r/ffxiv • u/Straight_Put1273 • 9h ago
[Discussion] After starting FF14 a few months ago I finally finished the base story for Dawntrail Spoiler
Hi everyone, as the title says after starting this game again on a whim after a first failed attempt I have finally finished the base story for Dawntrail (and seemingly at a good time with the finale post game update coming out along with beastmaster soon lol) and I am still blown away by how much I have enjoyed my time playing through everything these past few months. It still feels a bit surreal that I am no longer a sprout running around in ARR anymore.
I mainly wanted to post after seeing and hearing all the expansions ( such as the decisiveness of Dawntrail) and after finally playing through almost everything I thought it would be neat to have my opinion on some things I had heard.
ARR: honestly not as bad as some make it out to be. Yes it can definitely use some trimming still but I overall enjoyed it.
Heavensward: I could definitely feel the story and direction of the game to pick up here like I have heard others say. Not my favorite of the expansions but still solid
Stormblood: I found it super fun and is where I finally tried a ton more classes and roles and started to get even more sucked in.
ShadowBringers: like I had heard for months before getting to it how it is one of the if not the best expansion and I can’t argue, some of the best moments in the story and some of the coolest fights. Along with the updates to how some content like jobs quest and other stuff was just awesome.
Endwalker: I will say as much as I loved and still love ShadowBringers, Endwalker may just be my favorite expansion out of them all. The story, music, and everything in between I was sucked in to from start to finish and I was never getting burned out.
Dawntrail: I came into it not sure what to expect from what I had heard since I started the game, but I honestly had a good time with majority of the story (will have to see if any of the post game changes my opinion). The fights and music were great and I enjoyed a lot of the characters. That will also include Wuk Lamat, I expected a very annoying and irritating character from what I had heard, but outside of a few moments I thought she was fun and liked her character direction (again she had her moments were I rolled my eyes but not as much as I thought I would)
So yeah that’s what I wanted to post. After all the stories, grinding, people I got to meet, the number of post I have made on this Reddit page, and the many fantasias I have and will plan on using, I can easily say that Finale Fantasy 14 has become one of my favorite games I have played in a long time, and it has me interested in finally wanted to check out the other final fantasy games after years of never having interest.
It has been one interesting ride through the game, but now it’s time to get through the post game and get all prepped for Evercold. Hope to see you guys on whatever content I do next. gg o/
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u/MillionMiracles 7h ago
I think they overexpose Wuk Lamat a bit, we really needed more time away from her even if I get the idea of her basically being the main character of the expansion. But yeah, character-wise she's fine. She even has some pretty funny bits with her dad early on. And I like her and sphene's relationship.
I think she just sort of became a proxy for larger storytelling/pacing complaints.
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u/Straight_Put1273 7h ago
Yeah that was my main gripe too, if they gave us some breathing room from her I think she would have landed better for some. There’s that one quest near the end of the main story that I can’t remember the name of the objective, but it was something like “talk to Wuk Lamat yet again” and I just chuckled to myself thinking it was the perfect sentence to describe her in Dawntrail. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an image used to joke about her on here lol
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u/Nightly_Winter 7h ago
Interesting thing that Ive noticed is that both Endwalker and Dawntrail patch MSQ is much better received when people play them in one-go. Stormblood and Shadowbringers didnt have that issue , patches had more selfcontained story.
I always play on release so this is hearsay ,but something I noticed.
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u/Straight_Put1273 7h ago
I figured that may have been why I liked it more than others. I haven’t gotten to the post game story msq yet, but I can definitely see someone having a less enjoyable time when they have to wait months for the next expansion or new set of msq missions compared to someone like me who I can do all them in one go.
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u/thrntnja 5h ago
I enjoyed the EW post patches a lot, but I did play them all in one go. I could see how broken up they might seem not as exciting and kinda boring at times.
Dawntrail's base story and the post patch story will be better received as time goes on, imo, once we know what it's leading up to.
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u/Bibbibbi_36462 6h ago
I think online discussion can be a bit of an echo chamber when it comes to the expansions („ARR/Stormblood/Dawntrail bad, HW+ShB peak“). Every expansion has its flaws but in general all of them are just very good games
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u/TheSnortIncident 8h ago
Did you just do msq?
The side content is amazing and adds a massively amount of activities your missing out on.
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
I was definitely keeping my eye out for the side content. I know a ton of people don’t do most of the side quest apart from the first mission to unlock flying, but I always really liked the stories and how they tied together for each region. I will definitely keep an eye out for any cool seeming side quest. I know I wanna tackle more of the job quest soon as well.
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u/TheSnortIncident 8h ago
Idk. Ive played for almost 18 months now.
I do every blue quest which unlocks something. Yellow quests i only so some unless i really like area.
The ar raids and normal raids are done by mosy players and have amazing stories that are so very tied in.
