Erenville: "Mother! Why didn't you tell me you're an Endless?!" Cahciua:" Why are you the only Turali with an Icelandic accent?! Even _I_ don't have one!" Erenville: "I... shit..." 🤓 I had to poke fun at it. 😂
That alone would have made people think that Koana was more at odds with Wuk Lamat, and honestly there is such an easy way to justify it. Wuk is very positive, Koana is very cynical. It could be one of those “they are on the same side but cannot see past themselves” situations, where Wuk Lamat is trying to reason with Koana but Koana will not listen because the topic is too touchy for him to recognize how much they could be collaborating. Then they would battle to get Koana to listen, and then Wuk Lamat/Koana becomes one team as Wuk Lamat convinces him their goals are actually the same or at least synergistically helpful, and then they are a team. It would be very early as a way to show that Wuk Lamat is willing to talk and battle in a manner more like FFXIV’s Ascian arc.
Yeah the whole point of the scions all being individually recruited for a competitive play helping the potential “hiers” was a moot point of nothing lmao
For me, Living Memory was more like an empty house of a relative that has passed away that we inherit and must now need take care of. There's all their belongings here, all the books and movies and clothes, everything that tells of a person's life and personality. What do we do with it? We cannot keep all that stuff - some of it just doesn't fit, some of it is worn down, some of it we just have no room for and it needs to be given away or thrown out. But each and every item here is still a part of that person's memory, held some import to them, probably has a story to it. Yet they're ultimately just things. Someone that doesn't know this person would not hesitate to just throw everything out if they wanted the place cleaned out. But it's when you sit down, consider the pieces of someone's life here, when you try to remember the bits and pieces that tell a bigger story, when you consider what of it all is the most important memento to keep - that is how I felt in Living Memory. That is what the characters were doing there, too. They could have just rushed to each server to quickly shut things down - but they took their time, reminisced, learned of these digital ghosts and the lives they may have lead. We must remember that they once lived because we MUST shut the Living Memory down. It is a deeply flawed system born out of trauma, and for the society of that shard to heal, they need to reclaim their own memories that men long ago decided to take from them and hoard them here. Once the final reactor is disabled, the illusion fades - but the grass and trees are green, the captive animals live on. Sun rises and sets, the skies are now clear. There is life here still, and it will recover in time.
This is really beautiful, thank you for writing it. A dear friend of mine lost a loved one just prior to the release of DT, and they expressed a similar sentiment in terms of how they viewed Living Memory. I'm screenshotting this comment and sending it to them because they are active in an in-game group that is into the whole "absolutely nothing was good about DT and if you felt emotional at it you're a dummy" bad faith arguments, so I think it will make them happy to know that other people viewed things the same way
@@keysmashwarrior5057 Thanks for the kind words. I have lost several family to debilitating disease, so there is a lot to process and this zone experience certainly brought back a lot of bittersweet feelings. It is also why I ultimately don't care about criticisms, because what matters in art is the emotions it invokes. For some it will work, for others not, because everyone's life experiences are different. In particular, I found Erenville's experience very close to mine, when the loved one tries to act normal yet it is visibly clear they are not, and lack the ability to really make it better. My father had withered completely due to cancer, yet his last conversations were about his sailor days in youth - and I struggled to remain composed, because it felt so ill fitting... and yet, that is what he wanted to speak about, because the memories of bright blue seas and great fish and the air of freedom were all he had left as he wasted away in pain, unable to do anything. And I still remember the awful feeling of wanting to spend more time with him, yet also being unable to bear to look at his terrible state, and him understanding it too. That horrible limbo feeling is what I relived through Erenville's experience - as ultimately his frustrations are not with his mother, it's with the fact she is gone and all that is left of her is this lookalike digital ghost of her in her prime. It's cruel. But I can also see how this scene could instead bring about another experience like Wesk mentions in the video. It is an experience alien to me, and yet I get how it instead invoked that and I can empathize with his very different experience by using the same scene with a different read. That's what good art does, it is beyond just the sum of its part and objective ups and downs. I think people farming videos and takes have lost sight to that a little - flawed things can be good and meaningful, too.
Honestly, my first impression of it was that the game had lost the plot and we had become Emet-Selch. "I don't consider you to be truly alive, therefore it's not murder if I kill you." They really should have done a better job of communicating that these are just computer programs and not real people in any sense of the word. Also, it's like the Alexandrians had never heard of non-volatile storage. If the endless really were just stored memories, why not just save them on a hard drive which takes precisely zero power to maintain indefinitely? If nothing else it would have given us and Sphene time to figure out a long term solution to the problem other than harvesting souls from the living. Honestly, this entire expansion's MSQ is an extremely ham-fisted morality play where the author essentially forces you to agree with them on everything. That type of writing is annoying in other media but downright intolerable in a medium that's supposed to be interactive.
Beautifully put ❤ Your comment and much of the video echoed a lot of what I felt were the strongest and most emotionally complex moments of DT. I wish more people spoke and devoted more positive energy to these themes and ideas. I'm also sorry for your loss, sounds like what you went through is really tough. I sadly experienced a loss of a friend and mentor within a month of finishing Dawntrail. While i hope others don't have to experience the death of a loved one any time soon, I felt having that experience myself did give me a better perspective on how difficult it truly is to grieve (both this recent loss, and few other major losses over the years). It can be difficult to forgive your regrets or missed opportunities, and especially difficult to accept that a piece of you will always feel their absence-and that's okay. In fact it can feel wonderful to live life more vigorously for them, rather than yearn for who you can't get back. Much like you said in your lovely analogy. It seems to me, based on people's mixed reactions to DT, that if someone hasn't experienced loss, or really processed their own emotions around a loss even, the themes around grief may be less potent. I can see why it could be harder to be swayed by the spoken and unspoken emotions in Living Memory. I can also see why someone's dissatisfaction with other parts of the story as a whole did not outweigh the emotional highs and meaning of other parts. Which is too bad. Sending you good vibes and happy times ❤
@@breannelewis3674 I agree with what you say - that those not familiar with their own mortality might not appreciate such themes, even find them trite and overdone. But they are "overdone" for a reason. Once you have one too many close calls yourself, once your friends and loved ones begin to pass, you realize that all of this is fleeting. And because it's fleeting, it matters. And truly realizing your own mortality is a religious experience that WILL change how you look at things. I've lost a best friend, I still recall the discussions we had about his story ideas he was working on before he passed. Seemingly mundane thing, yet when that's one of the last memories, it stays there. It shows that yes, THAT was what was most important to him, that was what he dreamed of doing. A stark reminder to myself that I must pursue my own dreams without relent, because nobody else can do it for me - as I cannot finish my friend's dream, its contents faded along with him. And YoshiP has lost a close friend too, fleeting glimpses of whom are seen in the "gundam" styled influences in the game. Soken almost succumbed to cancer, yet his work gave him meaning and strength to struggle through, and you can *feel it* in the music. Art is more than just whether it "makes sense" or not, it's about capturing that person's creative essence, what they think matters, what they feel is important. To someone that's been putting off their own coming to terms with all things being finite, that might feel condescending, saccharine, overdone. But that is only because every single person on this world will inevitable come to an end, and so of course this is one of the eight great themes each and every story will grapple with, forever.
I'm a bit confused about us being a mentor this time. I never felt like one, but more like a tourist on a guided tour. If anything, we're the ones being told (not taught) the same lesson over and over. What do we, the Warrior of Light, actually teach Wuk Lamat? Krile does some, with regards to acting tough with sea sickness, and Alisaie (?) in regards to the power of friendship, and maybe not to trust a queen we just met that acts a little too nice. I fail to see where we had an impact. As the WoL, or Azem, on Lamaty'i. I ask because I see the argument a lot, but never saw a concrete example. I feel like I'm missing something there.
Besides not delivering on the Thancred Urianger fight, the moment I realized the expansion wasn't going to do anything interesting with its characters (for me personally) was the Iron Chef moment. You had the perfect chance to establish Zoraal Ja, to expand on Bakool Ja Ja, and we get paired with Konna, who we already had a moment with. The most boring possible choice, advances very little of the characters, and later on that really hurts the emotional beats of Zoraal Ja's arc because we literally do not get to know him before he turns. DT has a lot of missed potential, it's honestly kinda sad to me cus I can see such a tighter, better paced, more emotionally impactful story being told.
My biggest complaint about Dawntrail is the entire second half of the story hinges on a genuinely interesting philosophical question that completely falls apart in XIV because the existence of the soul is provable fact, not just speculative philosophy. "Would a copy of a person's memories be the same as the original person" doesn't really hit as hard when there is something explicitly missing from the copies. And, it makes it all the more baffling when the soulless copies act indistinguishably from living people.
I feel like the ‘talk to X’ points highlight a question I haven’t really seen asked: Why only NOW are so many people noticing that as a trend? I feel it’s an equally important part of this conversation, since it IS a long term issue, and it HAS been so prevalent. My personal opinion is a mix of interacting/ agency and quality. When the pacing feels off and you are being told things repeatedly without feeling any interest in what’s being said, and especially if the writing comes off as lower quality overall, then things like that become more noticeable. It like how on NG+ you start to notice plotholes, but it ultimately doesn’t affect the overall enjoyment, since if you want to divert your attention to side content, you feel a bit more comfortable doing so. Which is another point: side content, from what I’ve noticed, tends to be where a lot of the overall world building goes. MSQ gives you the essentials, sides offer extra if you want it. DT MSQ made the mistake of making the usually optional lore aspects mandatory, and sadly did it on an inconsistent enough quality scale to where it did feel bloated/off. (Literal repeat of points as well, which can come off as condescending to the audience). Which when taking into account that not everyone sits down for the lore stuff in MSQ (which is why the Unending Journey in the inn rooms exist, so you can go back and see the parts you missed, plus NG+ serves as a buffer for that too, albeit as a direct ‘replay’ method), on top of the writing.. Like, I heavily advise against CS skipping, but DT doesn’t really respect the players time in that regard. So for once, I don’t inherently blame the CS skippers for doing so. Apologies for the wall of text, but I thought about that for a while after I finished the vid before and was wondering everyone else’s thoughts on that potential point.
I can think of two more reasons why people are way more critical this time. A lot of it ends up being copy pasted between, with the number of the end quests being ‘talk to Wuk Lamat’, ‘speak to Wuk Lamat yet again’, or ‘talk to three people then speak to Wuk Lamat,’ which gets really repetitive and feels like you’re spinning in circles. So while speaking to someone to end a quest is nothing new, it at least felt like things were, in a way, moving forward constantly changing. And before, there was usually enough to at least distract from the repetition, stronger overall writing quality, more interesting moments, stronger story hooks, what have you. Like just the gameplay of Dawntrail outside of dungeons is very barebones unlike say, HW which had like 4 solo duties before the first dungeon. But damn if you’re not able to be engaged with DTs story then things can get damn dull so fast.
@@Castersvarog Yeah. As someone who got hooked into XIV by the lore, I had a VERY hard time keeping up with DT’s lore because it felt way too overstimulating. Like, the rest of the pacing issues and writing comes into play here, but I need time to digest the info I’m being given. Having back to back cutscenes and so very few actual fighting bits between each dungeon/ raid, on top of so much being told in so short a time definitely did not help, though that’s me personally. I already have attention issues, and I felt so bored by DT I ended up just zoning out and relying on lore YTbers like Scribe for filling in the stuff I didn’t get. I should not have to rely on external sources to make sense of a plot I was struggling to keep up with. Which also ties into a few other issues with DT that I had (story pacing, overexposure to Wuk Lamat which led from me liking her in 5.5 to actively hating her at the end of MSQ because I never got space to breathe between her and all the lore dumps…) Honestly with that and how the dungeon mechanics tend to go off so fast I get hit no matter what I do (namely the aoe indicators), DT feels like it took a step back in terms of considering player’s time and accessibility for certain disabilities.. which was not something I felt in any of the other expansions, as I’ve always had the choice to just avoid the harder content (mainly for personal health reasons). Ofc, again, just my perspective on that front. Quick edit cause I wanna clarify: When I mention the AoE indicators, I moreso mean the randomly placed ones, like the second boss of the lvl 97 dungeon. The normal mechanic ones I still learn eventually, but with a lot of the random ones they go off so fast I miss where the safe zone is.
@@Tom-Pendragon That’s definitely part of it, but people have repeatedly said the same for the ARR storyline and still call it slow to this day even after the rework, though I personally haven’t seen the complaint that much since. I also still don’t entirely blame the story, as it’s important, but only one aspect of why people are suddenly seeing the repetition in how the story is utilized. It’s a multifaceted issue and would be an interesting rabbit hole to discuss over, I think.
If you haven't I recommend you check out Jo Cat's "It took me 300 hours to get into ffxiv" video. He mentions the "talk to X" problem, using shadow bringers as his example, written during Endwalker. The thing is it isn't a new problem, and hasn't been a new problem. It's a new expansion. There are a lot of folks that play ffxiv's msq twice every two years, once at launch, and then a second time when the final patch comes out, and they forget how this game plays. This time around a trans woman voices a main character, so trolls on 4chan make a green text complaining about her using the format of the msq, mostly to make her look dumb. That green text is shared around, and people miss the (bad faith) intent painting her looking like an idiot, and take it just as "speak to wuk lamat", and make that into a meme. What you have here is layers of poor reading comprehension, rose tinted glasses, and bigots acting in intentional bad faith getting Xeroxed into blaming DT for a common FFXIV issue. There is literally nothing in DT exasperating this issue, which I'm confident saying because I've pushed a few alts through xiv, and even one through dawn trail. It's generally better about this than most expansions with HW being the worst.
The main differences between Dawntrail and other expansions (especially Shadowbringers and Endwalker) is that it's not following the pipeline 'Warrior of Light making this personal at some point'. I think that's what made many people so confused, because even if story never about Warrior of Light, we always ended up having personal connection to it because some events in it deeply affect your character (Gaius as our first nemesis and betrayal of the Crystal Braves in ARR, Haurchefant's death in Heavensward, Zenos as our ultimate nemesis in Stormblood, renewing yourself as a hero and our relationships with two main characters in Shadowbringers , twists and turns of our bonds with others that affect the story as a whole in Endwalker. Warrior of Light's journey in Dawntrail for the first time just feels meaningless, because story never affects us directly.
True. To be honest, the Number 1 reason the majority of people play games with Character Creation is that We want to be the Main Character or want to see our characters shape the world we placed them in and how the struggles they go through make them into the hero we want them to be. Putting someone like Wuk Lamat in the Lead Role is not new, but making her the Face of the expansion is. Allow me to give 2 examples of characters that were made the Main Characters of 2 Separate Expansions: Aymeric from Heavensward and Lyse from Stormblood. Aymeric and Lyse reminds me of a character archetypes for Gundam. Leaders that feel out of place and feel they can't do anything whatsoever until the WoL give them the motivation to rise up to the challenge. Wuk Lamat...she reminds me of Naruto. Actually that's one of the many reasons people hate her: that never-say-die positive attitude of hers as these people that I talked to never watched Naruto because of that personality trait. All in all, unlike DT, the WoL is always the face of the expansions no matter what. Even though Aymeric and Lyse were, in a way the focus of their respective expansions, they were never as intrusive as Wuk Lamat in DT. Disclaimer: I like these characters, but they are better suited being the pillar for the WoL to be the Greatest Hero to come in the story, not the other way around.
I feel like Dawntrail didn't have enough characterization for WoL. In Heavensward you had dark knight quest line. It specifically adressed how WoL was fed up with all the people that cant do basic things and that WoL should not disregard their own wellbeing while helping others. It also came right after WoL was betrayed and half of their friends went missing so there is that. After this quest line almost every dialogue choice had "the mean option" like "know that will kill your god if I have to. Maybe even if I dont". It didn't affect the overall story of course, but it was nice to have a choice in your WoL characterisation. But Dawntrail has none of those. Or at least it feels like it. In 99.9% of dialogues your only options are goody-two-shoes aligned. You can't be "the harsh but ultimately helpful mentor". Like, there was a life lesson in Dark knight quest line: "sometimes you have to put yourself first and let other people deal with their problems themselves so they can grow". And we could impart that lesson to Wuk Lamat, but we just didn't have an opportunity, because writers picked saint WoL as only WoL and didn't provide an alternative. Sorry for rambling but this was a major thing we discussed with friends while we were playing Dawntrail. It was like only having "You are bad, Zenos, I will kill you" option during EW. It was simply baffling how much of a regression it felt like after ShB and EW.
If you're going to take job quests into account as characterization of WoL, then you must do so for Dawntrail as well - because that is exactly what we do here. We help a whole bunch of people to learn and grow. In the gatherer quests, we help a deeply grieving Viera to finally come to terms what had happened to his tribe sixty years ago and find the resolve to move on. In the smith quests we help a blacksmith find the right balance between churning out low quality goods for the masses and making beautiful, bespoke items. In the tailor/leatherworker quests we go into the history of Tuliyollal and how this country was carefully crafted down to its very language to try and unite these peoples to the best of the Dawnservant's ability. And the role quests are ALL about us mentoring a young, plucky hero that are trying to reclaim a relic lost from their tribe and help them overcome some hang-up they have in their life along the way and also deal with rather shut-in, self-obsessed villains that are causing harm out of the pettiest of reasons. We mentor in all of these. We are the rock-solid, dependable person these people need, we're hardly at danger - and in the tank role quest specifically, when the villain finally DOES cast the sleep spell on WoL, they just seem happy to be able to take a little nap. It still goes hand in hand with the Dark Knight quests, of course - why are we doing this? Why do we help every single person that just asks for it? Why do we get involved in these little matters barely worth our notice? Past the unsatisfying "it's an MMO and this gives XP" answer, each player can decide for themselves what it is that makes their WoL be this mentor figure to whoever needs it - and we KEEP doing this, no matter what. It's in our nature. Ultimately, most people just won't do these quests, because they mostly level one or two jobs and that's it. I haven't done every single job quest myself, across all my characters, so there are still holes in my own knowledge. That is why everyone always discusses the main story specifically, not even regular yellow side quests that likewise offer extra writing and insights on what's going on. You cannot progress the game without MSQ, but you can skip everything else, and so that extra characterization is missing.
The irony of this is, there were literal hordes of people after EW lining up to say that "You are completely right, Zenos, I live only for murder" was the only option during EW. I think part of our less snarky attitude this time around is because of exactly what you mention with DRK though: finally, finally, we spend a significant amount of time this expac NOT being the one to do all the work. We troop around after Lamat and the others, sure, and we do what's needed, but for once it's actually someone else having to deal with most of it. We ARE letting other people deal with their problems themselves for once. You raise some good points and I agree that I would have liked some more snarky dialogue too (in particular, I would have liked a bit of friendly rivalry banter between us and Thancred/Uri), but I can see why a WoL who wasn't expected to go and wrangle the damn llama himself is in a slightly better mood than one who would have been.
I'm only half-way through the video, but oh my goddddddddddddddd. Seriously, i am forever thanking you for this video, you've been voicing a lot of the things i've been feeling about this expansion and past ones for such a long time. Almost all the video was me smiling because you're bringing up topics that not many people if any have been talking about, specially when it comes to talking about previous expansions, and i felt i was going insane for thinking these, yet no one was bringing up in discussion (or straight up pretending these weren't a thing to begin with). In general i felt like you were voicing so many things i've wish people talked about more often, and i'm so thankful for that. - On a extra note about "the expansion lied about what it was about", i think it's worth bringing up how Shadowbringers was sold to us as "the warrior of light might take a darker path and become a villain!" so much the japanese title of the expansion is "Jetblack villains", only for this to be complete bs. The whole "Fanfest hype up things in a misleading way" is a whole topic that should be talked more about because it goes WAYYYYYYYY beyond just Dawntrail's.
On another note, oh my god the comment section in this video is rotten to the core. So many bad faith and hateful arguments and all the examples of how hard it is to talk about this expansion without the worst kinds of people drowning the conversation of the expansions actual problems, so many of these feel like they just came here to parrot the same opinions and not actually engage with the actual video.
Yeah... It's like they watched zepla and preach, watched reddit, and are parrotting the same thing over and over again. No personnal opinion, only responding with memes...I know not all ppl are like that, but it destroys any hope of healthy discussions.
Did people not enjoy the cowboy section? For me that was my favorite point of the expansion. We got to be just a regular adventurer playing in the sand with a character that up until that point had barely had any attention paid to them.
The poop collecting quest is a fun throwback to old WoW poop and vomit quests, but it's still a poop collecting quest in the middle of the Main Story Quest.
People can defend Wuk Lamat all they want, and that's fine. However this xpac should have been all about Krile as the MC and us supporting her on her journey to find out about the earring and letter. That's the MSQ I wish I played.
They also told us it'd focus on Krile. Like I said, they could have done both. Galuf went on a unification adventure with Gulool, and the Feats are meant to mirror this. Getting Krile very involved basically is exactly what the text of the story itself says should have happened.
For me, it's not a matter they could have written a better story about Wuk Lamat and Krile. Its Krile should have been the main focus for the MSQ from the start, and everything should have been about her. The FF14 community shouldn't even be having this conversation in the first place, imho. I would like to honestly hear why people like Wuk Lamat, though.
Galuf wasn't part of the original group that United Tural 80 years prior, he was called only 20 years before to investigate the golden doors. That being said, ye, Kryle got shafted. She still had an entire set up with Solution 9 and her homecoming, and she only gets a passing mention at the end with her parents scene. Comparing this to Thancred or Raha arc in Shb, it is pretty sad she didn't get fleshed out more.
@@Just__Grimm How she get 'shafted' when her life was part of the story, We still don;t know a She She great deal a bout where all of this will lead to.She appears a number of times through out FF14.This is the answer to her true origin story
The only issue I had with Dawntrail was the same issue I had with every expansion- the "Speak With x" who is often ten feet away drives me nuts. But that is in a LOT of MMOs.
I love Ice cream, is one of my favorites dishes by far. But I wouldn't like to be only served ice cream every time I'm hungry. I love Wuk Lamat and her characterization but I barely had any space to breath. I feel the second part of the expansion could have focus on Krile and Erenville since both of those characters have something there (His land and mother for Eren and Krile's roots) And I agree with the mentoring part but at the end of the day -what- have we taught her? We were just "there" we didn't give any lessons or teach anything. Evertime we spent alone with her could have been a chance for that and if we can't be the ones giving advice have one of the scions acompany us and be that teacher, each one of the scions has a expertise field.
Dammit you made me cry several times during this video. I am a CNA in long-term care, so I deal with people who are dying or have passed away regularly. My dad passed away a couple weeks before the expansion released. He was sometimes abusive when I was young, but he took responsibility for his actions during the last few years of his life. However, I did not trust him enough to be able to talk things over, so many things are still unresolved. I did not give him the opportunity to directly address the issues the abuse caused, even though he wanted to. And he never got to hear me tell him I forgive him. I actually enjoyed Dawntrail even with its flaws, and blasted through most of it in a few days. But Living memory was awful. I have watched dozens of people suffer and die, my own dad had died, and it was all too much. All of the bottled-up emotions came flooding out, and I'm still now trying to process them. Thank you for making this video. It is funny at times, tear-jerking at others and brought up things I never considered.
Okay. I'll be honest. Rather than trying to prove people's criticisms wrong, I feel like it would have been more productive to analyze *why* people came to feel the way they did. Pinning it on "main character syndrome" or a "lack of reading comprehension" really isn't the answer, nor will this sort of feedback help the dev team to avoid such divisive perceptions in the future. Clearly there was a problem, otherwise the reactions wouldn't have been so mixed. The reason why people were complaining about not being the story's focus in such a strong manner was because the story as a whole felt really disconnected from the player's desires. Some character's developments were so abrupt that the player's emotions couldn't keep up (Bakool Ja Ja). Often times, we just stood around when major events were taking place. I'll name four examples of many. 1) the way Wuk Lamat's abduction transpired 2) us standing around while Gulool Ja Ja got killed 3) Us ignoring Erenville for way too long while he was going through the roughest time of his life 4) Us never asking how Gulool Ja even came into existence, why, how, and who his mother even is. This list could go on and on and on and that's the fault of the writing. We were a bystander through and through, even in moments where many desperately wished to intervene. This is bad in the context of a video game. And sure, some of the questions could be addressed in the patches, but for characters like Zoraal Ja, who would have deserved more characaterization than he actually got, it might be too late. Same goes for Wuk Lamat. While yes, the story did address Wuk Lamat's naive nature multiple times, she never got repercussions for her naive world view *when it mattered*. Instead, the entire rite of succession felt like a walk in the park, which lowered tension and the excitement for some players. The story should have challenged her naive world view DURING the rite of succession, not AFTER. A perfect opportunity would have been with the Hanu Hanu, where she decided to hold a Festival instead of focusing on the reed problem. Instead, she got rewarded for her skewed priorities. This was non-sensical and cartoonish, which lead to player frustration. She wouldn't have had to be "miserable" to learn from this and do better going forward. But no, the universe's logic bends to her and the writer's convenience. During the food trial, she could have been pared with Zoraal Ja or Bakool Ja Ja, so their differences in perspective could have been explored more! But no, she got paired with the most convenient option. And that's why people say that she is a Mary Sue. Another example: Yes, the story TELLS us that she is an underdog and barely has any support, the story SHOWS us that she is beloved by everyone she meets. And this is a weird contradiction, considering that only few in Tuliyollal seem to support her when she's grown up there and seems to be somewhat known? All of this then ends with the ascension ceremony where the people cheer her on while she once again preaches on about about love and peace. And that even though the story tells us in the very beginning that Tural's people have different values and ambitions, so why is everyone cheering like we're in a disney movie? To many, this felt alienating. I really could make an entire essay out of this, but I'm not going to. All the feedback the devs need is out there. I just hope they make the best out of it so we get another story that most people will enjoy.
Furthermore, it’s not like the developers are blind. Naoki Yoshida has literally there are parts that are lacking. It is now up to them to make something cohesive even if not as grand.
I'm gonna put this comment down before getting too far into the video for my own two pieces into this mix. I found DawnTrail on the story side, more underwhelming than I had expected, and honestly it made me go back and appreciate base StormBlood more. The writing in DawnTrail feels kinda like it's a Saturday Morning Cartoon, with a new episode starting at each new area, with it finally feeling closer to the usual final fantasy at about, level 97, which is concerning to say, because I wasn't particularly fond of that style of story telling as I found StormBlood's narrative far more engaging (I'm using Base StormBlood as that's what most people say is the weakest link of the game, even if I like it). Both of these expansions have one character that gets a huge amount of spotlight to them, Lyse and Wuk Lamat, the difference however, is that other characters that are there in the plot, actually get to do things in StormBlood unlike DawnTrail. Hien, Gosetsu, and Yugiri are fantastic companions that you hang out with in Doma, and Lyse steps back to a supporting character that is learning what it means to be a ruler, and that learning is put to the test for her once Yotsuyu is defeated. Wuk Lamat, I feel was meant to have something similar of learning to be a ruler in a way, but they hardly ever took the spotlight away from her for her to ever even have some kind of pseudo mentor to belp her learn the rights and wrongs of being a ruler/leader. And once her main story ended, I thought we'd finally be able to focus on other characters, like Krile and Erenville, but no, we got faked out by Shaollani, and are then moved to actually one of the worst made character deaths in the game (Hello, Devs, my character is standing right freaken there, He should jump in to help Galool Ja Ja!) I actually left the room out of sheer disbelief of that scene, and they could have literally fixed it by just, us being too late to the throne room and letting us see what happened through the echo (Which they seem to have forgotten how Echo was used in the past?), that alone would fix all my gripes with that scene. After that, we suddenly have a new character arc for Wuk Lamat, after we just got through her character arc in the story, and it just feels hollow by that point, since Krile and Erenville are once again put on the backburner to the end of the expansion. Meanwhile the rest of the cast, aside from Alisae, are. Doing. Nothing! Away from the protags, lets focus on the antagonists. Bakool Ja Ja was a neat fun villain who liked to cause chaos, that they suddenly 180'd on them super hard by making Zarool Ja just no diff the dude and made him a complete joke right away. He was yet again a cartoon villain and his Crowning act of idiocy, releasing Valigarmanda, literally affects the plot less than it should. Should have been major ramifications for that one and he gets off scott free. Zoraal Ja was an interesting one at first, we've not really had a full strong silent type villain in the game, the closest being StormBlood Zenos, and then in the second half of DT Zarool just kinda, falls apart in a way that makes other characters look worse. Based on Zarool, it is kinda noticeable that Wuk and Zarool weren't exactly raised too well by Galool Ja Ja, Wuk is completely unfamiliar with her entire dang kingdom before the rite of succession in a way that is severely detrimental to the story, she at least should have known about the Hanu Hanu and Pelu Pelu, the rest I can understand, while Zoraal Ja has a lot of insecurities that Galool Ja Ja just, never tried to help deal with to put Zoraal Ja's mind at ease. Sphene is our last villain, and unfortunately, she's just Wuk Lamat again, who we already have standing right there, and makes Sphene feel redundant in a few ways. Away from the story and it's elements for now, let's focus on gameplay, gameplay in this expansion is absolutely fantastic, there is a noticeable increase in quality, and difficulty that I have not really experienced anything similar since StormBlood's drastic overhaul of game play elements for trials and dungeons and the like. I don't think there's a single dungeon in DT so far that I hate, there are definitely some lower points, like Origenics feeling like an Alarmingly punishing ShadowBringers dungeon (Seriously, if you're a dps or a healer in Origenics, it really feels like you do not get any freedom for errors unless the healer is on their S-game, because while those boss mechanics are simple, they hurt like hell), the only true thing in a dungeon/trial/raid so far that I found annoying was Leonogg, and that's mostly because of Jank ffxiv hitboxes being Jank.) Other note, it's a damn shame how few solo duties are in this expansion because they are fantastic too. World building, now this one I'm gonna have points to go off of, because Tulliolal and Alexandria both look fantastic, with so much variety to the world, however, world building wise, there's something to be desired, despite the New World supposedly being unified, is dysfunctional and ununified outside the capital. Most of the people don't interact with each other and deal with their own issues, like the Mamool Ja being stuck in the blue forest for years with the corrupted lands without help even though Kettenram is right there watching it all unfold, and he could have told someone! Living memory is a neat zone that is an absolute mess in execution, what I think they wanted to do was some in between of Aumorat and Ultima Thule, but we fall into the Emet-Selch trap "I do not see you as alive therefore I can not be guilty of murder." As Emet once said in ShadowBringers. That zone could have done with some much better thought and writing. It also doesn't help that main narrative doesn't help with world building as we clearly see a power heirarchy in the claimants at the start of the expansion, then Wuk Lamat gets the anime power up randomly after like 3 levels of gameplay, was cool in the moment, but makes absolutely no sense how she got that strong that quickly (Wuk Lamat has Frieza levels of natural potential I guess) I'm gonna put a grading of the content too here Gameplay: S+ Story: D- New Characters: D Old characters: F (If you're going to bring them in, do SOMETHING with them!) World Building: C- Villains:C- Power Scaling: F (They seem to like doing things without realizing some of the power feats in the past like Midgardsormer having to sacrifice himself to take down one airship vs in DT, Vrtra with one eye, taking on the Alexandrian fleet that is obviously more technically advanced in that one ship) One last thing, that Wuk rescue in the final trial is stupid, you can not make me believe that that boss is supposed to be stronger than the End Singer narratively, even if The Queen Eternal has one of the hardest trial mechanics in the game with Absolute Authority.
