@@JustinStrife "This is going to be a low-stakes story" Proceeds to install a new ruler for an entire goddamn continent, then deal with a genocidal AI that wants to consume every last soul on Etheirys and all 13 Shards.
100% agree with your take on the characterization. I also had no problem with Wuk Lamat as a character, but she was a little TOO front and center and the rest of the cast suffered for it. I did have an issue with how Krile got shoved in the backseat for most of the narrative and it really felt like she was robbed of a great arc. Her big moment in LM should have had a lot more impact than it did.
I totally agree 100%. Dawntrail would have worked much better if Wuk Lamat's story had been completed during the first 30% of the game, and the remaining 70% would have been used for Krile's story, her parents, solution 9, the golden city, etc. Of course, the dialogue, pacing, quest design, etc. should have been better too. Regardless, I also enjoyed Dawntrail very much.
I mostly liked her as a character, but took issue with her "growth". The story tried to tell us she'd grown and changed over the days (weeks? It did a horrible job at expressing time) the first part happened. It tried to tell us she was no longer the girl who wanted to hold someone's hand because she was scared of a new experience. Only for her to ask us in the second to last area to go with her because she was frightened of a new experience.
I love how her biggest moment...where her heritage and the one and only inheritance she had came front and center...was taken from her by the baby scrimblo cuz her parents didn't code the sequence to her specifically, but to whoever was in charge of the organization they were rebelling against.
@@TheMadTemplar Didn't at all get the sense from that interaction that she was frightened of a new experience - that wasn't even the lesson she learned in the first half. The lesson there was that she shouldn't try and bluff and bravado her way if she isn't comfortable with something. She doesn't have to deal with that stuff alone, basically. So now it's a sequence where she's in a new place, probably nervous and overwhelmed, so she doesn't act like she's got it and runs off (like did the first half) but instead asks if we will explore along with her. And that whole lesson - relying on others - is meant to contrast with both Sphene and Zoraal Ja.
I think another reason people hate Wuk is every time a character we like already showed up they were IMMEDIATELY sent away so we could spend more time with WukLamat. Y’shtola just got here? Send her away so u can talk with WukLamat. Koana asks to speak with you in private so he can give you a gift? WukLamat “ok I’ll come along with you” and then “wow that’s so nice of my brother”. Like yes it was and ur killing the vibe by interjecting. It’s like the writers were afraid to have her ever be off screen but the characters we enjoy were always off screen. Even when she is offscreen cuz she was kidnapped, the focus is still on getting her back.
I think you sum it up really well. She was a character with a lot of potential, and once they got over the initial hump of her being kind of forced on us for plot convenience, they started handling her really well. Then they threw that out the window and it felt like she was forced on us again, to the exclusion of characters that we've already built a rapport with and are attached to. She's a new character, if they expect us to care about her then that's going to take time to establish. It's also going to take time for her to establish herself as a fighter-- her barely managing to come out on top against a hyped up lizard that trembled any time he saw us doesn't really set her up as someone that should be speaking conversationally while she's being crushed by roboSphene. They really ought to have changed where DT ended. Stop DT proper at Wuk Lamat's and Koana's coronation, have post-DT delve into the stuff that started with Vanguard, but only slightly. Sort of like how we got to pick around at things in Coerthas before HW. Spend more time on the content up until that point to let us both enjoy familiar characters and get properly attached to new ones. Make the Tural Vidraal a bigger plot point, after how they've been hyped up before we just plowed through Valigarmanda.
@@lusnoct4298 yah preach summed it up well in that she’s so forced into EVERY scene that you never get a chance to miss her and she actively removes other characters you care about making you resent her
You were immediately shoved into the role of Glorified Babysitter and that actively sabotaged any positive attachment you could possibly have with Wuk. Instead of letting the player decide for themselves if they liked her the game said “no, you HAVE to like her”. Which for me did the opposite. She has aspects of her that I like but overall it made me wish more and more I got to choose which claimant I got to go through the rite with.
Yes, you hit the nail on the head IMO. 14 is a game that has always massively benefited from its ensemble cast, but Dawntrail decided no character mattered except Wuk Lamat.
@@lusnoct4298 Everything you said is on point, especially the Tural Vidraal that we were teased to be important in Tural, and we get to see only one in the story?? Thats a bit weird.
I still stand by my statement that Krile's story isn't over and that whether it's just the Post content or it stretches into another expansion, her story was not given an ending because it's not over yet.
This! She's a main character and has long history with us, people saying she got shoved aside or even that they forgot about her somehow are being extremely short-sighted.
@@deepstonecostco Oh I have no doubts that she's going to continue to be a major player in the narrative moving forward. But I also feel like we weren't delivered what we were told to expect from her, and what we did get could have been a lot better with some additional development. But I also don't want to focus too much on the negative as I did enjoy the entire experience, but as always the criticism makes for better discussion.
After the reception I’m sure they will continue with her but the fact they had so many opportunities to explore her during the main story and didn’t just is sad. How did Shadowbringers give us full stories for Emmet, Rinne, Ardbert, and Crystal Exarch; but this expansion could only do Wuk. It was the pacing as the problem.
@@Cap_Pig Her story's not going to end with Dawntrail. My bet is that Wuk Lamat and Koana will now take a larger backseat in the story because of their Dawnservant responsibilities, allowing us to fully explore these newer things with Krile and Scions who weren't as prevalent in the MSQ but expressed interest, like Y'shtola.
I mean, the purpose of the Scions wasn't to meddle in this case besides through their power. They were more of mentors and guides. In the roles they were in, the Scions shouldn't be overtaking the story or they look corrupt and as if they're trying to install a ruler. In this case, they're lending their assistance to someone they believe has the potential and letting them grow, giving advice only when asked and only to further the one they're assisting's goals. The Scions will step back up and take prominence again in the future story patches I'm sure.
I hope I'm not the only one expected more of Erenville's story. Nevermind Krille, she's definitely going to stick around later patch/expac. But Erenville?? Should've had more screen time.
I really enjoyed your take on Dawntrail as a whole. It was by no means a perfect expansion, but the things they did right were amazing. I definitely think they could have wrote Wuk Lamat better and shown off other characters throughout the story more instead of more Wuk Lamat, but I don't think they did horrible with what they gave us. Every trial to me had its own charm, especially the final trial. The genuine excitement and panic from the new mechanics and inevitable deaths during that fight made that trial incredibly memorable. Looking forward to more of your FFXIV videos.
My main criticism for Dawntrail is that it felt childish in its delivery and a bit all over the place. It's like they writers can't make up their own minds. Wuk Lamat felt like a naive Shonen protagonist and at some point the moralizing speeches felt incredibly shallow and cringe worthy. The Disney "Smile" theme didn't help. If only Aymeric took the time to learn about Dragon culture, right? That would've erased a millennia of bad blood too, and everyone could've lived together in peace and happiness, right? If only Garleans and Domans tried to make some fancy dish together. I'm sure all bad blood would've been forgotten in an instant... Like I said, the story was very childish, especially coming from a game where we came to expect a certain level maturity and realism when it comes to navigating politics, conflicts, and morality. As for the writers being unable to make up their minds, on one hand, they clearly realize the scions overstayed their welcome. So, they're lessening their role in favor of new characters. But at the same time, they refuse to exclude them from the story altogether. The result is that the scions are just... There. That's it. They didn't feel like characters but more like tools of expositions and trust NPCs, nothing more. WoL is pretty much in the same spot as the scions, losing all agency and becoming a witness to someone else's story. You could completely remove them and it would have no impact on the story whatsoever. They tell us to not expect world ending threats in an expansion that is a new beginning and then suddenly ramp up the stakes to multi-verse world end threat so quickly that it gave me a proverbial whiplash. And that was after a first part that was so unbearably slow that the change of pacing felt all the more jarring. Lastly, we've got to talk about repeated themes... It felt like we'll never escape the shadow of Shadowbringers. Sphene is a repeat of Emet-Selch (the villain who can't let go of those they lost). And Alexandria was a repeat of Amaurot, struck by calamity and doomed to fade away unless Sphene decides to sacrifice every other living being for the sake of her own people. The difference is, Shadowbringers was done so well that Dawntrail's mimicry of it felt incredibly underwhelming. I couldn't help but wonder if Emet-Selch was in the right, that mankind might have been better off remaining unsundered. He had thousands of years as proof after all. Meanwhile, there was no universe in which I could agree or empathize with some AI named Sphene wanting to preserve unsustainable digital copies of the dead at the cost of all those who yet live, only for her to eventually run out of fuel and for all life to cease, including her Endless. Her plan was ridiculously stupid from the let go.
Not only was the "change" of pace (more like change of stakes ig) from the first arc to the second incredibly jarring, but even then the writers didn't know if they should take it seriously or not. Practically the first thing you do after a bunch of citizens got killed and you built a bomb train to a gospel song is.... touring the farms.... followed immediately by the death of Wuk's childhood caretaker... followed closely by a tour of district 9 where we lie about liking the popcorn.... You enter a virtual world where there's pretty much a literal countdown to interdimensional doom going on in the background and you... eat ice cream, ride gondolas, find a ring, fix a fountain, perform in a play, and go on a few more tours. The death of 3 whole parents sprinkled in between those. At no point in the story did the writers make up their mind. Similar issues ran throughout the dawnservant arc. Right after Wuk gets abducted and threatened with death you.... Make tacos, what else?... With the abductor there even! Right after she gets death threats from the red giant folk you save them from a bird's fart and give them a little speech, after which all is well and we never talk about it again. THE GUY PERFORMING INFANTICIDE EUGENICS IS AT THE "SMILE" CELEBRATION NOT A WEEK LATER WHEN WUK ASSUMES THE THRONE!!! It's BAFFLING xD At so many times during all of this MSQ I felt like screaming at my monitor "WTF are the stakes? Pick a tone already! Can we get this thing rolling finally? STOP NODDING!!!"
This expansion should have been based on 10 and not 9. Guardians with Wuk Lamat going to each village for rites. Atleast then they could have done a story that flowed better with what they were trying to do. Them doing 9 felt so shoved in towards the end that it didn’t flow well with the entirely of the plot lol. Honestly this should have just been us retracing Galuf’s steps with Krile with a new cast but.. we’ll never get away from the scions for long. Only Hws was bold enough to do that
X had a lot of influence. The lower part of Yak T'el is Machalania Woods. The pilgrimage you mentioned. Lower Urqopacha could be seen as the Calm Lands. Heritage Found has a Thunder Plains vibe. The pelu pelu.
@MagikRayne I wouldn't toss out that there were XI influences, especially since the alliance raids are going to be dealing with XI, but there are some heavily IX inspired themes. The kingdom of Alexandria being the most easy to spot. The architecture of the ruins is nearly identical to the buildings in IX. Then there is the theme of another world merging with the main one to harvest souls to maintain itself. Naming conventions based on gemstones, such as the Garnet/Sphene parallel. There are sure to be more that I'm not remembering or thinking of, or never noticed. In my mind, that reflection IS the world of IX, just further into its future.
I went into Dawntrail expecting a low-stakes, not particularly groundbreaking story that focused on being fun and interesting and exploring the New World. For the first 2/3 of Dawntrail, that’s exactly what I got. It wasn’t spectacular, but I was happy. But the second you set foot in Alexandria… It turns into this really high-stakes story about a world-shattering conflict, where not just Tural is at stake but every single shard of Etheirys. It tries to be deep, and edgy, almost feeling like a carbon copy of Shadowbringers at times, and what we ended up with was this bizarre, contrived, half-baked disaster. Issues with the script-writing and voice-direction that had been present since the very beginning of Dawntrail suddenly became far more obvious when set against the background of this gritty, serious story and the whole thing just fell apart. People have singled out Sena Bryer’s performance as “bad” because of Wuk Lamat’s heavy presence throughout the story, but pretty much every character comes across as overdone or slightly lilted at some point. This includes the Scions, but it’s far more obvious with newly introduced major characters like Gulool Ja Ja and the claimants to the throne. If you quantified it, then sure, I enjoyed Dawntrail overall, it was an okay expansion. But in reality, by the time the credits rolled on the expansion, the Alexandria storyline had dragged on for so long and pissed me off so much that the Rite of Succession and our adventures in Shaaloani had completely left my mind. It’s not “fair” to compare Dawntrail to Shadowbringers and Endwalker insofar as their stories are (or ar least, should have been) significantly different from each other. But I *do* think it’s fair to expect the same care and attention and general production quality from Dawntrail that we got from the other 4 expansions. Also, why the hell is Dawntrail full of text errors? Did CBU3 fire their proofreaders for the English localisation?
I didn't enjoy Dawntrail's MSQ, and for me it all comes down to bad writing, specially character writing. The story concepts are fine. It's not really about what is happening and where we are going, it's how it was written. A lot of telling and not showing, a lot of out of place exposition, constantly repeating and explaining information and not leaving any place for our own interpretation. I wish I had enjoyed Living Memory as much as you did, but the interesting questions I had about it were dismissed by the characters that decided how I should feel about it when it was convenient for the story. But for me, the worst crime of Dawntrail is the character writing. You mentioned characterization problems in Wuk Lamat, but every single character has the same problems as her...and what completely ruined my experience, was how the Scions were written. They completely lost their unique personalities, and they all say the same things, react the same, and talk the same way. As someone very focused on how my favorite character acts, I was heartbroken almost everytime he said anything, because it wasn't him. I see many people trying to defend the expansion trying to compare it with what comes after, but it doesn't matter what you compare it to, for me there is no excuse for such poor writing, so different from what we had in the past since the beginning, from a game that was always praised for its writing quality.
Yep, same. Concepts were fine, the writing/execution/pacing/characters were terrible. And I went in with a very open mind, but I was bored/annoyed/confused most of the expansion.
Absolutely agree with you, I don't think Wuk Lamat is a problem, it's just a lot of her in this expac, so she's the most prominent example of how bad the character writing in DT is. Dialog is bland and unimaginative, and yes, Scions just all react and talk the same, to the point where if you cover the name, you couldn't tell who's speaking. As someone who got extremely fond of all the companions over HW-ShB-EW, I found myself wishing they would rather just... not been there at all. By the end I was so annoyed/disappointed with the characters, that I couldn't even enjoy what good was there in a story, just wanted it to be over, so I could go NG+ ARR or something.
My problem is that the story focuses on Wuk Lamat even when it should focus on anything else. Shaaloani onward should have been the Krile and Erenville Show, but Wuk Lamat just wouldn’t go away.
Hard agree, Wuk Lamat should've taken more backseat place unless Zoraal Ja is present or discussion on Zoraal Ja is happening. We don't need Wuk Lamat telling us again that she doesn't understand the whole reflections/shards bit, we knew that from the big event in the level 96 MSQ.
Hard agree, I started DT enjoying Wuk Lamat's character and company a lot, but by the end of Rite of Succession I was quite ready to be done with her, and get to know other characters, like Koana or Erenville. That brief respite with Erenville in Shaaloani was such a breath of fresh air, but it went by in a blink of an eye, and we got the full focus on Wuk Lamat yet again. The overexposure made me really dislike a cool and fun character I really liked in the beginning. It's my main gripe with DT MSQ, it's like they were doing it on purpose.
@@evercreepyWhen I was doing the final MSQ trial and Wuk Lamat showed up to assist, my reaction was literally “OH FUCK OFF.” That was proof positive they had botched it for me. Now that I’ve cleared the MSQ and I’ve had some separation time from her, I’m back on the side of liking her, but I really hope she doesn’t get forced on us during the post-MSQ patches.
I was honestly surprised to see that Ketenram was in the MSQ for Dawntrail. Considering no one has heard from him in decades, I was expecting that we would have to search for him or his remains as part of the Shade's Triangle story in the patches. Still, it's good to see his retirement is going well.