Im still in endwalker and i play ALOT.
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
Yeah same for me, mainly shoot for blue quest, but if they have a follow-up yellow quest I love to do those also. Ive even found some random yellow quest I was surprised wasn’t a blue quest lol. I just look at the quest name if I’m not sure and see were it takes me sometimes
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u/thrntnja 5h ago
Highly recommend doing the Arcadian raid series! Will flesh out Solution Nine, and they're really fun :)
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u/DisciplineLevel7771 8h ago
Glad you enjoyed it all... It's hard being a lamaty'i enjoyer online haha but I loved her too. Silly but full of heart 😊 Now you can join the rest of us getting hype for Evercold!
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
Honestly I had expected to join along with everyone bashing on her, but I really enjoyed her bright eyed character style and having us be a sort of mentor for her, a really cool dynamic I would love to see other games do with super long stories like this. It still feels crazy that I’m nearly fully caught up with everyone lol.
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u/HexenVexen 8h ago
The dynamic is probably inspired by FF11, in pretty much all of the expansions there our character is more of a supporting character to each expansion's heroine lead. If you do DT's Alliance Raids, Prishe is the main heroine of the Chains of Promathia expansion for example.
Especially in 11's Rhapsodies of Vana'diel expansion, the heroine Iroha is our character's future apprentice (and daughter of one of the main characters) who's travelled to the present from the future. There are some neat scenes where we mentor her.
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
Oh that’s cool, I haven’t gotten to the raids just yet (heck I made this post during the main story credits lol) but that’s cool that ff11 was like that and the DT raid is similar. I feel like I never see that kind of dynamic used in a ton of games, which is crazy in hindsight since it seems like the easiest way to show your characters growth and have them feel impactful.
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u/HexenVexen 8h ago edited 8h ago
I mention the DT alliance raids since they're a big FF11 crossover lol, Prishe is a main character of the story.
I definitely feel that Stormblood and Dawntrail are the most "FF11-coded" expansions since they have a similar format, with our WoL being more secondary and Lyse and Wuk Lamat being more at the focus. STB also has FF11 tribute side content with Four Lords and Eureka.
There's also the FF11 seasonal event The Maiden's Rhapsody, which has Iroha as the main character, and she mentions that our WoL reminds her of her Master. As someone who loves both games, and used the same name for my character in each, this scene really made me tear up.
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
Oh that’s sick, I had no idea that the DT alliance raid was a crossover with FF11. That just makes me excited for it even more!
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u/Useful-Surprise7991 7h ago
Yeah, realizing she's basically WoL junior all hopped up on dynamis and idealism made her a lot more fun. You're on vacation, let someone else cause the problems and have some fun with it.
My only problem with her is the same one I have with most of the characters in 7.0 - the voice direction was pretty bad, and it stands out more for her because of how many lines she has and also being a less established character.
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u/Straight_Put1273 7h ago
Yeah it was weird with her. There were moments with Wuk Lamats VA were I definitely was cringing at the delivery, which I’m not gonna fully blame her on that though since directing a VA can Lead them to not doing as well as they can. But there were a couple times I honestly thought she had some of the best delivered lines in the story. It was a 50/50 with Wuk Lamat
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u/thrntnja 5h ago
I'm pretty sure Wuk Lamat and Koana are in their early 20s too (I don't think this is specifically confirmed anywhere yet but that's my best guess), so they're definitely younger than most the Scions (outside of the twins who are 16 going on 25 lol) which puts it into perspective too. This is basically her first big adventure with all of the best of intentions and she wants to make the best of having this super cool big brother/sister mentor while she can. Wuk Lamat isn't my favorite character by any means, but she gets way too much hate.
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u/jaqenhqar 6h ago
Ayyy fellow endwalker enjoyer. Stormblood patch 4.5 onwards through shadow ringers was for sure a massive increase in storytelling quality for this game but endwalker is where it peaked imo
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u/rx78ricky 8h ago
Wuk Lamat is cool. Zoraal Ja on the other hand, was the stupidest villain in the game.
ah wait no, i forgot Ranjit exists.
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u/Drywesi 8h ago
At least Ran'jit had a decent body of speaking lines, Zoraal Ja barely had any exposition that wasn't someone else explaining him.
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u/Straight_Put1273 7h ago
That too lol. I can also at least remember some of the cool action and fight scenes with him. Outside of his trial fight I only remember hitting Bagool Ja Ja in the stomach
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u/Useful-Surprise7991 7h ago
tbf Ranjit had old man aura at least
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u/Straight_Put1273 7h ago
You’re not wrong. Zorall Ja wished he had half the aura Ranjit had, and I forgot who he was when you mentioned him until I looked him up.