You're entitled to your opinions so I'm not gonna go into them too much here, but I gotta outright call the power scaling bit wrong. Look at the size of the Agrias, how HUGE Midgard is, and how Agrias is just as huge, while also flanked with smaller ships. You can go fly next to the one in Azyz Lla if you need to for scale. It isn't just "Midgard died to one airship" it was "Midgard died to an airship the size of him." He also didn't die to the airship. He died to the airship exploding. The explosion mixing with Midgard's aether is equatable to a nuclear explosion going off, causing Silvertear to look the way it does with all the crystal. Midgard won handily, and is technically still alive. It's the nuke that got him.
The biggest "what the fuck" thing for me was the Interphos fight where Wuk Lamat just shows up mid fight and is just like, "Sphene! I want to talk!" Huge anticlimactic bruh moment.
Maybe I just have a different definition of what a main character is, but I cannot wrap my head around the argument the WoL isn’t the main character. I agree in earlier expacs they do a great job of showing focus on other characters and plot stuff, but the WoL is still at the center of it all. Minfilia begs us for help with our echo and defeating primals, Aymeric asks for our aid in stopping the Dragonsong War, Lyse asks for our help in making contact with the Ala Mhigan resistance. So on and so on. The WoL takes part of so many stories and character arcs but still at the center of it. Not to mention every major foe is fighting the WoL and has beef with the WoL personally at the climax of all their fights. DT just isn’t my favorite way they’ve told a story and how they shared the plot amongst all the characters. I have a google doc for my WoL and all her thoughts and feelings throughout the plot and personally don’t have much to say for her involvement in DT.
My biggest issue with wuk lamat was her script. You’re 100% right that the other scions could have been other mentors. Alphinaud would have a lot to say about governance, G’raha would have a lot to say about leadership, Alisae would have comments about how levin sickness is simmilar to sin eater poisoning. But none of that was said, and we only got wuk lamat and her well meaning but repetitive dialogue. Tbh; I feel like the voice actress did a nice job, the voice suited the character (luffy and goku’s voices suit them and they’re voiced by cisgender women, talented VA’s suit the character, and those two women can voice masculine icons that millions feel inspired by). And no other voice actress would have made the “I realized I really love peace” speech feel less pointless to me. Like…. There was so much potential that could have been phrased better. “Koana has the head of reason’s mind, zoraal ja has the head of resolve’s strength, but I inherited the heart they share full of love for tural’s people” It carries the same meaning, but it isn’t repeating the same lines she was saying in the level 90 quests
Here's my honest praise for Dawntrail: The new skeleton for content is amazing. The screen flashes that explain exactly what the mechanic is and how to handle it might seem a bit handholdy but it allows for honestly interesting mecahnics at the leveling roulette level. Stuff that would have been EX just 2 expacs ago flow seamlessly because the game is being less obtuse about conveying information.
I've seen a lot of people throwing out statements like 'Mary Sue', 'WoL should have been the Main Character', and 'Wuk Lamat bad' but I honestly think the clumsy wording and bad faith arguments get in the way of genuine and fair discussion and criticism of DT. The FFXIV community has a problem with seeing things in black or white, so we get people who dislike DT being defaulted to bigots while people who defend it are snowflakes. It's not helpful to anyone at this point. If we can't express our (good faith) opinions about a video-game's story without being called a bad person (looking at you Garlemald Arc) then no wonder people get defensive and dismissive online. It really seems like the ongoing battle within the fandom is overshadowing some very valid positive and negative arguments about the game's story, and it's just getting harder and harder to articulate thoughts and communicate them in a fair way. People deserve the freedom to like Dawntrail for its plot and characters, but that very same freedom should apply to those that just aren't that into it. (And I reiterate, bad faith arguments aside)
Exactly! So many arguments I've seen are just dismissed with "It's good you just don't like not being the main character", or, my favourite, "Just accept that it's Bad Writing and have some Standards" as if the person making the argument is the sole arbiter of all that is bad and good.
Wesk, I get your overall "vibe" of this video and for the most part I agree with it. . . HOWEVER. . . At times it seems you are lumping everyone with a valid complaint into the same boat as the haters. There are SERIOUS problems with the writing and pacing of this MSQ as well as SERIOUS problems with the utilization, characterization, and development of the characters of this MSQ both old and new. At times it seems like you are taking people with those legitimate concerns and lumping them in the same boat as the "haters". I could be wrong but that's the vibe I'm getting from this video.
There’s unfortunately been little room for nuance with the criticism of this expansion. I know it’s largely just a handful of loud, chronically online people but it feels like if you don’t like WuK, then your lumped in with the TERFs or whatever, when my main gripe with her is that she’s just far too omnipresent. If Haurchefant had been in my face as much as WuK I’d have been glad when he died.
I really, truly think you have too high an opinion of your own opinion. I completely disagree with those points, loved the pacing, characterisation and writing. I have other issues with it, but I would not call any of those things problems. These are not immutable truths you are passing down.
My biggest takeaway from Dawntrail is that I really hope they get the courage (And/or better funding from Square Enix...) that in future expansions to maybe reconsider the six zones with three Trials at X3, X7/9 and X0 format to tell the bulk of the MSQ. The restrictions it places is starting to show.
@@LaBlueSkuld The formula works in some cases and doesn't in others. This is one case where a shake up is needed. Maybe go back to having final zones that remain plot relevant instead of places we will never return to. UT and now LM. We might talk about it but never go there. We barely went back to the Tempest too.
One thing I'd love to see is them introducing new zones in patches. The entire Solution 9 arc could've happened in the patch quests, giving us maps like Troia or the red moon in EW. Just as more permanent fixtures. I'm hoping they at least shape the place up like we did with Idyllshire and Mor Dhona back in the day. I didn't play during ShB/EW, did they actually have places like that there?
@@MephiidrossShadowbringers built up what is now the Ishgardian housing district. It was a really fun thing for crafting and gathering and over the patches we restored various districts. (I was late to the party though, I joined this stuff when there were only one or two areas left.) The core system is still there, you can still craft and hand in stuff ("for upkeep") and now have these Fêtes as replacement for the FATEs we had during the Shb patches, and each Firmament district (not the actual housing part but the map where the crafting stuff is) has a statue with crafting tools. Which crafting tools are shown depends on what goods were delivered the most or something like this. ^^ Endwalker didn't have this, some people expected there to be some Garlemald restoration. But the devs also experimented a lot with the patches with Variant Dungeons, Island Sanctuary and other stuff, so I get they were busy. And personally I think it's better for the story if Garlemald isn't fully recovering from this destruction within a bunch of patches...
Fully agreed. Imo in Dawntrail it would have been better for the story to release the last two areas and the whole Alexandria story arch into the patches (maybe even partially 8.0) and use Dawntrail to go way more in-depth with the local Turali lore, story and a cultural deep dive, more character interactions and active mentoring (from us but as Wesk suggests also from the other Scions), maybe adding some actual rivalry inbetween the scions and their teams etc. But this is never going to happen because it violates the formula and would need some reconsideration for features related to each zone I guess. (Although you could e.g. just put all the rare material nodes for recipes you get in the patches later into the zones later. And how many people finish their Shared Fate farming right away anyway? :D)
I've said it in other videos on the topic and will say it hear as well. Heavensward is did everything DT did but better. Mentoring, new local with no reputation, side characters getting focus over WoL, theme of expansion being shoved down our throat by new cast, almost no Scions around, small stakes comparably. When one goes back and honestly looks at Heavensward, you just see the writers not favoring one point of view on the subject of a conflict. Also with each character giving their own two cents on the subject if it was related to them. DT feels like there are characters the writers heavily favored and themes they did not want to have multiple views on. Thus this limp wristed story telling can be felt by many players. Players are more hurt by the obvious dumb downed story telling then what the story in of itself is about.
39:45 uhh sure, but also she confidently attacked Bakool Ja Ja during the Feat of Reeds, and he just deflected her with one hand, this is like us fighting the level 70 Zenos in Rhalgr's Reach but in our case we actually get to level up from 60 to 70 over all of SB while Wuk isn't show to do any martial progression, like for example Alphinaud training with his Nouliths outside Baldesion Annex in Endwalker
I am aware of the limit breaks, dynamis and confidence boost and all that, but dynamis and shooting LBs left and right being a norm now and the way to show character growth is disappointing to me :/ guess Haurchefant and everyone rlse wasnt feeling strong enough to affect dynamis in retrospect
i was fine with dynamis being introduced in EW because i thought it would remain largely unused, only appearing as a force working on stuff over millenia like with the Twelve, or in the outer space where it's more prevalent than aether like Ultima Thule. But apparently Tural has a lot of it, and also does Sphene's cyberspace and it's FFA for Wuk Lamat? :| the more i think about it the more bitter i get and the more anxious about next MSQ i feel
@@nekromanta167 Dynamis pretty much removes the martial progress prerequisite. Hydaelyn gives us multiple LB charges in a ARR fight. Godbert is a master goldsmith who can use LBs in his crafting. Elidibus, an Unsundered Ascian who is nearly incapable of interacting with Dynamis is able to generate an LBIV. Meteion nearly destroyed the universe with it, all while not even having a job crystal. I'm fine with Wuk Lamat using it. She's a Warrior main, she was already OP...
I see a difference in perspective. It's not about whether or not the AI was as real as people. They themselves told us they weren't. It was more about letting go of the last physical representations of these deceased people. Destroying the last memories as their loved ones don't remember them anymore. It wasn't that Erenville was thinking that he was destroying his mom, but that he was destroyingher likeliness. It's like having to destroy the last picture you have of someone who has just past away (within a very short period of their passing). Having to do that would give anybody a moment of pause even if you know that the picture is not the person themselves. So the real message of that particular segment when focussing on Krile and Erenville, goes back to the giants. 'It's okay, being dead is to be forgotten, They will never truly be dead as long as you remember them' which also ties it up with Emeth Selch's famous last words in Shadowbringers.
You do make a lot of good points in this video that I agree with, but I am going to have to respectfully disagree on your point about main characters and story. You are absolutely correct, the WoL is not the 'main character' in most of the game. The plot does not focus on the WoL. However, even when we're not the main character, in each previous expansion the WoL is integral to the story. If our character was not there, the story would be changed. In ARR, the plot is about the rise of the primals, Ascians and the Garlemald invasion. But our character's story of becoming the champion of Eorzea and the Warrior of Light is integral to that In Heavensward, the plot is about the Dragonsong War and the conclusion of it, and the finding of the source of the conflict. Without the WoL, that story would be vastly different. In Stormblood, the plot is about the freeing of Doma and Ala Mhigo. Without the Warrior of Light, that would never have happened. In Shadowbringers, the plot is about the First, Ardbert and the people there. Excellent story, and without the WoL nothing would have changed; that world would have died. Endwalker kind of goes without saying. However, I would argue that in Dawntrail, and this is one of the main weaknesses in the writing, we don't do anything effectual in the first half of the story. We saved the boat on the way over, but other than a linkpearl call to help kill Valigarmanda, we could have spent the entire first part of the story napping in our beach house in the capital and nothing at all would have changed. We don't have any real effect on the trials, we don't do any real mentoring of Wuk Lamat, we really don't do anything except stand around and nod vapidly. The strongest part of the second half was us low key having fun with Erenville in fantasy Arizona; it was cheesy but I enjoyed it. Then after we break into Alexandria we stand around and don't do anything really effectual until the last 10% of the arc. When I am sitting there staring at my screen saying 'Let me do something!' then there is a problem with the writing. I was actively frustrated by how ineffectual and frankly pointless my character was throughout the story. I think that's why I was so personally angry at the end of the final trial. My character finally, *finally* gets to do something useful around here and Wuk Lamat steals my thunder right at the end.
I agree on your take here, i enjoyed msq but quest desgined in DT is just week compare to other expension, putting 85 percent of the focus on one character just doesnt appealing to me, and the promise to get to know Krile and other origin from liver letter was what made me more exciting towards this expension but that too was like barly like 5 percent of the quest desgin. Shalooni i think was the first area where i really came to enjoy,. That was partly because of the time away from Wuk'lamat, no i think it was because of that very reason i enjoyed the little time with Erenville. I agree on final trail, her making and entrance out of no where and pulling a Thancred from shadowbringer, which btw he did that with the help of all of the scions, not just by himself. Seing how Wuk'lamat doing that in final trail, just made angry really. I was shocked dude you were erase from the damn terminal, how in the world did you got back. even worse finding out Gra'ha and Krile laying there unconscious after being erased / thrown out of the terimal, I went like HUH? WTF. That made me question is Gra'ha that week and is Wuk'lamat that strong? ya final trail complete dispointing for me because that, when she does come, why make fight same as the Endsinger, Endsinger 2nd phase makes sense but final trail in DT just doesnt. Final thing i dont think i ever felt mentor towards Wuk'lamat, she just over comes all her hardship event with out WOL. I wouldnt call WOL as mentor, since we hardly do provide any guidance. Good coment really like what you said.
I agree with the WOL wasnt the main focus throughout ALL of FFXIV, but in post endwalker and Dawntrail you can really feel the lack of personal stakes, you could say it goes back to the roots of the start of ARR. But only you could combat the primals and you still had a part to play. Heavensward you had the weight of leaving your scion pals behind and Haurchefant. Stormblood had the least but Zenos made things more about his personal game closer and closer til the end. I dont need to explain the rest but I wish post Endwalker had us mentor Zero more. Maybe she could have been more impulsive in her voidsent desires and we could have helped her with a new perspective (Kind of what we had with the food). In Dawntrail we could have had the advertised Scion drama. This I think is what most people have issue with in the WOL, not that we aren't the main focus, but that we have less and less of a role to play.
35:00 It's not about tragic backstories. It's about meaningful validation. Wuk Lamat's convictions don't get challenged in a meaningful way in the first half. It feels like fate itself bends to prevent exactly that. Devaluing her achievements by making them less believable. Imagine, at Valigarmanda's outbreak and the fundamentalists blocking our way, no birdge had arrived. We would have to concede that Zarool Ja is right, and it'd be best to knock the obstacle unconcious in this time-critical moment. Or watch Tural burn while we are trying to play nice to fundamentalists. Some things just feel wrong. And it has nothing to do with a tragic back story.
it's so funny that DT was supposed to be a fresh new adventure, yet we still ended up re-treading so many of the same themes and ideas as the last two expansions. like the final zone is a simulacrum of a long dead civilisation where we have to learn to accept the past and move on - cool idea if this wasn't the third time in a row we had already done this. they wanted to do something new but couldn't commit and just ended up copying ishikawa's notes
As I said in the video, it's a matter of what it does differently that matters most here. Amaurot was just Emet magic. UT is the remnants of those actual civilization. LM is about grief and letting go.
@@WeskAlberi see where you're coming from but it doesn't change the fact that LM was just a variation on an idea we've already done twice in a row. it doesn't really sell the feeling of this being a new start for the story
@@manafish8732 i feel similarly. i feel like LM's message of grief and acceptance doesn't work for me. Tempest Amaurot and Ultima Thule work because even though what we're seeing are echoes of what once was, the grief and loss resonates with you. Emet-Selch's painstaking recreation of his home and all those within it, and Ultima Thule's dynamis giving emotion and memory form to tell the tale of those that once lived and why they relinquished their claim to the future. But LM is a cruel imitation of life. It's not a warped manner of mourning of the dead, or even the final will and testament of the dead- LM is effectively dragging you through a cybernetic Eulmore and asking you to understand the motives behind using sin eaters because it's run by a very well-meaning Vauthry who genuinely does love the people of Kholusia. and this is only made worse by the fact that you are constantly nudged to consider Cahciua and the others as alive in some way even though what you meet in LM *is not Cahciua*. We never meet Cahciua. Worst of all, despite having gone to such lengths to show you that these recreations are not actual people by contrasting the real Otis with the recreated one, in its final hour the game still tries to get you to sympathize with a imitation of an imitation of a person. Sphene is not a person, and the Sphene that Wuk Lamat speaks to is an even deeper mockery of the concept of a person. ShB and ENW did grief and loss and acceptance better! Even Stormblood and Heavensward have more substantial things to say about grief! I'm no stranger to loss, and XIV doesn't always hit the mark on this subject, but I just felt put off and uninterested with LM. It's such a weak way to engage with these ideas.
Re: Cahciua. Given how Cahciua the endless doesn't consider the Endless to be living, she doesn't seem to consider herself to truly be a continuation of Cahciua, mother of Elenesh'pya. She has one goal and is relentless in driving us to completing it - because she can't do it herself. Erenville and his mother had an obviously strained relationship. He calls her his mentor more readily than he does his mother. There was love, but they don't seem to have understood each other. What Erenville is asking for at the end *is* that understanding. A deathbed reconciliation. For words to be said between them that would validate and soothe old arguments. And Cahciua bowls over him. Because Cahciua does not see herself as Cahciua. So she denies him his catharsis, because Cahciua was denied that, too.
After all the vitriol around the expansion I'll admit i was hesitant to listen to this (I sadly can't watch while working but damn you've gotten great at audio editing. I cant imagine how much work that Endwalker quest bit took to edit😅). However, despite my hesitation this has been one of my favourite reviews on the expansion, if not my favourite. Thank you for your hard work in making this 😊
I understood that "Put the cart before the squid" reference! I think my thoughts can mostly be best served by copying a comment I made on a different Dawntrail video. Though to cut a long story short, I'm not as harshly critical of Dawntrail as others might be, though some stuff in it definitely bothers me in terms of the story, particularly in the later half. Though it started picking up in interest for me towards the end with the final zone. I think the thing that gets to me the most in this expansion is how, while it was pitched as a "summer vacation" resetting the stakes sort of thing (and I'm personally totally fine with my WoL playing the mentor role to some new characters as a palette cleanser from the universe-ending Endsinger) - and for about the first half it is. I actually enjoyed going around and learning about the people and culture of Tural, even if other people think it's very dry. But the end of the expansion pulls an "Oops here's a world-eater that wants to consume the Source's aether and will do the same to other worlds afterwards too!" So much for resetting the stakes. That and Krile gets robbed of her big moments (One of what should be her big moments happens off-screen!) and Y'shtola seems pretty out of character. At the end of Endwalker she talks about how she wants to see the other reflections, and then she *doesn't go to the new unknown reflection.* Oh, and that one point where Lamaty'i gets kidnapped felt like we were all forced to hold the Idiot Ball. Also Zoraal Ja is possibly the dumbest motherfucker we've ever had as an antagonist. We tell him that his ambitions sound quite similar to the Garlean Empire, which we were thoroughly trouncing before they imploded in Endwalker, and when we tell Zoraal Ja as much he basically goes "Nah, I'd win." And how the fuck did he manage to have a son in there, there were no other Mamool Ja in Alexandria. I was convinced the kid was a clone of some sort until the game said "Nah, they're Zoraal Ja's son." like... how. The story tries to tug at your heartstrings when he dies but it fell flat for me personally. At no point did his plan or ambition make any sense to me, and so I felt nothing when this complete monster who murdered his own father(s) and lost the thread of almost all rationality even from the very start, and never even acknowledged his son until right before his end, finally died and had a last moment "I leave everything to you, my son." While it would be an exaggeration to compare him to Vauthry, that sort of last minute redemption and regret thing for Zoraal Ja felt completely un-earned, at least to me. At least the encounter design has been immaculate. Dawntrail has been extremely fun to actually play, so that's good. Part of that is because this is the first time I'm engaging with the end game on content, but the first two Extremes have been an absolute blast and I'm even getting in to Savage raiding for the first time. That Azem artifact has definitely piqued my interest with how much potential there is for the future. And the entire idea of the last zone and what you do gave me some serious moral discomfort, which was pretty amazing. There's a whole moral question on whether the people there are truly alive, which kind of goes back to what Emet Selch thought about all of us, and is the same sort of question Nier Automata dealt with. I do kind of wish the game didn't outright state "They aren't really alive." but I choose to ignore those assertions. There's a whole philosophical debate that could be held regarding the nature of the Endless. For my part, it felt like turning off those terminals was tantamount to committing genocide. Oh, and a Duskwight Elezen NPC is FINALLY shown off as not being immediately villanous. That's mostly just to do with the Arcadeon, but still. The game's treatment of Duskwights has bothered me for quite some time.
I have friends who absolutely refuse to hear anything "negative" about Dawntrail, which is totally understandable in my opinion. On the other hand, I am so critical of Dawntrail because I love this game so much. I think it's okay to feel either way. At the end of the day, I enjoyed playing the expac and it was fun. If I didn't have any fun at all, I would have just uninstalled the game.
Thank you for making this video. It's been rough trying to talk about my experience with DT without getting a kick reflex from people about the expansion. Whether it's gameplay wise or about the MSQ, I get a lot of negative feedback from people.
I think the biggest issue I had with the story of DT is that, while we aren't technically the main characters in the other expansions, we still have important roles in what we do and a lot of the stuff happening would not have done so without our involvement. However, in DT we are sidelined to the extent that it feels like we aren't doing *anything*, even when doing so would objectively be better, no matter how you look at it, which is what I take issue with. No matter what reason, I do not believe that the character we have been building up so far would stand like a dead fish when our friend was killed by his own son after that son was essentially revived from the dead. I do not take issue in the sidelining in itself, but rather that, unlike in other expansions, my being there feels fairly inconsequential, which is antithetical to what a videogame should feel like. There are ways for the things to happen and us to be in a mentor role without being demoted to handicapped dead fish on land. Like, there are quite a few job quests where we take on a mentor-like role and we are a lot more active in them. In the stormblood pathces right before shadowbringers, our friends are brought to the brink of death fighting Zenos because we aren't there to help, maybe do something similar with the Gulool Ja Ja death, but we don't get there in time? Idk. In general, most of the choices we (are allowed to) make as the WoL feels stupid and against anything at least my WoL would believe from what has been set up from before, all in order to prop up our protégé, which I believe is why people feel like she's "stealing screentime". I get that we are sidelined because for once people are wary of us from the start, but at least in my opinion there isn't done enough with that in the writing. Perhaps the WoL would react to not having to prove themselves from scratch for once, rather than just accepting it? Or at least give it to us as an option
A great video and reflecting many thoughts I had myself as well. That said, I don't mind a mentor role at all but I wish we would have done more actual mentoring. Sure, unlike with people in NN I can't carry Wuk Lamat unsync through the coils raids for the story and me telling her how to get a mount is a bit redundant, she already knows how to ride them. :D But idk, us teaching her some fighting things or solving a puzzle together or so would have been fun. The Pelu Pelu questline in the beginning was a great attempt, but that was about it. We had moments in pre-Dawntrail MSQ or side quests where we were teaching people, like in the Lochs, where we taught this one Ala Mhigan how to fight creatures near the big salt lake. That was just checking out creatures with the dart thingy and picking a dialogue option, but it would have felt more like we're actively training her instead of just... hanging out and pick one or two dialogue options making her think about stuff in the entire expansion. (Personally I would also have enjoyed that Valentione's Day duty where you navigate a labyrinth with a partner as a training minigame with Wuk Lamat, but I know a lot of people hated that duty, so I'm not blaming the devs for making this an entirely optional thing even at the seasonal event it's from, after the first time. xD) But imo it fits the general pattern of "Dawntrail wasn't bad but it could have been more". The character writing could have been more in-depth and individual, the announced Scion rivalry could have been more, the gameplay could have been more interesting (the cooking challenge actually having a cooking minigame, maybe with that orchestra mechanic from the final firmament quest, and an Air Force One game for the train ride). The WoL could have been more involved in interesting revelations etc. (Why do I hear Krile, Gulool Ja Ja and his kids had a huge talk about Galuf and the first journey and all somewhere off screen? Why do we have barely anything to do when the city is being raided by bots, instead of being too late for everything and then just standing there during the assassination? Why don't we have an echo into Zoraal Ja's childhood where we get more insight into his trauma before shit hits the fan?) But it is what it is and it doesn't make the whole expansion "trash", just makes me a little bit sad, but then I queue into Tender Valley and get an audience with the Greatest Boss of all and am fine again. :D Regarding Living Memory I was hoping the characters would - at some point - discuss a bit more how nobody is actually being remembered. I think it was implied in the subtext but couldn't have hurt getting spoken out loud. The people we meet in life, good, bad and inbetween, the things we do together or maybe plan but don't do in the end, the emotions we felt when being around them... It can be inspiring, warning, teaching, exciting. And remembering this even after they're gone, cherishing these moments, that's what helps the living who knew them in their own lives. Memory of people we lost are important for the people still being around. And it's Erenville's memory of Cahciua that makes looking at her Endless so painful for him, having this comparison to the living person she used to be etc. Would that guy who cared for Naimika until she died enter Living Memory (which used to be a thing) and meet her, it would have no emotional impact for him whatsoever, beside from "hey, what a nice stranger". If any of the people from Yasulani Erenville asked about Cahciua would step into Living Memory and talk to that Endless, they would feel nothing. They wouldn't remember anything, nor would they be able to tell her a wholehearted "thank you" for the ways how she might have helped them in life, as mentor, as friend, as mother, as aunt. (Or a big "fuck you" for the opposite case, whatever suits.) They couldn't tell her how much situation A or B helped them overcome struggles they had later in life. (Meanwhile the Endless know all these things and speaking to that Yasulani person would be like talking to a grandfather with severe dementia for them, which can be truly horrifying...) They would be strangers, despite not being strangers at all. This memory extraction is denying them not just grief and pain from loss, but in a way a part of themselves and their own history. In a way it is hurting the living and imo this aspect should have been elaborated more openly in the story. Last but not least, thanks for drawing that parallel to AI image generators, LLMs and techbros trying to imitate the living more and more for money. I actually heard around the time of Dawntrail release from a person who recreated a relative who passed with an app or so, it was creepy. I don't remember the details anymore though. It was scary af. I'm personally pissed AI seems to destroy both of my jobs, but this stuff adds a whole new dystopian level to society as a whole. x.x
The translation has always be of controversy since HW's Haurchefant localization. There's multiple threads throughout the years on the OF pointing out and criticizing the localization, it happened during HW, it happened during Stormblood, it happened in ShB and EW, with ShB having actually a big thread about the localization of the characters that would lead people to mischaracterize characters like Emet, Hydaelyn and the convocation when looking at EN versus every other language, with EN having a huge discrepancy. It just wasn't a huge focal point until now with Dawntrail's writing not resonating with people that the wider FF14 community started to pay attention. I do think while people are hampering actual discussion and critique of Dawntrail it is still very valid to bring up.
This is a complex topic, though, especially when the previous localization director was also one of the lore writers. Since they do the localization in-house, they have spoken about its troubles and differences many times, having panels at fanfest devoted to it etc. Localization is exactly that - not a direct one to one translation, but a conveyance of tone and message to the best of its ability because it is impossible to truly do, as every language has its own wordplays and contexts to specific words that are difficult to pinpoint, not to mention cultural contexts that differ in slight, but still significant ways from one to another. Incidentally, it is the Dark Knight questline, everyone's favourite, that is so RADICALLY different in its tone in English from the JP and FR. Look up a side by side, the difference is stark, including the first person journal entries. A lot of its poignancy and flair is a direct result of the english writing, where the Japanese version is simpler, more vague. It's no wonder, then, that localization likewise applies to the mannerisms and cadence of characters, too - with Japanese Venat sounding very motherly, while English Venat sounding more like Galadriel of the LotR trilogy. Japanese Alisaie sounds like a 16 year old tsundere would in an anime, while English Alisaie sounds much more fitting the "teenage prodigy of the top university in the world" role she has in the story, with vocabulary to match. Japanese Emet-Selch has a more deeper voice, while English Emet's cadence changes from high pitch most often to low when he is gravely serious- and both are a take of the theater traditions of each respective country, with Japanese Emet matching the energetic movements of the character and the more Japanese tropes of melodrama, while English Emet's voice was doing even more work than necessary to match the Shakesperean prose of the localization. Each version has a different tone, different intended effect. Your preference directly reveals the cultural background you're more fascinated by - and that's cool. That's why you can just swap around and pick your favorite, or play through the game with all of them, filling in the gaps in each version. Ultimately, FF14 is a collaboration of Japanese and English speakers at its core DNA. There is no "true" or "correct" version, not only because these versions are produced under the same roof, but also because the vast majority of its songs are only in English despite it being a Japanese game primarily made with Japanese audience in mind. It was especially funny when people tried to understand the Zodiark theme which was just... autochoir, yet people heard thematically matching lyrics in it all the same, despite Soken just saying "hey uhh this song doesn't have any real lyrics" when asked, with the "official" lyrics being written only a good while after.
Commenting this early while watching the beginning but in hindsight I HATE how they revealed Solution 9 so early since it tainted my experience of : how is the story building up to THAT. Guess I should just stay away from any news, trailers and statements from the devs and just do everything blind
Big same. I tried to stay away from area reveals and dungeon or trial boss reveals, but there was many other stuff to be announced about story unrelated stuff and I wanted to know about Hrothgals, the graphical updates and the two new jobs. But as soon as the first materials from this was out, all of the FFXIV discords I'm in were full with Nvidia GPU memes and "Wow, Cyberpunk crossover!" jokes. I already don't watch this super spoilery launch trailer for a reason, only the cinematics, but at some point it's either getting to know everything eventually before the expansion is out or axing half of my social life for a year... I hate it. On top of that there are now so many arguments with people openly posting spoilers everywhere and when you ask them to tag them for the sprouts you just get "well it was in the promo material". Like... yes, yes it was, because CBU3 cares less about spoilers than your average FFXIV player. -.-
Regarding Marry Sue comments being contradiction of Wuk Lamat being "too dumb to lead". While the case in let's call it "traditional Marry Sue" is to have no flaws at all, writers whose characters often were accused of writing MS gave their characters artificial flaws that don't really hinder them in any way thus developing "modern Marry Sue" who can be naive but not have that naivety be a drawback in any way.
How are Wuk's flaws in any way "artificial"? Just because she doesn't get a Crystal Braves Moment and finds a way of mitigating her weakness as a leader (by being co-Dawnservants with Koana) doesn't mean they stop being flaws.
@@somelosercalledjab I'm not saying they are or aren't. By now I mostly don't care about her cause last time I had to deal with msq was few months ago. I'm saying that it is not a contradiction for marry sue to have a "flaw" (but not really a flaw)
@@somelosercalledjabEach sib had their own weakness, Koana being off the isl. for so long had become self insulated and sure his way was the best way.the 2 headed bro making deals with other for power sure his way was better, Lamat main flaw was feeling she wasnot as good as her siblings. Through her journey she gained insight into what it would take to be the dawn servant, It would take more than just prevent war Each tribe needed diff, things. what she does at the end with her sibs shows her solution.
@@emceen8566 really thought? Fifty people died literally because of a surprise attack that utilised unseen for Tural technologies. Even if it wasn't Zoraal Ja, the same outcome would have occurred either way. Also, how is loosing track of Zoraal Ja is naive? Did they had to? Did they magically knew he would go nuts and attack his own people? The only person, who for some reason had visions about crazy side of Zoraal Ja was Krile (she seen it through Echo, something that WoL should have seen as well, but didn't, because "reasons"). She rumbled about it, but no-one cared.