@@yanipheonu He's a Roegadyn. I don't think 80 years is that ridiculous for them. Pretty sure they are the 3rd longest lived species the WoL can be, first being Viera and the second being the Elezen. Remember, Erenville's mother also was a part of that party, and she was considered fairly youthful still 80 years later.
I thought this expansion had great dungeon design and world design. But as you put it correctly, for the most part of this expansion we are following the Shounen Manga Protagonist known as Wuk Lamat. She even steals your thunder multiple times. Story/narritive wise it is like they took everything that was good about Endwalker and put you on the outside to watch someone else experience it. Someone who goes from not being able to dent a two headed lizard to saving the world in a span on less than an ingame week. For me Dawntrail started after the MSQ. The current raids are great and I hope we have seen the last of Wuk Lamat and the post-MSQ will be about us again.
in the first half Wuk Lamat is a good character in second half it completly falls apart and she gets extremely over exposed i went from "ok i like her" to "oh please shut the fuck up and let me do something else with someone else for a moment" and on top of that she steals my kill at the end and my moment by default so yeah i belive someone in the writing team fell in love with the character and decided to make her the main focus of EVERYTHING i kinda wished the second half of the story was basicly something in the lines of "so we found this thing in our land that is supposed to be this city of gold with treasure we cant find it but i give you permition to do whatever you want to find it if you want" However despite all that there were a couple things in there that made me excited for the future ahead wich is Ultima The High Serapth eventually coming into play if this is the ultimate end game then im all in
"she steals my kill at the end" Ehh, no. [SPOILERS FOR SHADOWBRINGERS AND ENDWALKER...] It was a "power of friendship" moment, like the Endsinger fight with the Scions, or Hades fight with Ardbert. She even says something like "let's finish this together", and the fight continues on. She doesn't just break through the crack, land a hit and *ding ding* fight's done! Could it have been handled better? Yeah, probably. But it definitely wasn't stealing our WoL's kill/glory/whatever.
@@8BitCerberus Uhhh no it wasn't. Endsinger was about to finish us off as we'd burned through our tank LB3 and didn't have another handy. The Scions pumped up a shield to protect us. That was not what was happening in Dawntrail.
@@JustinStrife And Sphene was spamming Absolute Authority and picking off people left and right before Wuk shows up. I've seen several times where healer LB3 is needed to survive, and I've seen several wipes because the healers went down during that phase. Wuk "reaches" Sphene and helps her recover some of her humanity which stops the Absolute Authority spam allowing us to continue the fight.
Bro, I promise you it's okay for you to not be god's special snowflake for once and I promise you Sphene isn't all that powerful for you to cry about not getting to kill her when we dealt with bigger threats to the star
@@8BitCerberus Okay so even when you try and describe the fight like that, you're still ignoring the difference between that trial and the Endsinger trial. Big surprise. You can beat it without Wuk Lamat. You could not beat Endsinger without dynamis from your allies. Find another hill to die on, because this one is an ant hill.
Maybe I'm in the wrong here but I don't think it's fair to compare Dawntrail's story to Endwalker. The latter has 10 years and 4 expansions worth of buildup giving it leverage while Dawntrail is a reset button on all that.
No I don’t think you are! I’m in complete agreement with you and that was my expectation as well. I knew the vibe was going to be and feel different. And to be honest, I think Dawntrail handled it really well. Usually I feel jaded starting a new story/chapter from the same series after such a great and fulfilling conclusion, but I didn’t get that with Dawntrail and I’m so relieved. Quite the opposite- I’m really excited for the next 10 years!
This was my postgame take as well, there was way more invested narratively and emotionally in EW, so of course it's going to resonate more. But I also think there are some storytelling skills to learn that were and were not applied here. Like, for me at least, the portion of LM that hit the hardest was the first with Namikka. And that's because the game introduces you to her almost immediately upon arrival to Tural, and throughout the entire journey you're breadcrumbed story bits of her and Wuk Lamat's relationship. An understanding and emotional connection is formed organically rather than explained to you. So when that moment hit when she transformed back to her old self, her happiest self, that resonated. That one got me choked up. But Krile's potato parents and Cahciua just felt flat in comparison after that. I think if the emotional impact in LM had ramped up by starting with Krile, then moving to Erenville, and ending with Wuk and Namikka, each would have felt a bit more impactful.
A lot of the convos I’ve heard about it (haven’t gotten there yet, just starting EW) involve players saying that EW itself hit SO hard that they welcome the relative relaxation of what amounts to a beach episode in the game. After riding the high of the last 4 expansions, a narrative breather sounds pretty nice ngl.
@@OneBiasedOpinion That's another thing. When people were talking about 6.1 (Newfound Adventure) and how it was having fun at Y'shtola's (my beloved) expense, I told them: "Guys, after the pathos of the main story, we NEEDED this. You might not think that now, but in time you will."
Nobody is comparing DT to EW in terms of story. Nobody cares one bit about the story being a reset or whatever, people are having issues with the writing mate
After Shadowbringers and Endwalker it would have been very very very very very hard for Dawn Trail to be at the same level. And I did not expect it to be.
@@joshanonline yeah unless I missed something, all the bad guys of 7.0 have been dealt with. Maybe the WoL will get another 'vacation' for a patch? 😆 I really hope the Arcadion pro-wrestling arc doesn't turn into the MSQ next.
I don't think most people expected it to be another ShB or EW. But they didn't expect it to be what we got. Having gone through the first expansions multiple times on alts, I'd rather do ARR a hundred times than do Dawntrail a 2nd time.
@@Dracounguis Yes I've gone through ARR/HW/SB at least a dozen times over the last 9 years across 6 or so servers, 4 data centers(including a japanese one back in 2017). Taught myself how to tank leveling a Paladin in 2016 through the story, back when tank stance wasn't earned until level 40. Long before server travel, cross server party finders, or any of that stuff.
I feel is because of all of the expansions this one treats the PC the most like a side character for most of the story. Even when you think you get away to finally do your adventure thing they throw you back into the “side character zone” after a few main quests
We needed an expansion that cooled things down, if they kept raising the stakes every time we would end up in WoW's territory. You can only throw so many levels of cosmic horrors for so long one after another before we hit a brick wall. It was a massive change of pace for us as the WoL but Im sure it will be only a matter of time the second shoe drops right when we are not paying attention.
Feel like a lot of the story just had a lot of missed opportunities or felt very incomplete. By the time I got to the cowboy town I started to skip because it was just boring to me. Then I got to the invasion and got interested again. However it lost me again in the last zone. I did not feel sadness because I didn't get attached to a bunch of npcs that were already dead anyways. It was objectively a moral and right thing to end the program. Otherwise real lives would be lost. I didn't hate the story but it really should have had more time to cook. Wuk was alright but she was just in the story way too much at times. It was incredibly random for her to just "appear" in the last trial somehow. I was never expecting ShB or EW levels of writing but I wasn't expecting what we got either. I am perfectly OK not being the focus either but maybe the WoL could have been a mentor type to Wuk instead of just a bodyguard. The scions could have also just as easily not been in the story. There was no real competition with any of them and Graha on the canoe was weird because it should have been Erenville to maybe talk to us about his relationship with his mom instead. Fun to play through but the more I think about the story the more I'm left with questions regarding a lot of the choices the writers made.
the Main issue with Wuk Lamat is basically we never get a break from her. I mean imagine Stormblood. But Lyse or heck even Hian is there constantly. it does not make sense, it does not fit with the narrative set. But here is Hien or here is Lyse, taking parts clearly meant for a different character. Shoe-horning Wuk everywhere is just Exhausting. And that would be with every character. now Take Isghard imagine with Estinien or the other black haired guy was there constantly? heck they even threw Wuk Lamat into the last boss fight to save -you- Even the best of characters will be exhausting if you've to see them constantly.
That's been the case for every expansion. Endwalker it was most of the scions for all but one zone, Lyse or Hien for every zone. Because the PC doesn't speak there has to be a character to serve as the npc stand-in for conversations, or cutscenes would get a bit boring. But in all the previous expansions, it was never just one character in that role, but a handful who played off each other. There was never really a point in SB where Hien or Lyse were just shoehorned into something like Wuk Lamat was.
@@TheMadTemplar But it still gave you Variation. the only time we actually get a break from Wuk is in the Western zone which is abruptly short lived, before we've to just return to Wuk Lamat and then we have to be with her the entire time. which creates fatigue. How the writers somehow didn't understand this is a tad baffling. the other thing that might tick some people off, is also how she just becomes powerful out of the blue. I mean she literally becomes more powerful than the WoL at the end of the Last Fight. Stopping the Final boss's end you all attack and then all alone prevents it from happening again with some odd ability of hers. And the reason why she's suddenly that powerful? Cos' Feelings. Now I do not mind the cheapshot of Wuk's that's fair enough when somebody channels a very powerful move they are lift open to that manner of attack. But her suddenly standing in the Air of the space, Creating some manner of wall that's prevent the deletion program from activating is just wha?
I overall enjoyed the msq and the expansion so far. My main criticisms are: Wuk Lamat was a bit overexposed, and it felt like we should have been able to speak more...Forexample offer the porxie treatment for the levin sickness. I play with JP voices so the Wuk Lamat voice acting debacle did not affect me at all.
She was way more overexposed in my experience than a little. I played the expansion myself and then went back and watched a streamer's playthrough. She is in almost *every* cutscene in the expansion. No exaggeration. You only get one area (Shaaloani) away from her to breathe, and then she's right back in every cutscene until the end. I genuinely don't understand why they thought it was a good idea. No character should be that overexposed.
I was literally "yelling at my TV" about the levin sickness, I really hope they'll get to working on the treatment in patches, since that plot thread went nowhere. Also agree about us speaking more. I heard people saying WoL was supposed to be a mentor figure for WL, but I didn't get that impression, since WoL had almost 0 things to say and no guidance to offer, so I felt like we did not influence WL's character growth at all. Same with the second part of the story. The whole expac felt like watching a very long movie with almost no involvement.
What could the porxies do? They're not suffering from having their souls rendered stagnant. The sin eater change was a one two punch. Both the body and soul going too far to the light. The body would slowly SLOWLY fix itself if the world the person was living in was in balance, it was the soul we needed to help. Alexandria we can't do anything. The porxies can't help their bodies and the body can't return to equillibrium with the world infused with lightning as it is.
@@jineiyinsha I agree, but it should have been mentioned during the MSQ. A line about it possibly being related to tempering and that we will investigate if the porxies work later. The way it is handled now, it just make my WOL feel stupid.
My problem with the expansion is that it felt too rushed. Plus I didn't feel like second half with Alexandria was well done. I enjoyed the first half more and it was cool how Alexandria started attacking, I was invested. I wanted to save the people I was having my slice of life adventure with. But the shift to trying to force me to feel sympathy to Sphene for using souls and essentially draining life everywhere she goes didn't work. The way the system just snuffs out life, not even letting it return to the cycle had me going "you either need to stop or die". No amount of "but they're my people" was going to have me feel for AI holograms. I saw Alexandia as a dystopia and cancer, and nothing in the story made me change my mind. I hope moving forward we can change the way Alexandria is run foundationally, their system is flawed from square one. You can also see this in the raid series, with wicked thunder wanting our soul cause she's been using the soul system so much that she's losing who she is. I felt like the two stories weren't given enough time to really shine too. A lot of people mentioned how they were looking forward fo fighting againts thancred and urianger and I was in that boat. To many missed opportunities where they could have made it a gameplay moment. Having us either playing as the WoL or as Wuk Lamat going through her journey not only from the sideline, but also through her shoes would have been more impactful. Not enough time with the scions, not enough time to justify Alexandria. It would have been better if 7.0 was the first half, and we had the second half in 7.1.
This is gonna be a wall of text, so bear with me. Dawntrail, was for the most part, enjoyable for me. I simply took it for what it is, a vacation. And the zones really made it feel that way. The story, while not as great, didn't feel as bad to me personally as to most people, despite a couple of plot holes. Like for example, you really expect me to believe that no one saw Wuk Lamat get kidnapped when Earthenshire was in full view from where we were standing? I didn't mind Wuk Lamat's presence as much as most as well. Well, until Living Memory. First half, of course her presence made sense. That was her journey to become Dawnservant, and we did agree to help. Second half? Still made sense for her to be there. Tuliyollal was attacked by Zoraal Ja himself, and Gulool Ja Ja was killed. So that was personal and she needed to be there. However, i felt like they downplayed Erenville's situation a bit. Guy's home was swallowed up by a barrier. And once he managed to get inside, finds his home in ruins. And while he did eventually find his mother, i felt like they didn't interact much. At least on camera. I mean, we just found out that 30 years passed inside that barrier. As important as the current situation was, you're telling me she couldn't find the time to have a bunch of heart to heart time with her son? She hasn't seen him for 30 years, not to mention how filled with worry he was. And the slow realization that she was actually dead should've been addressed more, and earlier. It should've been a plot point before we enter Living Memory, therefore giving Erenville a greater drive to follow her through that portal and into Living Memory. But alas, it felt it was downplayed. And most of the time was just him sulking and absent from the scene. Then there's Krile's situation. I understand Krile and Erenville taking a back seat in the first half, since they all shared a common goal. But man, she was done dirty in most of the second half. There they are, telling us that Krile's earring, and Krile herself, holds a lot of significance in the plot. And that her earring itself serving as a significant plot device. Only to get her thunder stolen at the last second by requiring Gulool Ja to open the gate to Living Memory. That felt like a slap to the face. Even considering Preservation might've taken measures to keep anything related to her parents from using the portal, you'd think her parents would've put something in the earring that allows her to bypass it considering how purpose built and discreet it was. Then there's Wuk Lamat's presence in Living Memory that i mentioned. While it's unfair to blame it on one character, since there's a problem with the overall structure of events and/or story in that area despite how nice each of the story's zone was. Her one moment in that zone did make her presence feel grating. It was just announced that there was a countdown to doom and gloom, honey. And you want us to "get to know the Endless"?! We're on crunch time here! It's not like interacting with them was needed to get to the Terminals. Nothing was barring our way. We could just walk right to it and turn it off. Letting us just walk to the Meso Terminal the moment we got there was a mistake. Figuring out how to get to Sphene should've been the main objective when we got there, therefore giving a reason to comb the area and maybe talk to the Endless for clues as to how. Overall, despite everything, it was entertaining enough for me, despite the number of lows in comparisons to the highs. The zones in Yak Tural really cemented that "vacation" feeling, as mentioned. And being an FF9 fan, i was driven to figuring out just what the hell happened to Alexandria. Seeing the ruins there, and seeing it in a new perspective was neat. "Mixed" is definitely the right word when it comes to the MSQ of Dawntrail. Now if we're talking about gameplay and/or features on the other hand, that's an easy 10/10 for me. The gameplay and mechanics felt really engaging, with imo, the right amount of difficulty.
I like Dawntrail, I'm just disappointed that I'm not liking it for the reason I expected to like most, which was MSQ. People like to think that it's not enjoyed because people are comparing it to Endwalker. Firstly, a fresh start isn't an excuse for terrible storytelling; CBU3 should know this. Then, they take a gamble on the hope that majority of long time players are okay with being a side character in the story of a Daddy's Girl Mary Sue powered by idealistic naivete' instead of ability and experience. I liked Wuk Lamat in her introduction at the end of Endwalker, but my fondness of her deterIorated as the Dawntrail went on. It felt like I was inserted into someone's FFXIV fanfic, and as a longtime paying costumer, this isn't wasn't an experience I would subscribe to.
