FFXIV Dawntrail

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FFXIV's latest expansion is out. This is what I think of it.

After the 10-year-long story of FFXIV's first major plotline ended in Endwalker, the last expansion, Dawntrail promised a start to a new story, presented in a relaxed, more low-stakes environment. With any FFXIV expansion, we expect a new level cap, new dungeons, new trials, new raids, new maps, new jobs, and much more. Has Dawntrail delivered on all of these? Yes! But ... not equally.

Level cap

As expected, the level cap raised from 90 to 100. There's no fuss here; the MSQ will get 1 job from 90 to 100 with plenty of room to spare. I leveled a second job from 90 to 100 just on 3 days of daily roulettes, so it goes quickly. Before Dawntrail, I got all jobs to 90 (80 on BLU, of course); I'm looking forward to bringing them all to 100 ... eventually.

Graphics update

I personally did run the benchmark tool when it came out, but I used the default derplander, not my own character, so when Dawntrail launched, that was the first time that I saw my character with the new graphics. Overall, I'm happy - my WoL looks better but still familiar. Many people report their characters being so different as to be looking at someone else. I didn't really feel the new graphics until I got into the new zones, but once I did, wow - the game looks great! Thankfully I don't have any trouble running the updated engine, especially following some information about optimal and recommended settings collected and published by members of the community - thank you! I think the biggest, most immediately visible impact of the new graphics is the ground textures. Additionally, looking at the new gear in Dawntrail, the increased texture resolutions are fantastic. As I've reached level 100 on PLD and AST so far, I love the look of their AF gear. As a consequence of the game looking better, it sure does make the PC fans spin faster, which is totally understandable but a bit of a shame.

Oh, yeah: can we please change the login screen to something that doesn't flash-bang us? Please?

Dungeons and Trials

In short: they slap! In both meanings of the word. They are interesting, exciting, visually beautiful and unique, the bosses have interesting mechanics, and the gear drops look good. Additionally, the mobs slap, hard! While tanking the dungeons, I had to make sure I was keeping my mitigation cooldowns rotating well to reduce the healer's workload, and while healing, I had to keep my own cooldowns readily on hand to make sure people didn't die. Several of the dungeon boss mechanics will easily 2-shot players, so healers (and the appropriate DoM classes) will be keeping their rez spells warmed up.

Similarly with the trial bosses, which can be done in trusts, Square Enix isn't pulling punches. These trials are pretty difficult until you start to recognize the mechanics and prepare accordingly. The DF groups I was in wiped at least once on all 3 trials, the second one three times, but then we got through them and everyone remarked about how much they enjoyed them.

Music

Surprisingly no one, the new music is fantastic.

I do want to mention, though, that I heard Endwalker music a few times (which is fine), and some of the "tried-and-true" cutscene mood tracks are getting pretty old and can draw me out of the cutscene rather than pull me in further.

Raids

They're not out yet.

Maps

The new maps are mostly excellent. The fist map is good, if simple; the second is very nice (I like forests); the first area of the third map is nice but not very different from the second map, but the second area is outstanding; I don't like the fourth map; map five is very good, and map six is fine. Of the two new hubs, the first is great and the second is excellent.

Overall, I've been very excited exploring the maps (even if we were kept from completing the first two until later in the story as they were split in half ala Kholusia) for aether currents, and I expect I'll continue to enjoy them as I do FATEs on DPS jobs and Hunts for many, many months to come.

Jobs

As mentioned, I've gotten PLD and AST to 100. I like the way that PLD is going; no specific complaints there. AST is ... okay, well, the new abilities are great, and (importantly for AST) look outstanding. Surprisingly no one, Square Enix completely revamped the card system again, and this is my least favorite iteration. I liked cards back in SB where we fished for Balance. I didn't mind the cards in EW where we got the 3 shapes for a personal buff. Here, they're just ... not fun. All the RNG is gone, and the cards individually are more like they were in SB where some are for offense, some for utility, and some for defense. As we draw 3 at a time, now, every 60 seconds, with no redraws or the like, we always know what we'll get. Only 1 of each draw is an damage up buff; all the others are basically for the tank. In dungeons, this is fine, since the AST will be the only healer and can put all the defensive/healing cards into the tank with a low chance of them going to waste (low, not none). In trials, having to dump or overwrite cards is a little more common, and in ALL LOWER LEVEL CONTENT I generally only use the damage card, one every sixth seconds, and ignore the rest. Yes, 75% of cards in lower-level content are useless. It's ridiculous.

I haven't tried PCT or VPR yet. I thought it in their reveal, I thought it in the job actions trailer, I thought it in the media tour, and it's been confirmed through gameplay: the Pictomancer spells are visually jarring and disruptive. I dislike having multiple Pictomancers in a duty, and since 95% of DPS roles are filled by one of the two new jobs, it's hard to see the new boss mechanics through all of the paint. It's disappointing, since I've wanted to play a character that fights by painting since Super Mario Sunshine.

Oh yeah, the DPS queues are insane, as expected.

Server performance

After the nutty release of Endwalker and queue times reaching well into 6 hours with frequent disconnects and queue kicks, I was preparing myself to be similarly treated. I was completely wrong! The servers have been incredibly stable (two disconnects that I know of) and queues have been, at max, 30 minutes at absolute peak. For the majority of my playtime, I've had only the standard login queue of under 50. Thank you, Square Enix!

Voice acting

Aaaaand into the less-good. The voice acting this expansion has been all over the place. Sometimes it's great, usually it's fine, sometimes it's awful, and usually it's not even there. I don't have a number, but I'd wager that around 60% of the cutscenes in Dawntrail are not voiced at all. I've had back-to-back cutscenes were the first will the voiced, the second not, and third is again. It's incredibly disruptive.