The commentary on real life AI is something that i didn't think about after going through that part of MSQ but it makes total sense. This might be coming with the advancement in AI, mimicking another persons voice WILL happen and thats only the beginning, and of course greedy billionaires will take advantage of our grief to buy themselves more cars, more houses while the middle class and below fight to survive. Damn, you made me love Living memory even more than i already did. :)
I see the relationship between Cahciua and Erenville not too dissimilarly from the relationship between Tidus and Jhect from FFX. There's a lot more FFX in DT than I think a lot of people realize, from the pilgrimage, to Yok Tel, and the Thunder pla- I mean yards. Spoilers for FFX below.
Cahciua is dead, much like Jhect, neither were perfect in life, but they did care about their kids, and their kids were desperate to actually feel some of that care. Where they differ a bit is how they interacted in life, Cahciua mostly hurting with a smile trying to get him to live up to their culture(because Viera culture is toxic to men even in Tural, just in a different way), while Jhect was too toxically masculine, and too drunk to properly behave. The thing is though both are dead, only able to interact with their kids through the memories of the past. The kids get a more nuanced understanding of their parents, and one last chance to air their grievances, but they could do that to a grave stone. I do not like Cahciua or Jhect as people, they're pretty bad parents, regardless of their intent, but as characters I have found them both deeply cathartic as effigies that I can use to let go of some of the pain of my upbringing. It's not that Erenville isn't allowed to grieve and must move on, it's that in living memory he is finally given permission to grieve, to let all that trauma die with her, and start to live his life in the way he enjoys. I've seen some people argue that "He's just doing what she told him to do", but what she told him to do was "go be a gleaner". At the end of Dawn Trail he abandons that job to go be an explorer, like her, but now his way, without her setting the rules of how and where.
36:47 this I think is due to the character accents. This happens in real life too, where your accent will affect how you pronounce words even if you’ve heard the correct way to say it.
This might be the most disappointed I've ever been in the writing of the MSQ, largely because of its over-reliance on Wuk Lamat. She's prioritized to the detriment of every other aspect of the story, while not actually growing as a character. We're told repeatedly that she's great and evolving into a proper Dawnservant, but we're never actually shown that. Any moments of real character development fall very flat, because they're not earned, Wuk Lamat's just becomes what she needs to be to move the scene along. This isn't limited to the cat with incontinence issues isn't the only victim of this. I found nearly every character not acting like characters, but like set pieces only serving to move the story where they want it. I have so many issues with the writing that I can't properly put it into a comment. What I can say is that I found nearly every piece of writing outside of the MSQ to be at our around the level of quality I've come to expect from this game.
@@Teramoix yes like. a lot of her big realizations and growth happen offscreen and then she just kind of locks in and we're asked to believe she grew and learned. its never that its not believable! everyone in her corner makes it clear they expect her to figure these things out, but the path there is what's to be determined. bakool ja ja is also an example of this. he hits a face turn so fast despite committing one of the worst crimes in turali history and we're just kind of left to believe that he now accepts himself after a lifetime of inadequacy and duty, and the knowledge that valigarmanda could have wiped out so many people if it wasn't stopped its also why koana forfeiting annoyed me. not because it just doesn't work as an idea, or that i just think wuk lamat had no right to win, but because we watch him process his thoughts on tural and realize how his attitudes about advancement and growth aren't taking the people and their culture into account- that he's too headstrong and shortsighted. he recognizes his flaws through the direction of those around him, his struggles throughout the contest, and from the perspective granted to him by his sister. so when he chucks his tablet it should feel like a good way to really hammer home everything that's happened with him, but he's conceding to someone who we have not gotten to see chew on these same ideas in these same intimate moments. it's frustrating! why am i watching a better written character tell me how much more capable and deserving wuk lamat is when I've been waiting HOURS for her to have a similar sit down moment the way koana did with the scions. and her flaws are way more severe than koana's! watching her demonstrate the difference would truly make koana's forfeiture feel meaningful. instead she repeatedly sort of Figures It Out and stops doing the thing that was holding her back i like things about the story, the first half was lumpy but ultimately fun- but i checked out rapidly in the second, purple half of dawntrail. at its best i felt myself getting genuinely invested, but at its worst the writing genuinely did feel insultingly bad
Finally! Someone who ranks the expansion like I do! Thank you for making this, everyone else is way too nostalgic for heavenward and way too harsh on dawntrail.
This is one of the most comprehensive and enlightening perspectives I heard for Dawntrail. You have helped me see this expansion differently and appreciate it more. Thanks! 🥰
Great video Wesk! Loved your takes and thoughts on this. Can't imagine how much work went into this but this is one of the best reviews/analysis of Dawntrail I've seen out there so far. Great work!
For me the main issue with Wuk Lamat for me is that loves her people but seemed to have zero idea about those people. Would have liked to have had her go "oh hey I remember this from when they visited the city" then lead us threw it, even if she needed help because she did not understand it at all. There is tons of other small things that bothered me about the story still. I hope it becomes what the players want but feel like it will no longer make me happy or excited for the story. I remember feeling a sad pit in my gut when we saw Solution 9 and then it hit even more when it just showed up because I really was looking forward to exploring more of our world and those places we where asked if we had ever gone to see.
This was an amazingly put together video, personally I really didn't enjoy the MSQ this time around (I actually find it hard to articulate why, something just felt off to me). With regards to the talking to NPCs quest design: in Endwalker I was dying to speak to Emet, Hythlo and Venat in Elpis for example, also in Shadowbringers I was itching to talk to the Crystal Exarch for the next potential reveal. Speaking to Wuk about peace for the 20th time? Yeah, not so much. Regardless of how I feel this was a pleasure to listen to, thank you Wesk.
god damn wesk. God damn, good ass video. and yeah a lot of stuff I completely agree with. I talked a lot about the ENG audio mix as someone who works in audio editing like even though I'm not the super best, there were a whole lot of balance issues in there and some definite cleaning passes that needed to be done with some lines needing a rerecord. And I hope they do, they have before. But you definitely pointed out a lot of stuff so many people ignore so they can type speeeeen and prove they don't have an original thought outside of twitch memes. Story crit on point too. I think generally if you traded Alphinaud for Thancred the teams would have made more sense in a way. Alphinaud's lessons he learned from ARR and his growth were more of what Koana needed to learn and Thancred's like would have been a lot more useful to Wuk. As it was Alphinaud really felt like a complete nothingburger and had no real reason to be in the game at all until the second half. I have a lot more to say about the video but just know, damn solid and I watched the entire thing and really appreciate it a lot. Keep kickin' ass.
Damn dude I was unfamiliar with your game, this is excellent work. Really well thought out and strongly presented takes, I enjoyed this review more than any other I've seen. It has felt kinda depressing being a fan of Dawntrail at times when some really loud people are shouting that it's the worst thing ever made, but your thoughts here align quite closely with my own and it felt great to see them articulated in such a way. Thanks for making this :)
Also, to those in the comments saying "hey none of this excuses the 'bad' writing in DT". Wesk clearly stated his own critiques of the writing, and acknowledged it wasn't polished in spots. But some of y'all are writing comments like he said he had no notes and it was perfect as is, to which i say: did we watch the same video? Example: the whole point about Wuk's screen time was to add nuance to the dissatisfaction people had about how much the story focused on her. (Fair enough, I personally think time Koana and Zoraal Ja were underutilized.) He was encouraging those that felt the imbalance to not focus your blame at the character Wuk and dismiss her entirely, but to blame the missteps of the writing team and look at her character more fairly. He then noted where EXACTLY they could have pushed their themes on mentorship further and made better use of the new characters and scions to correct this imbalance. You might not agree with that, or think there are even MORE places they could have improved, but don't act like he didn't say it. Okay thanks :))
I'll say, while I really agree with all the points you brought up in this review, I still disagree with how you present Dawntrail. I feel like the biggest issues with the expansion, outside of not making good use of its characters and dedicating too much time to Wuk Lamat (which is something you address) also comes from how childish and awkward most of our adventure pre heritage found felt. The world outside of Tuliyollal feels very disconnected and requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief for it to actually work and that's not really been the case for FF14, at least for more than just a scene here and there. From one side, Wuk Lamat doesn't actually work for this first part of the story as she should be the one to instruct us, the WoL, about the basic cultures of the world around (she could still be blind about parts of the history, and even have her sure of herself only to learn there's more to the world as part of her character); she's the one who after all is all about respecting local cultures and peace, and she's unable to even remember the greetings of the people the lived with for some time. Then, we get to questions like "What even is Gulool Ja Ja doing?". He founds Tuliyollal and then just seems to have sat on his throne and forgotten that his people's trouble, or for better words, decided to not do anything about it and this should totally be a point of tension between Gulool Ja Ja and Bakool Ja Ja, but this never happens. There's not much of Gulool Ja Ja we know of when it comes to him being a leader outside of travelling once and founding Tuliyollal, and this hasn't been a point brought up, ever. He sends his successors on this big journey to get the tablets and it just so happens that Hanuhanu need fertility again but they've forgotten how they got to make the plants grow in the first place and I'm just left wondering if it was made on purpose and everyone on there is a Fiverr Actor or if it just so happened to have been the case for a long time and Gulool Ja Ja went "Oh yeah I'm gonna put this in my Rite of Succession" - Just feels like a big, weird, coincidence, which yes, yes, stories like that on FF14 do kinda thrive on coincidences, but there's believable coincidences, and then there's contrivances building one atop the other for something to happen in a very ''unnatural'' way. The whole moblin quest about the guy working at the forge wishing for something less hot and the whole "you saved one yok huy and now you're allowed and trusted" just went on further to make the first half of this expansion feel very childish. And, of course, there's pacing. ARR pacing was bad, HW made it better (And I genuinely will stand here and disagree with everyone who says it's bad because we go back to Raubahn; I think it's one of the best expansion because it doesn't forget about the previous happenings and keeps on expanding the world while not forgetting the old zones but I digress), StB had ups and downs but past 4.2 it felt like the pacing of the MSQ had gotten a lot better. ShB was great, EW only had 3 filler moments in it [and those were Loporiths (moon and laby) and Thavnair's initial story could've gone faster], but to go from Endwalker's success to Dawntrail's slowcess of a first act (Shaolani included) is a big, very big, step back.
I have serious criticisms of this expansion's pacing and chose of literary vehicles to tell the story. For example, Zoraal Ja was very clearly being set up as Wuk's opponent - he was her brother, he killed their father, is responsible for Sphene being here, and more. He has a bone-to-pick with Wuk, who he feels is inferior and unfit to leave. Beyond that, we don't really have any personal involvement in Zoraal, even his threat doesn't seem all that significant beyond the borders of Tural. Sphene, on the other hand, feels more like Krile/Erenville's foil, and more personal to us as a consequence. And yet, Wuk literally and figuratively shows up to interfere in the fight. The scene where Zoraal fights and kills Gulool is another example where it feels like we've been cheapened out of some meaningful chance to interact. We're the WoL, we're the savior of the star, we would not have stood idly by after Zoraal's betrayal - we would've been in there like a dirty shirt. And yet.. we do nothing. We're present for the whole scenario, but we have no agency in something where we clearly would have, and would have been a good fit for our particular skills. The first half drags on, forever, and you could literally remove our character from the story and nothing would have changed. We don't provide any meaningful mentorship to Wuk as her whole arc is.."I need to learn more about our people and grow", and yet she's relying on Erenville (who hasn't lived in Tural in years) to be her guide around, despite this being her home nation and she should be quite well versed in the various customs and locations of the people? Bakool Ja Ja's heel turn is so rapid it doesn't feel genuine. I still don't fully grasp what the issue was with the blessed siblings - they had arranged marriages to bring about two-headed Mamool Ja? And they die because.. why? That whole bit could've been half an expansion it and of itself, as that would've been an interesting story but it felt so rushed and over, that I no longer cared. Dawntrail feels like it's not interested in telling a story worth paying attention to, gone are the captivating characterizations and memorable characters of earlier expansions. And while the previous expansions may not have been about us, they certainly made an effort for them to find reasons for us to be personally motivated. Heavensward has us regaining our good name in Eorzea, stopping the Dragonsong War, addressing the internal politics of Ishgard - we're helping our friend and ally, we recognize a valid threat (the Ascians), and then we are out for revenge. Stormblood - same thing, it starts off with us dealing with the death of a Scion and the recognition that Yda was in fact, Lyse and dealing with the issues of Ala Mhigo. Something we've heard about before via Raubhan and with the pressing threat of the Garleans expanding into Eorzea. It may not be our story, but it's one with personal stakes built in. Shadowbringers - same thing, we have personal stakes in this with our allies and the Exarch. We're tasked with dealing with the Lightwardens because the Exarch knows if anyone can, its us. We learn about the First by reuniting with our allies, and seeing the lives they've made for themselves here.. before the climax and another personal stake with Emet Selch and Amaurot. Endwalker is again, littered with personal stakes and ties - it feels like the genuine culmination of the last 3 expansions, and it works. What are the personal stakes of Dawntrail? If you don't like Wuk Lamat, what is there else to motivate you? There are no personal stakes given to you, and other than Wuk Lamat there is no real person to engage with the story via. Yes, we are not the focus of the story, and that's fine. What isn't fine, is that we have no reason to exist at all within the narrative. If you removed the WoL from the story, the whole thing would play out the exact same way and nothing would change. You can't say the same about the prior expansions, where our involvement was necessary to drive the story forward.
I enjoyed Dawntrail mostly. Since it was a new story I wasn't expecting it to be on pair with Shadowbringers and Endwalker. If anything what annoyed me the most was how Wuk Lamat was written. We are supposed to be a mentor but I didn't feel that way at all. It also annoyed me that Wuk Lamat saying how much she loved her people while knowing nothing about the cultures of her people. I can understand not knowing a few things but not knowing how to say hello to the Hanu Hanu when you been their village before was annoying. These however are minor grips and I think they will be able to fix these easily going forward. Other than that I think she was written well.
I still don't see how WoL is a mentor to Wuk Lamat other than her just saying WoL is and the WoL nodding along with her. I don't really feel like WoL was active enough to have been a mentor. Emotional support character, sure, but not a mentor. I really think Wuk probably could have done the whole trial of succession by herself -- it seems tailor made to highlight the strengths she didn't know she had, that being the desire to incorporate everyone's cultures and traditions. The trials seemed to be less of a development of skills for Wuk, and more of a wake up call to what she had inside of her all along. I wish Dynamis as a concept had never been introduced to the plot. The power of friendship and determination being an actual thing that can give you spontaneous super powers is not a trope I'm a fan of and really is just going to have me question everything before and after the dynamis reveal. If someone loses, I'm just going to outright assume they didn't believe in themselves enough to NOT lose. But yeah those two aside, idk. I think criticism is important, actionable and constructive and all, but the expansion was just boring to me. There's kind of that X factor, call it vibes or feels or whatever, that just made it feel boring. I'm sure I could find a way to articulate it if I really dove into it, but I can't really say I have the gumption to do it right now. I've agreed and disagreed with things in this video and in other videos going over their thoughts of the expansion. I'm sure the team is reading and watching everyone's feedback to make sure the rest of the expansion, and future expansions, don't get that Mixed-to-Overwhelmingly Negative review score in the future.
the fact that she asks your opinion often, she wants to be the first to hear her resolution, the whole being specifically asked to be a mentor to her by her father. I mean the story does shows it directly and indirectly even with shots of us looking at her angrily when she makes bad assumptions. It was frankly the first thing I noticed that we had more agency in our expressions during the entirety of MSQ besides nodding and fist clenching (which are still alot ngl)
My Main problem with Dt Is more on a technical writing and pacing level. And I feel validated Because Yoshida even said some of the stuff that bogged down the msq should have probably been set as side quest stuff. The Problem with The fecal typhoon around this xpack is that people on both sides are so far into their feelings that its hard to say anything. Though that's a problem with most things these days. I wish Estinian being on his own adventure and just popping up in random places would have been more of a thing. The man just decided to Go West because he hadn't been that way.
Man, the segment where you started to list "Speak with" quests in MSQ of Endwalker is priceless! Unfortunately FF14 has way to many of such quests and I don't really understand why they don't try to balance active gameplay elements and talking to someone in MSQ. Instead they just double down on "Speak with" quests, a.k.a. listen to someone talking, because WoL is not given any meaningful dialogue options to begin with. I don't mind text, but I do mind absolute lack of meaningful gameplay in between.
Great review. Thank you for including battle content and job design. For people who sub for months on end, I feel this is more important than the MSQ. I think you raise some great points regarding Living Memory and its possible real life parallels. I also thought it resembled Heaven. But the fact that most NPCs were living in the past rather than reflecting on it appeared to be a Hell of its own.
Great video! While I don't agree with every point it's really refreshing to listen to someone who clearly took their time, did their research and put together an intelligent and thought provoking critique. To think the same guy who taught me my DPS rotation better than the game ever could also can also put out such a good analysis video - you're a talented man Wesk.
was not expecting technoblade to come up in this video, but i wanna thank you for being respectful and for enjoying his content! people (me) are still grieving, but the way you described the situation with living memory with him in mind did make an impact and made me rethink dt through the lens of recovering grief, it was very nice!
The is *by far* the fairest and most even-handed analysis that I've heard from anyone. Thank you for taking the time to make this, it's really important that this is out there. EDIT: oh GOD, I'm half-way through, this video is breaking me. Thank you even more than before, this is incredibly well done.
HOLY SHIT. I left a long winding comment about what my one and only issue with DT MSQ was, only for Wesk to bring it up the second I unpause. I thought I was insane, because no one I've spoken to seems to have picked up on it. Thank you, Wesk. Timestamp for context: 35:52
(This comment was originally so long it returned an error when I tried to hit send, so it's split into several replies. Keep that in mind before reading) I've not watched the video yet, but I'm gonna make a comment with my existing thoughts about Dawntrail and then hopefuly remember to loop back around after I've watched the video in full and make an edit more related to Wesk's points in the video. Dawntrail is terrible. But despite what some people believe, Dawntrail is not *just* terrible. Despite flaws that do occasionally show throughout, I had a lot of fun with Dawntrail. Up to a point. The rite of succession arc definitely has problems, Yak T'el especially is where the cracks start to show; Wuk Lamat's character arc suddenly increases in pace so that they can skip to the end of it and put her on the throne. Sure, you could explain her power bump in the duel as dynamis, but that doesn't make it any more narratively compelling. I feel like, from an out-of-universe perspective, Wuk Lamat was robbed. By accelerating through her story like this, she was robbed of a lot of important growth. It doesn't help that she then becomes incredibly stagnant for the duration of the Alexandria arc. Similarly to Wuk Lamat's arc having a sudden pace increase, Bakool Ja Ja's redemption is, uh... Clumsy? It's not bad, I do actually like it, but man something just doesn't quite track. There's pretty much no hint of it until the end of the duel, like they had to wait for Wuk Lamat to finish her arc before they could do Bakool's, which just isn't how it works. What COULD have been a truly interesting story kinda just devolves into "dead kids lol" and it's a shame. Skydeep Cenote is one of the most stunningly beautiful and incredibly somber finales to a story in the whole game. Now Shaaloani. In pure enjoyment, Shaaloani might be the best leg of the story for me. The rite of succession is behind us, and while it was mediocre, I enjoyed it. After all, I went in EXPECTING it to be mediocre. No major complaints up to this point. We now get to explore the northern half of the continent, and learn more about Turali culture and history. We meet fun characters, we learn their stories, we get a great callback to my favourite part of shadowbringers (though it could've stood to be a touch more subtle). All the way through, Shaaloani is incredible. Until, er... The end. While I note Yak T'el as the point where the cracks start to show, the ending of Shaaloani is where I truly started to become concerned. The bubble appears, the ships emerge, and we race back to Tulliyolal; the Scions and the Landsguard are fighting for their lives against an impossible force, even Bakool Ja Ja is helping, and we... Contribute fuckall. This is just one giant cutscene, rather than a solo duty. I was willing to begrudgingly accept this at the time, but the massacre in Solution Nine being a solo duty rather than a cutscene has filled me with a pretty retroactive disdain for the Warrior of Light's absolute inaction in this sequence. Our weapon remains sheathed as we run to the palace, and the Scions all abandon the people to join us there while the Landsguard remain ineffective. Why, exactly? Now comes the duel between Zoraal Ja and Gulool Ja Ja, the first appearance of "Turbo Devil Trigger Mecha Genocide Lizard," as I've taken to calling him. Gulool Ja Ja pretty handily defeats his son, as was expected, and then idk he does some plot gubbins, comes back and one taps his dad. Despite the fact that the honour and sanctity of the duel collapsed the moment he got back up from death, nobody intervenes. Not us, not Wuk Lamat and not even Alisaie. The attack on Tulliyolal sequence has this kind of... Insulting feel to it. As much as it's a somewhat common problem in XIV, this especially feels too egregious to ignore. It's like our party just got lobotomised in that moment. And so we proceed to the end of Shaaloani, the train sequence. Some people have a serious hatred of the train sequence but I am wholly indifferent. Smile does feel out of place, yes (It didn't feel out of place to me in the ceremony, as an aside) but ultimately who cares? Dangerous Words often feels out of place too, but here we are. The train sequence has a good amount of spectacle for me to find enjoyment, and so we enter Vanguard; pretty much the last time I had fun with Dawntrail's 7.0 MSQ. It's a good dungeon, I like it. But the second we step OUT of Vanguard and into Yyasulani, I frankly gave up on this storyline. Seeing the rotted wood of Yyasulani station, it didn't take long to piece together where the story was going. I said out loud, and then promptly messaged my friend who was slightly ahead of me; "This is some fucking shard travel bullshit again isn't it?" Something I feel the need to make clear before proceeding: I had a somewhat biased opinion of the Alexandria arc going in. As much as I think it DID truly earn my disdain by the time the credits rolled, it did not start off on equal footing with the other zones. I don't like Shadowbringers very much, primarily due to the logistics of shard travel being hand-wavey and unsatisfying, involving a lot of narrative missteps that seriously took me out of the story. Dawntrail has the exact same problem combined with many others, and so where Shadowbringers was previously my least favourite expansion (Yes, below ARR), Dawntrail has most assuredly taken that spot now, and the gulf between the two makes them impossible to actually compare. Dawntrail's story is actually so bad and so not fun for me that it made me retroactively like Shadowbringers a little bit more, that's how hard it moved the average.
(Reply 1) Sphene. Jesus Christ. From the moment she appears on screen she's suspicious. From the moment she opens her mouth, she's obviously lying to you, even if it's by ommission. I never trusted her and I never liked her. Having finished the expansion, I now actively HATE her not on some moral grounds but just because I think she's a fucking terrible villain. (Her voice actor absolutely knocked it out of the park though) Heritage Found and Solution Nine are frankly narratively dead zones, I have basically nothing to say because basically nothing happens. We walk around a farm because Sphene asked nicely and I genuinely couldn't give a fuck. Electrope is plot magic, Regulators are plot magic, everything is rapidly becoming needlessly edgy and they never offer satisfying explanations for anything. I'm told it makes marginally more sense in JP language, so good for them, but I'm shit out of luck. Namikka is dead and the whole thing is miserable, we meet Cahciua and her resistance group who don't do anything, and bla bla bla. This is where I really begin to loathe the writing of Dawntrail. We're the goddamn Warrior of Light, and we were never given the chance to do ANYTHING. Yyasulani's natural landscapes, civilisation and culture are all gone. They've BEEN gone for 30 years. Alexandria destroyed EVERYTHING and beyond a few stray lines here and there, primarily from Alisaie, the Scions seem entirely indifferent. We sit around twiddling our thumbs eating fucking grape-flavoured snacks while Zoraal Ja prepares to commit genocide and Sphene prepares to harvest the souls of the fallen (not that we knew that at the time). Going through Vanguard there was this overwhelming sense of urgency, but the second we enter Yyasulani it just dies in a hole. Not only because anything we might've wished to save is long-gone, but also because the story doesn't ALLOW you to do anything. The sight of levin sickness makes us wholly forget what a Porxie is, the atrocity that is regulators just continues to exist, and EVERY SINGLE CUTSCENE IS JUST SPHENE AND WUK LAMAT GOING BACK AND FORTH ABOUT LOVING THEIRS AND EACH OTHER'S PEOPLE. Alexandria as a nation is evil given form, and we're looking at fucking farms and eating fucking grapes. I can't with this story. Now, Otis. Otis is a good character, and I like Otis. He's pretty much our only meaningful connection to Archaeo-Alexandria. He introduces us to the concept of the Endless, and he has a touching (but completely hollow and meaningless) sacrifice. It's what comes AFTER meeting Otis, however, that made me truly just... Fucking give up completely. "Initiate Code Blood." I don't know who wrote the script for Dawntrail, but I am just... Physically incapable of respecting this shit. I fucking laughed at the absurdity. Zoraal Ja is... An even worse villain than Sphene. I mean, I don't hate him as much as Sphene because he's just so fucking uninteresting that I don't really care about him. But man they just put NO effort in. The entire sequence where you defend Solution Nine from... Their own military... Was okay, I suppose. As I say, Tulliyolal should've had a similar sequence. And then the solo duty ends with Otis' previously mentioned sacrifice. A touching moment, sure, but... Sphene was never in any meaningful danger. Ultimately, the moment makes sense. It's not about truly protecting Sphene, but about Otis atoning for his perceived failure and overcoming his grief by doing so. But it's a moment that further highlights my problem with Alexandria. EVERYTHING that happens feels entirely hollow, and meaningless. Zoraal Ja's goals, Sphene's goals, the very lives the people live. It's just kinda... Nothing? Nobody sacrifices anything they hadn't already lost for any good reason (we'll have plenty more of this soon) and everybody just kinda goes along with whatever Sphene (the plot) demands. Origenics happens, we get some more soul scrubbing lore exposition which kinda doesn't mean a whole lot, we clap Zoraal Ja and he rambles about a load of poorly-established nonsense and frankly I don't care because the guy is an asshole and his entire character motivation seems to be that he didn't benefit from nepotism. Any interesting story he MIGHT have had simply isn't there because they forgot to actually write it in. And he's dead now so oh well. Anyway Sphene is evil and she has a plot device wow who would've seen that coming. (Also at some point during this clusterfuck we got a cutscene of Vrtra showing up to destroy Zoraal Ja's fleet and Estinien Stardivers some motorcycle soldiers and it's cool as fuck but I don't even remember when that happens. The sheer spectacle of ridiculous scenes like this is about the only thing which motivated me to keep dragging myself through this plot rather than just hammering skip until the credits rolled) Living. Fucking. Memory. AKA "Amaurot 2" AKA "Ultima Thule 2" AKA "The moment I realised they were just trying to do Shadowbringers again and it didn't fucking work at all" Living Memory, I will concede, is a much better-written and more enjoyable zone than Heritage Found/Solution Nine. But it IS still terrible and I STILL don't like it. For personal reasons, I don't really like that turning off the terminals also turns that section of the map into a dark, empty mass of electrope, but I kinda get what they were trying to do (however unearned it feels). What I DO think is just flatout stupid though, is that there's no way to turn off the systems responsible for creating and sustaining the Endless without also erasing their memories. Long before we ever crossed through the barrier into Yyasulani, Alexandria had done irreperable damage to the cycle of rebirth. Those memories won't be imprinted onto souls once they're reborn from the aetherial sea. They're GONE forever. The game never gives you any meaningful way to object to this. The game simply tells you; "You do not consider them to be truly alive, ergo, you will not be guilty of murder if you kill them." It's not some poetic narrative reversal, it's a giant flaming cockup. We spend the ENTIRETY of Heritage Found & Solution Nine delaying the inevitable conflict because the regular citizens of Alexandria don't deserve to suffer more than they already have, but for some reason that all goes out the window when we reach Living Memory? The only way to stop Sphene is to slaughter everyone in our path? Why is this not just an option, but the only path, when it wasn't before? Once again, beyond some mild introspection/trepidation, nobody takes issue with this. It's fucking ridiculous. And of course we can't talk about Living Memory without talking about Krile, her parents, and the Millala. FUCK this entire plot thread. Genuinely it can go die in a hole. I enjoyed the story of Aloalo Island and frankly this just took a giant shit on it for me. For years I've adored the lore of arcanima and the south sea isles and now THIS shit comes along and pisses in my cornflakes. And Krile's Parents can get fucked, honestly. Krile has never once shown any indication that she wanted to know more about her parents, because Galuf and the Students were the only family she ever needed. But the SECOND the plot dangles her parents in front of her everything she wished to learn about Galuf is completely forgotten. I think it's ridiculous, and contrived. And now the plot starts to hone in on that STUPID fucking Azem plot maguffin pile of shit Sphene is using for interdimensional fusion (still a dumb concept with a dumb name). Don't even get me started on the whole "Your true name that we gave you" bullshit with Krile's parents. It left a really foul taste in my mouth. Especially since it was 2 letters off from her existing middle name. Dawntrail's script continues to be a hot mess. As much as I do think Krile should've gotten more screentime and development in Dawntrail than she did, I absolutely do NOT want more of... This. I think the term "character assassination" is hyperbolic and stupid, but if such a thing truly exists then this is the prime example. They took one of my favourite Scions and they gave her the shittest character story I think I could've ever imagined. Cahciua exists. I don't have a lot to say about her. She's fun to have around but her character has the depth of a puddle because she's only ever used as a tool for the writers to move the plot forward in Living Memory. Props to Erenville for being the ONLY sane character in this whole expansion. The ONLY person with the sense to object to whatever the fuck is going on here. The time spent with Cahciua in Living Memory is cruel to him, because she's been dead for years. And he NEVER got to say goodbye. And now he has to erase Cahciua and any memory she might've had of their reunion and that false goodbye. Everything that happens in Alexandria continues to be hollow. It continues to feel unintentional. The writers WANT me to feel deeply, but their repeated blunders mean this whole storyline is a grim, miserable, empty affair. And an incompetent one.