YES! I was the first idiot to start talking about milfbot when you first met the little bubble bot and it made it into the video 🤣 thank you avy for the fun cozy streams 💜
I'm indigenous and I LOVED Dawntrail so much. I've never actually personally seen native cultures represented respectfully before (even in 14..cough cough new world headdress cough). So I was pleasantly surprised! I also lost my mother a few years ago, so I cried pretty consistency throughout the entire third arc hahaha
Started wathcing alot of your content as i'm fairly new to the game recently got my first lvl 100 job which was WHM and you're the reason i first wanted to because of the top 10 reasons to play and i appreciate it SO much because it's now my favorite job in the game, excited to continue the story and more excited to see more videos of yours being uploaded
@@captainpositivenegro2854 Yeah, I get that too. Not cheap in the sense that much of Living Memory is some of their best looking design work and they just destroyed it for effect. But cheap in that the area's MSQ could have used more voice acting, more unique interactive content besides the lalafel museum. Less generic character stories in the MSQ; although living memory's sidequests are well done for side quests.
The major issues with DT was the failure of adhere to Yoshida's overarching view of a "living breathing world that has many stories to tell". So when you introduce a "end of the world as we know it" you have to work the story around that major point in the world's story. You cannot abandon it nor can you hide it so either the event happens and touches the world or it doesn't. Even the game's lore has stated many of times that travel between shards weakens the aether between two points. So this should have effectively made Tuliyolla experience the same things as the rest of the city states just because of the tunneling that one of the shards did in connecting themselves to the source. Then you have Wuk Lamat who is the embodiment of the trope Black Hole sue where the whole story bends very hard to her, and it directly services her because she's the Author's favorite. The writer Hihiro (sp) apparently is known for hyper focusing on one character at the expense of other characters. If anything the whole story should have never been greenlit or at least heavy editing to even it out. To me the biggest failure for DT was Wuk Lamat and her overstaying the story because she's Hihiro's favorite. It didn't make sense to excuse Thancred and Uranager from the ending other than it was done on purpose to keep Wuk Lamat in party group as long as possible. A good hard fix would have been, after she and Kota ascend to the throne. She is forced by Kouta to act like a ruler, in turn the story goes to Shaaloani with Eranvael to go through that bit of the story. You'd have Krile, Thancred, The twins and Uranager saying they will regroup with you at Hhusatahwi once they get more information about the golden city. Then you just start the second half focus on those characters. The story beats would have been far better.
So i’m still working through my feelings on Dawntrail but for right now I find myself in the 50/50 camp, I genuinely liked the first half of the story but the second half is complicated as I liked the themes, concepts and ideas they were playing with but something just felt off and after getting into a discussion about it with someone on the Grinding Gear boys’ clips channel this commenter summed it up perfectly which is Dawntrail’s mainline MSQ does feel like the equivalent of trying to condense two anime arcs into one: it’s enjoyable but ya find yourself with a little bit of whiplash from the pacing
As a KR server player(basically being forced to wait for almost half a year for new expansion or move to global server), I chose to watch this video. First, I don't care about spoilers at all. And second, alike many others I expected DT to be perfect but recent reviews about this expansion is relatively low, so I felt I need to look out what happened and intentionally set my bar low to not be disappointed. Still this looks fine for me, but I'm not gonna be too desperate for this expansion.
Yea the writing and lore were less elegant. Very boring and a chore to play play through. I beat endwalker in 3 days. I had to force myself to play dt and took me two weeks to slog through. Found myself doing fares and aether currents to have a break from the awful msq. Demote the new writers and localizer.
I agree with much of what was said here. I liked most of the story (keeping in mind that it’s building on something new), the gameplay, and the characters. I personally love the scions and would’ve liked to see more of them after the succession arc, but I kind of expected them to be sidelined for most of the expansion. I hope we get to see more of them going forward. However, my biggest complaint is the sidelining of the WoL. It felt like I was playing an NPC for much of the story. I don’t know if this was due to the way the story was written, or what…but I’ve never gotten that feeling before and have been playing since ARR. They really did shoehorn Wuk Lamat (who felt more like the MC in this expac) in many places she didn’t belong, and I say this as someone who likes her as a character.
I am currently replaying ARR with a new character, to get my "msq fix", and I don't get the comparison between DT and ARR at all. ARR is slow but pretty involved, while in DT WoL really feels like an NPC. Not because we're not "the main character" (tm), but just because we as a player have nothing to do, and WoL has nothing to say, really. Every expac revolved about other characters, like Estinien, Hien, Lyse or Exarch/Ryne, but I have never felt like WoL was just essentially nothing more than a "camera viewpoint" in a movie.
Yoshida is a known liar in our country. However in the sense of what you're familiar with - he specifically said (with evidence out there) that the WoL would NEVER be sidelined. It was one of the things he specifically stated to NOT do. Along with a list of other things that he changed over time. Most in the community won't remember Maidy and the others as I do. But when I logged in during EW and listened to them sorrowfully saying how the game they knew is all but gone, I really felt sad and choked up a little. The game is a pale shadow of what it once was and yet all you do as a collective whole is clap and laugh for their r-tard grade design. Hell they can't even be bothered to give you seasonal events like they once did. Whilst in the 4 other major MMO's some of them last over an hour or more (with activity) whilst Yoshida and co can barely be bothered to throw you 5 minutes work, with a sub fee.
I think it's comparable to ARR if anything. Bc new story and lore, etc. But for me ARR was a 5/10 so DT only scored 3/10. Repetitive, boring and so many plotholes! Also I liked Lamat'yi but I really hope the writers have big plans for her bc in this expansion her personal growth was almost not existent (except for the "Im good enough as I am and that's okay" trope). Zoraal Ja was an enemy like a blank paper with only line written on it to describe his whole character. After Emet Selch and Lahabrea he is a huge disappointment. And Bakool Ja...I hope he'll have lots of screentime in the future as I really like his voice actor (who is a kid yes? He def sound like it!) and Koana too ❤ Oh gosh and Krile... she was supposed to have an awesome ark. Instead I felt nothing except annoyance for her family reunion bc her dad has the worst voice ever 😖 he totally killed all good emotions by only opening his mouth. And for Erenvilles mum...I probably would've felt anything in the last area (living memory in English I think?) for this super gruesome ending if it wasn't the most boring out of all of the area stories. Whoever wrote this...I expected at least a lil bit like Shb best moments and got the most loveless and boring written reunions ever. But maybe it'll built up with the upcoming story. I really hope so. I still have high hopes for the next expansion and the epilogue. But I think I'll replay Shb and Ew to fall in love with the game again. Bc DT was a drag and I was just glad I was over with.
If I remember right stormblood had more dilemma. Dawntrail didn't have that. I still think Wuk Lamat is sheltered naive character and first half and second half of story feels disconnected (maybe that's me I couldn't focus on first half of story) It should be more about sphene and her world than wuk lamat
My issue wasn't with Wuk Lamat, it was with the writing. We've had plenty of other comic relief characters, but if we had an expansion where we were trying to seriously make Hildebrand the leader of Ishgard I'd be side eyeing the writing. And if we succeeded and everything worked out for the best, I'd DEFINITELY be side eyeing the writing. That's where my issue lies, a bunch of stuff just doesn't make sense from how Wuk Lamat could suddenly beat Bakool Ja Ja AND all his minions when she couldn't land a single hit on him at first to why the Alexandrians wipe memories of loved ones when they are expending tons of energy to keep those loved ones functioning right upstairs! There is no need to remove their memories, if you miss grandma, take a trip to the amusement park, she's up there.
Honestly Wuk Lamat made me feel like I was exploring with Dora the Explorer. I liked her but she just felt too ignorant of her own culture for being the one who grew up in the area.
i enjoyed DT it wasnt perfect and come after SHB and EW is a tough act to follow but it did its own thing. act 1 was a lot of fun and good to chill as a helper role after the whole scions and being the WOL. act 2 was with the helping the train and learning more of erenville and his story now being important. act 3 was great back to being the WOL after a break and into a heavy story of life and death and the balance of it all. the little details in act 3 really made it so good. i think a lot of what we saw in DT is going to be expanded on in the next dlc especially kriel. wuk was a time a lot of fun and had that adventurous nature to dive in head first while also using her head to understand the people around her very much a shonen mc which i enjoyed. i do wish the scions got to do more and spend more time with them but at the same time i was happy to be with new characters after being with the scions for everything the last few years. wuk and erenville for being best friends didnt really interact much which i thought was a let down.
The back half of dawntrail was definitely much more exciting than the front half of dawntrail. Doesnt mean the front half was bad, just that the back half is probably more what people expected
It was the opposite for me. I went to a Dawntrail with a vision of some light adventure story and really enjoyed the first half and was both quite surprised and disappointed that it switched to more serious note. I probably really would like the second half of the story on its own, but the way it went against my expectations made it somewhat disappointing. I would prefer them to just stick to completely light-hearted adventure or to a serious one. Not to mix them.
@@Nodnarb59 such is your opinion, although i can think of numerous people offhand who would thoroughly disagree that the beginning of dawntrail MSQ was bad
@iosephus2588 it was clear there was going to be a problem to anyone paying attention to the tone of community hype. Half the community was hype because "finally, a nice low stakes adventure to get back to our adventurer roots!" The other half was hyped because "sure haha, can't wait for my 'low stakes adventure' that totally isn't going to be over by lvl 92 as we dive into the most insane cross-shard/matrix adventure with higher stakes than ever ;)" I think the devs realized there was this clear split in player expectations, and tried to address it by dedicating one half to each group. The problem is that that meant more people had one half they liked a lot more than the other, and people tend to talk a lot more about what they didn't like than what they did like.
I mean, that's how it's supposed to be, last expansion ended a 10 year long arc, the new expansion starts with our heroes just enjoying themselves before introducing us to a new arc. That's just story writing 101.
I had to take screenshots in every area of Living Memory before turning them off. It was too beautiful yet tragic
หลายเดือนก่อน +3
I don't understand why the story even existed at all (at least in the way it was). They could just as easily have your WoL character as the only main char without Wuk Lamat or the others as they all have no reason to be in any future expansions. Though they would have needed to make some parts of the story a little longer so you can get attached or maybe the story could have been shorter due to the Succession quest being different. In the end it was just an expansion for finding the cup (to visit other worlds later) and understanding/feeling the loss of past characters (as the Scions won't always be there with you)... and the crown just have Sphene's memory in it just like the earring was a key or something like that.
As someone who likes their character to settle to just be a simple adventurer again, it was calming to me. Enjoyable to watch Wuk climb to her potential, as well as learning more about a new region and customs with her. Our characters have been through everything, so it was growth to mentor someone. The zones are incredibly beautiful as well! My favorite areas in the whole game so far! I can certainly feel like my character will stick around Tural for a while. HOWEVER, I feel the scions really should have been left out for the first half. That was the strangeness for me for scions to just be *there*.
I love the scions and I was happy they where there... at first. But there was no real reason for them to be there is my problem. Ali and Alphie could have been replaced with any random NPC. Thancred did use his stealth knowledge but Urianger was also just there. Instead of having a nice scene with Ali and Wuk about the paralells of Wuk and Koana basically mirroring the energy of Ali and Alphie. That they work great together because they are different. Lean into Uriangers knack for advice to Koana and have his story be more fleshed out... they had the scions there but it was like they forgot how to actually write them. Graha was probably the best written scion in DT. Showed up when needed, had valuable insights about stuff only he knows amd then he also got to act. There where things they could have done with them that made sense and didn't even take that long but they just didn't.
I'm surprised the first wing of the raid had big cat girl, jpop idol, junkrat, and horse, and somehow nobody was melting down over any of them outside of bee my honey infiltrating the algorithm.
I know and acknowledge that this is a reset and a new start for another 10 yr saga. So my expectations were low and just ready to enjoy whatever they had for us. You cant compare this to Endwalker. Instead as a new start and saga, id compare it to ARR. So with a new knowledge of shards and the mystery of shard traveling, i cant wait to see what shards we visit next. Also, YoshiP please lower the teleport fee. The cost is going to get ridiculous when we have to shard teleport back and forth. Solution Nine already hurts.
My fav scene was Lamat saying goodbye to her mom in Living Memory. You see her mom in their 40s, that's when she first got Lamat as kitten. Endless appearance is based off the happinest moment when they were alive. Then later her mom remembers and appearance changes to when she was in her 90s, last moment she was alive, at Heritage in the barrier. This was when she saw Lamat there, tho couldn't say anything, she waited 30 years to see her daughter again and finally did in her last moments alive, that became her happinest moment before she pasted. This scene made me cry so much, it had nuance. Nobody didn't stupidly ask or wonder or remind the player after of why her mom's appearance changed. Instead Lamat related to Sphene even more understanding why she couldn't let her people truly go, but to still press forward as everything must end in life.
I tried talking to my FC about this and I was completely alone in feeling like we weren't given a real reason why Zoraal ja was the way he was. They said because he was the "resiliant son" and he had a lot of pressure but like my problem is that's not enough justification for him to want to do want he did. I'm also disappointed we didnt get to see more of sphene, if we were able to see what happened that led to sphene choosing what she did i think this expansion would've been a lot better. Overall my opinion of this expansion was that it was good but disappointing as well, but i think DT is going to be an inbetween story for the next expansion. Y'shtola is still researching how to travel to other reflections and i think DT is meant to be sort of a stepping stone for that.
Yes, thank you! Zoraal Ja was the WORST character, he has ZERO reason to be like he is and what he is... "I like war"..? That was his ENTIRE personality. It was one of my biggest gripes with the expansion. They spent so much time on Wuk Lamat and gave her like 5 minutes of development (as Avy pointed out here) that every other character just.. was a 1 dimensional cardboard cut out of a character in the background. They say 2 headed Mamool Ja can't reproduce, but here he is. No further explanation (seriously who was the mom in that?) Goraal Ja apparently raised 2 adopted kids just fine and somehow he utterly failed to raise his own kid in any way? Again, I can see that happening, but it's in no way mentioned or expanded on. It's like they were trying to do a Zenos 2.0, but boring with no charisma. And Zenos was divisive enough in the first place.
@@meriwidget3474 Zoraal Ja feels like some entitled brat who thinks going to war is the best way to have peace be more appreciated. It kinda does, but you don't have to go to war just for that. Also, whenever Zoraal Ja encounters someone old during the rite of succession, he can't refute any of what they say cause they lived through those days before Gulool Ja Ja and they all agree it sucked.
Agreed. They had a reason, but there wasn't enough build up. When we got finished with him my reaction was mild annoyance and just "That's it? Really? That's why you've done all this?" We really needed to spend more time with him and Koana as well and less time with Wuk.
@@Deode-d4hthat's interpreted though. They spend almost no time with him, so most people have to fill in the blanks to define him. And he hardly interacts with anyone. He had one speech where he basically said peaceful times make people weak, but that was it?
Agreed. Zoraal Ja just felt like someone who was literally insane. Like with a true mental problem. Maybe like a side effect of his unusual birth? Idk, idk, the reasoning was so half baked I found myself making my own speculations as a coping mechanism. There was just not enough justification for his actions, imo.
I mean Ketanram being talked about and then showing up and doing “nothing” was explained by the story. His time is past (just like Gulool Ja Ja states about himself). He is simply around to watch over things in his final years. He’s not really physically up to the shenanigans of his youth.
