brand new characters and new conflicts between existing characters - specifically certain Scions working against each other to get their preferred candidates to the throne. None of this happens at all. Any conflicts between Scions are toothless and resolved almost immediately. When they all reunite halfway through the story to stop Zoraal Ja I genuinely laughed. The game feels written by committee at this point where the writers have to keep including these characters to sell merchandise and keep the fandom engaged when honestly their storylines are over and it's time for some fresh blood in the cast! These broken promises were absolutely my biggest gripe, and I expected a much fresher story.
Dawntrail’s MSQ had potential, but its insistence to stick to FFXIV’s formula set long ago and solidified by the past two expansions made it feel very predictable and was generally disappointing.
The actual fight design and content though saves Dawntrail and gives me hope that the rest of the expansion cycle will be very fun.
Dungeons, trials and solo instances are the best they have ever been. The skill floor has FINALLY been raised after years of boring encounters that provide little to no challenge for longtime players. The new dungeons and trials are thematically cool, actually challenging now and have really fun boss battles. I play warrior and I could get through dungeons just by using Bloodwhetting every 25 seconds, closing my eyes, and having my healer maybe press an OGCD heal a couple times to keep me alive. Not anymore! I have to be engaged and actually press multiple cooldowns while dodging mechanics, as the game should be! The new trials are incredibly fun and the EXs are even better. Hell, even the expert dungeons finally feel like dungeons for max level players with crazy boss mechanics.
I’m really excited to see the new normal raids. I think the Arcadion vibe is going to be better than the weird Tim and Eric Awesome Show Ascian plot thing we got in Endwalker (in which I admit I was cutscene skipping by the end). I’ve retired from savage raiding in FFXIV, but am genuinely hoping the fights are better this time around in both normal and savage, and based on the story content I think that will be the case.
Pictomancer. Think I might unlock this class after I publish this review...
The new classes I haven’t really given a try yet but I’ve heard good things about both from friends. Pictomancer seems to be a really creative and fun caster class and Viper while simple keeps you engaged with positionals. The rest of the classes I’ve been playing, namely Warrior, Scholar and Machinist so far, have gotten small improvements to their kits that enhance already existing moves or add second capstones to existing buttons, which are fine but aren’t really that exciting. The issues from Endwalker with the disliked two minute meta and general class homogenization still exist unfortunately, with classes such as Monk or Astrologian still getting reworks to this day for some reason too. Supposedly in 8.0 the team will be focusing on class individuality again, which I will believe when I see it to be honest.
As of now, it’s a little too early to fully assess the rest of the game’s content as it’s not out yet. It really feels like the dev team has heard feedback based on how sparse and raid-heavy Endwalker content was, and as someone who seeks to play FFXIV casually again, I’m excited to sink my teeth into the new mid-core content like exploration zones and the new space farming thing they’ve teased.
On that note though, the thought of having to level and gear all my classes again, as well as unlock the new classes, completing FATEs to unlock vendors in all the areas, and CRAFTING… oh god crafting and gathering… I can’t lie, I’ve been dreading it. Gear schedules in Endwalker were not adjusted to the longer patch cycles which meant gearing alt jobs felt like a slog. And I like playing lots of different jobs! Maybe it's because I’ve been playing for so long but I just haven’t really had the drive to sit down and do my roulettes every day to get jobs leveled to 100 either. There’s always that limbo period when a new expansion drops and before we get into the FFXIV raid and content schedule so it may just be that, but also at the same time, the fact that I am already feeling bored with leveling this soon feels like a bad sign for me.
Finally, Dawntrail got some much needed graphic and quality of life improvements. The new graphics are a noticeable improvement. My character got some very subtle changes that makes him look more like the sad middle-aged man I want him to be, so that’s a win in my book. Environments, textures and new armor looks awesome. Not everything has been updated yet, so some older gear looks a little rough (especially scaled up on my Roegadyn). The game itself seems to have less technical issues than Endwalker. Small annoyances like delay after using pots has been fixed in fights, and most importantly, it was actually possible to log in during early access! There were long queues but no serious issues and the new infrastructure they put in allows for more instances, better swapping between instances during hunt trains and just a general smoother feeling game. Other quality of life improvements like multiple dye channels and FINALLY real blacklisting and moderation features are much needed and I am always looking forward to seeing more. They just really have to fix the glamour system next LMAO.
The lighting is significantly improved too!
Soundtrack is amazing as always with some real bangers from Soken and the music team. My personal favorite has to be the phase 1 final boss track which just fits perfectly with the fight. Some of the voice acting is real bizarre though, with some very questionable sounding NPCs and performances from the Scions that sound phoned in and slightly off. I know a common complaint was the amount of important story cutscenes that aren’t voiced and while I personally don’t mind, I think this is something the team should focus on in the next expansion.
Despite all my mixed feelings on Dawntrail, I’m excited to see what’s in store. Gameplay wise, it seems like they’ve really been listening to fan feedback about what went wrong during Endwalker, but I wish the story went the same way. I’m hoping that all the kinks with the switch to new writers after base game Endwalker will work themselves out and the team will find a way to write themselves out of the influence of Shadowbringers and to new heights. The potential is there, but it's up to the team to achieve it.
On a personal note, I’m hoping going back to playing FFXIV ultra casually will help me enjoy the game again. I’m excited to play at my own pace, set my own goals, and (sorry to my old statics I love you all very much genuinely) not have scheduled raiding days anymore. Expansion launches bring out stress in people which I have seen first hand in my FC and in a couple discords I’m in, and taking my time with MSQ and only playing when I feel like playing instead of forcing myself to the end like I did in Endwalker was definitely the right call. I have the next couple years to get everything done I want to. Plus, that fortnite battle pass isn’t going to finish itself.
No matter what Square Enix may do to their flagship MMO, they can never make me hate my very special boy Brock Hampton.