(Reply 2) And so we come to the finale of Dawntrail; Alexandria and the Queen Eternal. Alexandria is a competent dungeon mechnically but narratively it felt very weak. It was nice to see Archaeo-Alexandria in some form or another, but by this point there was no saving Dawntrail for me. My mission wasn't to save Etheirys from destruction. My mission was to get this shit out of the way so I can go do something else. We fight our way through, we defeat Eliminator, we reach the Interphos. Sphene uses the plotamajig to initiate Interdimensional Plot Maguffin and the Scions all get banished out of her digital realm (oh right this whole sequence takes place in some kind of semi-digital soul realm. That never felt very well-established or well-used.) We use the Soul of Azem (which for the sake of clarity I would like to point out I hate as a narrative device) to summon a bunch of random goons from across time and space and it causes the stupid hourglass to start exploding everywhere with the power of the colour orange. We do some mechanics and then Wuk Lamat shows up and says the famous line (which frankly I forgot was even a line she said until the internet started obsessing over it whether light-heartedly or hatefully). Is this bullshit? Yes, however; It is no less bullshit than Thancred breaking into Hades' realm at the end of 5.0 to shatter the Auracite or Zenos forcing his way into the heart of the dead star at the end of 6.0. This is ridiculous, sure, but it's the type of ridiculous we've come to accept and potentially even enjoy. As the credits roll, Smile plays for the third time, this time the full version. I don't particularly like this song, because the opening section being sung from Sphene's perspective just... Annoys me. Sphene feels like a cheap combination of Emet-Selch and Meteion that somebody made for their cheap combination of Shadowbringers and Endwalker. The Alexandria arc is this rushed, fumbling, disingenuous story which is constantly way too over the top. It's way too edgy, and the stakes are so high they're just not compelling. This is the second biggest threat we've ever faced; Sphene wants to devour EVERY soul on Etheirys, not just rejoin one reflection to the source. I'm convinced that if it wasn't physically impossible to create a bigger threat than "permanently snuff out all life in the entire universe", they would've tried to do so. It falls flat, because I wanted to have this fun, exploratory expansion where we learn about the history and culture of the New World and its people, uncovering Tural's greatest mystery and finding the Golden City. Instead, we got a cheap knockoff of an expansion I don't particularly like, while Xak Tural remains unexplored and the Golden City never even existed. I didn't touch the game for a week, maybe two, after I finished 7.0, because I just couldn't bring myself to. Where do I even go from here? The story, especially its finale, was so disappointing that I had no excitement to go out and involve myself in the content. In the end, instead of clearing the Extremes and having loads of fun levelling and gearing, I just went and played Warframe instead. I've since returned to the game and continued to enjoy it, but I worry that future patches' MSQ will be just as bad if not worse. Which leads into my final point... Wuk Lamat. I quite like Wuk Lamat as a character, though I feel like the story mishandles her pretty badly because they wanted to speed through her character development and the rite of succession as fast as possible and get to the "real" story in the form of Alexandria. Some people believe Wuk Lamat is the source of all of Dawntrail's problems, but she isn't. Wuk Lamat is the end result of all of Dawntrail's problems. Bad plot, bad pacing, bad tone, bad scripting, bad voice direction for EN localisation. The "discourse" around Wuk Lamat seriously pisses me off, because people's raging hate boner for a mostly inconsequential character drowns out any real dicussion or criticism of the expansion. Every problem you can possibly point out gets blamed on Wuk Lamat. Every single time somebody pokes fun at the writing, Wuk Lamat is the butt of the joke. I feel really bad for Sena Bryer because some writers somewhere wrote a garbage story and now people are treating her like shit because of it. Wuk Lamat probably did have a bit too much screentime, but the REAL problem with her character was that the writers put no effort into making that screentime interesting or valuable. She and her story fall apart, because she needs to be used as a tool to push the plot forward so we can reach Alexandria. She, like the rest of Tural, got shafted in favour of somebody's "super cool and awesome and innovative cross-shard sci-fi cyberpunk story with deep moral introspection and awesome tragic villains" that actually just turned out to be a long and boring mindfuck. Dawntrail has seemingly divided the community between people like me, who love Wuk Lamat and the Rite of Succession but hate Alexandria, and people who hold the absolute polar opposite opinion. The writers are damned no matter what, because if they cater to one group with the patch story then they piss off the other, and if they continue as they were in 7.0 with trying to do two things at the same time, they piss off BOTH groups. I didn't think it was possible for a villain to annoy me more than Elidibus, but holy fuck. Dawntrail managed it TWICE.
I've watched the video in full now. It's very poignant, as always. The following thoughts are less responses to Wesk's points, since for the most part I agree with it, on a macro-scale, but more just thoughts I had over the course of the video. For one thing, I think a very valid point is raised about Cahciua. I got so caught up in my thoughts about Krile's parents that I kinda glossed over just how shitty Cahciua acts towards Erenville. There's a lot more I could say, but when a point takes 4 separate comments to get across, it's probably starting to drag on. So the main thing is this; Dawntrail is indeed the antithesis of Endwalker, and the story to which it was an ending. At the very least, it was intended to be. And that's kinda why I'm so disappointed. From 2.0 through to 6.0, the primary theme has always been hope. Light in the darkness, and overcoming hardship. Rising above in the face of adversity. Rebirth after the flames of calamity. It's because of this that I think, above all else, I wanted Dawntrail to be a happy expansion. A shining beacon of wonder and new horizons, where hope isn't really needed. Where, at the very least, *you* don't need to hold onto hope anymore, and are free to pass that hope on to someone else who does need it. It didn't need to be all sunshine and rainbows all the time, of course. Zoraal Ja holds a very extreme viewpoint, Bakool Ja Ja has very serious trauma due to the problems in Mamook, and despite the 80 years of peace, Tulliyolal does have elements of discord beneath the surface. But Alexandria feels like a story which forces you to watch, completely unable to intervene, as strangers and friends alike suffer horribly. In the finale, in Living Memory, you are forced to inflict that suffering. This isn't a choice-based narrative game, It's a linear RPG. If I want to finish the story and keep playing, I have to do something which I object to, morally. I can't just cut off the supply of souls sustaining the Endless and let Living Memory burn out, I have to be the one to kill them all. I wanted an adventure in uncharted territory, and that is most definitely not what I got. Instead I got a guided tour of well-trodden fucking misery. And looking far ahead to 8.0, it begs the question of what they're going to do. With how grimdark Dawntrail gets in the second act, it feels like they need to make the 8.X series far more lighthearted so they can offset it. But at the same time, I'm not sure that would feel right. 8.0 should probably be where they take the major strides towards putting us into the next big overarching story, which is going to require a lot of depth, emotion and conflict. If Dawntrail is going to be another serious, depressing story with no real time to decompress before they launch us into the next big thing, instead of the summer vacation we were promised, I'm not sure I can get behind it. I think I'll just find it tiring. It also has this problem of... How do you fix it? 7.0 is out there now, you can't untell that story. If they DON'T continue it in 7.1-7.3, that'll be wholly unsatisfying, arguably making the problem worse by not deconstructing the issues in Alexandria. But I also... *Really* don't want to spend more time dealing with Alexandria. Whatever the threat and/or antagonist of 7.3 is going to be, I'm not looking forward to it. EDIT: Additional thought. I’ve been wondering on and off why it is that I resonate somewhat with the main character syndrome people despite fundamentally disagreeing with them, and I finally figured it out. It’s not about resenting Wuk Lamat for taking the spotlight away from the Warrior of Light, it’s about resenting the plot and the circumstances for making me and my Warrior of Light feel like a powerless observer after a ten-year story about having the strength of arms and strength of will to forge ahead no matter what. I have similar criticisms of Stormblood (despite it being my favourite expansion, Zenos fucking sucks), Shadowbringers and Endwalker (Garlemald…)
this whole point I resonate with more than I thought I could. Apart from the fact that I liked ShB and EW way more than you seem to have, I aggree with almost everything you say. Haven't watched the video yet, but I don't think it can be closer to my feelings about DT than your point did (I would maybe stress the fact that the whole english VA are amazing, which makes the quality (or lack there of) of the writing even worse), and that I would've loved to see the scions less that we do)
It has been said that the Final Fantasy series likes to borrow from Star Wars. I did not know that with FFXIV they borrowed the trajectory of the sequel trilogy, with the first half being Star Wars 7 and the second half being Star Wars 8. Namely, that both Star Wars 7 and the first half of Dawntrail was boring and by the book but technically in line, and 8 and the second half of Dawntrail being bold, but crapping on Star Wars 7/first half of Dawntrail in such a way that whatever the resolution is, Star Wars 9/the next major arc of FFXIV will forever be ruined.
Hey WeskAlber, i saw you complaint about VA eng do you play FFXIV on jp audio ? Personally i see the jp audio is really good, the VA is perfect to convey characters emotion.
I’m interested in listening to your opinion about Dawntrail in full but, I haven’t finished it yet so, I’ll come back to this video at a later time. Thank you! 👍
I'm happy you gave a nuanced and fair, yet still opinionated piece here. I adored Dawntrail, and there's so much I wish it had done differently. I'm really excited for the post-patch content, and hope it can address at least some of the issues you have, and I have.
You open TH-cam, see a video about the opinion of a creator you respect and think "Okay, I haven't played it yet and I've seen a lot of people saying bad things, let's probably see a more in-depth one" - after all it's over an hour long . At the end of the video you are there, sitting, thinking about loved ones, choices in your personal life, and how am I going to justify to my wife that I NEED to buy this expansion now?! Thanks Wesk
I actually don’t see people talk about the culture in the expansion, which was something they did mentioned would work to improve. After finishing the expansion I do have my verdict. At best they properly did their homework with some real elements they brought, at their worst moments, it’s Disney level representation as seen in Coco and Encanto. There are some annoying tendencies it has but it’s not alone in it. Overall they did the bare minimum and I appreciate it but I would say their representation still has long ways to grow
Your Wuk Lamat impression was shockingly good @18:03 I rewatched that bit a good half dozen times, it was nice emphasis on your point, but also well done haha. Also, fantastic video overall! I personally agree with a lot the points you made, not all, but many of them! Thanks for being so thorough and not confusing your arguments with buzz words or blanket statements without evidence. Probably took a lot of work, but i appreciate you.
VA issues are rarely an actual VA issue and almost always the directions they are given. Since this is the final cut of the line this is clearly what they were directed to do and the best they gave out of multiple takes they gave
Some dumb people don't understand that even if the VA was terrible (she wasn't), it ultimately falls to the voice directors to either guide them into becoming better or choosing another VA for the role.
@@superiorfoe You arent here to have conversation but grandstand. The first thing you did was insult people that don't like what you like. You need to rethink your approach and maybe entire life viewpoint. she was fantastic in SOME parts and absolutely dreadful terrible in others. Much like everything else in life its a grey area on both the VA and director. I dont really care who the voice actor was for any of the characters, i care about the experience we get. and after replaying the expansion through in FR afterward, i can genuinely say i felt robbed in some areas of the game just due to the performances. but only some of them. there were still some very great parts in the EN version. i hope they maybe just give her another shot andredo the lines that are clearly a problem
@@MinaruokSo what's your problem then if you agree that the VA can redo her voice lines with better direction? I never insulted people who don't like DT for valid reasons. The only people I'm calling dumb are those who treat a single voice actress as a scapegoat instead of using their brains and realising that the blame should lie on voice direction and/or the higher ups who had complete control over casting choices.
I can't help but feel like the shutdown of Living Memory could also be seen as an allegory (might not be the right term) for FF14's inevitable shutdown. Sure, it's not happening anytime soon, but that "Final Day" will come eventually as no MMO lasts forever. Because, like LM, they rely on a constant supply of players/souls coming in: first through the free trial and hopefully, paying for a sub.
The WoL was always the MC of FF14. They only shared their spot with others from time to time. They were always central to the plot with personal stakes. Be it Ultima weapon, Zenos, Emet Selch, Elidibus or whoever. The WoL was always the one they had their eyes on. Not Thancred, not Y'sthola or whoever. Even YoshiP said in an interview that the WoL is STILL the MC even though it didn't seem like it in DT. I understand not wanting to be the god slaying mary sue all the time and having a different approach but DT went too much in the other direction. The problem with DT was that Wuk Lamat took the exact same spot of the WoL. Interacting and building trust with NPC's was always implied to be the strong suit of the WoL but this time she did all that and so nothing was left for us. FF14 is still a video game, a MMORPG. If the player character is not the MC what then? Are we just standing in the background cheering for NPC's in the future of the MSQ? Are we continuing to just be a "yes man" and call that mentoring? The raid storyline till now showed that the WoL can still work and interact with others if they are on their own. DT was a different approach, I give the writers that and applaud them for taking the risk. But for me and others it is important that our character has a meaningful role in the story. If people want to call that MC-syndrome so be it. That's why I play video games. Otherwise I could watch a movie and DT came really close to being just that one NPC in the main role and us holding the camera.
And I say in the video you are the Main Character. But main character and the focus are not the same. We're the biggest threat, so it only makes sense to focus on us as an enemy. But the enemies are only a part of the equation, our allies have something to focus on too. And to me, being a mentor is one of the most meaningful roles you could take. They could have written more scenes where we actively mentor or have others help in that, like I mention in the video. The problem isn't the topic they went with, but how they went along with it.
@@WeskAlber It was more of an overall statement of mine but thank you for answering on my comment I appreciate that. On your point: I disagree on the whole mentor thing. It is always brought up for DT but we aren't really mentoring. A mentor shows things, let's their apprentice repeat that and looks how they do it. They give them praise if they do right and criticize if they do wrong while nodging them in the right direction and with time they give them more and more complex things to do by themself. In DT we don't do that really. We praise Wuk Lamat and nothing more otherwise we just walk behind her. She tells us what WE should do. "Speak to that person", "let's go there", "let's walk here", "hold my stuff for me". That is not mentoring. The problem is that Wuk Lamat does not really fail and has nothing to learn from. She only falls upward and so there is nothing for us to do. The whole plot could have been without us tbh and that is not what it is about being an MC, focus or not. I agree that the topic itself is not the problem but be it with Wuk Lamat or Zero, they have shown that they can't write that scenario and now both of them are at a point where they don't need a mentor anymore and I'll be honest. After the 6.x patches and the DT MSQ I have no patience to give them more chances on that topic. Deftarm was a better Mentor pupil relationship and that was all the way back in HW with different writers.
Furthermore, there is “being a main character that is not the focus” and there is “being a main character that is shackled to the actual focused-upon main character”. It is fine to not be in focus; in fact, you are correct in that it is only Endwalker where you (but you as Azem) is the focus. But the Warrior of Light was never irrelevant or peripheral. The Warrior of Light, by being the weapon that solves issues, is part of the important stuff and also can witness the story of various towns and people in those towns. The Warrior of Light doesn’t even have that until Alexandria and at that point you are also of retreading of Shadowalker. As others say, you are filming the out-of-nowhere success of Wuk Lamat, and then you are plunged into the same schtick that made Shadowalker popular. Neither are satisfying, and in fact both intrude upon themselves and each other. Furthermore, you mentioned Link in Twilight Princess. But at least there, Midna and Link were both helpless to survive circumstances Zant introduces. You have to rely on her so she relies on you to traverse the Light world and stop Zant and Ganondorf. Zant also seemingly sidelines all the main Zelda characters, meaning it if fair for Link to not be the hero of that story because he was narratively sidelined. The WoL is supposed to be a mentor, meaning there should be stuff for the WoL to do. But that is not done. And that intrudes on the Shadowalker half of Dawntrail.
(I'm sorry for the essay of a comment but as someone who fell into the black hole that is Kingdom Hearts lore I'm finding way too many coincidences for there not to be some sort of references) TLDR: The second half of Dawntrail is as much about Kingdom Hearts 2's Nobodies as it is about FFIX's Alexandria. And you can see it even on the map between the old Alexandria of FFIX and New Alexandria being The World That Never Was. Unironically, the best way to understand what might be happening with New Alexandria and possibly even upcoming MSQ we might need to look into the insanity that is Kingdom Hearts Lore. You wanna know a common thing said for the second half of this expansion. "Man this song reminds me of Kingdom Hearts 2". Specifically songs related to the Nobodies. Nobodies, beings of bodies left behind after their hearts, their souls are taken from them. All that remains is their memories of who they were and a drive to get back what they lost. Except they don't want their old heart they want a new one. And from it comes this drive to collect as many hearts, as many souls as possible to use them to create new hearts for themselves. Axel's notorious catchphrase is "Got it Memorized" because he understands that the way to truly be remembered for existing at all is the same way the Yok Huy believe. Orgenics has the song Critical Drive from the World That Never Was in it. The home of the Nobodies as the chosen place to collect Hearts. Living Memory is heavily reminding people of Twilight Town, specifically Roxas fake computer generated version of recreated peoples of the actual Twilight Town. And then in the final battle against Sphene if you listen closely to the piano you can hear the most fascinating leitmotif to appear. Cavern of Remembrance, a place where most of the leaders of the Nobodies have a memory dedicated to them. And without going to indepth and bringing up Recoded and Data Riku and the phone game (KH really likes to play around with memories/ souls/ and data) I do want to bring up the only 3 Nobodies/Data characters to achieve that goal of forming a heart. Roxas, Xion, and Namine. All 3 were created in ways where they never initially had Hearts to begin with and so we're able to. Why is this relevant? Because it's to say Living Memory is full of Nobodies with previous souls. They aren't the people of the memories they are recreating, their souls are gone. The souls they collect to try and create the facsimile they are won't let them fill the void with a new soul, a new life. Fascinatingly, without their bodies/memories the souls are just beings of hunger and rage more akin to feral animals living off instinct. Being devoured by that one instinct. Which directly ties into the use of Feral Souls in Arcadion and how their use corrupts your own soul until you die. And the most interesting thing, that I hope Dawntrail explores, is that the only way to get back the person you lost from this state of being a Heartless and a Nobody is for both to be merged together again. In KH for this to happen means both the Nobody and the Heartless must die if the lost loved one is to be rebirthed into themselves again. I would love for the patches to go into looking into how what New Alexandria is doing is literally preventing rebirths in the Aetherial Sea. And it would be a great anti-thesis to the Ancients belief of how it is a blessing to be able to return to the Sea. I could keep going but I'll stop here, but I'll leave with this. Hearts=Souls Nobodies=The Endless Heartless=Feral Souls Replace any instance of those 3 words and if you played Kingdom Hearts tell me it doesn't sound familiar
"It's okay to have an expansion without the scions" I agree with this. The Scions' portrayal (by which I mean, the complete lack of any purpose or stakes in the narrative) is my biggest issue with the expansion in general; I wish they'd stayed home entirely instead of being these hollow shells of plot utility and nothing else.
I think the story telling around the new characters was a miss for me. I liked the opening scene we got with Wuk where she is scared and not confident. I liked the scene where she told us about her insecurities. But I never felt that she, or us as a mentor, worked to revolve those issues. They just went away. I would have liked more quiet scenes with the new cast, and more player choosable dialogue to fill out our role as a mentor. I also think Wuk loving her people but not knowing much about them was strange choice. Wuk would have been a great companion if she knew more than surface level details about the different cultures. But the way it’s presented in the story she is also learning. I understand what they were going for, but it just didn’t work for me. Especially because that is the trait that is supposed to make her the ideal Dawn Servant. Part of the reason I felt so annoyed with this expansion, is that the writing tries to force the player to feel a certain way when it hadn’t earned that feeling in me. The coronation is a good example. After Koanna dropped out, and Zorel was disqualified, my thought was “oh, so Wuk just won…?” It didn’t feel like we’d grown and won because of how much she has learned. It felt like she won because Bakool, who probably should have been disqualified for releasing the world ending serpent but don’t worry about it he’s a sad boy deep down, and zorel were just ass holes. Koanna coming to back her makes sense, but I would have liked to see more done with it. This all built up to “Smile” the way that song was used the first time felt like such a cliche Disney moment. Between that, the reveal of the dead head, the randomly bad voice acting in crowd NPCs, that cutscene was where I went from “it’s not my favorite expansion, but it’s aight.” To “I’m actively not enjoying this.” The next half got a bit more interesting, but suffered from many of the same issues. And as the threat got bigger I got more aggravated that the WoL had no agency.
You really cooked with this one. I wasn't expecting an entire peer review on top of the discussion of the expansions features, themes, and everything else. My favourite part of Dawntrail is honestly how the first half-ish of the expansion feeds into the juxtaposition of itself in the second half. The logic of Alexandria's view of death and memories wouldn't be the same without the Yok Huy showing that Alexandria is a perversion of their ideals and culture; and without this, the entirety of Living Memory would not hit the way it does. On that note, I also implore people to play SOMA, because it brings up a lot of the same discussion points you have for Living Memory and it's just super interesting. For example, the system in Living Memory may just be a replication of people's memories and it may be designed to set people up for specific encounters based on their memories, but does that make those interactions any less real? Some may dismiss it out of hand, but I think what is remembered in the moment, the emotions, the thoughts, your framing of it, I think that's just as real too, even if "it's just a simulation."
I get what DT tried to do, but the writing quality issues and serious mishandling of characters/character development made all those emotional moments simply not matter to me. "New zone with high stakes? Why should I care? I just want this over with." When my immersion is broken, the story doesn't matter, anymore. And in a story heavy MMO, I found myself not caring to do very much post-game content, either. DT is successfully the first and only expansion whose cutscenes PUT ME TO SLEEP. Even in ARR, I was wide awake on every single moment (note: I played the shb shortened version, not the original back when it was current and has a lot of quest bloat).
this so much! After I reach the 5th zone all I could think of was "this all sounds so interesting to me but I'm so tired and just want this MSQ to end". People can say all they want that the game has always been like this, all expansions are like this etc but this is the very first time an expansion made me bored
I replayed ARR right before they shortened it so I could compare it to the reworked version, which I replayed right after the rework. While i have no complaints, personally I preferred the original. I even love many of the side quests. ARR always engages me despite taking its time building its world and establishing the Hero's Journey theme for our WoL. Dawntrail left me cold.
OMG so much this. I can't be bothered to do the trials or alliance raid, because.. I don't care about the story. When I step into Amaurot, when Emet-Selch gives his voice over about the cataclysm that befell the Ancients, I'm invested because I have opinions on Emet Selch and what he's done. When I zone into whatever the end game dungeons are here, I just.. don't care. They're loot pinatas.
my biggest criticism about dawntrail isn't even specific to it since shadowbringers, the rhythm of the msq is just too predictable I understand it probably lets them have a consistent blueprint to build on but my experience going through the story felt more like hitting checkpoints than ever before split path quest then straight into level 91 dungeon then soon after level 93 dungeon followed closely by the first trial and so on I'm not asking for more actual duty content, I was personally wholly satisfied with the length and actual gameplay during the msq, however the IMPOSSIBLY RIGID flow of them needs to be shaken off at least a little by next expansion this would be my biggest disappointment if this doesn't get adressed
Yeah, I really hope they decide to be bold with how they wish to present content in the future. Maybe make some of the dungeons optional again. I'll give that to Shadowbringers about the second primal fight. The second primal was supposed be fought at the x8 level. Bismarck for 58 and Lakshmi for 68 levels. But Shadowbringers decided to change that and give us Innocence at 79. Since then we've had the primal fight before the final questline of the expac. I wouldn't mind if the second primal fight ended up ALSO being optional. The amount of content can be the same but how it is delivered can be different.
That rigid concept is extra annoying at some points in Dawntrail when suddenly a bunch of people appear with no other reason to be there than "they need to be available for Duty Support". It worked great for the first trial and was a great character moment, being able to enter the trial with usually opposing teams, each with their own reasons to fight this snake bird. However, later on it started to get ridiculous. It was already noticeable in some moments in the Endwalker patches, but oh well, they're patches and it wasn't super bad at that time. In Dawntrail meanwhile it was so obvious and glaring it broke my immersion hard. If you want these NPCs to be there, give them a reason. Otherwise let them out. When they added Duty Support to older duties, they relied in such moment on random NPCs when there was a gap, like a healer from the Mol in the Steppe or so. This resulted in a Poroggo paladin in the Gubal Library and it's hilarious, I love it. I wish they would do this with newer content as well when it fits.
I just wished this first part could have been mini games and skirmishes or duels to represent the candidate instead of NPC fetch quests, more like a festive event making more relaxing vibe after Endwalker's world ending threat, but yet again we faces another world ending event that felt too rushed. 😂
I've been watching you since Shadowbringers, all the way back when I was actually trying to learn rotations for jobs, and to me this genuinely feels like one of your most impactful videos. I've been having point for point thoughts on this expansion since the pre release and felt like I just had the wrong opinion when compared to the general consensus between my friends, content creators, etc. So it's really reassuring hearing you make these same points that I've had throughout this whole video. I related to Endwalker when it came out because of how poor my mental health was at the time, in regards to finding hope at the end and holding on to that hope. But with Dawntrail I related in a whole new way. I felt myself finally finding that light in life and enjoying existing in and of itself. Looking forward to a new chapter in life and being excited about what is to come next. TLDR; I think this entire video was amazing and I just want to say thank you so much for literally every single point you made throughout it! PS: TRANS RIGHTS ♥
I also like how you use the Dawntrail Dragoon animation. Since you are a Nidhogg, the animation showing Nidhogg's head devouring enemies is perfect for your intro. ;)
FFXIV really is starting to suffer from theme park mmo syndrome when it comes to the writing. The issues started in post patch Endwalker but it is really exacerbated in Dawntrail where the scions are supposedly disbanding and “we shouldnt all be meeting up or else people will realize we are still together” and yet they are still fucking together in every cutscene. The crew is there for no reason other than marketing and status quo. Alisaie and Alphinaud had no reason to accompany us other than “Friends!”. Thancred and urianger could have easily just been regular bodyguards. It all just makes the story hollow and so low stakes because of course no is gonna get killed or majorly injured, we need them for 8.0!
The whole “criticism of the expansion can be a minefield” is so true right now, but it goes so far in both directions it makes it impossible to say anything, You have people who are making horrible comments about the VA and such, and using that to criticize the expansion. While at the same time people are using that to deflect any real criticism of the story by saying whoever made those points are transphobes etc. Both sides are a nightmare to deal with, it could just be a twitter thing however, as it seems most opinions in game and on TH-cam have been fairly grounded to my knowledge
You're right about it being a Twitter thing, but the problem is that it often breaches containment. People don't think critically about all the vitriol they're consuming and just take it with them wherever they go, I've seen more and more people adopt the same tired talking points from the stupid bird app in the past few weeks.
I have literally never seen someone get called a transphobe for making a good faith argument about why they didn't like Wuk Lamat. So I don't get where all these comments saying that "both sides are equally bad" are coming from. What "both sides"? My biggest takeaway from this whole mess is that if there are two sides, it's that there are those willing to have civil critical discussions without being hateful, and those who aren't. Being called a transphobe, for what it's worth, is not hate speech.
@@sapphirelily510 One of the Big things with all of this is the one fact that people are highly invested in view if how they see view themselves in their characters in this game. which is a good thing . The very core of you wanderings which is what Zenos saw in you and no one else did is that you are an adventuer,That is what pulled him to your character, If you did not have a certain enjoyment foe battle your character would nave never made it. Zenos knew that. part, Dawn trail gave you the chance to just be,
Dawntrail is a good wake up call to show everyone the community's true colours, of how they really behave when things don't go their way, or when they get something that they don't like. Of course not everyone is like that, but enough of them are that the negativity on social media is clear for all to see. And that's the real truth: that this community is no different from any others out there. We're not more welcoming, more supportive, more tolerant or more mature. It's just that things have been going *too* well in the past, so of course everyone was happy and put on their best behaviour.
It should be noted that every single positive thing peopl attribute to FFXIV was around the Shadowalker arc (base Shadowbringers-base Endwalker). Not only did it strike gold then because the stories of Emet-Selch and the Ancients were excellent, but even more importantly the mass exodus of World of Warcraft people (and the shock that FFXIV is massively opposite World of Warcraft) gave it a boost that lasted until the rise of Dawntrail. Notice how there was no attitudinal shift, no large understanding. Furthermore, it should be noted the last time FFXIV was treated this well was literally at base ARR, because it was such a turn around from 1.0. Not only is FFXIV’s friendly reputation fake, it literally is based off of performing miracles, and the Shadowalker era was a miracle.
Also, the majority of the games reputations for being a good community is just about always in game. Ingame people are great by virtue of the strong moderation, but outside it’s basically a free for all, especially on twitter.
Eeeehn, I dunno about _that._ I've been around enough multiplayer games to say FF14 feels _measurably_ better. Most of the awful in XIV is concentrated on social media, which is always the minority of players.
@@pedroscoponi4905 but thats kind of part of the problem isn't it? It's easy to make ourselves look good, when everyone else looks bad, then when bad stuff shows up on our community, we point to those "other games" and brag about how we're still not as bad as them. It's almost kind of like diverting attention away from our own faults by trying to emphasise the faults of other communities that have it even worse.
Also, here’s the thing. FFXIV is measurably better now, but that description belongs to the Ascian arc (2.0-6.0), and the golden age noted is the Shadowalker era. Unless FFXIV, which has explicitly set itself up to be a living, breathing video game akin to a series of books, justifies its reputation constantly (even more than things that release once and that’s it), even WoW will surpass it, and if not WoW then there will be something that takes FFXIV’s consideration of everything and does it better or in more interesting manners, and people will realize how stagnant FFXIV has become.
The question regarding the endless being real or not to me is curious since it's been repeatedly drilled down to us since Endwalker that souls are comprised of both living aether and memories, both of which are equally important for an individual. People who think they aren't real treated the manifestations of the dead in Ultima Thule with more credence than the endless which is ironic on all fronts, since it's lending weight to Emet-Selch's rebuttal that he doesn't consider us truly alive therefore won't be guilty of murder for killing us. Moreover I think something people always seem to gloss over on this topic is the very idea that this civilisation has successfully managed to reproduce the natural function of the aetherial sea, effectively making an artificial version of it through the Origenics facility. Is the story ever going to address this? Even the MSQ kind of set it aside and never actually shut down the system. I feel the pacing issues with the MSQ barely let enough room for more interesting things to breathe and focusing on all the meandering instead.
I knew the stories weren't really about us, but it's kind of a hurtful pain in the chest the final trial had that one part. It makes sense, sure, it's part of Wuk Lamat's character arc, fighting a ruler that's just like her. It just felt bad to me to have my own part in the very end feel like my walking arsenal status reduced in that sense, especially if you're a tank, she's effectively doing a part of the tank power fantasy. It just felt odd, but it's only truly compounded on certain different issues I had with the expansion. Outside of that, I just didn't really think too much about DT. It's not my favorite, and it'll just share the same spot in my brain as Stormblood in terms of how much I think of it story-wise. I do thank you for making this video, because it did make me soften my opinion on DT, just because you brought up certain things I just wasn't thinking about when I was overall looking over the story after I was done.
The first half of the expansion started off as a Saturday morning cartoon plot to visit every town and collect the seven mystical starburst candies so Wuk can be a pokemon master. I think some people were majorly put off by that and never managed to recover.
![The Complete Story of Destiny! From origins to Shadowkeep [Timeline and Lore explained]](/img/n.gif)
Erenville: "Mother! Why didn't you tell me you're an Endless?!"
Cahciua:" Why are you the only Turali with an Icelandic accent?! Even _I_ don't have one!"
Erenville: "I... shit..." 🤓
I had to poke fun at it. 😂
I am going to forever be upset that we didn't have Koana/Thancred/Urianger as a trial battle or something.
God, that would’ve been cool.
That alone would have made people think that Koana was more at odds with Wuk Lamat, and honestly there is such an easy way to justify it. Wuk is very positive, Koana is very cynical. It could be one of those “they are on the same side but cannot see past themselves” situations, where Wuk Lamat is trying to reason with Koana but Koana will not listen because the topic is too touchy for him to recognize how much they could be collaborating. Then they would battle to get Koana to listen, and then Wuk Lamat/Koana becomes one team as Wuk Lamat convinces him their goals are actually the same or at least synergistically helpful, and then they are a team. It would be very early as a way to show that Wuk Lamat is willing to talk and battle in a manner more like FFXIV’s Ascian arc.
Yeah the whole point of the scions all being individually recruited for a competitive play helping the potential “hiers” was a moot point of nothing lmao
For me, Living Memory was more like an empty house of a relative that has passed away that we inherit and must now need take care of. There's all their belongings here, all the books and movies and clothes, everything that tells of a person's life and personality. What do we do with it? We cannot keep all that stuff - some of it just doesn't fit, some of it is worn down, some of it we just have no room for and it needs to be given away or thrown out. But each and every item here is still a part of that person's memory, held some import to them, probably has a story to it.
Yet they're ultimately just things. Someone that doesn't know this person would not hesitate to just throw everything out if they wanted the place cleaned out. But it's when you sit down, consider the pieces of someone's life here, when you try to remember the bits and pieces that tell a bigger story, when you consider what of it all is the most important memento to keep - that is how I felt in Living Memory. That is what the characters were doing there, too. They could have just rushed to each server to quickly shut things down - but they took their time, reminisced, learned of these digital ghosts and the lives they may have lead.