I'm in the fire zone of Living Memory and I am so completely mentally checked out of this expansion. I just don't care anymore. These people literally ARE NOT REAL and yet they really want to make us think they are. I didn't care about erasing Namikka because she was irrelevant. Shaaloani barely counts as relevance because we get a bracelet for her. My biggest problem that ruins the ENTIRE story of Dawntrail is the lack of personality in the writing of its characters. Heavensward through Endwalker every line of dialogue oozed with the personality of who was speaking; the writer was able to show how everybody thinks and behaves through their speech. This is absent in Dawntrail. I could grab a random line in the MSQ and you wouldn't be able to tell WHO spoke it because everyone acts the same. Even Urianger barely had his excessively Shakespearean mannerisms beyond the occasional thy, thine, or doth. Every single pre-Dawntrail character could have been replaced with a randomly-generated NPC and literally nothing would change. The second biggest problem is the abysmal pacing. EVERY SINGLE TIME to story starts to pick up speed it grinds to a screeching halt for the most idiotic reasons, such as Living Memory. We're on a ticking clock but sure let's chat with a bunch of fake ghosts and turn on a fountain. Not only that, but so much time is wasted on simply repeating information we already know; many times IMMEDIATELY after we were presented with said information. You could easily shave off 3-4 hours of cutscene by removing the lines repeating info. And finally, Wuk. She's a black hole Mary Sue. The entire story bends to her and her alone. She is utterly perfect, has no tangible flaws, and everything always works out in her favor. All characters kiss the ground she walks on and never defies her. She'll randomly get power ups from nowhere to beat odds that she herself admitted were impossible. She solves every single problem with relative ease. She steals the spotlight every single time it starts to shine on someone else. SHE CAN'T SHUT UP. There are exactly 100 Main Scenario Quests in Dawntrail. Guess how many do NOT directly involve or mentions her? ONE, when you first go into Shaaloani. There are 369 MSQ objectives, and 139 are 'Speak to Wuk Lamat'. over 33% of the MSQ is talking to a single person who has all the depth of a sheet of cardboard. Thanks to Wuk hoovering up 70% of the screentime, Krile and Erenville (who were advertised as being the MAIN CHARACTERS THIS EXPANSION) got jipped. Though I guess Krile being treated like crap in the MSQ is par for the course huh?
People forget that expansion MSQ are often not the star of the show, tending to stick to traditional save the world stories. It's the post MSQ patches that doesn't have to stick to these rules, feature more intrigue and darker storylines, often the best story in FFXIV. So I'm looking forward to what is planned in the future. Those who don't like Wuk Lamat voice can be helped with the Japanese voice acting.
Zoraal Ja was my biggest problem with the story! He jumped from grumpy and misguided to unhinged and evil in a flick of the wrist and I feel like we did not get enough of a reason for him to be like that. They tried the whole "he had so much pressure on him" thing but to me that was not a satisfying explanation whatsoever. Dude was completely twisted: tell me why! 😭 The Alexandria part of the story also did not even remotely get enough time to breathe; it started and ended in like 3 levels' worth of quests. I feel like it could've been the patch story or at least bled over into the patch story.
My main issue with DT is that it's inconsistent. I don't expect it to be a heavy expansion, especially that we all thought it would be that "beach episode" - slow paced and out of the norm. And we got that until level 95 and it changed to a different story. It felt very out of place.
I doubt you will see this. But at the time of me posting this maybe less than 5 minutes have passed we ran Raid aac light heavyweight m2 and I noticed you. So here's my comment and sub. ;)
But see, I AM the right audience for shonen manga stories but the biggest thing missing from that formula in Dawntrail was the action WHICH IS LIKE 80% OF WHY THEY’RE GOOD! Nobody is watching Demon Slayer for its gripping storylines but FOR THE ACTION! And the biggest kicker is that I absolutely LOVE both of the new jobs but I got very few opportunities to use them in the MSQ outside of dungeons. I was actually so bored with the first half of the story that I ended up leveling both new jobs to 100 when my MSQ was still sitting around 95.
Struggled to finish MSQ and put it off to do other things. Also noticed that the playerbase dropped off from day 2, no more queues, guess many quit very quickly.
My partner made a good observation and they are only just getting into the DT MSQ. They said: “The story feels like it would’ve played out exactly as it is whether I was present or not.” And yeah….it does feel like that, everyone, including you, feel like non important background characters to Wuk’s story who you don’t even get to play as.
The first half was decent. Then we veered off into IX and its themes in what I found to be one of the most offensive ways possible. That evens it out to a nice 3/10 for me so far, maybe 3.5 now that the tournament arc is out.
4:20 RIGHT?! i kept saying the same thing...like bruh you voiced this 10 sec cutscene but not that scene back their that seemed rather important? Beyond that...too MUCH agriculture...like A LOT. I cannot be the only one who noticed about 50% of the plot focused on crops and what people ate. I get it...food is a touch stone that helps people relate to others. lil heavy handed on that...I know this the weirdest complaint ever.......It just stuck out to me because I was bored...a lot. "Like oh sweet crops again! *Single Gunshot*"
ppl still need to keep in mind that dawntrail is not just "story", it's also, landscapes, lore, trials, musics, mecanics, etc. Even if the story minght not be as punchy as ppl would like to, EVERYTHING ELSE is just chef kiss ok ? EVerything has been raised to another level and giving a BAD review to an expansion where so manhy things have been improved because *cry cry story is no good booo* is just stupid... DawnTrail is GREAT.. that was before watching more than a few minutes of the video, now i can say i'm happy we agree on the quality of the expansion if we put the story aside ^^
The biggest missed opportunity, hands down, was Zoraal Ja. He can be completely summed up as: Too much telling, not enough showing. Honestly that's my main complaint. The rest of Dawntrail was great, but Lizard Darkseid could have been so, *so* much better if they had given him due development through the first half of the story.
For me, the story was overall boring, and Wuk Lamat was shoved in my face for way too much of it. Yes, the story had some good moments, but I was so tempted to actually skip the story this time around (I didn't, I powered through it). It almost made me quit playing till 7.1, combined with the fact that I don't like any of the current end game gear. None of it feels like Tuliyollal or Solution Nine gear, it feels like Shadowbringers gear (gear that I didn't really like either).
Now that more time has passed, I wonder if Covid effected the story of this expansion the most. Endwalker was already planned and written out when Covid started so it would make sense if the story of dawntrail suffered the most from it. We got minor hints of it in Growing light (6.X and jumping a fair bit between patches) but it was a lot more prominent in Dawntrail. I feel like either 7.X or even 8.0 will fix up the whole story problem now that they're starting to write the next major chapter. And The writers are always about 2ish years ahead of the actual game.
So glad I’m not the only one who broke down in Living Memory. So many people seemed completely unfazed by this zone and it’s like HOW?! DT’s story has its issues. It’s many issues… even Living Memory has its issues (Screw taking time to process Erenville’s grief, ThIs Is A JoB FoR ThE ScIoNs) but it was still heart wrenching! Endwalker’s MSQ had its issues, too! Idk. I think the rest of DT’s story will be fine if we get more development of Krile and Erenville and less Wuk Lamat.
Oh for sure, DT absolutely copies ShB/EW’s homework. Like that godawful train scene. As if the first trolley wasn’t torture enough. I’m just saying there are places where it worked decently. That’s how I would rate all of DT’s story. Decent. A slightly worrying trend since this steadily dumber writing style started in the Golbez patches, but it’s not like WoW Shadowlands bad or anything.
You need to have had a strong personal loss and imprint that loss in Living Memory, only then does it work well. I recently lost my best friend for over 12 years, my beloved doggy girl. Living Memory didn't affect me that much, it was sad. But had I done it now, I would have been bawling my eyes out, imagining seeing her one more time and having to shut her down.
My main difference is my vacation didn’t begin until the invasion, peace and tranquility? No thanks, give me a battlefield and war, so I can finally start having fun. (I miss Zenos he understands me) Then I find all the “people”aren’t even alive in universe, how am I supposed to feel emotions for some glorified chat bots.
I quite liked the idea of my WoL becoming a mentor for Wuk Lamat, but unfortunately it fell so extremely flat in the execution. There were so many cool ideas for the MSQ, but the writers had no idea how to implement them in a meaningful, fun way. Unfortunately, Wuk Lamat is also a result of that. Not only is she a Mary Sue who sucks the personality out of everyone around her, we never get a break from her. While I initially liked her, the final trial was honestly the straw that broke the camel's back in retrospect. I have so much to say about the writing but that would become an essay...
7.0 should’ve ended with the succession ceremony, and the patches would be stopping Zoraal Ja and Sphene. The story was just too quick and short. It never felt like there was a real build up to anything.
The mixed reviews scores had me expecting it to just be 'okay' but it wasn't that. It was a true mixed bag for me, showcasing both the very best, and the very worst the game had to offer.
yea living memory is a place I DESPISED for how it hurt me emotionally and how it functions. These arent real people this is nothing more than ai mimicking the memories it has within its databank (sorta like ai art huh) and increasing the probability of two memories that have met meeting which is really mean to the poor group trying to shut it down in many ways. but it still hurt to get rid of them real or fake they meant something and seeing the life leave this created world was something
Will fully admit that Wuk Lamat is not my favorite. But to me, what was problematic was the voice acting direction. I also had issues with the writing.
Avy: we arent involved in a world shattering event, there was no "big bad" to fight...this was us being what we were at the start..just an adventurer. In one sense we are also keeping our word to Emet-Selch when he entrusted us with Azems legacy. Yes it was different and a lot more lightly paced, but thats the POINT. We saved the world, stopped the Dragon War, freed Ala Migho..we've been at the jagged edge, its over we won. Now we can start exploring and getting back to basics.
I liked it well enough. I just missed my WoL feeling like an important character. My favorite moments in the expansion all revolve around her actually getting to show what she's made of, as opposed to the backseat we so often had to take.
3:48 that right there, that is a perfect visual description of the entirety of Dawntrail. Cutscene upon cutscene upon cutscene of everyone standing around with a dopey smile on their face nodding. The sheer amount of that happening in the msq makes me want to make a video with snippets of Monty Python after every head nod going "Get on with it!" over and over. The nodding scenes happened so much, they just needed to put everyone in the same shot and have them all nod in unison. I would at least have gotten a laugh out of the absurdity instead of the frustration I got from having headshots of characters to watch them each nod in turn.
Hooboy. Dawntrail was definitely a mixed bag for me. I think it had some good ideas and I love the new zones, new dungeons, graphics update, music etc, like you said. Technically it was a masterpiece. But FFXIV is known for its story, it is what separates it from other MMOs. And the story in the xpac was... just bad in so many ways. I didn't hate going through it but I'm usually excited to replay through an expansion on my alt character and I'm dreading it this time. First off, Wuk Lamat. As someone who's very introverted, I did grow to hate her as time went on, having a super chipper, often fake feeling happy person in your face CONSTANTLY just.. made me never want to see her again. And I really don't know why she even needed to be so front and center in the 2nd half of the story, they should have at least been back seated or better yet, left in Tuliyollal, so that we could have spent time expanding Krile and Erenville's characters. Or maybe have taken Koana if we REALLY needed a ruler of the country along for the ride (like, why did it have to be a ruler than went?) so we could have learned a lot more about him. And as you said, all that screen time didn't actually expand her character, just made her overbearingly omnipresent. And OOF Zoraal Ja... I can't feel invested in the story when a "villain" makes zero sense and has a pointless motivation. I could go on for days about that, but I won't. I actually didn't feel anything in the second half of the story, except a little bad for Erenville (who had ONE 2 second speech about his feelings in the end), mostly because it felt so rushed, so undercooked and so bizarrely alien that I never felt any real "grounding" in the story. A few decent concepts got brushed right past and I was more confused by the end than intrigued. And yeah.. WHAT is the explanation for mini Galool? I can't imagine Zoraal knocked someone up at some point, and he clearly didn't want the kid so why would it be a case of cloning or something? But yeah, no explanation. Sphene was such an obvious red flag from the second you met her, there wasn't much I cared about with her, and finding out she is just basically an AI following a directive made me care even LESS about her. Something that really solidified my complaint on this part, were the role quests, I'm not going spoil them, but another reason I didn't resonate with DT at all is that it's TONALLY just all over the place. I mean, it has one of the highest body counts (I think) to date, but no one in the story seems to care so I never did. Like we went from one scene of watching people getting gunned down in the streets to making a train to the song of "SMILE" like 2 cutscenes later. Finally, I find it odd so many defenders of DT seem to think that "well it's a new story, some set up is required" is a good defense, because.. news flash.. WE'VE DONE THAT IN EVERY EXPANSION SINCE THE GAME STARTED! But other than MAYBE Stormblood, this has never been an issue. We went to a whole new planet in Shadowbringers! We had to "learn the culture and the people" there too! But I guess all the other expansions were just much better balanced and better character written/driven than this one. I still have faith in the team to turn the ship around so to speak, and they've earned that trust, I guess not all expansions can be bangers, but they REALLY need to pull off some good patch content to fix this mess of a story.
The only one that got the vacation was Estinien.
Yes I am still mad about that. We were told we'd get a vacation, and we got nothing like one.
@@JustinStrife "This is going to be a low-stakes story"
Proceeds to install a new ruler for an entire goddamn continent, then deal with a genocidal AI that wants to consume every last soul on Etheirys and all 13 Shards.
@@StartouchArts correction: 6 shards*
@@StartouchArts Yeah I really have to wonder what game some of these people were playing, because Dawntrail certainly wasn't it.
I did all the side-quests as I went along and want you all to know I canonically had a great time 😂
"Sphene, listen to me." Wuk Lamat said calmly.
Dude, go to. Mental assylum
Act 1: I WANNA BE DAWNSERVANT!
Act 2: Cowboys vs Aliens
Act 3: Pulling the plug on mom.
That is probably the most succinct and accurate broad-stroking I've seen. XD
I've been referring to THAT cutscene as the Mars Attacks sequence, but Cowboys vs Aliens is also very appropriate.
Oi 😂
Mom? Huh
100% agree with your take on the characterization. I also had no problem with Wuk Lamat as a character, but she was a little TOO front and center and the rest of the cast suffered for it. I did have an issue with how Krile got shoved in the backseat for most of the narrative and it really felt like she was robbed of a great arc. Her big moment in LM should have had a lot more impact than it did.
I totally agree 100%. Dawntrail would have worked much better if Wuk Lamat's story had been completed during the first 30% of the game, and the remaining 70% would have been used for Krile's story, her parents, solution 9, the golden city, etc. Of course, the dialogue, pacing, quest design, etc. should have been better too. Regardless, I also enjoyed Dawntrail very much.
I mostly liked her as a character, but took issue with her "growth". The story tried to tell us she'd grown and changed over the days (weeks? It did a horrible job at expressing time) the first part happened. It tried to tell us she was no longer the girl who wanted to hold someone's hand because she was scared of a new experience. Only for her to ask us in the second to last area to go with her because she was frightened of a new experience.
Hard agree. Wuk Lamat was and is a great character, but her arc could have been handled better and the rest of the cast should've gotten more time.
I love how her biggest moment...where her heritage and the one and only inheritance she had came front and center...was taken from her by the baby scrimblo cuz her parents didn't code the sequence to her specifically, but to whoever was in charge of the organization they were rebelling against.
@@TheMadTemplar Didn't at all get the sense from that interaction that she was frightened of a new experience - that wasn't even the lesson she learned in the first half. The lesson there was that she shouldn't try and bluff and bravado her way if she isn't comfortable with something. She doesn't have to deal with that stuff alone, basically.
So now it's a sequence where she's in a new place, probably nervous and overwhelmed, so she doesn't act like she's got it and runs off (like did the first half) but instead asks if we will explore along with her.
And that whole lesson - relying on others - is meant to contrast with both Sphene and Zoraal Ja.
