Tristan Tripp

I've been playing FF14 since ARR Alpha in 2013- and this expansion is the first time I've been majorly disappointed. Pros: -Graphics update is incredible -New zones are beautiful -Music has been fantastic, as per usual. -All the dungeons and battles have been fun -New net code finally makes it so you don't get clipped by AoEs you just barely missed -New armor physics make for a ton more immersion Cons: -In an effort to distance the story from world ending events, weve been sent on a vacation- but in reality it's more of a business trip. Introduced, Wuk Lamat. -We meet Wuk Lamat for 5 minutes in Post Endwalker before she becomes the main protagonist of Dawntrail, and shoves us aside. -We are essentially hired muscle for her to succeed the throne that her adopted father is handing down. Except Wuk isn't really ready and is very naive and pretty dumb. This could be seen as an opportunity for character growth. But it's handled poorly and even by the end it doesn't feel like she did anything worthwhile, and really only gets it because 2/4 of the contenders are evil. -The first 65% of the expansion is running around collecting little rocks for tablets that supposedly open the door to a city. This is essentially where the 'vacation' happens. But it's just busiwork with little to not plot revelance. -Without getting into spoilers. There are numerous times where the story could have taken interesting routes in this early section by exploring more of these new characters we are adventuring with. Instead they stay extremely 1 dimensional with almost 0 nuance or background story exploration (save a couple of exposition dumps without much weight) it leaves them feeling under developed and just plain boring. -Wuk Lamats VA is very amateur, and mixed with Wuks boorish personality, it makes the character extremely dry and about halfway through the expansion it became nails on a chalkboard for me and I had to switch to JP voiceover, which I've never done in 3000 hours of playing this game. Its just that irritating, lifeless, and dull. -The writers treat you like you have short term memory (also apparently Wuk does as she constantly repeats herself). The game will constantly show you screenshots of things that happened only hours ago to nudge you and say "See? Remember that? Doesn't it make sense now? We foreshadowed this!!" Once or twice doesn't hurt anybody. But this happens over 25+ times throughout the expansion. Towards the end I was able to predict when they were going to do it and it became comical. -Continunity issues also happen extremely frequently, there's a moment where a character introduces themselves, and then 30 minutes later says it's time for introductions and introduces themselves again. -Our character (now a secondary protagonist) almost never intervenes. There are many moments where we could have likely saved the day and kept people from dying. But at least 3 times we are told to "stand by" and people suffer as a result. -The scions this time around are just stupid. Everyone's putting 250% of their brain into solving easy issues. Repeating themselves. Over explaining to you (again, writers acting like we are idiots) And also standing by while people make mistakes or die.