We must remember that they once lived because we MUST shut the Living Memory down. It is a deeply flawed system born out of trauma, and for the society of that shard to heal, they need to reclaim their own memories that men long ago decided to take from them and hoard them here. Once the final reactor is disabled, the illusion fades - but the grass and trees are green, the captive animals live on. Sun rises and sets, the skies are now clear. There is life here still, and it will recover in time.
This is really beautiful, thank you for writing it. A dear friend of mine lost a loved one just prior to the release of DT, and they expressed a similar sentiment in terms of how they viewed Living Memory. I'm screenshotting this comment and sending it to them because they are active in an in-game group that is into the whole "absolutely nothing was good about DT and if you felt emotional at it you're a dummy" bad faith arguments, so I think it will make them happy to know that other people viewed things the same way
@@keysmashwarrior5057 Thanks for the kind words. I have lost several family to debilitating disease, so there is a lot to process and this zone experience certainly brought back a lot of bittersweet feelings. It is also why I ultimately don't care about criticisms, because what matters in art is the emotions it invokes. For some it will work, for others not, because everyone's life experiences are different.
In particular, I found Erenville's experience very close to mine, when the loved one tries to act normal yet it is visibly clear they are not, and lack the ability to really make it better. My father had withered completely due to cancer, yet his last conversations were about his sailor days in youth - and I struggled to remain composed, because it felt so ill fitting... and yet, that is what he wanted to speak about, because the memories of bright blue seas and great fish and the air of freedom were all he had left as he wasted away in pain, unable to do anything.
And I still remember the awful feeling of wanting to spend more time with him, yet also being unable to bear to look at his terrible state, and him understanding it too. That horrible limbo feeling is what I relived through Erenville's experience - as ultimately his frustrations are not with his mother, it's with the fact she is gone and all that is left of her is this lookalike digital ghost of her in her prime. It's cruel.
But I can also see how this scene could instead bring about another experience like Wesk mentions in the video. It is an experience alien to me, and yet I get how it instead invoked that and I can empathize with his very different experience by using the same scene with a different read. That's what good art does, it is beyond just the sum of its part and objective ups and downs. I think people farming videos and takes have lost sight to that a little - flawed things can be good and meaningful, too.
Honestly, my first impression of it was that the game had lost the plot and we had become Emet-Selch. "I don't consider you to be truly alive, therefore it's not murder if I kill you." They really should have done a better job of communicating that these are just computer programs and not real people in any sense of the word. Also, it's like the Alexandrians had never heard of non-volatile storage. If the endless really were just stored memories, why not just save them on a hard drive which takes precisely zero power to maintain indefinitely? If nothing else it would have given us and Sphene time to figure out a long term solution to the problem other than harvesting souls from the living. Honestly, this entire expansion's MSQ is an extremely ham-fisted morality play where the author essentially forces you to agree with them on everything. That type of writing is annoying in other media but downright intolerable in a medium that's supposed to be interactive.
Beautifully put ❤ Your comment and much of the video echoed a lot of what I felt were the strongest and most emotionally complex moments of DT. I wish more people spoke and devoted more positive energy to these themes and ideas.
I'm also sorry for your loss, sounds like what you went through is really tough. I sadly experienced a loss of a friend and mentor within a month of finishing Dawntrail.
While i hope others don't have to experience the death of a loved one any time soon, I felt having that experience myself did give me a better perspective on how difficult it truly is to grieve (both this recent loss, and few other major losses over the years). It can be difficult to forgive your regrets or missed opportunities, and especially difficult to accept that a piece of you will always feel their absence-and that's okay. In fact it can feel wonderful to live life more vigorously for them, rather than yearn for who you can't get back. Much like you said in your lovely analogy.
It seems to me, based on people's mixed reactions to DT, that if someone hasn't experienced loss, or really processed their own emotions around a loss even, the themes around grief may be less potent. I can see why it could be harder to be swayed by the spoken and unspoken emotions in Living Memory. I can also see why someone's dissatisfaction with other parts of the story as a whole did not outweigh the emotional highs and meaning of other parts. Which is too bad.
Sending you good vibes and happy times ❤
@@breannelewis3674 I agree with what you say - that those not familiar with their own mortality might not appreciate such themes, even find them trite and overdone. But they are "overdone" for a reason. Once you have one too many close calls yourself, once your friends and loved ones begin to pass, you realize that all of this is fleeting. And because it's fleeting, it matters. And truly realizing your own mortality is a religious experience that WILL change how you look at things.
I've lost a best friend, I still recall the discussions we had about his story ideas he was working on before he passed. Seemingly mundane thing, yet when that's one of the last memories, it stays there. It shows that yes, THAT was what was most important to him, that was what he dreamed of doing. A stark reminder to myself that I must pursue my own dreams without relent, because nobody else can do it for me - as I cannot finish my friend's dream, its contents faded along with him.
And YoshiP has lost a close friend too, fleeting glimpses of whom are seen in the "gundam" styled influences in the game. Soken almost succumbed to cancer, yet his work gave him meaning and strength to struggle through, and you can *feel it* in the music.
Art is more than just whether it "makes sense" or not, it's about capturing that person's creative essence, what they think matters, what they feel is important. To someone that's been putting off their own coming to terms with all things being finite, that might feel condescending, saccharine, overdone. But that is only because every single person on this world will inevitable come to an end, and so of course this is one of the eight great themes each and every story will grapple with, forever.
I'm a bit confused about us being a mentor this time. I never felt like one, but more like a tourist on a guided tour. If anything, we're the ones being told (not taught) the same lesson over and over. What do we, the Warrior of Light, actually teach Wuk Lamat? Krile does some, with regards to acting tough with sea sickness, and Alisaie (?) in regards to the power of friendship, and maybe not to trust a queen we just met that acts a little too nice. I fail to see where we had an impact. As the WoL, or Azem, on Lamaty'i. I ask because I see the argument a lot, but never saw a concrete example. I feel like I'm missing something there.
I totally agree, we are never in a mentor-like relationship with Wuk Lamat and too often it feels like WOL or the Scions didn't need to be there.
That’s the neat part, you didn’t.
Besides not delivering on the Thancred Urianger fight, the moment I realized the expansion wasn't going to do anything interesting with its characters (for me personally) was the Iron Chef moment. You had the perfect chance to establish Zoraal Ja, to expand on Bakool Ja Ja, and we get paired with Konna, who we already had a moment with. The most boring possible choice, advances very little of the characters, and later on that really hurts the emotional beats of Zoraal Ja's arc because we literally do not get to know him before he turns. DT has a lot of missed potential, it's honestly kinda sad to me cus I can see such a tighter, better paced, more emotionally impactful story being told.
My biggest complaint about Dawntrail is the entire second half of the story hinges on a genuinely interesting philosophical question that completely falls apart in XIV because the existence of the soul is provable fact, not just speculative philosophy. "Would a copy of a person's memories be the same as the original person" doesn't really hit as hard when there is something explicitly missing from the copies. And, it makes it all the more baffling when the soulless copies act indistinguishably from living people.
I feel like the ‘talk to X’ points highlight a question I haven’t really seen asked:
Why only NOW are so many people noticing that as a trend?
I feel it’s an equally important part of this conversation, since it IS a long term issue, and it HAS been so prevalent.
My personal opinion is a mix of interacting/ agency and quality.
When the pacing feels off and you are being told things repeatedly without feeling any interest in what’s being said, and especially if the writing comes off as lower quality overall, then things like that become more noticeable.
It like how on NG+ you start to notice plotholes, but it ultimately doesn’t affect the overall enjoyment, since if you want to divert your attention to side content, you feel a bit more comfortable doing so.
Which is another point: side content, from what I’ve noticed, tends to be where a lot of the overall world building goes. MSQ gives you the essentials, sides offer extra if you want it.
DT MSQ made the mistake of making the usually optional lore aspects mandatory, and sadly did it on an inconsistent enough quality scale to where it did feel bloated/off. (Literal repeat of points as well, which can come off as condescending to the audience). Which when taking into account that not everyone sits down for the lore stuff in MSQ (which is why the Unending Journey in the inn rooms exist, so you can go back and see the parts you missed, plus NG+ serves as a buffer for that too, albeit as a direct ‘replay’ method), on top of the writing..
Like, I heavily advise against CS skipping, but DT doesn’t really respect the players time in that regard. So for once, I don’t inherently blame the CS skippers for doing so.
Apologies for the wall of text, but I thought about that for a while after I finished the vid before and was wondering everyone else’s thoughts on that potential point.
I can think of two more reasons why people are way more critical this time.
A lot of it ends up being copy pasted between, with the number of the end quests being ‘talk to Wuk Lamat’, ‘speak to Wuk Lamat yet again’, or ‘talk to three people then speak to Wuk Lamat,’ which gets really repetitive and feels like you’re spinning in circles. So while speaking to someone to end a quest is nothing new, it at least felt like things were, in a way, moving forward constantly changing.
And before, there was usually enough to at least distract from the repetition, stronger overall writing quality, more interesting moments, stronger story hooks, what have you. Like just the gameplay of Dawntrail outside of dungeons is very barebones unlike say, HW which had like 4 solo duties before the first dungeon. But damn if you’re not able to be engaged with DTs story then things can get damn dull so fast.
@@Castersvarog Yeah.
As someone who got hooked into XIV by the lore, I had a VERY hard time keeping up with DT’s lore because it felt way too overstimulating.
Like, the rest of the pacing issues and writing comes into play here, but I need time to digest the info I’m being given. Having back to back cutscenes and so very few actual fighting bits between each dungeon/ raid, on top of so much being told in so short a time definitely did not help, though that’s me personally. I already have attention issues, and I felt so bored by DT I ended up just zoning out and relying on lore YTbers like Scribe for filling in the stuff I didn’t get.
I should not have to rely on external sources to make sense of a plot I was struggling to keep up with. Which also ties into a few other issues with DT that I had (story pacing, overexposure to Wuk Lamat which led from me liking her in 5.5 to actively hating her at the end of MSQ because I never got space to breathe between her and all the lore dumps…)
Honestly with that and how the dungeon mechanics tend to go off so fast I get hit no matter what I do (namely the aoe indicators), DT feels like it took a step back in terms of considering player’s time and accessibility for certain disabilities.. which was not something I felt in any of the other expansions, as I’ve always had the choice to just avoid the harder content (mainly for personal health reasons).
Ofc, again, just my perspective on that front.
Quick edit cause I wanna clarify:
When I mention the AoE indicators, I moreso mean the randomly placed ones, like the second boss of the lvl 97 dungeon. The normal mechanic ones I still learn eventually, but with a lot of the random ones they go off so fast I miss where the safe zone is.
Because the previous expansion had somewhat of a good story, dawntrail story was bad and people started to notice a lot of stuff.
@@Tom-Pendragon That’s definitely part of it, but people have repeatedly said the same for the ARR storyline and still call it slow to this day even after the rework, though I personally haven’t seen the complaint that much since.
I also still don’t entirely blame the story, as it’s important, but only one aspect of why people are suddenly seeing the repetition in how the story is utilized. It’s a multifaceted issue and would be an interesting rabbit hole to discuss over, I think.
If you haven't I recommend you check out Jo Cat's "It took me 300 hours to get into ffxiv" video. He mentions the "talk to X" problem, using shadow bringers as his example, written during Endwalker. The thing is it isn't a new problem, and hasn't been a new problem. It's a new expansion. There are a lot of folks that play ffxiv's msq twice every two years, once at launch, and then a second time when the final patch comes out, and they forget how this game plays. This time around a trans woman voices a main character, so trolls on 4chan make a green text complaining about her using the format of the msq, mostly to make her look dumb. That green text is shared around, and people miss the (bad faith) intent painting her looking like an idiot, and take it just as "speak to wuk lamat", and make that into a meme. What you have here is layers of poor reading comprehension, rose tinted glasses, and bigots acting in intentional bad faith getting Xeroxed into blaming DT for a common FFXIV issue.
There is literally nothing in DT exasperating this issue, which I'm confident saying because I've pushed a few alts through xiv, and even one through dawn trail. It's generally better about this than most expansions with HW being the worst.
The main differences between Dawntrail and other expansions (especially Shadowbringers and Endwalker) is that it's not following the pipeline 'Warrior of Light making this personal at some point'. I think that's what made many people so confused, because even if story never about Warrior of Light, we always ended up having personal connection to it because some events in it deeply affect your character (Gaius as our first nemesis and betrayal of the Crystal Braves in ARR, Haurchefant's death in Heavensward, Zenos as our ultimate nemesis in Stormblood, renewing yourself as a hero and our relationships with two main characters in Shadowbringers , twists and turns of our bonds with others that affect the story as a whole in Endwalker. Warrior of Light's journey in Dawntrail for the first time just feels meaningless, because story never affects us directly.
True. To be honest, the Number 1 reason the majority of people play games with Character Creation is that We want to be the Main Character or want to see our characters shape the world we placed them in and how the struggles they go through make them into the hero we want them to be.
Putting someone like Wuk Lamat in the Lead Role is not new, but making her the Face of the expansion is. Allow me to give 2 examples of characters that were made the Main Characters of 2 Separate Expansions: Aymeric from Heavensward and Lyse from Stormblood.
Aymeric and Lyse reminds me of a character archetypes for Gundam. Leaders that feel out of place and feel they can't do anything whatsoever until the WoL give them the motivation to rise up to the challenge. Wuk Lamat...she reminds me of Naruto. Actually that's one of the many reasons people hate her: that never-say-die positive attitude of hers as these people that I talked to never watched Naruto because of that personality trait.
All in all, unlike DT, the WoL is always the face of the expansions no matter what. Even though Aymeric and Lyse were, in a way the focus of their respective expansions, they were never as intrusive as Wuk Lamat in DT. Disclaimer: I like these characters, but they are better suited being the pillar for the WoL to be the Greatest Hero to come in the story, not the other way around.
I feel like Dawntrail didn't have enough characterization for WoL.
In Heavensward you had dark knight quest line. It specifically adressed how WoL was fed up with all the people that cant do basic things and that WoL should not disregard their own wellbeing while helping others. It also came right after WoL was betrayed and half of their friends went missing so there is that.
After this quest line almost every dialogue choice had "the mean option" like "know that will kill your god if I have to. Maybe even if I dont". It didn't affect the overall story of course, but it was nice to have a choice in your WoL characterisation.
But Dawntrail has none of those. Or at least it feels like it. In 99.9% of dialogues your only options are goody-two-shoes aligned. You can't be "the harsh but ultimately helpful mentor".
Like, there was a life lesson in Dark knight quest line: "sometimes you have to put yourself first and let other people deal with their problems themselves so they can grow". And we could impart that lesson to Wuk Lamat, but we just didn't have an opportunity, because writers picked saint WoL as only WoL and didn't provide an alternative.
Sorry for rambling but this was a major thing we discussed with friends while we were playing Dawntrail. It was like only having "You are bad, Zenos, I will kill you" option during EW. It was simply baffling how much of a regression it felt like after ShB and EW.
If you're going to take job quests into account as characterization of WoL, then you must do so for Dawntrail as well - because that is exactly what we do here.
We help a whole bunch of people to learn and grow. In the gatherer quests, we help a deeply grieving Viera to finally come to terms what had happened to his tribe sixty years ago and find the resolve to move on. In the smith quests we help a blacksmith find the right balance between churning out low quality goods for the masses and making beautiful, bespoke items. In the tailor/leatherworker quests we go into the history of Tuliyollal and how this country was carefully crafted down to its very language to try and unite these peoples to the best of the Dawnservant's ability. And the role quests are ALL about us mentoring a young, plucky hero that are trying to reclaim a relic lost from their tribe and help them overcome some hang-up they have in their life along the way and also deal with rather shut-in, self-obsessed villains that are causing harm out of the pettiest of reasons.
We mentor in all of these. We are the rock-solid, dependable person these people need, we're hardly at danger - and in the tank role quest specifically, when the villain finally DOES cast the sleep spell on WoL, they just seem happy to be able to take a little nap. It still goes hand in hand with the Dark Knight quests, of course - why are we doing this? Why do we help every single person that just asks for it? Why do we get involved in these little matters barely worth our notice? Past the unsatisfying "it's an MMO and this gives XP" answer, each player can decide for themselves what it is that makes their WoL be this mentor figure to whoever needs it - and we KEEP doing this, no matter what. It's in our nature.
Ultimately, most people just won't do these quests, because they mostly level one or two jobs and that's it. I haven't done every single job quest myself, across all my characters, so there are still holes in my own knowledge. That is why everyone always discusses the main story specifically, not even regular yellow side quests that likewise offer extra writing and insights on what's going on. You cannot progress the game without MSQ, but you can skip everything else, and so that extra characterization is missing.
The irony of this is, there were literal hordes of people after EW lining up to say that "You are completely right, Zenos, I live only for murder" was the only option during EW. I think part of our less snarky attitude this time around is because of exactly what you mention with DRK though: finally, finally, we spend a significant amount of time this expac NOT being the one to do all the work. We troop around after Lamat and the others, sure, and we do what's needed, but for once it's actually someone else having to deal with most of it. We ARE letting other people deal with their problems themselves for once. You raise some good points and I agree that I would have liked some more snarky dialogue too (in particular, I would have liked a bit of friendly rivalry banter between us and Thancred/Uri), but I can see why a WoL who wasn't expected to go and wrangle the damn llama himself is in a slightly better mood than one who would have been.
I'm only half-way through the video, but oh my goddddddddddddddd.
Seriously, i am forever thanking you for this video, you've been voicing a lot of the things i've been feeling about this expansion and past ones for such a long time.
Almost all the video was me smiling because you're bringing up topics that not many people if any have been talking about, specially when it comes to talking about previous expansions, and i felt i was going insane for thinking these, yet no one was bringing up in discussion (or straight up pretending these weren't a thing to begin with).
In general i felt like you were voicing so many things i've wish people talked about more often, and i'm so thankful for that.
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On a extra note about "the expansion lied about what it was about", i think it's worth bringing up how Shadowbringers was sold to us as "the warrior of light might take a darker path and become a villain!" so much the japanese title of the expansion is "Jetblack villains", only for this to be complete bs. The whole "Fanfest hype up things in a misleading way" is a whole topic that should be talked more about because it goes WAYYYYYYYY beyond just Dawntrail's.
On another note, oh my god the comment section in this video is rotten to the core.
So many bad faith and hateful arguments and all the examples of how hard it is to talk about this expansion without the worst kinds of people drowning the conversation of the expansions actual problems, so many of these feel like they just came here to parrot the same opinions and not actually engage with the actual video.
Yeah... It's like they watched zepla and preach, watched reddit, and are parrotting the same thing over and over again.
No personnal opinion, only responding with memes...I know not all ppl are like that, but it destroys any hope of healthy discussions.
Your impression of Wuk Lamat is surprisingly on point...
Timestamp is @18:03 in case you want to listen to it again ❤ (I agree it's so silly and good haha)
Did people not enjoy the cowboy section? For me that was my favorite point of the expansion. We got to be just a regular adventurer playing in the sand with a character that up until that point had barely had any attention paid to them.
For me personally it was the first time ever I started skipping MSQ cutscenes out of sheer boredom
The poop collecting quest is a fun throwback to old WoW poop and vomit quests, but it's still a poop collecting quest in the middle of the Main Story Quest.
Shaaloani is one of those zones that is great as an idea, but what they did with it was a whole bunch of nothing, which is a real shame.
I was really excited when it started, but that excitement got lost early into it
By the time it rolled around, I'd been so fed up with how milqutoast content up to then, I no longer cared.
People can defend Wuk Lamat all they want, and that's fine. However this xpac should have been all about Krile as the MC and us supporting her on her journey to find out about the earring and letter. That's the MSQ I wish I played.
They also told us it'd focus on Krile. Like I said, they could have done both. Galuf went on a unification adventure with Gulool, and the Feats are meant to mirror this. Getting Krile very involved basically is exactly what the text of the story itself says should have happened.
For me, it's not a matter they could have written a better story about Wuk Lamat and Krile. Its Krile should have been the main focus for the MSQ from the start, and everything should have been about her. The FF14 community shouldn't even be having this conversation in the first place, imho. I would like to honestly hear why people like Wuk Lamat, though.
Galuf wasn't part of the original group that United Tural 80 years prior, he was called only 20 years before to investigate the golden doors. That being said, ye, Kryle got shafted. She still had an entire set up with Solution 9 and her homecoming, and she only gets a passing mention at the end with her parents scene. Comparing this to Thancred or Raha arc in Shb, it is pretty sad she didn't get fleshed out more.
@@Just__Grimm How she get 'shafted' when her life was part of the story, We still don;t know a She She great deal a bout where all of this will lead to.She appears a number of times through out FF14.This is the answer to her true origin story
@ats882 are you really having a conversation in good faith if you can't spell the character's name correctly multiple times
Living memory is as real as the grief a mother felt when she met a VR construction of her deceased daughter
The only issue I had with Dawntrail was the same issue I had with every expansion- the "Speak With x" who is often ten feet away drives me nuts. But that is in a LOT of MMOs.
I love Ice cream, is one of my favorites dishes by far. But I wouldn't like to be only served ice cream every time I'm hungry.
I love Wuk Lamat and her characterization but I barely had any space to breath. I feel the second part of the expansion could have focus on Krile and Erenville since both of those characters have something there (His land and mother for Eren and Krile's roots)
And I agree with the mentoring part but at the end of the day -what- have we taught her? We were just "there" we didn't give any lessons or teach anything. Evertime we spent alone with her could have been a chance for that and if we can't be the ones giving advice have one of the scions acompany us and be that teacher, each one of the scions has a expertise field.
52:30 I really hope that we rebuild yyasulani in like a custom delivery/ allied society questline, I really want Erenville to be happy.
Dammit you made me cry several times during this video.
I am a CNA in long-term care, so I deal with people who are dying or have passed away regularly. My dad passed away a couple weeks before the expansion released. He was sometimes abusive when I was young, but he took responsibility for his actions during the last few years of his life. However, I did not trust him enough to be able to talk things over, so many things are still unresolved. I did not give him the opportunity to directly address the issues the abuse caused, even though he wanted to. And he never got to hear me tell him I forgive him.
I actually enjoyed Dawntrail even with its flaws, and blasted through most of it in a few days. But Living memory was awful. I have watched dozens of people suffer and die, my own dad had died, and it was all too much. All of the bottled-up emotions came flooding out, and I'm still now trying to process them.
Thank you for making this video. It is funny at times, tear-jerking at others and brought up things I never considered.
I'm sorry to hear about your loss, but it always get better with time, no matter how cliche it sounds. Wish you all the best o/
Okay. I'll be honest. Rather than trying to prove people's criticisms wrong, I feel like it would have been more productive to analyze *why* people came to feel the way they did. Pinning it on "main character syndrome" or a "lack of reading comprehension" really isn't the answer, nor will this sort of feedback help the dev team to avoid such divisive perceptions in the future. Clearly there was a problem, otherwise the reactions wouldn't have been so mixed.
The reason why people were complaining about not being the story's focus in such a strong manner was because the story as a whole felt really disconnected from the player's desires. Some character's developments were so abrupt that the player's emotions couldn't keep up (Bakool Ja Ja). Often times, we just stood around when major events were taking place. I'll name four examples of many. 1) the way Wuk Lamat's abduction transpired 2) us standing around while Gulool Ja Ja got killed 3) Us ignoring Erenville for way too long while he was going through the roughest time of his life 4) Us never asking how Gulool Ja even came into existence, why, how, and who his mother even is.
This list could go on and on and on and that's the fault of the writing. We were a bystander through and through, even in moments where many desperately wished to intervene. This is bad in the context of a video game. And sure, some of the questions could be addressed in the patches, but for characters like Zoraal Ja, who would have deserved more characaterization than he actually got, it might be too late.
Same goes for Wuk Lamat. While yes, the story did address Wuk Lamat's naive nature multiple times, she never got repercussions for her naive world view *when it mattered*. Instead, the entire rite of succession felt like a walk in the park, which lowered tension and the excitement for some players. The story should have challenged her naive world view DURING the rite of succession, not AFTER. A perfect opportunity would have been with the Hanu Hanu, where she decided to hold a Festival instead of focusing on the reed problem. Instead, she got rewarded for her skewed priorities. This was non-sensical and cartoonish, which lead to player frustration. She wouldn't have had to be "miserable" to learn from this and do better going forward. But no, the universe's logic bends to her and the writer's convenience. During the food trial, she could have been pared with Zoraal Ja or Bakool Ja Ja, so their differences in perspective could have been explored more! But no, she got paired with the most convenient option. And that's why people say that she is a Mary Sue. Another example: Yes, the story TELLS us that she is an underdog and barely has any support, the story SHOWS us that she is beloved by everyone she meets. And this is a weird contradiction, considering that only few in Tuliyollal seem to support her when she's grown up there and seems to be somewhat known? All of this then ends with the ascension ceremony where the people cheer her on while she once again preaches on about about love and peace. And that even though the story tells us in the very beginning that Tural's people have different values and ambitions, so why is everyone cheering like we're in a disney movie? To many, this felt alienating.
I really could make an entire essay out of this, but I'm not going to. All the feedback the devs need is out there. I just hope they make the best out of it so we get another story that most people will enjoy.
True and Real
Furthermore, it’s not like the developers are blind. Naoki Yoshida has literally there are parts that are lacking. It is now up to them to make something cohesive even if not as grand.
I'm gonna put this comment down before getting too far into the video for my own two pieces into this mix.
I found DawnTrail on the story side, more underwhelming than I had expected, and honestly it made me go back and appreciate base StormBlood more. The writing in DawnTrail feels kinda like it's a Saturday Morning Cartoon, with a new episode starting at each new area, with it finally feeling closer to the usual final fantasy at about, level 97, which is concerning to say, because I wasn't particularly fond of that style of story telling as I found StormBlood's narrative far more engaging (I'm using Base StormBlood as that's what most people say is the weakest link of the game, even if I like it). Both of these expansions have one character that gets a huge amount of spotlight to them, Lyse and Wuk Lamat, the difference however, is that other characters that are there in the plot, actually get to do things in StormBlood unlike DawnTrail. Hien, Gosetsu, and Yugiri are fantastic companions that you hang out with in Doma, and Lyse steps back to a supporting character that is learning what it means to be a ruler, and that learning is put to the test for her once Yotsuyu is defeated. Wuk Lamat, I feel was meant to have something similar of learning to be a ruler in a way, but they hardly ever took the spotlight away from her for her to ever even have some kind of pseudo mentor to belp her learn the rights and wrongs of being a ruler/leader.
And once her main story ended, I thought we'd finally be able to focus on other characters, like Krile and Erenville, but no, we got faked out by Shaollani, and are then moved to actually one of the worst made character deaths in the game (Hello, Devs, my character is standing right freaken there, He should jump in to help Galool Ja Ja!) I actually left the room out of sheer disbelief of that scene, and they could have literally fixed it by just, us being too late to the throne room and letting us see what happened through the echo (Which they seem to have forgotten how Echo was used in the past?), that alone would fix all my gripes with that scene. After that, we suddenly have a new character arc for Wuk Lamat, after we just got through her character arc in the story, and it just feels hollow by that point, since Krile and Erenville are once again put on the backburner to the end of the expansion. Meanwhile the rest of the cast, aside from Alisae, are. Doing. Nothing!
Away from the protags, lets focus on the antagonists. Bakool Ja Ja was a neat fun villain who liked to cause chaos, that they suddenly 180'd on them super hard by making Zarool Ja just no diff the dude and made him a complete joke right away. He was yet again a cartoon villain and his Crowning act of idiocy, releasing Valigarmanda, literally affects the plot less than it should. Should have been major ramifications for that one and he gets off scott free. Zoraal Ja was an interesting one at first, we've not really had a full strong silent type villain in the game, the closest being StormBlood Zenos, and then in the second half of DT Zarool just kinda, falls apart in a way that makes other characters look worse. Based on Zarool, it is kinda noticeable that Wuk and Zarool weren't exactly raised too well by Galool Ja Ja, Wuk is completely unfamiliar with her entire dang kingdom before the rite of succession in a way that is severely detrimental to the story, she at least should have known about the Hanu Hanu and Pelu Pelu, the rest I can understand, while Zoraal Ja has a lot of insecurities that Galool Ja Ja just, never tried to help deal with to put Zoraal Ja's mind at ease.
Sphene is our last villain, and unfortunately, she's just Wuk Lamat again, who we already have standing right there, and makes Sphene feel redundant in a few ways.
Away from the story and it's elements for now, let's focus on gameplay, gameplay in this expansion is absolutely fantastic, there is a noticeable increase in quality, and difficulty that I have not really experienced anything similar since StormBlood's drastic overhaul of game play elements for trials and dungeons and the like. I don't think there's a single dungeon in DT so far that I hate, there are definitely some lower points, like Origenics feeling like an Alarmingly punishing ShadowBringers dungeon (Seriously, if you're a dps or a healer in Origenics, it really feels like you do not get any freedom for errors unless the healer is on their S-game, because while those boss mechanics are simple, they hurt like hell), the only true thing in a dungeon/trial/raid so far that I found annoying was Leonogg, and that's mostly because of Jank ffxiv hitboxes being Jank.) Other note, it's a damn shame how few solo duties are in this expansion because they are fantastic too.
World building, now this one I'm gonna have points to go off of, because Tulliolal and Alexandria both look fantastic, with so much variety to the world, however, world building wise, there's something to be desired, despite the New World supposedly being unified, is dysfunctional and ununified outside the capital. Most of the people don't interact with each other and deal with their own issues, like the Mamool Ja being stuck in the blue forest for years with the corrupted lands without help even though Kettenram is right there watching it all unfold, and he could have told someone!
Living memory is a neat zone that is an absolute mess in execution, what I think they wanted to do was some in between of Aumorat and Ultima Thule, but we fall into the Emet-Selch trap "I do not see you as alive therefore I can not be guilty of murder." As Emet once said in ShadowBringers. That zone could have done with some much better thought and writing. It also doesn't help that main narrative doesn't help with world building as we clearly see a power heirarchy in the claimants at the start of the expansion, then Wuk Lamat gets the anime power up randomly after like 3 levels of gameplay, was cool in the moment, but makes absolutely no sense how she got that strong that quickly (Wuk Lamat has Frieza levels of natural potential I guess)
I'm gonna put a grading of the content too here
Gameplay: S+
Story: D-
New Characters: D
Old characters: F (If you're going to bring them in, do SOMETHING with them!)
World Building: C-
Villains:C-
Power Scaling: F (They seem to like doing things without realizing some of the power feats in the past like Midgardsormer having to sacrifice himself to take down one airship vs in DT, Vrtra with one eye, taking on the Alexandrian fleet that is obviously more technically advanced in that one ship)
One last thing, that Wuk rescue in the final trial is stupid, you can not make me believe that that boss is supposed to be stronger than the End Singer narratively, even if The Queen Eternal has one of the hardest trial mechanics in the game with Absolute Authority.
You're entitled to your opinions so I'm not gonna go into them too much here, but I gotta outright call the power scaling bit wrong.