I think another reason people hate Wuk is every time a character we like already showed up they were IMMEDIATELY sent away so we could spend more time with WukLamat. Y’shtola just got here? Send her away so u can talk with WukLamat. Koana asks to speak with you in private so he can give you a gift? WukLamat “ok I’ll come along with you” and then “wow that’s so nice of my brother”. Like yes it was and ur killing the vibe by interjecting. It’s like the writers were afraid to have her ever be off screen but the characters we enjoy were always off screen. Even when she is offscreen cuz she was kidnapped, the focus is still on getting her back.
I think you sum it up really well. She was a character with a lot of potential, and once they got over the initial hump of her being kind of forced on us for plot convenience, they started handling her really well. Then they threw that out the window and it felt like she was forced on us again, to the exclusion of characters that we've already built a rapport with and are attached to.
She's a new character, if they expect us to care about her then that's going to take time to establish. It's also going to take time for her to establish herself as a fighter-- her barely managing to come out on top against a hyped up lizard that trembled any time he saw us doesn't really set her up as someone that should be speaking conversationally while she's being crushed by roboSphene.
They really ought to have changed where DT ended. Stop DT proper at Wuk Lamat's and Koana's coronation, have post-DT delve into the stuff that started with Vanguard, but only slightly. Sort of like how we got to pick around at things in Coerthas before HW. Spend more time on the content up until that point to let us both enjoy familiar characters and get properly attached to new ones. Make the Tural Vidraal a bigger plot point, after how they've been hyped up before we just plowed through Valigarmanda.
@@lusnoct4298 yah preach summed it up well in that she’s so forced into EVERY scene that you never get a chance to miss her and she actively removes other characters you care about making you resent her
You were immediately shoved into the role of Glorified Babysitter and that actively sabotaged any positive attachment you could possibly have with Wuk. Instead of letting the player decide for themselves if they liked her the game said “no, you HAVE to like her”. Which for me did the opposite. She has aspects of her that I like but overall it made me wish more and more I got to choose which claimant I got to go through the rite with.
Yes, you hit the nail on the head IMO. 14 is a game that has always massively benefited from its ensemble cast, but Dawntrail decided no character mattered except Wuk Lamat.
@@lusnoct4298 Everything you said is on point, especially the Tural Vidraal that we were teased to be important in Tural, and we get to see only one in the story?? Thats a bit weird.
I still stand by my statement that Krile's story isn't over and that whether it's just the Post content or it stretches into another expansion, her story was not given an ending because it's not over yet.
This! She's a main character and has long history with us, people saying she got shoved aside or even that they forgot about her somehow are being extremely short-sighted.
@@deepstonecostco Oh I have no doubts that she's going to continue to be a major player in the narrative moving forward. But I also feel like we weren't delivered what we were told to expect from her, and what we did get could have been a lot better with some additional development. But I also don't want to focus too much on the negative as I did enjoy the entire experience, but as always the criticism makes for better discussion.
In an ideal world, yes.
But in actuality, we're probably getting more Wuk Lamat shoved down our throats.
After the reception I’m sure they will continue with her but the fact they had so many opportunities to explore her during the main story and didn’t just is sad.
How did Shadowbringers give us full stories for Emmet, Rinne, Ardbert, and Crystal Exarch; but this expansion could only do Wuk. It was the pacing as the problem.
@@Cap_Pig Her story's not going to end with Dawntrail. My bet is that Wuk Lamat and Koana will now take a larger backseat in the story because of their Dawnservant responsibilities, allowing us to fully explore these newer things with Krile and Scions who weren't as prevalent in the MSQ but expressed interest, like Y'shtola.
I will die on the hill that the train scene should have been a solo instance😂
The Scions were used as nodding machines... never disagreeing with an ally.
They were boring...
They weren't the Scions, just Trust goblins.
@@TheUltimateRikudude, overly complaining
No, they weremt
Ya it did feel like that 😂
I mean, the purpose of the Scions wasn't to meddle in this case besides through their power. They were more of mentors and guides. In the roles they were in, the Scions shouldn't be overtaking the story or they look corrupt and as if they're trying to install a ruler. In this case, they're lending their assistance to someone they believe has the potential and letting them grow, giving advice only when asked and only to further the one they're assisting's goals. The Scions will step back up and take prominence again in the future story patches I'm sure.
I hope I'm not the only one expected more of Erenville's story. Nevermind Krille, she's definitely going to stick around later patch/expac. But Erenville?? Should've had more screen time.
You mean his real name got me going in laughing a bit.
I dont even remember it...@@coreywong6229
I really enjoyed your take on Dawntrail as a whole. It was by no means a perfect expansion, but the things they did right were amazing. I definitely think they could have wrote Wuk Lamat better and shown off other characters throughout the story more instead of more Wuk Lamat, but I don't think they did horrible with what they gave us. Every trial to me had its own charm, especially the final trial. The genuine excitement and panic from the new mechanics and inevitable deaths during that fight made that trial incredibly memorable. Looking forward to more of your FFXIV videos.
I agree, it's flawed, but still quite fun!
My main criticism for Dawntrail is that it felt childish in its delivery and a bit all over the place. It's like they writers can't make up their own minds.
Wuk Lamat felt like a naive Shonen protagonist and at some point the moralizing speeches felt incredibly shallow and cringe worthy. The Disney "Smile" theme didn't help.
If only Aymeric took the time to learn about Dragon culture, right? That would've erased a millennia of bad blood too, and everyone could've lived together in peace and happiness, right? If only Garleans and Domans tried to make some fancy dish together. I'm sure all bad blood would've been forgotten in an instant...
Like I said, the story was very childish, especially coming from a game where we came to expect a certain level maturity and realism when it comes to navigating politics, conflicts, and morality.
As for the writers being unable to make up their minds, on one hand, they clearly realize the scions overstayed their welcome. So, they're lessening their role in favor of new characters. But at the same time, they refuse to exclude them from the story altogether. The result is that the scions are just... There. That's it. They didn't feel like characters but more like tools of expositions and trust NPCs, nothing more.
WoL is pretty much in the same spot as the scions, losing all agency and becoming a witness to someone else's story. You could completely remove them and it would have no impact on the story whatsoever.
They tell us to not expect world ending threats in an expansion that is a new beginning and then suddenly ramp up the stakes to multi-verse world end threat so quickly that it gave me a proverbial whiplash. And that was after a first part that was so unbearably slow that the change of pacing felt all the more jarring.
Lastly, we've got to talk about repeated themes... It felt like we'll never escape the shadow of Shadowbringers. Sphene is a repeat of Emet-Selch (the villain who can't let go of those they lost). And Alexandria was a repeat of Amaurot, struck by calamity and doomed to fade away unless Sphene decides to sacrifice every other living being for the sake of her own people.
The difference is, Shadowbringers was done so well that Dawntrail's mimicry of it felt incredibly underwhelming. I couldn't help but wonder if Emet-Selch was in the right, that mankind might have been better off remaining unsundered. He had thousands of years as proof after all. Meanwhile, there was no universe in which I could agree or empathize with some AI named Sphene wanting to preserve unsustainable digital copies of the dead at the cost of all those who yet live, only for her to eventually run out of fuel and for all life to cease, including her Endless. Her plan was ridiculously stupid from the let go.
Not only was the "change" of pace (more like change of stakes ig) from the first arc to the second incredibly jarring, but even then the writers didn't know if they should take it seriously or not. Practically the first thing you do after a bunch of citizens got killed and you built a bomb train to a gospel song is.... touring the farms.... followed immediately by the death of Wuk's childhood caretaker... followed closely by a tour of district 9 where we lie about liking the popcorn....
You enter a virtual world where there's pretty much a literal countdown to interdimensional doom going on in the background and you... eat ice cream, ride gondolas, find a ring, fix a fountain, perform in a play, and go on a few more tours. The death of 3 whole parents sprinkled in between those.
At no point in the story did the writers make up their mind. Similar issues ran throughout the dawnservant arc. Right after Wuk gets abducted and threatened with death you.... Make tacos, what else?... With the abductor there even! Right after she gets death threats from the red giant folk you save them from a bird's fart and give them a little speech, after which all is well and we never talk about it again. THE GUY PERFORMING INFANTICIDE EUGENICS IS AT THE "SMILE" CELEBRATION NOT A WEEK LATER WHEN WUK ASSUMES THE THRONE!!!
It's BAFFLING xD At so many times during all of this MSQ I felt like screaming at my monitor "WTF are the stakes? Pick a tone already! Can we get this thing rolling finally? STOP NODDING!!!"
This expansion should have been based on 10 and not 9. Guardians with Wuk Lamat going to each village for rites. Atleast then they could have done a story that flowed better with what they were trying to do.
Them doing 9 felt so shoved in towards the end that it didn’t flow well with the entirely of the plot lol.
Honestly this should have just been us retracing Galuf’s steps with Krile with a new cast but.. we’ll never get away from the scions for long. Only Hws was bold enough to do that
Ooooh man. Look I'm a far bigger fan of IX than X, but you are completely right - this story would've been perfectly themed with X.
X had a lot of influence. The lower part of Yak T'el is Machalania Woods. The pilgrimage you mentioned. Lower Urqopacha could be seen as the Calm Lands. Heritage Found has a Thunder Plains vibe. The pelu pelu.
@@TH3_DR3W Yeah which makes me wonder why they didn’t go all in.
Wasn’t DT more 11 than 9
@MagikRayne I wouldn't toss out that there were XI influences, especially since the alliance raids are going to be dealing with XI, but there are some heavily IX inspired themes. The kingdom of Alexandria being the most easy to spot. The architecture of the ruins is nearly identical to the buildings in IX. Then there is the theme of another world merging with the main one to harvest souls to maintain itself. Naming conventions based on gemstones, such as the Garnet/Sphene parallel. There are sure to be more that I'm not remembering or thinking of, or never noticed. In my mind, that reflection IS the world of IX, just further into its future.
I went into Dawntrail expecting a low-stakes, not particularly groundbreaking story that focused on being fun and interesting and exploring the New World. For the first 2/3 of Dawntrail, that’s exactly what I got. It wasn’t spectacular, but I was happy.
But the second you set foot in Alexandria… It turns into this really high-stakes story about a world-shattering conflict, where not just Tural is at stake but every single shard of Etheirys. It tries to be deep, and edgy, almost feeling like a carbon copy of Shadowbringers at times, and what we ended up with was this bizarre, contrived, half-baked disaster.
Issues with the script-writing and voice-direction that had been present since the very beginning of Dawntrail suddenly became far more obvious when set against the background of this gritty, serious story and the whole thing just fell apart. People have singled out Sena Bryer’s performance as “bad” because of Wuk Lamat’s heavy presence throughout the story, but pretty much every character comes across as overdone or slightly lilted at some point. This includes the Scions, but it’s far more obvious with newly introduced major characters like Gulool Ja Ja and the claimants to the throne.
If you quantified it, then sure, I enjoyed Dawntrail overall, it was an okay expansion. But in reality, by the time the credits rolled on the expansion, the Alexandria storyline had dragged on for so long and pissed me off so much that the Rite of Succession and our adventures in Shaaloani had completely left my mind.
It’s not “fair” to compare Dawntrail to Shadowbringers and Endwalker insofar as their stories are (or ar least, should have been) significantly different from each other. But I *do* think it’s fair to expect the same care and attention and general production quality from Dawntrail that we got from the other 4 expansions. Also, why the hell is Dawntrail full of text errors? Did CBU3 fire their proofreaders for the English localisation?
I would have been happy with a bit less Wuk Lamat after she became leader.
I didn't enjoy Dawntrail's MSQ, and for me it all comes down to bad writing, specially character writing.
The story concepts are fine. It's not really about what is happening and where we are going, it's how it was written. A lot of telling and not showing, a lot of out of place exposition, constantly repeating and explaining information and not leaving any place for our own interpretation. I wish I had enjoyed Living Memory as much as you did, but the interesting questions I had about it were dismissed by the characters that decided how I should feel about it when it was convenient for the story. But for me, the worst crime of Dawntrail is the character writing.
You mentioned characterization problems in Wuk Lamat, but every single character has the same problems as her...and what completely ruined my experience, was how the Scions were written. They completely lost their unique personalities, and they all say the same things, react the same, and talk the same way. As someone very focused on how my favorite character acts, I was heartbroken almost everytime he said anything, because it wasn't him.
I see many people trying to defend the expansion trying to compare it with what comes after, but it doesn't matter what you compare it to, for me there is no excuse for such poor writing, so different from what we had in the past since the beginning, from a game that was always praised for its writing quality.
Yep, same. Concepts were fine, the writing/execution/pacing/characters were terrible. And I went in with a very open mind, but I was bored/annoyed/confused most of the expansion.
Absolutely agree with you, I don't think Wuk Lamat is a problem, it's just a lot of her in this expac, so she's the most prominent example of how bad the character writing in DT is. Dialog is bland and unimaginative, and yes, Scions just all react and talk the same, to the point where if you cover the name, you couldn't tell who's speaking. As someone who got extremely fond of all the companions over HW-ShB-EW, I found myself wishing they would rather just... not been there at all. By the end I was so annoyed/disappointed with the characters, that I couldn't even enjoy what good was there in a story, just wanted it to be over, so I could go NG+ ARR or something.
agree, people like to say its because this expac came after 2 bangers. not really..
strawman arguement
I think I might be broken because I felt no sadness in Living Memory.
Nah you're good, "Amaurot at home" just wasn't very good xD
Becuase it was a knock off of Amaurot. Sphene being a dollar store Emet Selch.
My problem is that the story focuses on Wuk Lamat even when it should focus on anything else. Shaaloani onward should have been the Krile and Erenville Show, but Wuk Lamat just wouldn’t go away.
Hard agree, Wuk Lamat should've taken more backseat place unless Zoraal Ja is present or discussion on Zoraal Ja is happening. We don't need Wuk Lamat telling us again that she doesn't understand the whole reflections/shards bit, we knew that from the big event in the level 96 MSQ.
Hard agree, I started DT enjoying Wuk Lamat's character and company a lot, but by the end of Rite of Succession I was quite ready to be done with her, and get to know other characters, like Koana or Erenville. That brief respite with Erenville in Shaaloani was such a breath of fresh air, but it went by in a blink of an eye, and we got the full focus on Wuk Lamat yet again. The overexposure made me really dislike a cool and fun character I really liked in the beginning. It's my main gripe with DT MSQ, it's like they were doing it on purpose.
@@evercreepyWhen I was doing the final MSQ trial and Wuk Lamat showed up to assist, my reaction was literally “OH FUCK OFF.” That was proof positive they had botched it for me. Now that I’ve cleared the MSQ and I’ve had some separation time from her, I’m back on the side of liking her, but I really hope she doesn’t get forced on us during the post-MSQ patches.
I was honestly surprised to see that Ketenram was in the MSQ for Dawntrail. Considering no one has heard from him in decades, I was expecting that we would have to search for him or his remains as part of the Shade's Triangle story in the patches. Still, it's good to see his retirement is going well.
Ketenramm helped Galool Ja Ja unite the country.... 80 years ago.
He's actually a bit of a plot hole...
@@yanipheonu He's a Roegadyn. I don't think 80 years is that ridiculous for them. Pretty sure they are the 3rd longest lived species the WoL can be, first being Viera and the second being the Elezen. Remember, Erenville's mother also was a part of that party, and she was considered fairly youthful still 80 years later.
I thought this expansion had great dungeon design and world design.
But as you put it correctly, for the most part of this expansion we are following the Shounen Manga Protagonist known as Wuk Lamat.
She even steals your thunder multiple times.
Story/narritive wise it is like they took everything that was good about Endwalker and put you on the outside to watch someone else experience it. Someone who goes from not being able to dent a two headed lizard to saving the world in a span on less than an ingame week.