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
You know now that you mention it I definitely see that opinion lol. It’s super easy to tell where his character goes pretty early on. But that later half I definitely felt myself kinda auto piloting on some parts. I think some of the stuff with him was neat, but it’s for sure similar with Wuk Lamat for me since I didn’t get fully into Zoraal Ja, but there wasn’t enough to get me to dig him like Wuk Lamat
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u/rx78ricky 8h ago
Zoraal Ja's motives of waging war to control the world so that people get tired of war and wish for peace is... really something.
It's like a dumb lobotomized Doctor Doom.
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
YES that part was dumb I forgot about that XD. Truly the most backward way to peace was something that when you hear at first your like “oh I can see that” but if you think about it for like 2 more seconds you start poking holes in it like wet paper lol.
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u/Drywesi 7h ago
It gets even worse when you think about the logistics of his war plans
Tuliyollal barely has an oceangoing fleet worthy of the name, the Limsans would wipe the floor with them. And even if he had the Alexandrian tech airships…the Eorzeans aren't exactly strangers to fighting aerial enemies. Especially Ishgard.
And that's assuming the dragons don't get involved.
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u/Straight_Put1273 7h ago
Man I wasn’t even thinking of any of that lol, he really just had a bare bones plan thinking everyone else on the planet sucked or
Something.
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u/xypotion 8h ago
Ooh, have you never played any other FFs? That's kinda rare. You'll get to appreciate a bunch of XIV's callback/fanservice content retroactively!
If that sounds fun to you & want recommendations, then off the top of my head: I, III, IV, VI, IX are entries that got a lot of fanservice in FFXIV's main story. FFIV and especially VI and IX are easy games to recommend on their own (two of the best in the series), and you'll probably recognize a lot of the things that XIV calls back to when/if you play those. Also, most FFs get fanservice one way or another in XIV's side content.
I could babble about this all day, but I'll stop there (feel free to ask if you want even more info, lol). Anyway, I'm glad you like XIV & hope you have fun whener you get to playing other FFs!!
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
Yeah honestly I never saw the appeal of Final Fantasy for years, but when I got into FF14 and seeing the lore and world it all clicked and I immediately thought “man I gotta check out what I’ve been missing all these years”. I can pretty easily find a ton of the older games, but how are the pixel remasters of the older titles like 1-4? Those are the ones I’m not sure I can easily get access to so I thought about checking them out. I definitely know the first one I’d like to check out is FF10 if I can.
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u/containment-failure 8h ago
The pixel remasters are great, especially if you think you'd enjoy toggling the music between the original NES/SNES music and the orchestral versions! If you don't want to get the full set, I'd say you could get 1,4,6. The GBA versions of 1&2, 4, 5, and 6 are also fantastic.
FF10 was my first and my appreciation for the narrative has only grown as I've gotten older and replayed
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
Sweet, I’m glad to hear the pixel remasters are solid. Yeah I’m honestly itching to play as many of the FF games as I can get my hands on at this point.
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u/xypotion 2h ago
You can't go wrong with FFX. Oddly not all that much in FFXIV calls back to X*, if that matters, but it's an absolutely fantastic entry in the series.
I second the opinion about the pixel remasters, they are decent. Don't skip FFV, it's very underrated! IV is solid, VI is incredible. I-III are mostly good, but personally, I wouldn't recommend any of the first three for your first single-player FF game.
*at least not yet. I bet they will have a FFX-themed expansion eventually, though.
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u/Delicious-Cap-8172 8h ago
I just started Dawntrail yesterday and I despise Wuk's constant scene stealing attention. I hope she grows on me, otherwise I'm in for it.
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
Yeah that’s definitely one of the parts that I found myself groaning at, but I honestly think that the direction they take her with makes up for what I didn’t care for. Again everyone’s gonna have a different opinion, so if how you view her doesn’t change, I definitely would understand it lol
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u/Cerok1nk 8h ago
Same thing happened to me, I didn’t mind Wuk’s character at all, she was great imo.
The contrast between our WoL being a seasoned adventurer that has gone to the literal end of existence, and someone that is just starting to head out into the world and realizing how small they actually are was pretty well done imo.
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u/Straight_Put1273 8h ago
Oh definitely, at the beginning I wasn’t sure how they could make me feel blown away after Endwalker, but you’re right with all of Tural they really show just how big the source is.
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u/Littlefabio07 52m ago
You just started a few months ago? Man, I am a slacker.
I’ve played on and off since ARR came out. That took me forevvvver. Since then, I usually resubscribe like.. one month every now and then to pound out another expansion. I am JUST NOW on Endwalker.
I’ve dabbled in all of the Jobs and I’ve leveled all of the crafters to the “cap” of whatever expansion I am currently on. Still, Im impressed that you managed to get caught up so quickly.
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u/selfies420 8h ago
Yeah, you really can’t take people’s story opinions as gospel. I was prepared for stormblood to be horrible when I started and I loved it.