Look at the size of the Agrias, how HUGE Midgard is, and how Agrias is just as huge, while also flanked with smaller ships. You can go fly next to the one in Azyz Lla if you need to for scale. It isn't just "Midgard died to one airship" it was "Midgard died to an airship the size of him." He also didn't die to the airship. He died to the airship exploding. The explosion mixing with Midgard's aether is equatable to a nuclear explosion going off, causing Silvertear to look the way it does with all the crystal.
Midgard won handily, and is technically still alive. It's the nuke that got him.
The biggest "what the fuck" thing for me was the Interphos fight where Wuk Lamat just shows up mid fight and is just like, "Sphene! I want to talk!"
Huge anticlimactic bruh moment.
Maybe I just have a different definition of what a main character is, but I cannot wrap my head around the argument the WoL isn’t the main character. I agree in earlier expacs they do a great job of showing focus on other characters and plot stuff, but the WoL is still at the center of it all. Minfilia begs us for help with our echo and defeating primals, Aymeric asks for our aid in stopping the Dragonsong War, Lyse asks for our help in making contact with the Ala Mhigan resistance. So on and so on. The WoL takes part of so many stories and character arcs but still at the center of it. Not to mention every major foe is fighting the WoL and has beef with the WoL personally at the climax of all their fights.
DT just isn’t my favorite way they’ve told a story and how they shared the plot amongst all the characters. I have a google doc for my WoL and all her thoughts and feelings throughout the plot and personally don’t have much to say for her involvement in DT.
My biggest issue with wuk lamat was her script. You’re 100% right that the other scions could have been other mentors.
Alphinaud would have a lot to say about governance, G’raha would have a lot to say about leadership, Alisae would have comments about how levin sickness is simmilar to sin eater poisoning.
But none of that was said, and we only got wuk lamat and her well meaning but repetitive dialogue. Tbh; I feel like the voice actress did a nice job, the voice suited the character (luffy and goku’s voices suit them and they’re voiced by cisgender women, talented VA’s suit the character, and those two women can voice masculine icons that millions feel inspired by). And no other voice actress would have made the “I realized I really love peace” speech feel less pointless to me. Like…. There was so much potential that could have been phrased better. “Koana has the head of reason’s mind, zoraal ja has the head of resolve’s strength, but I inherited the heart they share full of love for tural’s people”
It carries the same meaning, but it isn’t repeating the same lines she was saying in the level 90 quests
Believe it
Here's my honest praise for Dawntrail:
The new skeleton for content is amazing. The screen flashes that explain exactly what the mechanic is and how to handle it might seem a bit handholdy but it allows for honestly interesting mecahnics at the leveling roulette level. Stuff that would have been EX just 2 expacs ago flow seamlessly because the game is being less obtuse about conveying information.
I've seen a lot of people throwing out statements like 'Mary Sue', 'WoL should have been the Main Character', and 'Wuk Lamat bad' but I honestly think the clumsy wording and bad faith arguments get in the way of genuine and fair discussion and criticism of DT.
The FFXIV community has a problem with seeing things in black or white, so we get people who dislike DT being defaulted to bigots while people who defend it are snowflakes. It's not helpful to anyone at this point. If we can't express our (good faith) opinions about a video-game's story without being called a bad person (looking at you Garlemald Arc) then no wonder people get defensive and dismissive online.
It really seems like the ongoing battle within the fandom is overshadowing some very valid positive and negative arguments about the game's story, and it's just getting harder and harder to articulate thoughts and communicate them in a fair way.
People deserve the freedom to like Dawntrail for its plot and characters, but that very same freedom should apply to those that just aren't that into it. (And I reiterate, bad faith arguments aside)
Exactly! So many arguments I've seen are just dismissed with "It's good you just don't like not being the main character", or, my favourite, "Just accept that it's Bad Writing and have some Standards" as if the person making the argument is the sole arbiter of all that is bad and good.
And the worst part is that in terms of consensus, everybody agrees the MSQ in Dawntrail is off. But that is it, since everything else is hyperbolic.
Wesk, I get your overall "vibe" of this video and for the most part I agree with it. . . HOWEVER. . .
At times it seems you are lumping everyone with a valid complaint into the same boat as the haters. There are SERIOUS problems with the writing and pacing of this MSQ as well as SERIOUS problems with the utilization, characterization, and development of the characters of this MSQ both old and new. At times it seems like you are taking people with those legitimate concerns and lumping them in the same boat as the "haters".
I could be wrong but that's the vibe I'm getting from this video.
There’s unfortunately been little room for nuance with the criticism of this expansion. I know it’s largely just a handful of loud, chronically online people but it feels like if you don’t like WuK, then your lumped in with the TERFs or whatever, when my main gripe with her is that she’s just far too omnipresent. If Haurchefant had been in my face as much as WuK I’d have been glad when he died.
I really, truly think you have too high an opinion of your own opinion. I completely disagree with those points, loved the pacing, characterisation and writing. I have other issues with it, but I would not call any of those things problems. These are not immutable truths you are passing down.
@@Khemrikhara that would be what makes them opinions.
@@thebimaker5814 "There are serious problems with the writing and pacing" is not an opinion. That is stated as fact. It is not a fact.
@@Khemrikhara I didn’t say that. Other dude did. Though I agree with that opinion 😊
My biggest takeaway from Dawntrail is that I really hope they get the courage (And/or better funding from Square Enix...) that in future expansions to maybe reconsider the six zones with three Trials at X3, X7/9 and X0 format to tell the bulk of the MSQ. The restrictions it places is starting to show.
@@LaBlueSkuld The formula works in some cases and doesn't in others. This is one case where a shake up is needed. Maybe go back to having final zones that remain plot relevant instead of places we will never return to. UT and now LM. We might talk about it but never go there. We barely went back to the Tempest too.
One thing I'd love to see is them introducing new zones in patches. The entire Solution 9 arc could've happened in the patch quests, giving us maps like Troia or the red moon in EW. Just as more permanent fixtures. I'm hoping they at least shape the place up like we did with Idyllshire and Mor Dhona back in the day. I didn't play during ShB/EW, did they actually have places like that there?
@@MephiidrossShadowbringers built up what is now the Ishgardian housing district. It was a really fun thing for crafting and gathering and over the patches we restored various districts. (I was late to the party though, I joined this stuff when there were only one or two areas left.) The core system is still there, you can still craft and hand in stuff ("for upkeep") and now have these Fêtes as replacement for the FATEs we had during the Shb patches, and each Firmament district (not the actual housing part but the map where the crafting stuff is) has a statue with crafting tools. Which crafting tools are shown depends on what goods were delivered the most or something like this. ^^
Endwalker didn't have this, some people expected there to be some Garlemald restoration. But the devs also experimented a lot with the patches with Variant Dungeons, Island Sanctuary and other stuff, so I get they were busy. And personally I think it's better for the story if Garlemald isn't fully recovering from this destruction within a bunch of patches...
Fully agreed. Imo in Dawntrail it would have been better for the story to release the last two areas and the whole Alexandria story arch into the patches (maybe even partially 8.0) and use Dawntrail to go way more in-depth with the local Turali lore, story and a cultural deep dive, more character interactions and active mentoring (from us but as Wesk suggests also from the other Scions), maybe adding some actual rivalry inbetween the scions and their teams etc. But this is never going to happen because it violates the formula and would need some reconsideration for features related to each zone I guess. (Although you could e.g. just put all the rare material nodes for recipes you get in the patches later into the zones later. And how many people finish their Shared Fate farming right away anyway? :D)
I've said it in other videos on the topic and will say it hear as well. Heavensward is did everything DT did but better. Mentoring, new local with no reputation, side characters getting focus over WoL, theme of expansion being shoved down our throat by new cast, almost no Scions around, small stakes comparably. When one goes back and honestly looks at Heavensward, you just see the writers not favoring one point of view on the subject of a conflict. Also with each character giving their own two cents on the subject if it was related to them. DT feels like there are characters the writers heavily favored and themes they did not want to have multiple views on. Thus this limp wristed story telling can be felt by many players. Players are more hurt by the obvious dumb downed story telling then what the story in of itself is about.
39:45 uhh sure, but also she confidently attacked Bakool Ja Ja during the Feat of Reeds, and he just deflected her with one hand, this is like us fighting the level 70 Zenos in Rhalgr's Reach but in our case we actually get to level up from 60 to 70 over all of SB while Wuk isn't show to do any martial progression, like for example Alphinaud training with his Nouliths outside Baldesion Annex in Endwalker
Because it wasn't a matter of martial progression
Did you not pick up on her Limit Break/Dynamis mechanic in her solo duty?
I am aware of the limit breaks, dynamis and confidence boost and all that, but dynamis and shooting LBs left and right being a norm now and the way to show character growth is disappointing to me :/ guess Haurchefant and everyone rlse wasnt feeling strong enough to affect dynamis in retrospect
i was fine with dynamis being introduced in EW because i thought it would remain largely unused, only appearing as a force working on stuff over millenia like with the Twelve, or in the outer space where it's more prevalent than aether like Ultima Thule. But apparently Tural has a lot of it, and also does Sphene's cyberspace and it's FFA for Wuk Lamat? :| the more i think about it the more bitter i get and the more anxious about next MSQ i feel
@@nekromanta167 Dynamis pretty much removes the martial progress prerequisite. Hydaelyn gives us multiple LB charges in a ARR fight. Godbert is a master goldsmith who can use LBs in his crafting. Elidibus, an Unsundered Ascian who is nearly incapable of interacting with Dynamis is able to generate an LBIV. Meteion nearly destroyed the universe with it, all while not even having a job crystal. I'm fine with Wuk Lamat using it. She's a Warrior main, she was already OP...
I see a difference in perspective. It's not about whether or not the AI was as real as people. They themselves told us they weren't. It was more about letting go of the last physical representations of these deceased people. Destroying the last memories as their loved ones don't remember them anymore.
It wasn't that Erenville was thinking that he was destroying his mom, but that he was destroyingher likeliness. It's like having to destroy the last picture you have of someone who has just past away (within a very short period of their passing). Having to do that would give anybody a moment of pause even if you know that the picture is not the person themselves.
So the real message of that particular segment when focussing on Krile and Erenville, goes back to the giants. 'It's okay, being dead is to be forgotten, They will never truly be dead as long as you remember them' which also ties it up with Emeth Selch's famous last words in Shadowbringers.
You do make a lot of good points in this video that I agree with, but I am going to have to respectfully disagree on your point about main characters and story. You are absolutely correct, the WoL is not the 'main character' in most of the game. The plot does not focus on the WoL. However, even when we're not the main character, in each previous expansion the WoL is integral to the story. If our character was not there, the story would be changed.
In ARR, the plot is about the rise of the primals, Ascians and the Garlemald invasion. But our character's story of becoming the champion of Eorzea and the Warrior of Light is integral to that
In Heavensward, the plot is about the Dragonsong War and the conclusion of it, and the finding of the source of the conflict. Without the WoL, that story would be vastly different.
In Stormblood, the plot is about the freeing of Doma and Ala Mhigo. Without the Warrior of Light, that would never have happened.
In Shadowbringers, the plot is about the First, Ardbert and the people there. Excellent story, and without the WoL nothing would have changed; that world would have died.
Endwalker kind of goes without saying.
However, I would argue that in Dawntrail, and this is one of the main weaknesses in the writing, we don't do anything effectual in the first half of the story. We saved the boat on the way over, but other than a linkpearl call to help kill Valigarmanda, we could have spent the entire first part of the story napping in our beach house in the capital and nothing at all would have changed. We don't have any real effect on the trials, we don't do any real mentoring of Wuk Lamat, we really don't do anything except stand around and nod vapidly. The strongest part of the second half was us low key having fun with Erenville in fantasy Arizona; it was cheesy but I enjoyed it. Then after we break into Alexandria we stand around and don't do anything really effectual until the last 10% of the arc. When I am sitting there staring at my screen saying 'Let me do something!' then there is a problem with the writing. I was actively frustrated by how ineffectual and frankly pointless my character was throughout the story.
I think that's why I was so personally angry at the end of the final trial. My character finally, *finally* gets to do something useful around here and Wuk Lamat steals my thunder right at the end.
I agree on your take here, i enjoyed msq but quest desgined in DT is just week compare to other expension, putting 85 percent of the focus on one character just doesnt appealing to me, and the promise to get to know Krile and other origin from liver letter was what made me more exciting towards this expension but that too was like barly like 5 percent of the quest desgin. Shalooni i think was the first area where i really came to enjoy,. That was partly because of the time away from Wuk'lamat, no i think it was because of that very reason i enjoyed the little time with Erenville.
I agree on final trail, her making and entrance out of no where and pulling a Thancred from shadowbringer, which btw he did that with the help of all of the scions, not just by himself. Seing how Wuk'lamat doing that in final trail, just made angry really. I was shocked dude you were erase from the damn terminal, how in the world did you got back. even worse finding out Gra'ha and Krile laying there unconscious after being erased / thrown out of the terimal, I went like HUH? WTF. That made me question is Gra'ha that week and is Wuk'lamat that strong? ya final trail complete dispointing for me because that, when she does come, why make fight same as the Endsinger, Endsinger 2nd phase makes sense but final trail in DT just doesnt.
Final thing i dont think i ever felt mentor towards Wuk'lamat, she just over comes all her hardship event with out WOL. I wouldnt call WOL as mentor, since we hardly do provide any guidance.
Good coment really like what you said.
I agree with the WOL wasnt the main focus throughout ALL of FFXIV, but in post endwalker and Dawntrail you can really feel the lack of personal stakes, you could say it goes back to the roots of the start of ARR. But only you could combat the primals and you still had a part to play. Heavensward you had the weight of leaving your scion pals behind and Haurchefant. Stormblood had the least but Zenos made things more about his personal game closer and closer til the end. I dont need to explain the rest but I wish post Endwalker had us mentor Zero more. Maybe she could have been more impulsive in her voidsent desires and we could have helped her with a new perspective (Kind of what we had with the food). In Dawntrail we could have had the advertised Scion drama. This I think is what most people have issue with in the WOL, not that we aren't the main focus, but that we have less and less of a role to play.
35:00 It's not about tragic backstories. It's about meaningful validation. Wuk Lamat's convictions don't get challenged in a meaningful way in the first half. It feels like fate itself bends to prevent exactly that. Devaluing her achievements by making them less believable. Imagine, at Valigarmanda's outbreak and the fundamentalists blocking our way, no birdge had arrived. We would have to concede that Zarool Ja is right, and it'd be best to knock the obstacle unconcious in this time-critical moment. Or watch Tural burn while we are trying to play nice to fundamentalists. Some things just feel wrong. And it has nothing to do with a tragic back story.
it's so funny that DT was supposed to be a fresh new adventure, yet we still ended up re-treading so many of the same themes and ideas as the last two expansions. like the final zone is a simulacrum of a long dead civilisation where we have to learn to accept the past and move on - cool idea if this wasn't the third time in a row we had already done this. they wanted to do something new but couldn't commit and just ended up copying ishikawa's notes
As I said in the video, it's a matter of what it does differently that matters most here. Amaurot was just Emet magic. UT is the remnants of those actual civilization. LM is about grief and letting go.
@@WeskAlberi see where you're coming from but it doesn't change the fact that LM was just a variation on an idea we've already done twice in a row. it doesn't really sell the feeling of this being a new start for the story
@@manafish8732 i feel similarly. i feel like LM's message of grief and acceptance doesn't work for me. Tempest Amaurot and Ultima Thule work because even though what we're seeing are echoes of what once was, the grief and loss resonates with you. Emet-Selch's painstaking recreation of his home and all those within it, and Ultima Thule's dynamis giving emotion and memory form to tell the tale of those that once lived and why they relinquished their claim to the future.
But LM is a cruel imitation of life. It's not a warped manner of mourning of the dead, or even the final will and testament of the dead- LM is effectively dragging you through a cybernetic Eulmore and asking you to understand the motives behind using sin eaters because it's run by a very well-meaning Vauthry who genuinely does love the people of Kholusia. and this is only made worse by the fact that you are constantly nudged to consider Cahciua and the others as alive in some way even though what you meet in LM *is not Cahciua*. We never meet Cahciua.
Worst of all, despite having gone to such lengths to show you that these recreations are not actual people by contrasting the real Otis with the recreated one, in its final hour the game still tries to get you to sympathize with a imitation of an imitation of a person. Sphene is not a person, and the Sphene that Wuk Lamat speaks to is an even deeper mockery of the concept of a person.
ShB and ENW did grief and loss and acceptance better! Even Stormblood and Heavensward have more substantial things to say about grief! I'm no stranger to loss, and XIV doesn't always hit the mark on this subject, but I just felt put off and uninterested with LM. It's such a weak way to engage with these ideas.
Re: Cahciua. Given how Cahciua the endless doesn't consider the Endless to be living, she doesn't seem to consider herself to truly be a continuation of Cahciua, mother of Elenesh'pya. She has one goal and is relentless in driving us to completing it - because she can't do it herself. Erenville and his mother had an obviously strained relationship. He calls her his mentor more readily than he does his mother. There was love, but they don't seem to have understood each other. What Erenville is asking for at the end *is* that understanding. A deathbed reconciliation. For words to be said between them that would validate and soothe old arguments. And Cahciua bowls over him. Because Cahciua does not see herself as Cahciua. So she denies him his catharsis, because Cahciua was denied that, too.
That's the best take I've heard about what I consider one of many giant missteps in the story.
Aww thanks
@@UltaFlame I wish the writers cared about her enough to give her this characterization
The "Speak with x" really needs to be made into an isolated short.
After all the vitriol around the expansion I'll admit i was hesitant to listen to this (I sadly can't watch while working but damn you've gotten great at audio editing. I cant imagine how much work that Endwalker quest bit took to edit😅). However, despite my hesitation this has been one of my favourite reviews on the expansion, if not my favourite. Thank you for your hard work in making this 😊
I understood that "Put the cart before the squid" reference!
I think my thoughts can mostly be best served by copying a comment I made on a different Dawntrail video. Though to cut a long story short, I'm not as harshly critical of Dawntrail as others might be, though some stuff in it definitely bothers me in terms of the story, particularly in the later half. Though it started picking up in interest for me towards the end with the final zone.
I think the thing that gets to me the most in this expansion is how, while it was pitched as a "summer vacation" resetting the stakes sort of thing (and I'm personally totally fine with my WoL playing the mentor role to some new characters as a palette cleanser from the universe-ending Endsinger) - and for about the first half it is. I actually enjoyed going around and learning about the people and culture of Tural, even if other people think it's very dry. But the end of the expansion pulls an "Oops here's a world-eater that wants to consume the Source's aether and will do the same to other worlds afterwards too!"
So much for resetting the stakes.
That and Krile gets robbed of her big moments (One of what should be her big moments happens off-screen!) and Y'shtola seems pretty out of character. At the end of Endwalker she talks about how she wants to see the other reflections, and then she *doesn't go to the new unknown reflection.* Oh, and that one point where Lamaty'i gets kidnapped felt like we were all forced to hold the Idiot Ball.
Also Zoraal Ja is possibly the dumbest motherfucker we've ever had as an antagonist. We tell him that his ambitions sound quite similar to the Garlean Empire, which we were thoroughly trouncing before they imploded in Endwalker, and when we tell Zoraal Ja as much he basically goes "Nah, I'd win." And how the fuck did he manage to have a son in there, there were no other Mamool Ja in Alexandria. I was convinced the kid was a clone of some sort until the game said "Nah, they're Zoraal Ja's son." like... how. The story tries to tug at your heartstrings when he dies but it fell flat for me personally. At no point did his plan or ambition make any sense to me, and so I felt nothing when this complete monster who murdered his own father(s) and lost the thread of almost all rationality even from the very start, and never even acknowledged his son until right before his end, finally died and had a last moment "I leave everything to you, my son." While it would be an exaggeration to compare him to Vauthry, that sort of last minute redemption and regret thing for Zoraal Ja felt completely un-earned, at least to me.
At least the encounter design has been immaculate. Dawntrail has been extremely fun to actually play, so that's good. Part of that is because this is the first time I'm engaging with the end game on content, but the first two Extremes have been an absolute blast and I'm even getting in to Savage raiding for the first time. That Azem artifact has definitely piqued my interest with how much potential there is for the future. And the entire idea of the last zone and what you do gave me some serious moral discomfort, which was pretty amazing. There's a whole moral question on whether the people there are truly alive, which kind of goes back to what Emet Selch thought about all of us, and is the same sort of question Nier Automata dealt with. I do kind of wish the game didn't outright state "They aren't really alive." but I choose to ignore those assertions. There's a whole philosophical debate that could be held regarding the nature of the Endless. For my part, it felt like turning off those terminals was tantamount to committing genocide.
Oh, and a Duskwight Elezen NPC is FINALLY shown off as not being immediately villanous. That's mostly just to do with the Arcadeon, but still. The game's treatment of Duskwights has bothered me for quite some time.
I have friends who absolutely refuse to hear anything "negative" about Dawntrail, which is totally understandable in my opinion. On the other hand, I am so critical of Dawntrail because I love this game so much. I think it's okay to feel either way. At the end of the day, I enjoyed playing the expac and it was fun. If I didn't have any fun at all, I would have just uninstalled the game.
It makes a change to see a well balanced point of view.
Thank you for making this video. It's been rough trying to talk about my experience with DT without getting a kick reflex from people about the expansion. Whether it's gameplay wise or about the MSQ, I get a lot of negative feedback from people.
I think the biggest issue I had with the story of DT is that, while we aren't technically the main characters in the other expansions, we still have important roles in what we do and a lot of the stuff happening would not have done so without our involvement. However, in DT we are sidelined to the extent that it feels like we aren't doing *anything*, even when doing so would objectively be better, no matter how you look at it, which is what I take issue with. No matter what reason, I do not believe that the character we have been building up so far would stand like a dead fish when our friend was killed by his own son after that son was essentially revived from the dead.
I do not take issue in the sidelining in itself, but rather that, unlike in other expansions, my being there feels fairly inconsequential, which is antithetical to what a videogame should feel like. There are ways for the things to happen and us to be in a mentor role without being demoted to handicapped dead fish on land. Like, there are quite a few job quests where we take on a mentor-like role and we are a lot more active in them. In the stormblood pathces right before shadowbringers, our friends are brought to the brink of death fighting Zenos because we aren't there to help, maybe do something similar with the Gulool Ja Ja death, but we don't get there in time? Idk.
In general, most of the choices we (are allowed to) make as the WoL feels stupid and against anything at least my WoL would believe from what has been set up from before, all in order to prop up our protégé, which I believe is why people feel like she's "stealing screentime".
I get that we are sidelined because for once people are wary of us from the start, but at least in my opinion there isn't done enough with that in the writing. Perhaps the WoL would react to not having to prove themselves from scratch for once, rather than just accepting it? Or at least give it to us as an option
A great video and reflecting many thoughts I had myself as well. That said, I don't mind a mentor role at all but I wish we would have done more actual mentoring. Sure, unlike with people in NN I can't carry Wuk Lamat unsync through the coils raids for the story and me telling her how to get a mount is a bit redundant, she already knows how to ride them. :D But idk, us teaching her some fighting things or solving a puzzle together or so would have been fun. The Pelu Pelu questline in the beginning was a great attempt, but that was about it. We had moments in pre-Dawntrail MSQ or side quests where we were teaching people, like in the Lochs, where we taught this one Ala Mhigan how to fight creatures near the big salt lake. That was just checking out creatures with the dart thingy and picking a dialogue option, but it would have felt more like we're actively training her instead of just... hanging out and pick one or two dialogue options making her think about stuff in the entire expansion. (Personally I would also have enjoyed that Valentione's Day duty where you navigate a labyrinth with a partner as a training minigame with Wuk Lamat, but I know a lot of people hated that duty, so I'm not blaming the devs for making this an entirely optional thing even at the seasonal event it's from, after the first time. xD) But imo it fits the general pattern of "Dawntrail wasn't bad but it could have been more". The character writing could have been more in-depth and individual, the announced Scion rivalry could have been more, the gameplay could have been more interesting (the cooking challenge actually having a cooking minigame, maybe with that orchestra mechanic from the final firmament quest, and an Air Force One game for the train ride). The WoL could have been more involved in interesting revelations etc. (Why do I hear Krile, Gulool Ja Ja and his kids had a huge talk about Galuf and the first journey and all somewhere off screen? Why do we have barely anything to do when the city is being raided by bots, instead of being too late for everything and then just standing there during the assassination? Why don't we have an echo into Zoraal Ja's childhood where we get more insight into his trauma before shit hits the fan?) But it is what it is and it doesn't make the whole expansion "trash", just makes me a little bit sad, but then I queue into Tender Valley and get an audience with the Greatest Boss of all and am fine again. :D
Regarding Living Memory I was hoping the characters would - at some point - discuss a bit more how nobody is actually being remembered. I think it was implied in the subtext but couldn't have hurt getting spoken out loud. The people we meet in life, good, bad and inbetween, the things we do together or maybe plan but don't do in the end, the emotions we felt when being around them... It can be inspiring, warning, teaching, exciting. And remembering this even after they're gone, cherishing these moments, that's what helps the living who knew them in their own lives. Memory of people we lost are important for the people still being around. And it's Erenville's memory of Cahciua that makes looking at her Endless so painful for him, having this comparison to the living person she used to be etc. Would that guy who cared for Naimika until she died enter Living Memory (which used to be a thing) and meet her, it would have no emotional impact for him whatsoever, beside from "hey, what a nice stranger". If any of the people from Yasulani Erenville asked about Cahciua would step into Living Memory and talk to that Endless, they would feel nothing. They wouldn't remember anything, nor would they be able to tell her a wholehearted "thank you" for the ways how she might have helped them in life, as mentor, as friend, as mother, as aunt. (Or a big "fuck you" for the opposite case, whatever suits.) They couldn't tell her how much situation A or B helped them overcome struggles they had later in life. (Meanwhile the Endless know all these things and speaking to that Yasulani person would be like talking to a grandfather with severe dementia for them, which can be truly horrifying...) They would be strangers, despite not being strangers at all. This memory extraction is denying them not just grief and pain from loss, but in a way a part of themselves and their own history. In a way it is hurting the living and imo this aspect should have been elaborated more openly in the story.
Last but not least, thanks for drawing that parallel to AI image generators, LLMs and techbros trying to imitate the living more and more for money. I actually heard around the time of Dawntrail release from a person who recreated a relative who passed with an app or so, it was creepy. I don't remember the details anymore though. It was scary af. I'm personally pissed AI seems to destroy both of my jobs, but this stuff adds a whole new dystopian level to society as a whole. x.x
The translation has always be of controversy since HW's Haurchefant localization. There's multiple threads throughout the years on the OF pointing out and criticizing the localization, it happened during HW, it happened during Stormblood, it happened in ShB and EW, with ShB having actually a big thread about the localization of the characters that would lead people to mischaracterize characters like Emet, Hydaelyn and the convocation when looking at EN versus every other language, with EN having a huge discrepancy.
It just wasn't a huge focal point until now with Dawntrail's writing not resonating with people that the wider FF14 community started to pay attention. I do think while people are hampering actual discussion and critique of Dawntrail it is still very valid to bring up.
This is a complex topic, though, especially when the previous localization director was also one of the lore writers. Since they do the localization in-house, they have spoken about its troubles and differences many times, having panels at fanfest devoted to it etc. Localization is exactly that - not a direct one to one translation, but a conveyance of tone and message to the best of its ability because it is impossible to truly do, as every language has its own wordplays and contexts to specific words that are difficult to pinpoint, not to mention cultural contexts that differ in slight, but still significant ways from one to another.
Incidentally, it is the Dark Knight questline, everyone's favourite, that is so RADICALLY different in its tone in English from the JP and FR. Look up a side by side, the difference is stark, including the first person journal entries. A lot of its poignancy and flair is a direct result of the english writing, where the Japanese version is simpler, more vague.
It's no wonder, then, that localization likewise applies to the mannerisms and cadence of characters, too - with Japanese Venat sounding very motherly, while English Venat sounding more like Galadriel of the LotR trilogy. Japanese Alisaie sounds like a 16 year old tsundere would in an anime, while English Alisaie sounds much more fitting the "teenage prodigy of the top university in the world" role she has in the story, with vocabulary to match. Japanese Emet-Selch has a more deeper voice, while English Emet's cadence changes from high pitch most often to low when he is gravely serious- and both are a take of the theater traditions of each respective country, with Japanese Emet matching the energetic movements of the character and the more Japanese tropes of melodrama, while English Emet's voice was doing even more work than necessary to match the Shakesperean prose of the localization. Each version has a different tone, different intended effect.
Your preference directly reveals the cultural background you're more fascinated by - and that's cool. That's why you can just swap around and pick your favorite, or play through the game with all of them, filling in the gaps in each version.
Ultimately, FF14 is a collaboration of Japanese and English speakers at its core DNA. There is no "true" or "correct" version, not only because these versions are produced under the same roof, but also because the vast majority of its songs are only in English despite it being a Japanese game primarily made with Japanese audience in mind. It was especially funny when people tried to understand the Zodiark theme which was just... autochoir, yet people heard thematically matching lyrics in it all the same, despite Soken just saying "hey uhh this song doesn't have any real lyrics" when asked, with the "official" lyrics being written only a good while after.
Commenting this early while watching the beginning but in hindsight I HATE how they revealed Solution 9 so early since it tainted my experience of : how is the story building up to THAT.
Guess I should just stay away from any news, trailers and statements from the devs and just do everything blind
Big same. I tried to stay away from area reveals and dungeon or trial boss reveals, but there was many other stuff to be announced about story unrelated stuff and I wanted to know about Hrothgals, the graphical updates and the two new jobs. But as soon as the first materials from this was out, all of the FFXIV discords I'm in were full with Nvidia GPU memes and "Wow, Cyberpunk crossover!" jokes. I already don't watch this super spoilery launch trailer for a reason, only the cinematics, but at some point it's either getting to know everything eventually before the expansion is out or axing half of my social life for a year... I hate it.
On top of that there are now so many arguments with people openly posting spoilers everywhere and when you ask them to tag them for the sprouts you just get "well it was in the promo material". Like... yes, yes it was, because CBU3 cares less about spoilers than your average FFXIV player. -.-
Regarding Marry Sue comments being contradiction of Wuk Lamat being "too dumb to lead". While the case in let's call it "traditional Marry Sue" is to have no flaws at all, writers whose characters often were accused of writing MS gave their characters artificial flaws that don't really hinder them in any way thus developing "modern Marry Sue" who can be naive but not have that naivety be a drawback in any way.
How are Wuk's flaws in any way "artificial"? Just because she doesn't get a Crystal Braves Moment and finds a way of mitigating her weakness as a leader (by being co-Dawnservants with Koana) doesn't mean they stop being flaws.
@@somelosercalledjab I'm not saying they are or aren't. By now I mostly don't care about her cause last time I had to deal with msq was few months ago.
I'm saying that it is not a contradiction for marry sue to have a "flaw" (but not really a flaw)
@@somelosercalledjabEach sib had their own weakness, Koana being off the isl. for so long had become self insulated and sure his way was the best way.the 2 headed bro making deals with other for power sure his way was better, Lamat main flaw was feeling she wasnot as good as her siblings. Through her journey she gained insight into what it would take to be the dawn servant, It would take more than just prevent war Each tribe needed diff, things. what she does at the end with her sibs shows her solution.
Fifty people died because she and Koana were too naive to keep track of the losing contestant after they lost. I'd call that a bit of a hindrance.