For me Dawntrail started after the MSQ. The current raids are great and I hope we have seen the last of Wuk Lamat and the post-MSQ will be about us again.
in the first half Wuk Lamat is a good character in second half it completly falls apart and she gets extremely over exposed i went from "ok i like her" to "oh please shut the fuck up and let me do something else with someone else for a moment" and on top of that she steals my kill at the end and my moment by default so yeah i belive someone in the writing team fell in love with the character and decided to make her the main focus of EVERYTHING i kinda wished the second half of the story was basicly something in the lines of "so we found this thing in our land that is supposed to be this city of gold with treasure we cant find it but i give you permition to do whatever you want to find it if you want"
However despite all that there were a couple things in there that made me excited for the future ahead wich is Ultima The High Serapth eventually coming into play if this is the ultimate end game then im all in
"she steals my kill at the end"
Ehh, no. [SPOILERS FOR SHADOWBRINGERS AND ENDWALKER...]
It was a "power of friendship" moment, like the Endsinger fight with the Scions, or Hades fight with Ardbert. She even says something like "let's finish this together", and the fight continues on. She doesn't just break through the crack, land a hit and *ding ding* fight's done! Could it have been handled better? Yeah, probably. But it definitely wasn't stealing our WoL's kill/glory/whatever.
@@8BitCerberus Uhhh no it wasn't. Endsinger was about to finish us off as we'd burned through our tank LB3 and didn't have another handy. The Scions pumped up a shield to protect us. That was not what was happening in Dawntrail.
@@JustinStrife And Sphene was spamming Absolute Authority and picking off people left and right before Wuk shows up.
I've seen several times where healer LB3 is needed to survive, and I've seen several wipes because the healers went down during that phase.
Wuk "reaches" Sphene and helps her recover some of her humanity which stops the Absolute Authority spam allowing us to continue the fight.
Bro, I promise you it's okay for you to not be god's special snowflake for once and I promise you Sphene isn't all that powerful for you to cry about not getting to kill her when we dealt with bigger threats to the star
@@8BitCerberus Okay so even when you try and describe the fight like that, you're still ignoring the difference between that trial and the Endsinger trial. Big surprise. You can beat it without Wuk Lamat. You could not beat Endsinger without dynamis from your allies. Find another hill to die on, because this one is an ant hill.
Maybe I'm in the wrong here but I don't think it's fair to compare Dawntrail's story to Endwalker. The latter has 10 years and 4 expansions worth of buildup giving it leverage while Dawntrail is a reset button on all that.
No I don’t think you are! I’m in complete agreement with you and that was my expectation as well. I knew the vibe was going to be and feel different. And to be honest, I think Dawntrail handled it really well. Usually I feel jaded starting a new story/chapter from the same series after such a great and fulfilling conclusion, but I didn’t get that with Dawntrail and I’m so relieved. Quite the opposite- I’m really excited for the next 10 years!
This was my postgame take as well, there was way more invested narratively and emotionally in EW, so of course it's going to resonate more. But I also think there are some storytelling skills to learn that were and were not applied here. Like, for me at least, the portion of LM that hit the hardest was the first with Namikka. And that's because the game introduces you to her almost immediately upon arrival to Tural, and throughout the entire journey you're breadcrumbed story bits of her and Wuk Lamat's relationship. An understanding and emotional connection is formed organically rather than explained to you. So when that moment hit when she transformed back to her old self, her happiest self, that resonated. That one got me choked up. But Krile's potato parents and Cahciua just felt flat in comparison after that. I think if the emotional impact in LM had ramped up by starting with Krile, then moving to Erenville, and ending with Wuk and Namikka, each would have felt a bit more impactful.
A lot of the convos I’ve heard about it (haven’t gotten there yet, just starting EW) involve players saying that EW itself hit SO hard that they welcome the relative relaxation of what amounts to a beach episode in the game. After riding the high of the last 4 expansions, a narrative breather sounds pretty nice ngl.
@@OneBiasedOpinion That's another thing. When people were talking about 6.1 (Newfound Adventure) and how it was having fun at Y'shtola's (my beloved) expense, I told them: "Guys, after the pathos of the main story, we NEEDED this. You might not think that now, but in time you will."
Nobody is comparing DT to EW in terms of story. Nobody cares one bit about the story being a reset or whatever, people are having issues with the writing mate
After Shadowbringers and Endwalker it would have been very very very very very hard for Dawn Trail to be at the same level. And I did not expect it to be.
Me neither but expected it would bring the potential for another good expansion. Like interesting enemies. Feels like that fell flat.
@@joshanonline yeah unless I missed something, all the bad guys of 7.0 have been dealt with. Maybe the WoL will get another 'vacation' for a patch? 😆 I really hope the Arcadion pro-wrestling arc doesn't turn into the MSQ next.
I don't think most people expected it to be another ShB or EW. But they didn't expect it to be what we got. Having gone through the first expansions multiple times on alts, I'd rather do ARR a hundred times than do Dawntrail a 2nd time.
@@JustinStrife multiple times?! 🫡
@@Dracounguis Yes I've gone through ARR/HW/SB at least a dozen times over the last 9 years across 6 or so servers, 4 data centers(including a japanese one back in 2017). Taught myself how to tank leveling a Paladin in 2016 through the story, back when tank stance wasn't earned until level 40. Long before server travel, cross server party finders, or any of that stuff.
I still won't go back to LM without turning on New Game+ and bringing the place back to life.
I feel is because of all of the expansions this one treats the PC the most like a side character for most of the story. Even when you think you get away to finally do your adventure thing they throw you back into the “side character zone” after a few main quests
We needed an expansion that cooled things down, if they kept raising the stakes every time we would end up in WoW's territory. You can only throw so many levels of cosmic horrors for so long one after another before we hit a brick wall. It was a massive change of pace for us as the WoL but Im sure it will be only a matter of time the second shoe drops right when we are not paying attention.
Feel like a lot of the story just had a lot of missed opportunities or felt very incomplete. By the time I got to the cowboy town I started to skip because it was just boring to me. Then I got to the invasion and got interested again. However it lost me again in the last zone. I did not feel sadness because I didn't get attached to a bunch of npcs that were already dead anyways. It was objectively a moral and right thing to end the program. Otherwise real lives would be lost. I didn't hate the story but it really should have had more time to cook. Wuk was alright but she was just in the story way too much at times. It was incredibly random for her to just "appear" in the last trial somehow. I was never expecting ShB or EW levels of writing but I wasn't expecting what we got either. I am perfectly OK not being the focus either but maybe the WoL could have been a mentor type to Wuk instead of just a bodyguard. The scions could have also just as easily not been in the story. There was no real competition with any of them and Graha on the canoe was weird because it should have been Erenville to maybe talk to us about his relationship with his mom instead. Fun to play through but the more I think about the story the more I'm left with questions regarding a lot of the choices the writers made.
the Main issue with Wuk Lamat is basically we never get a break from her.
I mean imagine Stormblood.
But Lyse or heck even Hian is there constantly.
it does not make sense, it does not fit with the narrative set.
But here is Hien or here is Lyse, taking parts clearly meant for a different character.
Shoe-horning Wuk everywhere is just Exhausting.
And that would be with every character.
now Take Isghard imagine with Estinien or the other black haired guy was there constantly?
heck they even threw Wuk Lamat into the last boss fight to save -you-
Even the best of characters will be exhausting if you've to see them constantly.
That's been the case for every expansion. Endwalker it was most of the scions for all but one zone, Lyse or Hien for every zone. Because the PC doesn't speak there has to be a character to serve as the npc stand-in for conversations, or cutscenes would get a bit boring. But in all the previous expansions, it was never just one character in that role, but a handful who played off each other. There was never really a point in SB where Hien or Lyse were just shoehorned into something like Wuk Lamat was.
@@TheMadTemplar But it still gave you Variation.
the only time we actually get a break from Wuk is in the Western zone which is abruptly short lived, before we've to just return to Wuk Lamat and then we have to be with her the entire time.
which creates fatigue.
How the writers somehow didn't understand this is a tad baffling.
the other thing that might tick some people off, is also how she just becomes powerful out of the blue.
I mean she literally becomes more powerful than the WoL at the end of the Last Fight.
Stopping the Final boss's end you all attack and then all alone prevents it from happening again with some odd ability of hers.
And the reason why she's suddenly that powerful?
Cos' Feelings.
Now I do not mind the cheapshot of Wuk's that's fair enough when somebody channels a very powerful move they are lift open to that manner of attack.
But her suddenly standing in the Air of the space, Creating some manner of wall that's prevent the deletion program from activating is just wha?
@@warllockmasterasd9142 I did say that we had more npcs in prior expansions to break it up.
the ice cream eating sound will forever haunt me
I enjoyed playing as "Retainer of Light" for wok lamat LOL
2:20 caught me off guard
Lol wtf
Same
A bit sussy......
I overall enjoyed the msq and the expansion so far.
My main criticisms are: Wuk Lamat was a bit overexposed, and it felt like we should have been able to speak more...Forexample offer the porxie treatment for the levin sickness.
I play with JP voices so the Wuk Lamat voice acting debacle did not affect me at all.
She was way more overexposed in my experience than a little. I played the expansion myself and then went back and watched a streamer's playthrough. She is in almost *every* cutscene in the expansion. No exaggeration. You only get one area (Shaaloani) away from her to breathe, and then she's right back in every cutscene until the end. I genuinely don't understand why they thought it was a good idea. No character should be that overexposed.
I was literally "yelling at my TV" about the levin sickness, I really hope they'll get to working on the treatment in patches, since that plot thread went nowhere. Also agree about us speaking more. I heard people saying WoL was supposed to be a mentor figure for WL, but I didn't get that impression, since WoL had almost 0 things to say and no guidance to offer, so I felt like we did not influence WL's character growth at all. Same with the second part of the story. The whole expac felt like watching a very long movie with almost no involvement.
What could the porxies do? They're not suffering from having their souls rendered stagnant. The sin eater change was a one two punch. Both the body and soul going too far to the light. The body would slowly SLOWLY fix itself if the world the person was living in was in balance, it was the soul we needed to help. Alexandria we can't do anything. The porxies can't help their bodies and the body can't return to equillibrium with the world infused with lightning as it is.
The levin sickness treatment is 100% for the later patches.
@@jineiyinsha I agree, but it should have been mentioned during the MSQ. A line about it possibly being related to tempering and that we will investigate if the porxies work later.
The way it is handled now, it just make my WOL feel stupid.
My problem with the expansion is that it felt too rushed. Plus I didn't feel like second half with Alexandria was well done. I enjoyed the first half more and it was cool how Alexandria started attacking, I was invested. I wanted to save the people I was having my slice of life adventure with. But the shift to trying to force me to feel sympathy to Sphene for using souls and essentially draining life everywhere she goes didn't work. The way the system just snuffs out life, not even letting it return to the cycle had me going "you either need to stop or die". No amount of "but they're my people" was going to have me feel for AI holograms. I saw Alexandia as a dystopia and cancer, and nothing in the story made me change my mind. I hope moving forward we can change the way Alexandria is run foundationally, their system is flawed from square one. You can also see this in the raid series, with wicked thunder wanting our soul cause she's been using the soul system so much that she's losing who she is.
I felt like the two stories weren't given enough time to really shine too. A lot of people mentioned how they were looking forward fo fighting againts thancred and urianger and I was in that boat. To many missed opportunities where they could have made it a gameplay moment. Having us either playing as the WoL or as Wuk Lamat going through her journey not only from the sideline, but also through her shoes would have been more impactful. Not enough time with the scions, not enough time to justify Alexandria. It would have been better if 7.0 was the first half, and we had the second half in 7.1.
This is gonna be a wall of text, so bear with me.
Dawntrail, was for the most part, enjoyable for me. I simply took it for what it is, a vacation. And the zones really made it feel that way. The story, while not as great, didn't feel as bad to me personally as to most people, despite a couple of plot holes. Like for example, you really expect me to believe that no one saw Wuk Lamat get kidnapped when Earthenshire was in full view from where we were standing?
I didn't mind Wuk Lamat's presence as much as most as well. Well, until Living Memory. First half, of course her presence made sense. That was her journey to become Dawnservant, and we did agree to help. Second half? Still made sense for her to be there. Tuliyollal was attacked by Zoraal Ja himself, and Gulool Ja Ja was killed. So that was personal and she needed to be there. However, i felt like they downplayed Erenville's situation a bit. Guy's home was swallowed up by a barrier. And once he managed to get inside, finds his home in ruins. And while he did eventually find his mother, i felt like they didn't interact much. At least on camera. I mean, we just found out that 30 years passed inside that barrier. As important as the current situation was, you're telling me she couldn't find the time to have a bunch of heart to heart time with her son? She hasn't seen him for 30 years, not to mention how filled with worry he was. And the slow realization that she was actually dead should've been addressed more, and earlier. It should've been a plot point before we enter Living Memory, therefore giving Erenville a greater drive to follow her through that portal and into Living Memory. But alas, it felt it was downplayed. And most of the time was just him sulking and absent from the scene.
Then there's Krile's situation. I understand Krile and Erenville taking a back seat in the first half, since they all shared a common goal. But man, she was done dirty in most of the second half. There they are, telling us that Krile's earring, and Krile herself, holds a lot of significance in the plot. And that her earring itself serving as a significant plot device. Only to get her thunder stolen at the last second by requiring Gulool Ja to open the gate to Living Memory. That felt like a slap to the face. Even considering Preservation might've taken measures to keep anything related to her parents from using the portal, you'd think her parents would've put something in the earring that allows her to bypass it considering how purpose built and discreet it was.
Then there's Wuk Lamat's presence in Living Memory that i mentioned. While it's unfair to blame it on one character, since there's a problem with the overall structure of events and/or story in that area despite how nice each of the story's zone was. Her one moment in that zone did make her presence feel grating. It was just announced that there was a countdown to doom and gloom, honey. And you want us to "get to know the Endless"?! We're on crunch time here! It's not like interacting with them was needed to get to the Terminals. Nothing was barring our way. We could just walk right to it and turn it off. Letting us just walk to the Meso Terminal the moment we got there was a mistake. Figuring out how to get to Sphene should've been the main objective when we got there, therefore giving a reason to comb the area and maybe talk to the Endless for clues as to how.
Overall, despite everything, it was entertaining enough for me, despite the number of lows in comparisons to the highs. The zones in Yak Tural really cemented that "vacation" feeling, as mentioned. And being an FF9 fan, i was driven to figuring out just what the hell happened to Alexandria. Seeing the ruins there, and seeing it in a new perspective was neat. "Mixed" is definitely the right word when it comes to the MSQ of Dawntrail.
Now if we're talking about gameplay and/or features on the other hand, that's an easy 10/10 for me. The gameplay and mechanics felt really engaging, with imo, the right amount of difficulty.
I like Dawntrail, I'm just disappointed that I'm not liking it for the reason I expected to like most, which was MSQ.
People like to think that it's not enjoyed because people are comparing it to Endwalker. Firstly, a fresh start isn't an excuse for terrible storytelling; CBU3 should know this. Then, they take a gamble on the hope that majority of long time players are okay with being a side character in the story of a Daddy's Girl Mary Sue powered by idealistic naivete' instead of ability and experience.
I liked Wuk Lamat in her introduction at the end of Endwalker, but my fondness of her deterIorated as the Dawntrail went on. It felt like I was inserted into someone's FFXIV fanfic, and as a longtime paying costumer, this isn't wasn't an experience I would subscribe to.
Just a PSA for those wishing to visit the pre-shutdown Living Memory; flagging any NG+ content restores it to the initial appearance.