Most of the Voice Actors did good or great, though not all. Many lines were delivered as if to fit an entirely different mood and felt very out of place. I tried switching to the JP VAs for a while, just to take a break from some VAs I wasn't enjoying. At least there, I couldn't tell if the lines were being delivered well or not. I wanted several times to mute voice sounds.

Story

Well. Okay. Let's ... yeah.

The story.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS HERE.

I'd like to first make a couple of disclaimers:

  1. If you liked the story, I'm happy for you!
  2. Everyone is allowed their own opinion.
  3. My opinion matters to me and only me.
  4. I don't think poorly of you if you disagree with me.
  5. I'd like to make a distinction between "story content" and "story delivery".

Story content

As a recap, in Endwalker we finished a 10-year (!) story that started with ARR. We had background and context and feelings for many of the characters were stood alongside and stood against (and sometimes both). I was absolutely engrossed in the EW storyline, and found myself hit right in the feels many times.

In Dawntrail, we were told that we'd be starting fresh, starting a new story, a new thing, and that it'd be more casual, more relaxed, less the-world-is-ending-save-us. Fine! That's totally fine! Going back to back on the universe being deleted wouldn't make much sense, I was excited to see where the story would go. We knew some plot points of what we'd be doing: we're helping a cat woman in a contest for her adopted father's throne and searching for the "City of Gold" in the "New World" based on Central/South American culture, and we'd be joined by someone of our Scion friends while facing off against others. Great! While I didn't complete everything in it, I happily partook in the Island Sanctuary content and happily gathered my way to max in EW which allowed me to take a beat between combat encounters and such, and just enjoy the maps (highly recommended, btw; gathering is much simpler than crafting).

I've been surprised, though, to find much of this to not be true.

The first several levels of MSQ is helping Wuk Lamat, the third "child" of the current ruler, complete contests and puzzles since she is entirely incapable of doing so herself. The next few levels are her suddenly being good at stuff because she loves everyone. The next few levels are her being completely lost at what's going on, but clutching dearly to the idea that loving people will save everyone. Then she takes a turn and works with the player to kill her brother. Then it's back to loving everyone.

Her single, sole, only positive quality in life is that she is a social butterfly.

That's it.

She's not intelligent like Koana nor is she strong like Bakool Ja Ja (until, suddenly, she is) or Zoraal Ja (same). She's incredibly average, but has the WoL and Scions to fill those (gaping) skill gaps. The only reason she's the right choice (of two) for the throne is because Koana has his head in the clouds, Bakool Ja Ja was a horrible person, and Zoraal Ja managed to be even worse than that. Nice work, Dawnservant.

Throughout the trials, we come up against Koana who has Thancred and Urianger helping him. Cool! Scion against Scion! Nope. Barely. Even in the brief time that Wuk Lamat is actually against Koana, there's no real conflict of any kind. And for the majority of the story, both groups (and therefore all the Scions) are working together. Erm, wasn't this one of the main plot points we were going to have? Oh, there it goes, bye!

Really?

As the story progresses, the content does get better, though it does so by falling into a comfortable FFXIV place: the end of the universe as we know it. What, what? Yup, back to basics here! If we don't stop the BBEG, then the world is doomed! Cool, beat him (in a great trial, as stated above). Next up, the queen we thought was chill is actually not and the universe is threatened! Oh no!

Really?

Like, it's good, and I'm enjoying it, don't get me wrong: it's nice to have stakes in the story again. But isn't this exactly what we were told wasn't going to happen?

Some highlights:

  • Most stuff with Sphene
  • Bakool Ja Ja's redemption (even if pretty ham-fisted)
  • Krile's parents (though it dragged on)
  • Erenville's mom
  • Everything with Gulool Ja Ja
  • Most of the scenes dealing with conflict (unsurprisingly)
  • WoL sassy dialog options

Story delivery

The delivery of the story was ...

Awful.

Sorry not sorry.

Exposition cutscene after cutscene. Back to back. "Several cutscenes will play in sequence". Come out of a cutscene, click a character, and get more. Cutscene, cutscene, cutscene. Did Square Enix forget that the chief defining aspect of video games is the interactivity? Apparently.

So much agency was taking from my character (and therefore me) in playing through the story, especially the first half, that I spent more time watching what amounted to a (largely silent) movie on my screen that I couldn't really skip or risk FOMO and being lost. But I did. I did it. I broke the rule.

I skipped several cutscenes in the MSQ.

Not all, certainly, nor even the majority. Only twice have I regretted it, and both times I went to an inn and watched through what I had skipped to get right back on track. Dawntrail likes to put impactful cutscenes right after meaningless cutscenes so if you make it a few minutes into the first and then skip out of dire boredom, you'll likely skip the second (or third, or fourth) and miss something that actually matters. It's like they knew.

I lost track how many times I'd roll up to an NPC, talk to them, do some standard fetch quest thing, come back, and sit through 10+ minutes of nothing-burger cutscenes.

No thank you.

Conclusion

Besides a story that was poorly delivered by poorly-directed VAs in a script that bogged down throughout and failed to deliver on pretty much everything we were told beforehand, this expansion has been pretty great. The maps are good to great, the fights are excellent, the music is great, there's tons of new content, the server performance was stellar, etc. It's a shame that FFXIV's major strength, the story was, at best, fine this time around.

6.5/10 skip the first few levels of MSQ cutscenes.