@@emceen8566 really thought? Fifty people died literally because of a surprise attack that utilised unseen for Tural technologies. Even if it wasn't Zoraal Ja, the same outcome would have occurred either way.
Also, how is loosing track of Zoraal Ja is naive? Did they had to? Did they magically knew he would go nuts and attack his own people? The only person, who for some reason had visions about crazy side of Zoraal Ja was Krile (she seen it through Echo, something that WoL should have seen as well, but didn't, because "reasons"). She rumbled about it, but no-one cared.
I wont spoil the video's conclusion, but Wesk🐐
The commentary on real life AI is something that i didn't think about after going through that part of MSQ but it makes total sense. This might be coming with the advancement in AI, mimicking another persons voice WILL happen and thats only the beginning, and of course greedy billionaires will take advantage of our grief to buy themselves more cars, more houses while the middle class and below fight to survive.
Damn, you made me love Living memory even more than i already did. :)
I mean even Yoshida mentioned something like this and the story essentially saying to turn it off is kinda balsy in a company pushing AI
I see the relationship between Cahciua and Erenville not too dissimilarly from the relationship between Tidus and Jhect from FFX. There's a lot more FFX in DT than I think a lot of people realize, from the pilgrimage, to Yok Tel, and the Thunder pla- I mean yards. Spoilers for FFX below.
Cahciua is dead, much like Jhect, neither were perfect in life, but they did care about their kids, and their kids were desperate to actually feel some of that care. Where they differ a bit is how they interacted in life, Cahciua mostly hurting with a smile trying to get him to live up to their culture(because Viera culture is toxic to men even in Tural, just in a different way), while Jhect was too toxically masculine, and too drunk to properly behave. The thing is though both are dead, only able to interact with their kids through the memories of the past. The kids get a more nuanced understanding of their parents, and one last chance to air their grievances, but they could do that to a grave stone. I do not like Cahciua or Jhect as people, they're pretty bad parents, regardless of their intent, but as characters I have found them both deeply cathartic as effigies that I can use to let go of some of the pain of my upbringing. It's not that Erenville isn't allowed to grieve and must move on, it's that in living memory he is finally given permission to grieve, to let all that trauma die with her, and start to live his life in the way he enjoys.
I've seen some people argue that "He's just doing what she told him to do", but what she told him to do was "go be a gleaner". At the end of Dawn Trail he abandons that job to go be an explorer, like her, but now his way, without her setting the rules of how and where.
36:47 this I think is due to the character accents. This happens in real life too, where your accent will affect how you pronounce words even if you’ve heard the correct way to say it.
WukAlber
In this lvl 1 to 100 cooking guide. You will be making hard tacos like the rest of them.
This might be the most disappointed I've ever been in the writing of the MSQ, largely because of its over-reliance on Wuk Lamat. She's prioritized to the detriment of every other aspect of the story, while not actually growing as a character. We're told repeatedly that she's great and evolving into a proper Dawnservant, but we're never actually shown that. Any moments of real character development fall very flat, because they're not earned, Wuk Lamat's just becomes what she needs to be to move the scene along.
This isn't limited to the cat with incontinence issues isn't the only victim of this. I found nearly every character not acting like characters, but like set pieces only serving to move the story where they want it.
I have so many issues with the writing that I can't properly put it into a comment. What I can say is that I found nearly every piece of writing outside of the MSQ to be at our around the level of quality I've come to expect from this game.
@@Teramoix yes like. a lot of her big realizations and growth happen offscreen and then she just kind of locks in and we're asked to believe she grew and learned. its never that its not believable! everyone in her corner makes it clear they expect her to figure these things out, but the path there is what's to be determined. bakool ja ja is also an example of this. he hits a face turn so fast despite committing one of the worst crimes in turali history and we're just kind of left to believe that he now accepts himself after a lifetime of inadequacy and duty, and the knowledge that valigarmanda could have wiped out so many people if it wasn't stopped
its also why koana forfeiting annoyed me. not because it just doesn't work as an idea, or that i just think wuk lamat had no right to win, but because we watch him process his thoughts on tural and realize how his attitudes about advancement and growth aren't taking the people and their culture into account- that he's too headstrong and shortsighted. he recognizes his flaws through the direction of those around him, his struggles throughout the contest, and from the perspective granted to him by his sister.
so when he chucks his tablet it should feel like a good way to really hammer home everything that's happened with him, but he's conceding to someone who we have not gotten to see chew on these same ideas in these same intimate moments. it's frustrating! why am i watching a better written character tell me how much more capable and deserving wuk lamat is when I've been waiting HOURS for her to have a similar sit down moment the way koana did with the scions. and her flaws are way more severe than koana's! watching her demonstrate the difference would truly make koana's forfeiture feel meaningful. instead she repeatedly sort of Figures It Out and stops doing the thing that was holding her back
i like things about the story, the first half was lumpy but ultimately fun- but i checked out rapidly in the second, purple half of dawntrail. at its best i felt myself getting genuinely invested, but at its worst the writing genuinely did feel insultingly bad
Finally! Someone who ranks the expansion like I do! Thank you for making this, everyone else is way too nostalgic for heavenward and way too harsh on dawntrail.
This is one of the most comprehensive and enlightening perspectives I heard for Dawntrail. You have helped me see this expansion differently and appreciate it more. Thanks! 🥰
Great video Wesk! Loved your takes and thoughts on this. Can't imagine how much work went into this but this is one of the best reviews/analysis of Dawntrail I've seen out there so far. Great work!
The "Speak With soandso" bit had me laughing the entire time. It's so damn true
For me the main issue with Wuk Lamat for me is that loves her people but seemed to have zero idea about those people. Would have liked to have had her go "oh hey I remember this from when they visited the city" then lead us threw it, even if she needed help because she did not understand it at all. There is tons of other small things that bothered me about the story still. I hope it becomes what the players want but feel like it will no longer make me happy or excited for the story. I remember feeling a sad pit in my gut when we saw Solution 9 and then it hit even more when it just showed up because I really was looking forward to exploring more of our world and those places we where asked if we had ever gone to see.
This was an amazingly put together video, personally I really didn't enjoy the MSQ this time around (I actually find it hard to articulate why, something just felt off to me). With regards to the talking to NPCs quest design: in Endwalker I was dying to speak to Emet, Hythlo and Venat in Elpis for example, also in Shadowbringers I was itching to talk to the Crystal Exarch for the next potential reveal. Speaking to Wuk about peace for the 20th time? Yeah, not so much. Regardless of how I feel this was a pleasure to listen to, thank you Wesk.
god damn wesk. God damn, good ass video. and yeah a lot of stuff I completely agree with. I talked a lot about the ENG audio mix as someone who works in audio editing like even though I'm not the super best, there were a whole lot of balance issues in there and some definite cleaning passes that needed to be done with some lines needing a rerecord. And I hope they do, they have before. But you definitely pointed out a lot of stuff so many people ignore so they can type speeeeen and prove they don't have an original thought outside of twitch memes.
Story crit on point too. I think generally if you traded Alphinaud for Thancred the teams would have made more sense in a way. Alphinaud's lessons he learned from ARR and his growth were more of what Koana needed to learn and Thancred's like would have been a lot more useful to Wuk. As it was Alphinaud really felt like a complete nothingburger and had no real reason to be in the game at all until the second half.
I have a lot more to say about the video but just know, damn solid and I watched the entire thing and really appreciate it a lot. Keep kickin' ass.
Damn dude I was unfamiliar with your game, this is excellent work. Really well thought out and strongly presented takes, I enjoyed this review more than any other I've seen. It has felt kinda depressing being a fan of Dawntrail at times when some really loud people are shouting that it's the worst thing ever made, but your thoughts here align quite closely with my own and it felt great to see them articulated in such a way. Thanks for making this :)
Also, to those in the comments saying "hey none of this excuses the 'bad' writing in DT". Wesk clearly stated his own critiques of the writing, and acknowledged it wasn't polished in spots. But some of y'all are writing comments like he said he had no notes and it was perfect as is, to which i say: did we watch the same video?
Example: the whole point about Wuk's screen time was to add nuance to the dissatisfaction people had about how much the story focused on her. (Fair enough, I personally think time Koana and Zoraal Ja were underutilized.) He was encouraging those that felt the imbalance to not focus your blame at the character Wuk and dismiss her entirely, but to blame the missteps of the writing team and look at her character more fairly. He then noted where EXACTLY they could have pushed their themes on mentorship further and made better use of the new characters and scions to correct this imbalance. You might not agree with that, or think there are even MORE places they could have improved, but don't act like he didn't say it. Okay thanks :))
I'll say, while I really agree with all the points you brought up in this review, I still disagree with how you present Dawntrail.
I feel like the biggest issues with the expansion, outside of not making good use of its characters and dedicating too much time to Wuk Lamat (which is something you address) also comes from how childish and awkward most of our adventure pre heritage found felt. The world outside of Tuliyollal feels very disconnected and requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief for it to actually work and that's not really been the case for FF14, at least for more than just a scene here and there. From one side, Wuk Lamat doesn't actually work for this first part of the story as she should be the one to instruct us, the WoL, about the basic cultures of the world around (she could still be blind about parts of the history, and even have her sure of herself only to learn there's more to the world as part of her character); she's the one who after all is all about respecting local cultures and peace, and she's unable to even remember the greetings of the people the lived with for some time. Then, we get to questions like "What even is Gulool Ja Ja doing?". He founds Tuliyollal and then just seems to have sat on his throne and forgotten that his people's trouble, or for better words, decided to not do anything about it and this should totally be a point of tension between Gulool Ja Ja and Bakool Ja Ja, but this never happens. There's not much of Gulool Ja Ja we know of when it comes to him being a leader outside of travelling once and founding Tuliyollal, and this hasn't been a point brought up, ever. He sends his successors on this big journey to get the tablets and it just so happens that Hanuhanu need fertility again but they've forgotten how they got to make the plants grow in the first place and I'm just left wondering if it was made on purpose and everyone on there is a Fiverr Actor or if it just so happened to have been the case for a long time and Gulool Ja Ja went "Oh yeah I'm gonna put this in my Rite of Succession" - Just feels like a big, weird, coincidence, which yes, yes, stories like that on FF14 do kinda thrive on coincidences, but there's believable coincidences, and then there's contrivances building one atop the other for something to happen in a very ''unnatural'' way. The whole moblin quest about the guy working at the forge wishing for something less hot and the whole "you saved one yok huy and now you're allowed and trusted" just went on further to make the first half of this expansion feel very childish.
And, of course, there's pacing. ARR pacing was bad, HW made it better (And I genuinely will stand here and disagree with everyone who says it's bad because we go back to Raubahn; I think it's one of the best expansion because it doesn't forget about the previous happenings and keeps on expanding the world while not forgetting the old zones but I digress), StB had ups and downs but past 4.2 it felt like the pacing of the MSQ had gotten a lot better. ShB was great, EW only had 3 filler moments in it [and those were Loporiths (moon and laby) and Thavnair's initial story could've gone faster], but to go from Endwalker's success to Dawntrail's slowcess of a first act (Shaolani included) is a big, very big, step back.
I have serious criticisms of this expansion's pacing and chose of literary vehicles to tell the story.
For example, Zoraal Ja was very clearly being set up as Wuk's opponent - he was her brother, he killed their father, is responsible for Sphene being here, and more. He has a bone-to-pick with Wuk, who he feels is inferior and unfit to leave. Beyond that, we don't really have any personal involvement in Zoraal, even his threat doesn't seem all that significant beyond the borders of Tural. Sphene, on the other hand, feels more like Krile/Erenville's foil, and more personal to us as a consequence. And yet, Wuk literally and figuratively shows up to interfere in the fight.
The scene where Zoraal fights and kills Gulool is another example where it feels like we've been cheapened out of some meaningful chance to interact. We're the WoL, we're the savior of the star, we would not have stood idly by after Zoraal's betrayal - we would've been in there like a dirty shirt. And yet.. we do nothing. We're present for the whole scenario, but we have no agency in something where we clearly would have, and would have been a good fit for our particular skills.
The first half drags on, forever, and you could literally remove our character from the story and nothing would have changed. We don't provide any meaningful mentorship to Wuk as her whole arc is.."I need to learn more about our people and grow", and yet she's relying on Erenville (who hasn't lived in Tural in years) to be her guide around, despite this being her home nation and she should be quite well versed in the various customs and locations of the people? Bakool Ja Ja's heel turn is so rapid it doesn't feel genuine. I still don't fully grasp what the issue was with the blessed siblings - they had arranged marriages to bring about two-headed Mamool Ja? And they die because.. why? That whole bit could've been half an expansion it and of itself, as that would've been an interesting story but it felt so rushed and over, that I no longer cared.
Dawntrail feels like it's not interested in telling a story worth paying attention to, gone are the captivating characterizations and memorable characters of earlier expansions. And while the previous expansions may not have been about us, they certainly made an effort for them to find reasons for us to be personally motivated. Heavensward has us regaining our good name in Eorzea, stopping the Dragonsong War, addressing the internal politics of Ishgard - we're helping our friend and ally, we recognize a valid threat (the Ascians), and then we are out for revenge. Stormblood - same thing, it starts off with us dealing with the death of a Scion and the recognition that Yda was in fact, Lyse and dealing with the issues of Ala Mhigo. Something we've heard about before via Raubhan and with the pressing threat of the Garleans expanding into Eorzea. It may not be our story, but it's one with personal stakes built in. Shadowbringers - same thing, we have personal stakes in this with our allies and the Exarch. We're tasked with dealing with the Lightwardens because the Exarch knows if anyone can, its us. We learn about the First by reuniting with our allies, and seeing the lives they've made for themselves here.. before the climax and another personal stake with Emet Selch and Amaurot. Endwalker is again, littered with personal stakes and ties - it feels like the genuine culmination of the last 3 expansions, and it works.
What are the personal stakes of Dawntrail? If you don't like Wuk Lamat, what is there else to motivate you? There are no personal stakes given to you, and other than Wuk Lamat there is no real person to engage with the story via. Yes, we are not the focus of the story, and that's fine. What isn't fine, is that we have no reason to exist at all within the narrative. If you removed the WoL from the story, the whole thing would play out the exact same way and nothing would change. You can't say the same about the prior expansions, where our involvement was necessary to drive the story forward.
I enjoyed Dawntrail mostly. Since it was a new story I wasn't expecting it to be on pair with Shadowbringers and Endwalker. If anything what annoyed me the most was how Wuk Lamat was written. We are supposed to be a mentor but I didn't feel that way at all. It also annoyed me that Wuk Lamat saying how much she loved her people while knowing nothing about the cultures of her people. I can understand not knowing a few things but not knowing how to say hello to the Hanu Hanu when you been their village before was annoying. These however are minor grips and I think they will be able to fix these easily going forward. Other than that I think she was written well.
I still don't see how WoL is a mentor to Wuk Lamat other than her just saying WoL is and the WoL nodding along with her. I don't really feel like WoL was active enough to have been a mentor. Emotional support character, sure, but not a mentor. I really think Wuk probably could have done the whole trial of succession by herself -- it seems tailor made to highlight the strengths she didn't know she had, that being the desire to incorporate everyone's cultures and traditions. The trials seemed to be less of a development of skills for Wuk, and more of a wake up call to what she had inside of her all along.
I wish Dynamis as a concept had never been introduced to the plot. The power of friendship and determination being an actual thing that can give you spontaneous super powers is not a trope I'm a fan of and really is just going to have me question everything before and after the dynamis reveal. If someone loses, I'm just going to outright assume they didn't believe in themselves enough to NOT lose.
But yeah those two aside, idk. I think criticism is important, actionable and constructive and all, but the expansion was just boring to me. There's kind of that X factor, call it vibes or feels or whatever, that just made it feel boring. I'm sure I could find a way to articulate it if I really dove into it, but I can't really say I have the gumption to do it right now. I've agreed and disagreed with things in this video and in other videos going over their thoughts of the expansion. I'm sure the team is reading and watching everyone's feedback to make sure the rest of the expansion, and future expansions, don't get that Mixed-to-Overwhelmingly Negative review score in the future.
the fact that she asks your opinion often, she wants to be the first to hear her resolution, the whole being specifically asked to be a mentor to her by her father. I mean the story does shows it directly and indirectly even with shots of us looking at her angrily when she makes bad assumptions. It was frankly the first thing I noticed that we had more agency in our expressions during the entirety of MSQ besides nodding and fist clenching (which are still alot ngl)
My Main problem with Dt Is more on a technical writing and pacing level. And I feel validated Because Yoshida even said some of the stuff that bogged down the msq should have probably been set as side quest stuff. The Problem with The fecal typhoon around this xpack is that people on both sides are so far into their feelings that its hard to say anything. Though that's a problem with most things these days.
I wish Estinian being on his own adventure and just popping up in random places would have been more of a thing. The man just decided to Go West because he hadn't been that way.
Man, the segment where you started to list "Speak with" quests in MSQ of Endwalker is priceless!
Unfortunately FF14 has way to many of such quests and I don't really understand why they don't try to balance active gameplay elements and talking to someone in MSQ. Instead they just double down on "Speak with" quests, a.k.a. listen to someone talking, because WoL is not given any meaningful dialogue options to begin with. I don't mind text, but I do mind absolute lack of meaningful gameplay in between.
Great review. Thank you for including battle content and job design. For people who sub for months on end, I feel this is more important than the MSQ.
I think you raise some great points regarding Living Memory and its possible real life parallels. I also thought it resembled Heaven. But the fact that most NPCs were living in the past rather than reflecting on it appeared to be a Hell of its own.
Great video! While I don't agree with every point it's really refreshing to listen to someone who clearly took their time, did their research and put together an intelligent and thought provoking critique. To think the same guy who taught me my DPS rotation better than the game ever could also can also put out such a good analysis video - you're a talented man Wesk.
was not expecting technoblade to come up in this video, but i wanna thank you for being respectful and for enjoying his content! people (me) are still grieving, but the way you described the situation with living memory with him in mind did make an impact and made me rethink dt through the lens of recovering grief, it was very nice!
The is *by far* the fairest and most even-handed analysis that I've heard from anyone. Thank you for taking the time to make this, it's really important that this is out there.
EDIT: oh GOD, I'm half-way through, this video is breaking me. Thank you even more than before, this is incredibly well done.
HOLY SHIT. I left a long winding comment about what my one and only issue with DT MSQ was, only for Wesk to bring it up the second I unpause. I thought I was insane, because no one I've spoken to seems to have picked up on it. Thank you, Wesk.
Timestamp for context: 35:52
I know where they'll stick to their job-design guns! Booting Pranged into the basement of DPS with way too big of a Ranged Tax.
(This comment was originally so long it returned an error when I tried to hit send, so it's split into several replies. Keep that in mind before reading)
I've not watched the video yet, but I'm gonna make a comment with my existing thoughts about Dawntrail and then hopefuly remember to loop back around after I've watched the video in full and make an edit more related to Wesk's points in the video.
Dawntrail is terrible. But despite what some people believe, Dawntrail is not *just* terrible. Despite flaws that do occasionally show throughout, I had a lot of fun with Dawntrail. Up to a point.
The rite of succession arc definitely has problems, Yak T'el especially is where the cracks start to show; Wuk Lamat's character arc suddenly increases in pace so that they can skip to the end of it and put her on the throne. Sure, you could explain her power bump in the duel as dynamis, but that doesn't make it any more narratively compelling. I feel like, from an out-of-universe perspective, Wuk Lamat was robbed. By accelerating through her story like this, she was robbed of a lot of important growth. It doesn't help that she then becomes incredibly stagnant for the duration of the Alexandria arc.
Similarly to Wuk Lamat's arc having a sudden pace increase, Bakool Ja Ja's redemption is, uh... Clumsy? It's not bad, I do actually like it, but man something just doesn't quite track. There's pretty much no hint of it until the end of the duel, like they had to wait for Wuk Lamat to finish her arc before they could do Bakool's, which just isn't how it works. What COULD have been a truly interesting story kinda just devolves into "dead kids lol" and it's a shame. Skydeep Cenote is one of the most stunningly beautiful and incredibly somber finales to a story in the whole game.
Now Shaaloani. In pure enjoyment, Shaaloani might be the best leg of the story for me. The rite of succession is behind us, and while it was mediocre, I enjoyed it. After all, I went in EXPECTING it to be mediocre. No major complaints up to this point. We now get to explore the northern half of the continent, and learn more about Turali culture and history. We meet fun characters, we learn their stories, we get a great callback to my favourite part of shadowbringers (though it could've stood to be a touch more subtle). All the way through, Shaaloani is incredible. Until, er... The end.
While I note Yak T'el as the point where the cracks start to show, the ending of Shaaloani is where I truly started to become concerned. The bubble appears, the ships emerge, and we race back to Tulliyolal; the Scions and the Landsguard are fighting for their lives against an impossible force, even Bakool Ja Ja is helping, and we... Contribute fuckall. This is just one giant cutscene, rather than a solo duty. I was willing to begrudgingly accept this at the time, but the massacre in Solution Nine being a solo duty rather than a cutscene has filled me with a pretty retroactive disdain for the Warrior of Light's absolute inaction in this sequence. Our weapon remains sheathed as we run to the palace, and the Scions all abandon the people to join us there while the Landsguard remain ineffective. Why, exactly?
Now comes the duel between Zoraal Ja and Gulool Ja Ja, the first appearance of "Turbo Devil Trigger Mecha Genocide Lizard," as I've taken to calling him. Gulool Ja Ja pretty handily defeats his son, as was expected, and then idk he does some plot gubbins, comes back and one taps his dad. Despite the fact that the honour and sanctity of the duel collapsed the moment he got back up from death, nobody intervenes. Not us, not Wuk Lamat and not even Alisaie. The attack on Tulliyolal sequence has this kind of... Insulting feel to it. As much as it's a somewhat common problem in XIV, this especially feels too egregious to ignore. It's like our party just got lobotomised in that moment.
And so we proceed to the end of Shaaloani, the train sequence. Some people have a serious hatred of the train sequence but I am wholly indifferent. Smile does feel out of place, yes (It didn't feel out of place to me in the ceremony, as an aside) but ultimately who cares? Dangerous Words often feels out of place too, but here we are. The train sequence has a good amount of spectacle for me to find enjoyment, and so we enter Vanguard; pretty much the last time I had fun with Dawntrail's 7.0 MSQ. It's a good dungeon, I like it. But the second we step OUT of Vanguard and into Yyasulani, I frankly gave up on this storyline. Seeing the rotted wood of Yyasulani station, it didn't take long to piece together where the story was going. I said out loud, and then promptly messaged my friend who was slightly ahead of me; "This is some fucking shard travel bullshit again isn't it?"
Something I feel the need to make clear before proceeding: I had a somewhat biased opinion of the Alexandria arc going in. As much as I think it DID truly earn my disdain by the time the credits rolled, it did not start off on equal footing with the other zones. I don't like Shadowbringers very much, primarily due to the logistics of shard travel being hand-wavey and unsatisfying, involving a lot of narrative missteps that seriously took me out of the story. Dawntrail has the exact same problem combined with many others, and so where Shadowbringers was previously my least favourite expansion (Yes, below ARR), Dawntrail has most assuredly taken that spot now, and the gulf between the two makes them impossible to actually compare. Dawntrail's story is actually so bad and so not fun for me that it made me retroactively like Shadowbringers a little bit more, that's how hard it moved the average.
(Reply 1)
Sphene. Jesus Christ. From the moment she appears on screen she's suspicious. From the moment she opens her mouth, she's obviously lying to you, even if it's by ommission. I never trusted her and I never liked her. Having finished the expansion, I now actively HATE her not on some moral grounds but just because I think she's a fucking terrible villain. (Her voice actor absolutely knocked it out of the park though)
Heritage Found and Solution Nine are frankly narratively dead zones, I have basically nothing to say because basically nothing happens. We walk around a farm because Sphene asked nicely and I genuinely couldn't give a fuck. Electrope is plot magic, Regulators are plot magic, everything is rapidly becoming needlessly edgy and they never offer satisfying explanations for anything. I'm told it makes marginally more sense in JP language, so good for them, but I'm shit out of luck. Namikka is dead and the whole thing is miserable, we meet Cahciua and her resistance group who don't do anything, and bla bla bla.
This is where I really begin to loathe the writing of Dawntrail. We're the goddamn Warrior of Light, and we were never given the chance to do ANYTHING. Yyasulani's natural landscapes, civilisation and culture are all gone. They've BEEN gone for 30 years. Alexandria destroyed EVERYTHING and beyond a few stray lines here and there, primarily from Alisaie, the Scions seem entirely indifferent. We sit around twiddling our thumbs eating fucking grape-flavoured snacks while Zoraal Ja prepares to commit genocide and Sphene prepares to harvest the souls of the fallen (not that we knew that at the time). Going through Vanguard there was this overwhelming sense of urgency, but the second we enter Yyasulani it just dies in a hole. Not only because anything we might've wished to save is long-gone, but also because the story doesn't ALLOW you to do anything. The sight of levin sickness makes us wholly forget what a Porxie is, the atrocity that is regulators just continues to exist, and EVERY SINGLE CUTSCENE IS JUST SPHENE AND WUK LAMAT GOING BACK AND FORTH ABOUT LOVING THEIRS AND EACH OTHER'S PEOPLE.
Alexandria as a nation is evil given form, and we're looking at fucking farms and eating fucking grapes. I can't with this story.
Now, Otis. Otis is a good character, and I like Otis. He's pretty much our only meaningful connection to Archaeo-Alexandria. He introduces us to the concept of the Endless, and he has a touching (but completely hollow and meaningless) sacrifice.
It's what comes AFTER meeting Otis, however, that made me truly just... Fucking give up completely.
"Initiate Code Blood."
I don't know who wrote the script for Dawntrail, but I am just... Physically incapable of respecting this shit. I fucking laughed at the absurdity. Zoraal Ja is... An even worse villain than Sphene. I mean, I don't hate him as much as Sphene because he's just so fucking uninteresting that I don't really care about him. But man they just put NO effort in. The entire sequence where you defend Solution Nine from... Their own military... Was okay, I suppose. As I say, Tulliyolal should've had a similar sequence. And then the solo duty ends with Otis' previously mentioned sacrifice. A touching moment, sure, but... Sphene was never in any meaningful danger. Ultimately, the moment makes sense. It's not about truly protecting Sphene, but about Otis atoning for his perceived failure and overcoming his grief by doing so. But it's a moment that further highlights my problem with Alexandria. EVERYTHING that happens feels entirely hollow, and meaningless. Zoraal Ja's goals, Sphene's goals, the very lives the people live. It's just kinda... Nothing? Nobody sacrifices anything they hadn't already lost for any good reason (we'll have plenty more of this soon) and everybody just kinda goes along with whatever Sphene (the plot) demands.
Origenics happens, we get some more soul scrubbing lore exposition which kinda doesn't mean a whole lot, we clap Zoraal Ja and he rambles about a load of poorly-established nonsense and frankly I don't care because the guy is an asshole and his entire character motivation seems to be that he didn't benefit from nepotism. Any interesting story he MIGHT have had simply isn't there because they forgot to actually write it in. And he's dead now so oh well.
Anyway Sphene is evil and she has a plot device wow who would've seen that coming. (Also at some point during this clusterfuck we got a cutscene of Vrtra showing up to destroy Zoraal Ja's fleet and Estinien Stardivers some motorcycle soldiers and it's cool as fuck but I don't even remember when that happens. The sheer spectacle of ridiculous scenes like this is about the only thing which motivated me to keep dragging myself through this plot rather than just hammering skip until the credits rolled)
Living. Fucking. Memory. AKA "Amaurot 2" AKA "Ultima Thule 2" AKA "The moment I realised they were just trying to do Shadowbringers again and it didn't fucking work at all"
Living Memory, I will concede, is a much better-written and more enjoyable zone than Heritage Found/Solution Nine. But it IS still terrible and I STILL don't like it.
For personal reasons, I don't really like that turning off the terminals also turns that section of the map into a dark, empty mass of electrope, but I kinda get what they were trying to do (however unearned it feels). What I DO think is just flatout stupid though, is that there's no way to turn off the systems responsible for creating and sustaining the Endless without also erasing their memories. Long before we ever crossed through the barrier into Yyasulani, Alexandria had done irreperable damage to the cycle of rebirth. Those memories won't be imprinted onto souls once they're reborn from the aetherial sea. They're GONE forever. The game never gives you any meaningful way to object to this. The game simply tells you; "You do not consider them to be truly alive, ergo, you will not be guilty of murder if you kill them." It's not some poetic narrative reversal, it's a giant flaming cockup. We spend the ENTIRETY of Heritage Found & Solution Nine delaying the inevitable conflict because the regular citizens of Alexandria don't deserve to suffer more than they already have, but for some reason that all goes out the window when we reach Living Memory? The only way to stop Sphene is to slaughter everyone in our path? Why is this not just an option, but the only path, when it wasn't before? Once again, beyond some mild introspection/trepidation, nobody takes issue with this. It's fucking ridiculous.
And of course we can't talk about Living Memory without talking about Krile, her parents, and the Millala. FUCK this entire plot thread. Genuinely it can go die in a hole. I enjoyed the story of Aloalo Island and frankly this just took a giant shit on it for me. For years I've adored the lore of arcanima and the south sea isles and now THIS shit comes along and pisses in my cornflakes. And Krile's Parents can get fucked, honestly. Krile has never once shown any indication that she wanted to know more about her parents, because Galuf and the Students were the only family she ever needed. But the SECOND the plot dangles her parents in front of her everything she wished to learn about Galuf is completely forgotten. I think it's ridiculous, and contrived. And now the plot starts to hone in on that STUPID fucking Azem plot maguffin pile of shit Sphene is using for interdimensional fusion (still a dumb concept with a dumb name).
Don't even get me started on the whole "Your true name that we gave you" bullshit with Krile's parents. It left a really foul taste in my mouth. Especially since it was 2 letters off from her existing middle name. Dawntrail's script continues to be a hot mess. As much as I do think Krile should've gotten more screentime and development in Dawntrail than she did, I absolutely do NOT want more of... This. I think the term "character assassination" is hyperbolic and stupid, but if such a thing truly exists then this is the prime example. They took one of my favourite Scions and they gave her the shittest character story I think I could've ever imagined.
Cahciua exists. I don't have a lot to say about her. She's fun to have around but her character has the depth of a puddle because she's only ever used as a tool for the writers to move the plot forward in Living Memory. Props to Erenville for being the ONLY sane character in this whole expansion. The ONLY person with the sense to object to whatever the fuck is going on here. The time spent with Cahciua in Living Memory is cruel to him, because she's been dead for years. And he NEVER got to say goodbye. And now he has to erase Cahciua and any memory she might've had of their reunion and that false goodbye. Everything that happens in Alexandria continues to be hollow. It continues to feel unintentional. The writers WANT me to feel deeply, but their repeated blunders mean this whole storyline is a grim, miserable, empty affair. And an incompetent one.
