Just sharing some thoughts on this as I procrastinate weekend working.
I am a relatively new player to FFXIV. I started earnestly about a year ago, after getting to around level 35 in the MSQ way back in 2015. Before FFXIV, my main MMO was Guild Wars 2 for around 9 years and prior to that WoW for around a similar amount of time.
As I progressed through the earlier expansions I was assured that the story was fantastic, even if major leaps in logic
spoiler
such as the construction of the huge Talos to reach Mount Gulg or Varis suddenly believing in the need for rejoining or Zenos turning up at the conclusion of Endwalker
were prevalent in all expansions.
I was also lead to believe that Dawntrail was going to be absolutely awful with terrible writing and a slog on the level of post-ARR. But, honestly, that hasn't been my experience so far. I have just finished the level 91 journal and I am finding the story of Dawntrail quite refreshing after how WoL-centric the previous expansions were and I am enjoying the world building being a bit more subtle and delivered via small character interactions rather than being beaten over the head with exposition for cutscene after cutscene.
I have been warned that there are moments where the narrative tension is sapped, but that was also really prevalent in Shadowbringers (as a Viera player, Rak'tika Greatwood was beyond disappointing) and Endwalker
spoiler
(much of Elpis and Ultima Thule)
I've also heard so many complaints about the balance and game design that I am just not really understanding. Perhaps I really need to dip my toes into Savage to understand this, but looking at the concerns it seems very quaint compared with the balance issues in other MMOs (looking at you Guild Wars 2)!
Maybe things really will get monumentally worse and I won't enjoy DT by the end of it, but I am enjoying DT considerably more at this stage than the other expansions aside from Shadowbringers.
I will try to remember to come back and share thoughts when I am done!
I... really quite Wuk Lamat so far and I think the English voice acting for the character is one of the stronger examples of good VA in FFXIV.
Not entirely sure what happened with Thancred's voice though since EW. He now seems to be stuck in the Metal Gear Thancred mode from the stealth quest section of EW!
I am quite enjoying the pace of the story line, but I am expecting it to become a bit more of a drag at one point since there is generally at least one section of the X1 to X7 story in each expansion that just feels there for the sake of being there.
The entire Stormblood expansion felt like a drag to me. 😅
I enjoyed the Steppe section but everything else (aside from Lyse doing some fun stuff every now and then) was just not enjoyable in the slightest. Post-Stormblood was really good though imo!
Y’shtola’s burn was the best line in the expac.
“I am…not interested little sun. Try again when you become a man.”
Then Sadu picks up and runs with it. 🤣
One of the moments that made the Steppe section in Stormblood the best the expansion had to offer until Tsuyu!
I didn't mind her, but there was too much of her.
There was an infographic that showed the sheer amount of dialogue that she had (in addition to over a hundred quest objectives to talk to her), and she beat out every single forerunner character in every expansion except Alphinaud in sheer amounts of dialogue. She had more dialogue than some of them combined. (Alphinaud has 5,275 lines across all expansion MSQ, Alisae 3,162. Wuk Lamot has 3,077 in a single expansion and in the entire MSQ ranks third for most lines and fifth for most words overall.)
7.2 had her finally step back a bit and introduced us to a new story forerunner, and it immediately was much better received than 7.0 and 7.1
Also Wuk's English VA got utterly screwed by the English voice director. They plainly gave her horrendous directions (much like they did Talesin Jaffe and Sam Reigel) and little context to the events during a scene. The cutscene in the third trial is significantly better after the retake. It was night and day.
For those interested, here's the entire analysis: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1hvuz9t/i_analyzed_all_the_dialogue_from_arr_20_to/
I saw that analysis! I'm currently just before the level 95 dungeon and while there are quite a few "speak with Wuk Lamat" quest endings so far, I'm not feeling overwhelmed by it in the slightest. So far, I'm quite enjoying DT but I do think there is a good degree of novelty since it's not obviously an expansion that hinges massively on the Ascians / Ancients and that's pretty nice. I do strongly think that is why I enjoyed post-EW and quite liked Zero despite an obviously one dimensional character carried by an angsty hat tilt.
I'm also not at all bothered by Wuk Lamat in terms of character or voice acting. From the outrage online I was anticipating something truly awful and that's not been the case for me.
Maybe it will all come tumbling down soon though. I'm yet to hit the pacing issues and the equivalent of "Raktika / Trolley / Giant Talos" or "let's kill all momentum and visit Elpis and by the way this type of time travel is entirely different from what we established previously yay".
I really do hope the final zone of DT is good though because all the prior ones have been really, really lacklustre imo. I really, really wanted to like Ultima Thule due to the setting and the amazing music but the quest for inspecting the malfunctioning Omnicron really was the signpost that it was only going to get worse...