know the office rules
overconfident idiot who learns better (male): compelling, fun, shows maturity in writing
overconfident idiot who learns better (female): BITCH, MARY SUE, THE WORST CHARACTER IN FFXIV HISTORY

Dawntrail is a filter for people who have never played a final fantasy game, providing a good but slow story alongside flatout the best encounter design the game has ever seen. I think there's a lot that people will hate the first half and love the second half, and the opposite. The story is very much that of a self contained final fantasy game, for better or worse. Even though I liked the story from beginning to end, it's got pacing problems like no expac before it, and I think the blame for that lies squarely on the shoulders of too many non voiced cutscenes that could have just been textboxes without anything being lost.
But that's boring to talk about honestly. The story's subjective. I know people that love ARR, love SB, hate ShB. What's dope as hell is the dungeons and trials. It'll have to be seen if the raid series shit the bed or not but right now? These are the best the dungeons and trials have ever been. The final boss of Dawntrail is my new favorite fight in the game and it's not even close. The first trial is tough enough that we had to decide a prio system in a duty finder party!!! In a normal mode trial!!! It's crazy how the braindead easy endwalker patch trials became this, god DAMN.
So yeah, gameplay's good, story is hit or miss but I think it's got a lot more to like than Stormblood. Is it better than Shadowbringers or Endwalker? No, but I think it clears Heavensward pretty easy. Might update with more stuff as the extra content rolls in, might not.

there's a capybara mount now and it's probably the smallest mount in the game, so perfect