(Reply 2)
And so we come to the finale of Dawntrail; Alexandria and the Queen Eternal. Alexandria is a competent dungeon mechnically but narratively it felt very weak. It was nice to see Archaeo-Alexandria in some form or another, but by this point there was no saving Dawntrail for me. My mission wasn't to save Etheirys from destruction. My mission was to get this shit out of the way so I can go do something else. We fight our way through, we defeat Eliminator, we reach the Interphos. Sphene uses the plotamajig to initiate Interdimensional Plot Maguffin and the Scions all get banished out of her digital realm (oh right this whole sequence takes place in some kind of semi-digital soul realm. That never felt very well-established or well-used.) We use the Soul of Azem (which for the sake of clarity I would like to point out I hate as a narrative device) to summon a bunch of random goons from across time and space and it causes the stupid hourglass to start exploding everywhere with the power of the colour orange. We do some mechanics and then Wuk Lamat shows up and says the famous line (which frankly I forgot was even a line she said until the internet started obsessing over it whether light-heartedly or hatefully).
Is this bullshit? Yes, however; It is no less bullshit than Thancred breaking into Hades' realm at the end of 5.0 to shatter the Auracite or Zenos forcing his way into the heart of the dead star at the end of 6.0. This is ridiculous, sure, but it's the type of ridiculous we've come to accept and potentially even enjoy.
As the credits roll, Smile plays for the third time, this time the full version. I don't particularly like this song, because the opening section being sung from Sphene's perspective just... Annoys me. Sphene feels like a cheap combination of Emet-Selch and Meteion that somebody made for their cheap combination of Shadowbringers and Endwalker. The Alexandria arc is this rushed, fumbling, disingenuous story which is constantly way too over the top. It's way too edgy, and the stakes are so high they're just not compelling. This is the second biggest threat we've ever faced; Sphene wants to devour EVERY soul on Etheirys, not just rejoin one reflection to the source. I'm convinced that if it wasn't physically impossible to create a bigger threat than "permanently snuff out all life in the entire universe", they would've tried to do so. It falls flat, because I wanted to have this fun, exploratory expansion where we learn about the history and culture of the New World and its people, uncovering Tural's greatest mystery and finding the Golden City. Instead, we got a cheap knockoff of an expansion I don't particularly like, while Xak Tural remains unexplored and the Golden City never even existed. I didn't touch the game for a week, maybe two, after I finished 7.0, because I just couldn't bring myself to. Where do I even go from here? The story, especially its finale, was so disappointing that I had no excitement to go out and involve myself in the content. In the end, instead of clearing the Extremes and having loads of fun levelling and gearing, I just went and played Warframe instead. I've since returned to the game and continued to enjoy it, but I worry that future patches' MSQ will be just as bad if not worse. Which leads into my final point...
Wuk Lamat. I quite like Wuk Lamat as a character, though I feel like the story mishandles her pretty badly because they wanted to speed through her character development and the rite of succession as fast as possible and get to the "real" story in the form of Alexandria.
Some people believe Wuk Lamat is the source of all of Dawntrail's problems, but she isn't. Wuk Lamat is the end result of all of Dawntrail's problems. Bad plot, bad pacing, bad tone, bad scripting, bad voice direction for EN localisation. The "discourse" around Wuk Lamat seriously pisses me off, because people's raging hate boner for a mostly inconsequential character drowns out any real dicussion or criticism of the expansion. Every problem you can possibly point out gets blamed on Wuk Lamat. Every single time somebody pokes fun at the writing, Wuk Lamat is the butt of the joke. I feel really bad for Sena Bryer because some writers somewhere wrote a garbage story and now people are treating her like shit because of it.
Wuk Lamat probably did have a bit too much screentime, but the REAL problem with her character was that the writers put no effort into making that screentime interesting or valuable. She and her story fall apart, because she needs to be used as a tool to push the plot forward so we can reach Alexandria. She, like the rest of Tural, got shafted in favour of somebody's "super cool and awesome and innovative cross-shard sci-fi cyberpunk story with deep moral introspection and awesome tragic villains" that actually just turned out to be a long and boring mindfuck.
Dawntrail has seemingly divided the community between people like me, who love Wuk Lamat and the Rite of Succession but hate Alexandria, and people who hold the absolute polar opposite opinion. The writers are damned no matter what, because if they cater to one group with the patch story then they piss off the other, and if they continue as they were in 7.0 with trying to do two things at the same time, they piss off BOTH groups.
I didn't think it was possible for a villain to annoy me more than Elidibus, but holy fuck. Dawntrail managed it TWICE.
I've watched the video in full now. It's very poignant, as always. The following thoughts are less responses to Wesk's points, since for the most part I agree with it, on a macro-scale, but more just thoughts I had over the course of the video.
For one thing, I think a very valid point is raised about Cahciua. I got so caught up in my thoughts about Krile's parents that I kinda glossed over just how shitty Cahciua acts towards Erenville.
There's a lot more I could say, but when a point takes 4 separate comments to get across, it's probably starting to drag on. So the main thing is this;
Dawntrail is indeed the antithesis of Endwalker, and the story to which it was an ending. At the very least, it was intended to be. And that's kinda why I'm so disappointed.
From 2.0 through to 6.0, the primary theme has always been hope. Light in the darkness, and overcoming hardship. Rising above in the face of adversity. Rebirth after the flames of calamity.
It's because of this that I think, above all else, I wanted Dawntrail to be a happy expansion. A shining beacon of wonder and new horizons, where hope isn't really needed. Where, at the very least, *you* don't need to hold onto hope anymore, and are free to pass that hope on to someone else who does need it. It didn't need to be all sunshine and rainbows all the time, of course. Zoraal Ja holds a very extreme viewpoint, Bakool Ja Ja has very serious trauma due to the problems in Mamook, and despite the 80 years of peace, Tulliyolal does have elements of discord beneath the surface.
But Alexandria feels like a story which forces you to watch, completely unable to intervene, as strangers and friends alike suffer horribly. In the finale, in Living Memory, you are forced to inflict that suffering. This isn't a choice-based narrative game, It's a linear RPG. If I want to finish the story and keep playing, I have to do something which I object to, morally. I can't just cut off the supply of souls sustaining the Endless and let Living Memory burn out, I have to be the one to kill them all.
I wanted an adventure in uncharted territory, and that is most definitely not what I got. Instead I got a guided tour of well-trodden fucking misery.
And looking far ahead to 8.0, it begs the question of what they're going to do. With how grimdark Dawntrail gets in the second act, it feels like they need to make the 8.X series far more lighthearted so they can offset it. But at the same time, I'm not sure that would feel right. 8.0 should probably be where they take the major strides towards putting us into the next big overarching story, which is going to require a lot of depth, emotion and conflict.
If Dawntrail is going to be another serious, depressing story with no real time to decompress before they launch us into the next big thing, instead of the summer vacation we were promised, I'm not sure I can get behind it. I think I'll just find it tiring.
It also has this problem of... How do you fix it? 7.0 is out there now, you can't untell that story. If they DON'T continue it in 7.1-7.3, that'll be wholly unsatisfying, arguably making the problem worse by not deconstructing the issues in Alexandria. But I also... *Really* don't want to spend more time dealing with Alexandria. Whatever the threat and/or antagonist of 7.3 is going to be, I'm not looking forward to it.
EDIT: Additional thought. I’ve been wondering on and off why it is that I resonate somewhat with the main character syndrome people despite fundamentally disagreeing with them, and I finally figured it out. It’s not about resenting Wuk Lamat for taking the spotlight away from the Warrior of Light, it’s about resenting the plot and the circumstances for making me and my Warrior of Light feel like a powerless observer after a ten-year story about having the strength of arms and strength of will to forge ahead no matter what. I have similar criticisms of Stormblood (despite it being my favourite expansion, Zenos fucking sucks), Shadowbringers and Endwalker (Garlemald…)
this whole point I resonate with more than I thought I could.
Apart from the fact that I liked ShB and EW way more than you seem to have, I aggree with almost everything you say. Haven't watched the video yet, but I don't think it can be closer to my feelings about DT than your point did (I would maybe stress the fact that the whole english VA are amazing, which makes the quality (or lack there of) of the writing even worse), and that I would've loved to see the scions less that we do)
It has been said that the Final Fantasy series likes to borrow from Star Wars. I did not know that with FFXIV they borrowed the trajectory of the sequel trilogy, with the first half being Star Wars 7 and the second half being Star Wars 8. Namely, that both Star Wars 7 and the first half of Dawntrail was boring and by the book but technically in line, and 8 and the second half of Dawntrail being bold, but crapping on Star Wars 7/first half of Dawntrail in such a way that whatever the resolution is, Star Wars 9/the next major arc of FFXIV will forever be ruined.
Hey WeskAlber, i saw you complaint about VA eng do you play FFXIV on jp audio ? Personally i see the jp audio is really good, the VA is perfect to convey characters emotion.
I’m interested in listening to your opinion about Dawntrail in full but, I haven’t finished it yet so, I’ll come back to this video at a later time. Thank you! 👍
I'm happy you gave a nuanced and fair, yet still opinionated piece here. I adored Dawntrail, and there's so much I wish it had done differently.
I'm really excited for the post-patch content, and hope it can address at least some of the issues you have, and I have.
You open TH-cam, see a video about the opinion of a creator you respect and think "Okay, I haven't played it yet and I've seen a lot of people saying bad things, let's probably see a more in-depth one" - after all it's over an hour long . At the end of the video you are there, sitting, thinking about loved ones, choices in your personal life, and how am I going to justify to my wife that I NEED to buy this expansion now?! Thanks Wesk
I actually don’t see people talk about the culture in the expansion, which was something they did mentioned would work to improve. After finishing the expansion I do have my verdict. At best they properly did their homework with some real elements they brought, at their worst moments, it’s Disney level representation as seen in Coco and Encanto. There are some annoying tendencies it has but it’s not alone in it. Overall they did the bare minimum and I appreciate it but I would say their representation still has long ways to grow
Your Wuk Lamat impression was shockingly good @18:03 I rewatched that bit a good half dozen times, it was nice emphasis on your point, but also well done haha.
Also, fantastic video overall! I personally agree with a lot the points you made, not all, but many of them! Thanks for being so thorough and not confusing your arguments with buzz words or blanket statements without evidence. Probably took a lot of work, but i appreciate you.
VA issues are rarely an actual VA issue and almost always the directions they are given. Since this is the final cut of the line this is clearly what they were directed to do and the best they gave out of multiple takes they gave
Some dumb people don't understand that even if the VA was terrible (she wasn't), it ultimately falls to the voice directors to either guide them into becoming better or choosing another VA for the role.
@@superiorfoe exactly. that's literally their whole job and as wesk says in the video it's harder to act with 0 context and also visuals.
@Madlad000 the thing is, EVERYONE sounded far worse than they did in the past outside of counted occasions.
@@superiorfoe You arent here to have conversation but grandstand. The first thing you did was insult people that don't like what you like. You need to rethink your approach and maybe entire life viewpoint.
she was fantastic in SOME parts and absolutely dreadful terrible in others. Much like everything else in life its a grey area on both the VA and director. I dont really care who the voice actor was for any of the characters, i care about the experience we get. and after replaying the expansion through in FR afterward, i can genuinely say i felt robbed in some areas of the game just due to the performances. but only some of them. there were still some very great parts in the EN version. i hope they maybe just give her another shot andredo the lines that are clearly a problem
@@MinaruokSo what's your problem then if you agree that the VA can redo her voice lines with better direction? I never insulted people who don't like DT for valid reasons. The only people I'm calling dumb are those who treat a single voice actress as a scapegoat instead of using their brains and realising that the blame should lie on voice direction and/or the higher ups who had complete control over casting choices.
I can't help but feel like the shutdown of Living Memory could also be seen as an allegory (might not be the right term) for FF14's inevitable shutdown. Sure, it's not happening anytime soon, but that "Final Day" will come eventually as no MMO lasts forever. Because, like LM, they rely on a constant supply of players/souls coming in: first through the free trial and hopefully, paying for a sub.
eh nah, now that they are officially expanding trusts to other duties we can expect an offline version happening eventually. in a similar way of DQX
The WoL was always the MC of FF14. They only shared their spot with others from time to time.
They were always central to the plot with personal stakes.
Be it Ultima weapon, Zenos, Emet Selch, Elidibus or whoever. The WoL was always the one they had their eyes on. Not Thancred, not Y'sthola or whoever.
Even YoshiP said in an interview that the WoL is STILL the MC even though it didn't seem like it in DT.
I understand not wanting to be the god slaying mary sue all the time and having a different approach but DT went too much in the other direction.
The problem with DT was that Wuk Lamat took the exact same spot of the WoL.
Interacting and building trust with NPC's was always implied to be the strong suit of the WoL but this time she did all that and so nothing was left for us.
FF14 is still a video game, a MMORPG. If the player character is not the MC what then?
Are we just standing in the background cheering for NPC's in the future of the MSQ? Are we continuing to just be a "yes man" and call that mentoring?
The raid storyline till now showed that the WoL can still work and interact with others if they are on their own.
DT was a different approach, I give the writers that and applaud them for taking the risk.
But for me and others it is important that our character has a meaningful role in the story. If people want to call that MC-syndrome so be it. That's why I play video games.
Otherwise I could watch a movie and DT came really close to being just that one NPC in the main role and us holding the camera.
And I say in the video you are the Main Character. But main character and the focus are not the same. We're the biggest threat, so it only makes sense to focus on us as an enemy. But the enemies are only a part of the equation, our allies have something to focus on too.
And to me, being a mentor is one of the most meaningful roles you could take. They could have written more scenes where we actively mentor or have others help in that, like I mention in the video.
The problem isn't the topic they went with, but how they went along with it.
@@WeskAlber
It was more of an overall statement of mine but thank you for answering on my comment I appreciate that.
On your point:
I disagree on the whole mentor thing. It is always brought up for DT but we aren't really mentoring.
A mentor shows things, let's their apprentice repeat that and looks how they do it.
They give them praise if they do right and criticize if they do wrong while nodging them in the right direction and with time they give them more and more complex things to do by themself.
In DT we don't do that really.
We praise Wuk Lamat and nothing more otherwise we just walk behind her.
She tells us what WE should do. "Speak to that person", "let's go there", "let's walk here", "hold my stuff for me".
That is not mentoring.
The problem is that Wuk Lamat does not really fail and has nothing to learn from. She only falls upward and so there is nothing for us to do.
The whole plot could have been without us tbh and that is not what it is about being an MC, focus or not.
I agree that the topic itself is not the problem but be it with Wuk Lamat or Zero, they have shown that they can't write that scenario and now both of them are at a point where they don't need a mentor anymore and I'll be honest. After the 6.x patches and the DT MSQ I have no patience to give them more chances on that topic.
Deftarm was a better Mentor pupil relationship and that was all the way back in HW with different writers.
Furthermore, there is “being a main character that is not the focus” and there is “being a main character that is shackled to the actual focused-upon main character”. It is fine to not be in focus; in fact, you are correct in that it is only Endwalker where you (but you as Azem) is the focus. But the Warrior of Light was never irrelevant or peripheral. The Warrior of Light, by being the weapon that solves issues, is part of the important stuff and also can witness the story of various towns and people in those towns. The Warrior of Light doesn’t even have that until Alexandria and at that point you are also of retreading of Shadowalker. As others say, you are filming the out-of-nowhere success of Wuk Lamat, and then you are plunged into the same schtick that made Shadowalker popular. Neither are satisfying, and in fact both intrude upon themselves and each other.
Furthermore, you mentioned Link in Twilight Princess. But at least there, Midna and Link were both helpless to survive circumstances Zant introduces. You have to rely on her so she relies on you to traverse the Light world and stop Zant and Ganondorf. Zant also seemingly sidelines all the main Zelda characters, meaning it if fair for Link to not be the hero of that story because he was narratively sidelined. The WoL is supposed to be a mentor, meaning there should be stuff for the WoL to do. But that is not done. And that intrudes on the Shadowalker half of Dawntrail.
(I'm sorry for the essay of a comment but as someone who fell into the black hole that is Kingdom Hearts lore I'm finding way too many coincidences for there not to be some sort of references)
TLDR: The second half of Dawntrail is as much about Kingdom Hearts 2's Nobodies as it is about FFIX's Alexandria. And you can see it even on the map between the old Alexandria of FFIX and New Alexandria being The World That Never Was. Unironically, the best way to understand what might be happening with New Alexandria and possibly even upcoming MSQ we might need to look into the insanity that is Kingdom Hearts Lore.
You wanna know a common thing said for the second half of this expansion. "Man this song reminds me of Kingdom Hearts 2". Specifically songs related to the Nobodies.
Nobodies, beings of bodies left behind after their hearts, their souls are taken from them. All that remains is their memories of who they were and a drive to get back what they lost. Except they don't want their old heart they want a new one. And from it comes this drive to collect as many hearts, as many souls as possible to use them to create new hearts for themselves. Axel's notorious catchphrase is "Got it Memorized" because he understands that the way to truly be remembered for existing at all is the same way the Yok Huy believe.
Orgenics has the song Critical Drive from the World That Never Was in it. The home of the Nobodies as the chosen place to collect Hearts.
Living Memory is heavily reminding people of Twilight Town, specifically Roxas fake computer generated version of recreated peoples of the actual Twilight Town.
And then in the final battle against Sphene if you listen closely to the piano you can hear the most fascinating leitmotif to appear. Cavern of Remembrance, a place where most of the leaders of the Nobodies have a memory dedicated to them.
And without going to indepth and bringing up Recoded and Data Riku and the phone game (KH really likes to play around with memories/ souls/ and data) I do want to bring up the only 3 Nobodies/Data characters to achieve that goal of forming a heart. Roxas, Xion, and Namine.
All 3 were created in ways where they never initially had Hearts to begin with and so we're able to. Why is this relevant? Because it's to say Living Memory is full of Nobodies with previous souls. They aren't the people of the memories they are recreating, their souls are gone. The souls they collect to try and create the facsimile they are won't let them fill the void with a new soul, a new life.
Fascinatingly, without their bodies/memories the souls are just beings of hunger and rage more akin to feral animals living off instinct. Being devoured by that one instinct. Which directly ties into the use of Feral Souls in Arcadion and how their use corrupts your own soul until you die.
And the most interesting thing, that I hope Dawntrail explores, is that the only way to get back the person you lost from this state of being a Heartless and a Nobody is for both to be merged together again. In KH for this to happen means both the Nobody and the Heartless must die if the lost loved one is to be rebirthed into themselves again.
I would love for the patches to go into looking into how what New Alexandria is doing is literally preventing rebirths in the Aetherial Sea. And it would be a great anti-thesis to the Ancients belief of how it is a blessing to be able to return to the Sea.
I could keep going but I'll stop here, but I'll leave with this.
Hearts=Souls
Nobodies=The Endless
Heartless=Feral Souls
Replace any instance of those 3 words and if you played Kingdom Hearts tell me it doesn't sound familiar
"It's okay to have an expansion without the scions" I agree with this. The Scions' portrayal (by which I mean, the complete lack of any purpose or stakes in the narrative) is my biggest issue with the expansion in general; I wish they'd stayed home entirely instead of being these hollow shells of plot utility and nothing else.
I think the story telling around the new characters was a miss for me. I liked the opening scene we got with Wuk where she is scared and not confident. I liked the scene where she told us about her insecurities. But I never felt that she, or us as a mentor, worked to revolve those issues. They just went away. I would have liked more quiet scenes with the new cast, and more player choosable dialogue to fill out our role as a mentor.
I also think Wuk loving her people but not knowing much about them was strange choice. Wuk would have been a great companion if she knew more than surface level details about the different cultures. But the way it’s presented in the story she is also learning. I understand what they were going for, but it just didn’t work for me. Especially because that is the trait that is supposed to make her the ideal Dawn Servant.
Part of the reason I felt so annoyed with this expansion, is that the writing tries to force the player to feel a certain way when it hadn’t earned that feeling in me. The coronation is a good example. After Koanna dropped out, and Zorel was disqualified, my thought was “oh, so Wuk just won…?” It didn’t feel like we’d grown and won because of how much she has learned.
It felt like she won because Bakool, who probably should have been disqualified for releasing the world ending serpent but don’t worry about it he’s a sad boy deep down, and zorel were just ass holes. Koanna coming to back her makes sense, but I would have liked to see more done with it.
This all built up to “Smile” the way that song was used the first time felt like such a cliche Disney moment. Between that, the reveal of the dead head, the randomly bad voice acting in crowd NPCs, that cutscene was where I went from “it’s not my favorite expansion, but it’s aight.” To “I’m actively not enjoying this.”
The next half got a bit more interesting, but suffered from many of the same issues. And as the threat got bigger I got more aggravated that the WoL had no agency.
You really cooked with this one. I wasn't expecting an entire peer review on top of the discussion of the expansions features, themes, and everything else. My favourite part of Dawntrail is honestly how the first half-ish of the expansion feeds into the juxtaposition of itself in the second half. The logic of Alexandria's view of death and memories wouldn't be the same without the Yok Huy showing that Alexandria is a perversion of their ideals and culture; and without this, the entirety of Living Memory would not hit the way it does. On that note, I also implore people to play SOMA, because it brings up a lot of the same discussion points you have for Living Memory and it's just super interesting.
For example, the system in Living Memory may just be a replication of people's memories and it may be designed to set people up for specific encounters based on their memories, but does that make those interactions any less real? Some may dismiss it out of hand, but I think what is remembered in the moment, the emotions, the thoughts, your framing of it, I think that's just as real too, even if "it's just a simulation."
I get what DT tried to do, but the writing quality issues and serious mishandling of characters/character development made all those emotional moments simply not matter to me. "New zone with high stakes? Why should I care? I just want this over with." When my immersion is broken, the story doesn't matter, anymore. And in a story heavy MMO, I found myself not caring to do very much post-game content, either. DT is successfully the first and only expansion whose cutscenes PUT ME TO SLEEP. Even in ARR, I was wide awake on every single moment (note: I played the shb shortened version, not the original back when it was current and has a lot of quest bloat).
this so much! After I reach the 5th zone all I could think of was "this all sounds so interesting to me but I'm so tired and just want this MSQ to end". People can say all they want that the game has always been like this, all expansions are like this etc but this is the very first time an expansion made me bored
I replayed ARR right before they shortened it so I could compare it to the reworked version, which I replayed right after the rework. While i have no complaints, personally I preferred the original. I even love many of the side quests. ARR always engages me despite taking its time building its world and establishing the Hero's Journey theme for our WoL. Dawntrail left me cold.
OMG so much this.
I can't be bothered to do the trials or alliance raid, because.. I don't care about the story. When I step into Amaurot, when Emet-Selch gives his voice over about the cataclysm that befell the Ancients, I'm invested because I have opinions on Emet Selch and what he's done. When I zone into whatever the end game dungeons are here, I just.. don't care. They're loot pinatas.
my biggest criticism about dawntrail isn't even specific to it
since shadowbringers, the rhythm of the msq is just too predictable
I understand it probably lets them have a consistent blueprint to build on but my experience going through the story felt more like hitting checkpoints than ever before
split path quest then straight into level 91 dungeon then soon after level 93 dungeon followed closely by the first trial and so on
I'm not asking for more actual duty content, I was personally wholly satisfied with the length and actual gameplay during the msq, however the IMPOSSIBLY RIGID flow of them needs to be shaken off at least a little by next expansion
this would be my biggest disappointment if this doesn't get adressed
Yeah, I really hope they decide to be bold with how they wish to present content in the future. Maybe make some of the dungeons optional again. I'll give that to Shadowbringers about the second primal fight. The second primal was supposed be fought at the x8 level. Bismarck for 58 and Lakshmi for 68 levels. But Shadowbringers decided to change that and give us Innocence at 79. Since then we've had the primal fight before the final questline of the expac. I wouldn't mind if the second primal fight ended up ALSO being optional. The amount of content can be the same but how it is delivered can be different.
That rigid concept is extra annoying at some points in Dawntrail when suddenly a bunch of people appear with no other reason to be there than "they need to be available for Duty Support". It worked great for the first trial and was a great character moment, being able to enter the trial with usually opposing teams, each with their own reasons to fight this snake bird. However, later on it started to get ridiculous. It was already noticeable in some moments in the Endwalker patches, but oh well, they're patches and it wasn't super bad at that time. In Dawntrail meanwhile it was so obvious and glaring it broke my immersion hard. If you want these NPCs to be there, give them a reason. Otherwise let them out.
When they added Duty Support to older duties, they relied in such moment on random NPCs when there was a gap, like a healer from the Mol in the Steppe or so. This resulted in a Poroggo paladin in the Gubal Library and it's hilarious, I love it. I wish they would do this with newer content as well when it fits.
I just wished this first part could have been mini games and skirmishes or duels to represent the candidate instead of NPC fetch quests, more like a festive event making more relaxing vibe after Endwalker's world ending threat, but yet again we faces another world ending event that felt too rushed. 😂
I've been watching you since Shadowbringers, all the way back when I was actually trying to learn rotations for jobs, and to me this genuinely feels like one of your most impactful videos. I've been having point for point thoughts on this expansion since the pre release and felt like I just had the wrong opinion when compared to the general consensus between my friends, content creators, etc. So it's really reassuring hearing you make these same points that I've had throughout this whole video. I related to Endwalker when it came out because of how poor my mental health was at the time, in regards to finding hope at the end and holding on to that hope. But with Dawntrail I related in a whole new way. I felt myself finally finding that light in life and enjoying existing in and of itself. Looking forward to a new chapter in life and being excited about what is to come next. TLDR; I think this entire video was amazing and I just want to say thank you so much for literally every single point you made throughout it!
PS: TRANS RIGHTS ♥
After seeing the final gameplay trailer before release, I was hyped to see Vanguard at lvl 93, and what's to follow.
I also like how you use the Dawntrail Dragoon animation. Since you are a Nidhogg, the animation showing Nidhogg's head devouring enemies is perfect for your intro. ;)
FFXIV really is starting to suffer from theme park mmo syndrome when it comes to the writing. The issues started in post patch Endwalker but it is really exacerbated in Dawntrail where the scions are supposedly disbanding and “we shouldnt all be meeting up or else people will realize we are still together” and yet they are still fucking together in every cutscene. The crew is there for no reason other than marketing and status quo. Alisaie and Alphinaud had no reason to accompany us other than “Friends!”. Thancred and urianger could have easily just been regular bodyguards. It all just makes the story hollow and so low stakes because of course no is gonna get killed or majorly injured, we need them for 8.0!
The whole “criticism of the expansion can be a minefield” is so true right now, but it goes so far in both directions it makes it impossible to say anything,
You have people who are making horrible comments about the VA and such, and using that to criticize the expansion. While at the same time people are using that to deflect any real criticism of the story by saying whoever made those points are transphobes etc.
Both sides are a nightmare to deal with, it could just be a twitter thing however, as it seems most opinions in game and on TH-cam have been fairly grounded to my knowledge
You're right about it being a Twitter thing, but the problem is that it often breaches containment. People don't think critically about all the vitriol they're consuming and just take it with them wherever they go, I've seen more and more people adopt the same tired talking points from the stupid bird app in the past few weeks.
I have literally never seen someone get called a transphobe for making a good faith argument about why they didn't like Wuk Lamat. So I don't get where all these comments saying that "both sides are equally bad" are coming from. What "both sides"? My biggest takeaway from this whole mess is that if there are two sides, it's that there are those willing to have civil critical discussions without being hateful, and those who aren't. Being called a transphobe, for what it's worth, is not hate speech.
@@sapphirelily510 One of the Big things with all of this is the one fact that people are highly invested in view if how they see view themselves in their characters in this game. which is a good thing . The very core of you wanderings which is what Zenos saw in you and no one else did is that you are an adventuer,That is what pulled him to your character, If you did not have a certain enjoyment foe battle your character would nave never made it. Zenos knew that. part, Dawn trail gave you the chance to just be,
That was a really nice wuk lamat impression !
Dawntrail is a good wake up call to show everyone the community's true colours, of how they really behave when things don't go their way, or when they get something that they don't like. Of course not everyone is like that, but enough of them are that the negativity on social media is clear for all to see.
And that's the real truth: that this community is no different from any others out there. We're not more welcoming, more supportive, more tolerant or more mature. It's just that things have been going *too* well in the past, so of course everyone was happy and put on their best behaviour.
It should be noted that every single positive thing peopl attribute to FFXIV was around the Shadowalker arc (base Shadowbringers-base Endwalker). Not only did it strike gold then because the stories of Emet-Selch and the Ancients were excellent, but even more importantly the mass exodus of World of Warcraft people (and the shock that FFXIV is massively opposite World of Warcraft) gave it a boost that lasted until the rise of Dawntrail. Notice how there was no attitudinal shift, no large understanding. Furthermore, it should be noted the last time FFXIV was treated this well was literally at base ARR, because it was such a turn around from 1.0. Not only is FFXIV’s friendly reputation fake, it literally is based off of performing miracles, and the Shadowalker era was a miracle.
Also, the majority of the games reputations for being a good community is just about always in game. Ingame people are great by virtue of the strong moderation, but outside it’s basically a free for all, especially on twitter.
Eeeehn, I dunno about _that._ I've been around enough multiplayer games to say FF14 feels _measurably_ better. Most of the awful in XIV is concentrated on social media, which is always the minority of players.
@@pedroscoponi4905 but thats kind of part of the problem isn't it? It's easy to make ourselves look good, when everyone else looks bad, then when bad stuff shows up on our community, we point to those "other games" and brag about how we're still not as bad as them. It's almost kind of like diverting attention away from our own faults by trying to emphasise the faults of other communities that have it even worse.
Also, here’s the thing. FFXIV is measurably better now, but that description belongs to the Ascian arc (2.0-6.0), and the golden age noted is the Shadowalker era. Unless FFXIV, which has explicitly set itself up to be a living, breathing video game akin to a series of books, justifies its reputation constantly (even more than things that release once and that’s it), even WoW will surpass it, and if not WoW then there will be something that takes FFXIV’s consideration of everything and does it better or in more interesting manners, and people will realize how stagnant FFXIV has become.
Wesker helped me progged in DSR pf . We need to clear together this time :)
The question regarding the endless being real or not to me is curious since it's been repeatedly drilled down to us since Endwalker that souls are comprised of both living aether and memories, both of which are equally important for an individual. People who think they aren't real treated the manifestations of the dead in Ultima Thule with more credence than the endless which is ironic on all fronts, since it's lending weight to Emet-Selch's rebuttal that he doesn't consider us truly alive therefore won't be guilty of murder for killing us. Moreover I think something people always seem to gloss over on this topic is the very idea that this civilisation has successfully managed to reproduce the natural function of the aetherial sea, effectively making an artificial version of it through the Origenics facility. Is the story ever going to address this? Even the MSQ kind of set it aside and never actually shut down the system.
I feel the pacing issues with the MSQ barely let enough room for more interesting things to breathe and focusing on all the meandering instead.
I knew the stories weren't really about us, but it's kind of a hurtful pain in the chest the final trial had that one part. It makes sense, sure, it's part of Wuk Lamat's character arc, fighting a ruler that's just like her. It just felt bad to me to have my own part in the very end feel like my walking arsenal status reduced in that sense, especially if you're a tank, she's effectively doing a part of the tank power fantasy. It just felt odd, but it's only truly compounded on certain different issues I had with the expansion. Outside of that, I just didn't really think too much about DT. It's not my favorite, and it'll just share the same spot in my brain as Stormblood in terms of how much I think of it story-wise. I do thank you for making this video, because it did make me soften my opinion on DT, just because you brought up certain things I just wasn't thinking about when I was overall looking over the story after I was done.
The first half of the expansion started off as a Saturday morning cartoon plot to visit every town and collect the seven mystical starburst candies so Wuk can be a pokemon master. I think some people were majorly put off by that and never managed to recover.