Honestly, I dont think they made it clear enough that Wuk Lamat loves peace and her people's culture
YES! I was the first idiot to start talking about milfbot when you first met the little bubble bot and it made it into the video 🤣 thank you avy for the fun cozy streams 💜
I'm indigenous and I LOVED Dawntrail so much. I've never actually personally seen native cultures represented respectfully before (even in 14..cough cough new world headdress cough). So I was pleasantly surprised! I also lost my mother a few years ago, so I cried pretty consistency throughout the entire third arc hahaha
Yep! Pretty much nailed it. I detest 90% of anime, so making this a shonen expansion was a death sentence.
I don't like shonen anime. And I've been watching anime for almost 40 years. This expansion was HORRIBLE for me.
Started wathcing alot of your content as i'm fairly new to the game
recently got my first lvl 100 job which was WHM and you're the reason i first wanted to because of the top 10 reasons to play and i appreciate it SO much because it's now my favorite job in the game, excited to continue the story and more excited to see more videos of yours being uploaded
13:47
This caught me off guard. 🤣
I love how Milfbot called Erenville her “fussy lil bun bun” LIKE OMG I SWEAR MY FEMROE’s HEART SKIPPED A BEAT
Living Memory was worth it. Everything else felt too crammed together and rushed. At least the gameplay is better than its ever been.
living memory was good in concept but the execution felt cheap
@@captainpositivenegro2854 Yeah, I get that too. Not cheap in the sense that much of Living Memory is some of their best looking design work and they just destroyed it for effect. But cheap in that the area's MSQ could have used more voice acting, more unique interactive content besides the lalafel museum. Less generic character stories in the MSQ; although living memory's sidequests are well done for side quests.
The major issues with DT was the failure of adhere to Yoshida's overarching view of a "living breathing world that has many stories to tell". So when you introduce a "end of the world as we know it" you have to work the story around that major point in the world's story. You cannot abandon it nor can you hide it so either the event happens and touches the world or it doesn't. Even the game's lore has stated many of times that travel between shards weakens the aether between two points. So this should have effectively made Tuliyolla experience the same things as the rest of the city states just because of the tunneling that one of the shards did in connecting themselves to the source.
Then you have Wuk Lamat who is the embodiment of the trope Black Hole sue where the whole story bends very hard to her, and it directly services her because she's the Author's favorite. The writer Hihiro (sp) apparently is known for hyper focusing on one character at the expense of other characters. If anything the whole story should have never been greenlit or at least heavy editing to even it out. To me the biggest failure for DT was Wuk Lamat and her overstaying the story because she's Hihiro's favorite. It didn't make sense to excuse Thancred and Uranager from the ending other than it was done on purpose to keep Wuk Lamat in party group as long as possible.
A good hard fix would have been, after she and Kota ascend to the throne. She is forced by Kouta to act like a ruler, in turn the story goes to Shaaloani with Eranvael to go through that bit of the story. You'd have Krile, Thancred, The twins and Uranager saying they will regroup with you at Hhusatahwi once they get more information about the golden city. Then you just start the second half focus on those characters. The story beats would have been far better.
Just your average summer vacation
So i’m still working through my feelings on Dawntrail but for right now I find myself in the 50/50 camp, I genuinely liked the first half of the story but the second half is complicated as I liked the themes, concepts and ideas they were playing with but something just felt off and after getting into a discussion about it with someone on the Grinding Gear boys’ clips channel this commenter summed it up perfectly which is Dawntrail’s mainline MSQ does feel like the equivalent of trying to condense two anime arcs into one: it’s enjoyable but ya find yourself with a little bit of whiplash from the pacing
As a KR server player(basically being forced to wait for almost half a year for new expansion or move to global server), I chose to watch this video. First, I don't care about spoilers at all. And second, alike many others I expected DT to be perfect but recent reviews about this expansion is relatively low, so I felt I need to look out what happened and intentionally set my bar low to not be disappointed. Still this looks fine for me, but I'm not gonna be too desperate for this expansion.
had the pleasure of you healing for me today :D was the highlight of my day
Yea the writing and lore were less elegant. Very boring and a chore to play play through. I beat endwalker in 3 days. I had to force myself to play dt and took me two weeks to slog through. Found myself doing fares and aether currents to have a break from the awful msq. Demote the new writers and localizer.
I agree with much of what was said here. I liked most of the story (keeping in mind that it’s building on something new), the gameplay, and the characters. I personally love the scions and would’ve liked to see more of them after the succession arc, but I kind of expected them to be sidelined for most of the expansion. I hope we get to see more of them going forward.
However, my biggest complaint is the sidelining of the WoL. It felt like I was playing an NPC for much of the story. I don’t know if this was due to the way the story was written, or what…but I’ve never gotten that feeling before and have been playing since ARR. They really did shoehorn Wuk Lamat (who felt more like the MC in this expac) in many places she didn’t belong, and I say this as someone who likes her as a character.
I am currently replaying ARR with a new character, to get my "msq fix", and I don't get the comparison between DT and ARR at all. ARR is slow but pretty involved, while in DT WoL really feels like an NPC. Not because we're not "the main character" (tm), but just because we as a player have nothing to do, and WoL has nothing to say, really. Every expac revolved about other characters, like Estinien, Hien, Lyse or Exarch/Ryne, but I have never felt like WoL was just essentially nothing more than a "camera viewpoint" in a movie.
Yoshida is a known liar in our country. However in the sense of what you're familiar with - he specifically said (with evidence out there) that the WoL would NEVER be sidelined. It was one of the things he specifically stated to NOT do. Along with a list of other things that he changed over time. Most in the community won't remember Maidy and the others as I do. But when I logged in during EW and listened to them sorrowfully saying how the game they knew is all but gone, I really felt sad and choked up a little.
The game is a pale shadow of what it once was and yet all you do as a collective whole is clap and laugh for their r-tard grade design. Hell they can't even be bothered to give you seasonal events like they once did. Whilst in the 4 other major MMO's some of them last over an hour or more (with activity) whilst Yoshida and co can barely be bothered to throw you 5 minutes work, with a sub fee.
@@ErraticFaith wdym with seasonal events? Those still come such as the Moonfaire (Although I must admit, the quest was very short this year)
I think it's comparable to ARR if anything. Bc new story and lore, etc. But for me ARR was a 5/10 so DT only scored 3/10. Repetitive, boring and so many plotholes! Also I liked Lamat'yi but I really hope the writers have big plans for her bc in this expansion her personal growth was almost not existent (except for the "Im good enough as I am and that's okay" trope). Zoraal Ja was an enemy like a blank paper with only line written on it to describe his whole character. After Emet Selch and Lahabrea he is a huge disappointment. And Bakool Ja...I hope he'll have lots of screentime in the future as I really like his voice actor (who is a kid yes? He def sound like it!) and Koana too ❤
Oh gosh and Krile... she was supposed to have an awesome ark. Instead I felt nothing except annoyance for her family reunion bc her dad has the worst voice ever 😖 he totally killed all good emotions by only opening his mouth. And for Erenvilles mum...I probably would've felt anything in the last area (living memory in English I think?) for this super gruesome ending if it wasn't the most boring out of all of the area stories. Whoever wrote this...I expected at least a lil bit like Shb best moments and got the most loveless and boring written reunions ever. But maybe it'll built up with the upcoming story. I really hope so.
I still have high hopes for the next expansion and the epilogue. But I think I'll replay Shb and Ew to fall in love with the game again. Bc DT was a drag and I was just glad I was over with.
It might have been a relatively minor thing, but I won't forget Dawntrail because of Namikka, that had me sobbing hard (mainly because recent events)
If I remember right stormblood had more dilemma. Dawntrail didn't have that. I still think Wuk Lamat is sheltered naive character and first half and second half of story feels disconnected (maybe that's me I couldn't focus on first half of story) It should be more about sphene and her world than wuk lamat
My issue wasn't with Wuk Lamat, it was with the writing. We've had plenty of other comic relief characters, but if we had an expansion where we were trying to seriously make Hildebrand the leader of Ishgard I'd be side eyeing the writing. And if we succeeded and everything worked out for the best, I'd DEFINITELY be side eyeing the writing.
That's where my issue lies, a bunch of stuff just doesn't make sense from how Wuk Lamat could suddenly beat Bakool Ja Ja AND all his minions when she couldn't land a single hit on him at first to why the Alexandrians wipe memories of loved ones when they are expending tons of energy to keep those loved ones functioning right upstairs! There is no need to remove their memories, if you miss grandma, take a trip to the amusement park, she's up there.
Honestly Wuk Lamat made me feel like I was exploring with Dora the Explorer. I liked her but she just felt too ignorant of her own culture for being the one who grew up in the area.
i enjoyed DT it wasnt perfect and come after SHB and EW is a tough act to follow but it did its own thing. act 1 was a lot of fun and good to chill as a helper role after the whole scions and being the WOL. act 2 was with the helping the train and learning more of erenville and his story now being important. act 3 was great back to being the WOL after a break and into a heavy story of life and death and the balance of it all. the little details in act 3 really made it so good. i think a lot of what we saw in DT is going to be expanded on in the next dlc especially kriel.
wuk was a time a lot of fun and had that adventurous nature to dive in head first while also using her head to understand the people around her very much a shonen mc which i enjoyed. i do wish the scions got to do more and spend more time with them but at the same time i was happy to be with new characters after being with the scions for everything the last few years.
wuk and erenville for being best friends didnt really interact much which i thought was a let down.
The back half of dawntrail was definitely much more exciting than the front half of dawntrail. Doesnt mean the front half was bad, just that the back half is probably more what people expected
Nah front half was bad
It was the opposite for me. I went to a Dawntrail with a vision of some light adventure story and really enjoyed the first half and was both quite surprised and disappointed that it switched to more serious note. I probably really would like the second half of the story on its own, but the way it went against my expectations made it somewhat disappointing. I would prefer them to just stick to completely light-hearted adventure or to a serious one. Not to mix them.
@@Nodnarb59 such is your opinion, although i can think of numerous people offhand who would thoroughly disagree that the beginning of dawntrail MSQ was bad
@iosephus2588 it was clear there was going to be a problem to anyone paying attention to the tone of community hype.
Half the community was hype because "finally, a nice low stakes adventure to get back to our adventurer roots!" The other half was hyped because "sure haha, can't wait for my 'low stakes adventure' that totally isn't going to be over by lvl 92 as we dive into the most insane cross-shard/matrix adventure with higher stakes than ever ;)"
I think the devs realized there was this clear split in player expectations, and tried to address it by dedicating one half to each group. The problem is that that meant more people had one half they liked a lot more than the other, and people tend to talk a lot more about what they didn't like than what they did like.
I mean, that's how it's supposed to be, last expansion ended a 10 year long arc, the new expansion starts with our heroes just enjoying themselves before introducing us to a new arc. That's just story writing 101.
I had to take screenshots in every area of Living Memory before turning them off. It was too beautiful yet tragic
I don't understand why the story even existed at all (at least in the way it was). They could just as easily have your WoL character as the only main char without Wuk Lamat or the others as they all have no reason to be in any future expansions. Though they would have needed to make some parts of the story a little longer so you can get attached or maybe the story could have been shorter due to the Succession quest being different.
In the end it was just an expansion for finding the cup (to visit other worlds later) and understanding/feeling the loss of past characters (as the Scions won't always be there with you)... and the crown just have Sphene's memory in it just like the earring was a key or something like that.
As someone who likes their character to settle to just be a simple adventurer again, it was calming to me. Enjoyable to watch Wuk climb to her potential, as well as learning more about a new region and customs with her. Our characters have been through everything, so it was growth to mentor someone. The zones are incredibly beautiful as well! My favorite areas in the whole game so far! I can certainly feel like my character will stick around Tural for a while. HOWEVER, I feel the scions really should have been left out for the first half. That was the strangeness for me for scions to just be *there*.
I love the scions and I was happy they where there... at first. But there was no real reason for them to be there is my problem. Ali and Alphie could have been replaced with any random NPC. Thancred did use his stealth knowledge but Urianger was also just there. Instead of having a nice scene with Ali and Wuk about the paralells of Wuk and Koana basically mirroring the energy of Ali and Alphie. That they work great together because they are different. Lean into Uriangers knack for advice to Koana and have his story be more fleshed out... they had the scions there but it was like they forgot how to actually write them. Graha was probably the best written scion in DT. Showed up when needed, had valuable insights about stuff only he knows amd then he also got to act.
There where things they could have done with them that made sense and didn't even take that long but they just didn't.
Only problem about being a simple adventurer idea is that you did have to stop the end of world again.
@@leffed2109…Omg, I had forgotten Urianger was there I-
Except we weren't just a simple adventurer. We were a cheerleader being dragged around by Wuk Lamat for most of the story... We NEVER mentored her...
scions were needed for mechanical reasons and that's duty support system, so they had to cram them into the story somehow
Let's go new Avy video 😊
I'm surprised the first wing of the raid had big cat girl, jpop idol, junkrat, and horse, and somehow nobody was melting down over any of them outside of bee my honey infiltrating the algorithm.
"Pray return to Wuk Lamat"
You still having nightmares about it?! 😅😂
@@MegaAndyGG the nightmare never ends lol 🤣
please no more
139 times..... LITERALLY....
I know and acknowledge that this is a reset and a new start for another 10 yr saga. So my expectations were low and just ready to enjoy whatever they had for us.
You cant compare this to Endwalker. Instead as a new start and saga, id compare it to ARR. So with a new knowledge of shards and the mystery of shard traveling, i cant wait to see what shards we visit next.
Also, YoshiP please lower the teleport fee. The cost is going to get ridiculous when we have to shard teleport back and forth. Solution Nine already hurts.
My fav scene was Lamat saying goodbye to her mom in Living Memory. You see her mom in their 40s, that's when she first got Lamat as kitten. Endless appearance is based off the happinest moment when they were alive. Then later her mom remembers and appearance changes to when she was in her 90s, last moment she was alive, at Heritage in the barrier. This was when she saw Lamat there, tho couldn't say anything, she waited 30 years to see her daughter again and finally did in her last moments alive, that became her happinest moment before she pasted.
This scene made me cry so much, it had nuance. Nobody didn't stupidly ask or wonder or remind the player after of why her mom's appearance changed. Instead Lamat related to Sphene even more understanding why she couldn't let her people truly go, but to still press forward as everything must end in life.
I tried talking to my FC about this and I was completely alone in feeling like we weren't given a real reason why Zoraal ja was the way he was. They said because he was the "resiliant son" and he had a lot of pressure but like my problem is that's not enough justification for him to want to do want he did. I'm also disappointed we didnt get to see more of sphene, if we were able to see what happened that led to sphene choosing what she did i think this expansion would've been a lot better.
Overall my opinion of this expansion was that it was good but disappointing as well, but i think DT is going to be an inbetween story for the next expansion. Y'shtola is still researching how to travel to other reflections and i think DT is meant to be sort of a stepping stone for that.
Yes, thank you! Zoraal Ja was the WORST character, he has ZERO reason to be like he is and what he is... "I like war"..? That was his ENTIRE personality. It was one of my biggest gripes with the expansion. They spent so much time on Wuk Lamat and gave her like 5 minutes of development (as Avy pointed out here) that every other character just.. was a 1 dimensional cardboard cut out of a character in the background. They say 2 headed Mamool Ja can't reproduce, but here he is. No further explanation (seriously who was the mom in that?) Goraal Ja apparently raised 2 adopted kids just fine and somehow he utterly failed to raise his own kid in any way? Again, I can see that happening, but it's in no way mentioned or expanded on. It's like they were trying to do a Zenos 2.0, but boring with no charisma. And Zenos was divisive enough in the first place.
@@meriwidget3474 Zoraal Ja feels like some entitled brat who thinks going to war is the best way to have peace be more appreciated. It kinda does, but you don't have to go to war just for that. Also, whenever Zoraal Ja encounters someone old during the rite of succession, he can't refute any of what they say cause they lived through those days before Gulool Ja Ja and they all agree it sucked.
Agreed. They had a reason, but there wasn't enough build up. When we got finished with him my reaction was mild annoyance and just "That's it? Really? That's why you've done all this?" We really needed to spend more time with him and Koana as well and less time with Wuk.
@@Deode-d4hthat's interpreted though. They spend almost no time with him, so most people have to fill in the blanks to define him. And he hardly interacts with anyone. He had one speech where he basically said peaceful times make people weak, but that was it?
Agreed. Zoraal Ja just felt like someone who was literally insane. Like with a true mental problem. Maybe like a side effect of his unusual birth? Idk, idk, the reasoning was so half baked I found myself making my own speculations as a coping mechanism. There was just not enough justification for his actions, imo.
I mean Ketanram being talked about and then showing up and doing “nothing” was explained by the story. His time is past (just like Gulool Ja Ja states about himself). He is simply around to watch over things in his final years. He’s not really physically up to the shenanigans of his youth.
I'm in the fire zone of Living Memory and I am so completely mentally checked out of this expansion. I just don't care anymore. These people literally ARE NOT REAL and yet they really want to make us think they are. I didn't care about erasing Namikka because she was irrelevant. Shaaloani barely counts as relevance because we get a bracelet for her.
My biggest problem that ruins the ENTIRE story of Dawntrail is the lack of personality in the writing of its characters. Heavensward through Endwalker every line of dialogue oozed with the personality of who was speaking; the writer was able to show how everybody thinks and behaves through their speech. This is absent in Dawntrail. I could grab a random line in the MSQ and you wouldn't be able to tell WHO spoke it because everyone acts the same. Even Urianger barely had his excessively Shakespearean mannerisms beyond the occasional thy, thine, or doth. Every single pre-Dawntrail character could have been replaced with a randomly-generated NPC and literally nothing would change.
The second biggest problem is the abysmal pacing. EVERY SINGLE TIME to story starts to pick up speed it grinds to a screeching halt for the most idiotic reasons, such as Living Memory. We're on a ticking clock but sure let's chat with a bunch of fake ghosts and turn on a fountain. Not only that, but so much time is wasted on simply repeating information we already know; many times IMMEDIATELY after we were presented with said information. You could easily shave off 3-4 hours of cutscene by removing the lines repeating info.
And finally, Wuk. She's a black hole Mary Sue. The entire story bends to her and her alone. She is utterly perfect, has no tangible flaws, and everything always works out in her favor. All characters kiss the ground she walks on and never defies her. She'll randomly get power ups from nowhere to beat odds that she herself admitted were impossible. She solves every single problem with relative ease. She steals the spotlight every single time it starts to shine on someone else. SHE CAN'T SHUT UP.
There are exactly 100 Main Scenario Quests in Dawntrail. Guess how many do NOT directly involve or mentions her? ONE, when you first go into Shaaloani. There are 369 MSQ objectives, and 139 are 'Speak to Wuk Lamat'. over 33% of the MSQ is talking to a single person who has all the depth of a sheet of cardboard. Thanks to Wuk hoovering up 70% of the screentime, Krile and Erenville (who were advertised as being the MAIN CHARACTERS THIS EXPANSION) got jipped. Though I guess Krile being treated like crap in the MSQ is par for the course huh?
People forget that expansion MSQ are often not the star of the show, tending to stick to traditional save the world stories. It's the post MSQ patches that doesn't have to stick to these rules, feature more intrigue and darker storylines, often the best story in FFXIV. So I'm looking forward to what is planned in the future. Those who don't like Wuk Lamat voice can be helped with the Japanese voice acting.
Zoraal Ja was my biggest problem with the story! He jumped from grumpy and misguided to unhinged and evil in a flick of the wrist and I feel like we did not get enough of a reason for him to be like that. They tried the whole "he had so much pressure on him" thing but to me that was not a satisfying explanation whatsoever. Dude was completely twisted: tell me why! 😭
The Alexandria part of the story also did not even remotely get enough time to breathe; it started and ended in like 3 levels' worth of quests. I feel like it could've been the patch story or at least bled over into the patch story.
My main issue with DT is that it's inconsistent. I don't expect it to be a heavy expansion, especially that we all thought it would be that "beach episode" - slow paced and out of the norm. And we got that until level 95 and it changed to a different story. It felt very out of place.
I doubt you will see this. But at the time of me posting this maybe less than 5 minutes have passed we ran Raid aac light heavyweight m2 and I noticed you. So here's my comment and sub. ;)
I was amaterasu Tachibana playing sage with my wife Sandra as samurai lolz
"you better fix my entire life" LOL high expectations real. btw, your balanced perspective is so helpful! i must follow stream
I totally agree with you, that's pretty much how I experienced Dawntrail MSQ. I cannot wait to see where this is going next !
But see, I AM the right audience for shonen manga stories but the biggest thing missing from that formula in Dawntrail was the action WHICH IS LIKE 80% OF WHY THEY’RE GOOD! Nobody is watching Demon Slayer for its gripping storylines but FOR THE ACTION! And the biggest kicker is that I absolutely LOVE both of the new jobs but I got very few opportunities to use them in the MSQ outside of dungeons. I was actually so bored with the first half of the story that I ended up leveling both new jobs to 100 when my MSQ was still sitting around 95.
Struggled to finish MSQ and put it off to do other things. Also noticed that the playerbase dropped off from day 2, no more queues, guess many quit very quickly.
i hardly cried a few times there. especially when that weird lady searched for a young x'braal.
That was probably one of the few good spots for the story of DT. That and the Raha gondola ride were probably the best scenes.
@@loneblade201 there are a lot of good scenes. Making a dish more interesting than the whole wow lore is impressive in my eyes xD
@@loneblade201 that guy had like 5 minutes of screen time and they give him the best
Gold City was not too sad for me, I only cried twice
My partner made a good observation and they are only just getting into the DT MSQ. They said: “The story feels like it would’ve played out exactly as it is whether I was present or not.” And yeah….it does feel like that, everyone, including you, feel like non important background characters to Wuk’s story who you don’t even get to play as.
The first half was decent. Then we veered off into IX and its themes in what I found to be one of the most offensive ways possible. That evens it out to a nice 3/10 for me so far, maybe 3.5 now that the tournament arc is out.
Without grief to contrast with joy and make it precious, is it really joy?
Oh god I forgot about Ketenram. Like dudes been built up for so long but damn he did not matter
I feel guilty because I can't seem to log in....I made it to 98.
4:20 RIGHT?! i kept saying the same thing...like bruh you voiced this 10 sec cutscene but not that scene back their that seemed rather important? Beyond that...too MUCH agriculture...like A LOT. I cannot be the only one who noticed about 50% of the plot focused on crops and what people ate. I get it...food is a touch stone that helps people relate to others. lil heavy handed on that...I know this the weirdest complaint ever.......It just stuck out to me because I was bored...a lot. "Like oh sweet crops again! *Single Gunshot*"
ppl still need to keep in mind that dawntrail is not just "story", it's also, landscapes, lore, trials, musics, mecanics, etc. Even if the story minght not be as punchy as ppl would like to, EVERYTHING ELSE is just chef kiss ok ? EVerything has been raised to another level and giving a BAD review to an expansion where so manhy things have been improved because *cry cry story is no good booo* is just stupid... DawnTrail is GREAT..
that was before watching more than a few minutes of the video, now i can say i'm happy we agree on the quality of the expansion if we put the story aside ^^
The biggest missed opportunity, hands down, was Zoraal Ja. He can be completely summed up as: Too much telling, not enough showing.
Honestly that's my main complaint. The rest of Dawntrail was great, but Lizard Darkseid could have been so, *so* much better if they had given him due development through the first half of the story.
For me, the story was overall boring, and Wuk Lamat was shoved in my face for way too much of it. Yes, the story had some good moments, but I was so tempted to actually skip the story this time around (I didn't, I powered through it). It almost made me quit playing till 7.1, combined with the fact that I don't like any of the current end game gear. None of it feels like Tuliyollal or Solution Nine gear, it feels like Shadowbringers gear (gear that I didn't really like either).
Now that more time has passed, I wonder if Covid effected the story of this expansion the most. Endwalker was already planned and written out when Covid started so it would make sense if the story of dawntrail suffered the most from it. We got minor hints of it in Growing light (6.X and jumping a fair bit between patches) but it was a lot more prominent in Dawntrail. I feel like either 7.X or even 8.0 will fix up the whole story problem now that they're starting to write the next major chapter. And The writers are always about 2ish years ahead of the actual game.
Anyone here after seeing projared's take on dawntrail?
So glad I’m not the only one who broke down in Living Memory. So many people seemed completely unfazed by this zone and it’s like HOW?! DT’s story has its issues. It’s many issues… even Living Memory has its issues (Screw taking time to process Erenville’s grief, ThIs Is A JoB FoR ThE ScIoNs) but it was still heart wrenching! Endwalker’s MSQ had its issues, too!
Idk. I think the rest of DT’s story will be fine if we get more development of Krile and Erenville and less Wuk Lamat.
Because it used the same story beats as Emet in Amurot and Metion in Ktisis/Dead Ends
Oh for sure, DT absolutely copies ShB/EW’s homework. Like that godawful train scene. As if the first trolley wasn’t torture enough. I’m just saying there are places where it worked decently.
That’s how I would rate all of DT’s story. Decent. A slightly worrying trend since this steadily dumber writing style started in the Golbez patches, but it’s not like WoW Shadowlands bad or anything.
You need to have had a strong personal loss and imprint that loss in Living Memory, only then does it work well. I recently lost my best friend for over 12 years, my beloved doggy girl.
Living Memory didn't affect me that much, it was sad. But had I done it now, I would have been bawling my eyes out, imagining seeing her one more time and having to shut her down.
My main difference is my vacation didn’t begin until the invasion, peace and tranquility? No thanks, give me a battlefield and war, so I can finally start having fun. (I miss Zenos he understands me)
Then I find all the “people”aren’t even alive in universe, how am I supposed to feel emotions for some glorified chat bots.
I quite liked the idea of my WoL becoming a mentor for Wuk Lamat, but unfortunately it fell so extremely flat in the execution. There were so many cool ideas for the MSQ, but the writers had no idea how to implement them in a meaningful, fun way. Unfortunately, Wuk Lamat is also a result of that. Not only is she a Mary Sue who sucks the personality out of everyone around her, we never get a break from her. While I initially liked her, the final trial was honestly the straw that broke the camel's back in retrospect. I have so much to say about the writing but that would become an essay...
7.0 should’ve ended with the succession ceremony, and the patches would be stopping Zoraal Ja and Sphene. The story was just too quick and short. It never felt like there was a real build up to anything.
The mixed reviews scores had me expecting it to just be 'okay' but it wasn't that. It was a true mixed bag for me, showcasing both the very best, and the very worst the game had to offer.
yea living memory is a place I DESPISED for how it hurt me emotionally and how it functions. These arent real people this is nothing more than ai mimicking the memories it has within its databank (sorta like ai art huh) and increasing the probability of two memories that have met meeting which is really mean to the poor group trying to shut it down in many ways. but it still hurt to get rid of them real or fake they meant something and seeing the life leave this created world was something
Will fully admit that Wuk Lamat is not my favorite. But to me, what was problematic was the voice acting direction. I also had issues with the writing.
Avy: we arent involved in a world shattering event, there was no "big bad" to fight...this was us being what we were at the start..just an adventurer. In one sense we are also keeping our word to Emet-Selch when he entrusted us with Azems legacy. Yes it was different and a lot more lightly paced, but thats the POINT. We saved the world, stopped the Dragon War, freed Ala Migho..we've been at the jagged edge, its over we won. Now we can start exploring and getting back to basics.
I liked it well enough. I just missed my WoL feeling like an important character. My favorite moments in the expansion all revolve around her actually getting to show what she's made of, as opposed to the backseat we so often had to take.
3:48 that right there, that is a perfect visual description of the entirety of Dawntrail. Cutscene upon cutscene upon cutscene of everyone standing around with a dopey smile on their face nodding. The sheer amount of that happening in the msq makes me want to make a video with snippets of Monty Python after every head nod going "Get on with it!" over and over. The nodding scenes happened so much, they just needed to put everyone in the same shot and have them all nod in unison. I would at least have gotten a laugh out of the absurdity instead of the frustration I got from having headshots of characters to watch them each nod in turn.
Or the tuba scene from family guy star wars where everyone's just nodding at each other in anticipation 😂
Hooboy. Dawntrail was definitely a mixed bag for me. I think it had some good ideas and I love the new zones, new dungeons, graphics update, music etc, like you said. Technically it was a masterpiece. But FFXIV is known for its story, it is what separates it from other MMOs. And the story in the xpac was... just bad in so many ways. I didn't hate going through it but I'm usually excited to replay through an expansion on my alt character and I'm dreading it this time.
First off, Wuk Lamat. As someone who's very introverted, I did grow to hate her as time went on, having a super chipper, often fake feeling happy person in your face CONSTANTLY just.. made me never want to see her again. And I really don't know why she even needed to be so front and center in the 2nd half of the story, they should have at least been back seated or better yet, left in Tuliyollal, so that we could have spent time expanding Krile and Erenville's characters. Or maybe have taken Koana if we REALLY needed a ruler of the country along for the ride (like, why did it have to be a ruler than went?) so we could have learned a lot more about him. And as you said, all that screen time didn't actually expand her character, just made her overbearingly omnipresent.
And OOF Zoraal Ja... I can't feel invested in the story when a "villain" makes zero sense and has a pointless motivation. I could go on for days about that, but I won't.
I actually didn't feel anything in the second half of the story, except a little bad for Erenville (who had ONE 2 second speech about his feelings in the end), mostly because it felt so rushed, so undercooked and so bizarrely alien that I never felt any real "grounding" in the story. A few decent concepts got brushed right past and I was more confused by the end than intrigued. And yeah.. WHAT is the explanation for mini Galool? I can't imagine Zoraal knocked someone up at some point, and he clearly didn't want the kid so why would it be a case of cloning or something? But yeah, no explanation. Sphene was such an obvious red flag from the second you met her, there wasn't much I cared about with her, and finding out she is just basically an AI following a directive made me care even LESS about her.
Something that really solidified my complaint on this part, were the role quests, I'm not going spoil them, but another reason I didn't resonate with DT at all is that it's TONALLY just all over the place. I mean, it has one of the highest body counts (I think) to date, but no one in the story seems to care so I never did. Like we went from one scene of watching people getting gunned down in the streets to making a train to the song of "SMILE" like 2 cutscenes later.
Finally, I find it odd so many defenders of DT seem to think that "well it's a new story, some set up is required" is a good defense, because.. news flash.. WE'VE DONE THAT IN EVERY EXPANSION SINCE THE GAME STARTED! But other than MAYBE Stormblood, this has never been an issue. We went to a whole new planet in Shadowbringers! We had to "learn the culture and the people" there too! But I guess all the other expansions were just much better balanced and better character written/driven than this one.
I still have faith in the team to turn the ship around so to speak, and they've earned that trust, I guess not all expansions can be bangers, but they REALLY need to pull off some good patch content to fix this mess of a story.
That's a lot of words to say I'm an introvert so I dislike extroverts and also dislike introverts because they so rarely tell us how they're feeling.
@@cparle87 I'm a hardcore extrovert and I hated Wuk Lamat. She also had NO right to lead a lemonade stand let alone a country.
love your content, Avy! hope to catch your stream again soon