So obviously this expansion is very divisive and the conversation surrounding it can get pretty heated. Like Mike mentioned in the video even in our own office we don't agree on it - I cannot tell you how long me and Mike have spent debating aspects of this MSQ 😂 As ever though even when we are critical, we are trying to do so through well reasoned discussion and to offer balanced takes on the subject. I hope y'all in the comments can do the same.
The only defense I have of the sudden power creep of Wuk-Lamat.... Akasha is probably involved. I bet she had some sprinkled on the tacos. I really hope that they find more data on that USB Earring.
What annoyed me throughout the MSQ is that nobody ever seems to say the things you'd want them to say, or ask the questions you'd want them to ask. Bakool Ja Ja kidnaps a contest judge and releases a monster that threatens half the continent, but nobody ever mentions that maybe he should get disqualified. The WoL sees Sphene during the attack on Tuliyollal. Never mentions it. Krile sees the robots sucking glowing orbs out of dead bodies. Never mentions it. We come to a place where everybody has a weird thing on their heads, a thing we saw Zoral Ja use to revive himself and power himself up. This is clearly something very important. Do we ask what those are? Eventually, yes, but first we spent an hour on learning about farming techniques. We learn that Krile's earring is a storage device, with data on it from people from another world. Do we ask what's on this? Nope, because we have to get not-Grenolt an energy drink.
I'll be honest, I stopped attempting to take the story seriously when the group let Wuk Lamat wander off on her own because some random elezen said there was a message for her early in the MSQ. I was just staring at my own character going "you idiot." When Koana started yelling at the player about "how could you let this happen?" I was like "yeah good question." It's one of those plots that requires everyone involved to make the dumbest choices they can to keep it moving, which can be pretty frustrating to sit through.
After it looked like Bakool Ja Ja was going to kill someone for not give him what he wanted and released that monster from the prison, I kept wondering why my WoL wouldn't just kill him already. How much more damage was he allowed to do before he was stopped. When they pointed out the earing was a data storage device, I was slowly getting angrier and angrier as they kept talking about everything else. I was about to lose it when it looked like you were about to leave without anyone at least starting to look at the data. Just before I popped, thankfully one of the NPCs asked to look at the data.
When she didn't even get to open the door and instead it was the baby lizard that did it I had to ask myself "why were the scions even here with us in the first place?"
That whole scene where Krile was like “Yeah I’m from another reflection.” And everyone was just like “Cool Krile, anyway what’s up Wuk Lamat?” Was the biggest slap in the face ever.
It’s crazy because ardbert and Emet have the most dialogue in shb but they paced it out in a way that made you intrigued in them looking forward to your next conversation Wuk just won’t shut tf up
Krile was also the only character aside form Wuk that was with us for _every single dungeon,_ and yet got fewer lines than a character that literally died at level 97 and was only occasionally present prior to that (Galool Ja Ja)
Also, remember what Krile was there for? To lean more about Grandpa Baldesian (sp?), the man that raised her, and that plot got discarded HARD. Poor Krile.
Remember how excited Thancred and Urianger were about being against us and his fellow friends in the competition and all they actually did against us was blocking a path with some rocks in the first dungeon? They should had been a dungeon boss at the very least, what a missed opportunity.
Yes, this. Exactly this. Give us a Magus Sisters style fight in the first dungeon where we fought Koana and Thancred and urianger together. Make them leave upon defeat (we don't need to kill them), so that it don't impact future scenes and such. Heck, we teamed up with Koana team more times than we fought against *Bakool Ja Ja*. What kind of "rivalry" was that?
Have them be the first trial instead of what we actually got. That woulda been cool. Also, the ambiguity of people wondering if Thancred EX is a real thing, or just a meme like Raubahn EX.
One thing I don't see many people touch on was the wasted potential of Varligarmanda. This thing was centuries old and feared across the nation. Even the mighty Galool Ja Ja and his companions could only seal it away. Yet it gets freed from a single spell, injures like 6 giants in the temple and goes for a nap in the mountains. We then chase it with Erenville's magic finger and defeat it with the power of friendship 5 mins after it's released. Wuk even seems to take credit for the kill afterwards. I feel like it should have been an actual threat, we see it wipe out a settlement or 2. Kill some innocents. Live up to its fearsome reputation. It was also a moment for the WoL to shine. Like stand back, let the established godslayer deal with it. I get it's only the first trial boss but give it some build up. You can spend half a quest zone trading for a saddle or learning a recipe for tacos but spare only a handful of quests on the release of such a major threat.
Yeeaaah, that was disappointing indeed. It caused no real damage, wasn't really scary, didn't even remotely live up to the hype created around it. And served no real purpose afterward either. I was kinda hoping, when it was clear it was going to be dealt with immediately, that maybe we were just going to knock some sense into it, and we'd have a temporary Auspice-like companion for a while. But didn't even get that much out of it.
That was really a constant problem throughout DT - the villains weren't really ever allowed to be _threatening._ The invasion that sparks the whole second half of the plot, an invasion of soul-stealing space age people tearing up the capital city of a continental empire... kills a midsize Christmas party's worth of people and then leaves and never does anything remotely threatening again. The big defend-the-barricades cutscene has the automated soldiers downed by single shots (when before they kept getting back up) and forget to use guns and cannons so the heroes can look cool... and we just sorta forget how the resistance tells us about their weaknesses because it doesn't matter anyway, swords and spears work just fine against them now that the heroes' music is playing. Dawntrail is deeply, _deeply_ frustrating to me because of how it totally refuses to ever get any dirt under its fingernails for any reason. It's... saccharine. Pristine. Even the sad bits are sanitized.
My WoL just staring at Erenville who said could quietly checkout if we didn't enjoy aiding Wuk Lamat as a companion, "You. Lied. To. Me. Wuk Lamat would never allow me to leave, she's asked me already in 3 different instances to stay! What about my demeanor around her makes her think I want to be around her anymore!? She even called me family! Why!?" Erenville: "If I must suffer this, then I would wish for company that I can enjoy suffering alongside."
Even if Hrothgals weren't introduced yet they still could have introduced her earlier. Au Ra weren't properly introduced until 3.0 in HW yet Yugiri first appears in 2.2 of ARR. And it's not like it's a surprise, we've known for a while that Hrothgals were in the works.
And even if HrothGal models weren't ready for even and NPC, there are hacks they could have done. Yugiri was originally a Miqote body (and the actual reason she was covered was to cover all that up). They definitely could have hacked together something while they worked to do it properly for DawnTrail.
@@skillganon606 I THINK it had to do with FF16 consuming manpower at the time? They introduced both male Hroth and female Viera at the same time, no idea why they'd settle for their counterparts one at a time instead unless they literally couldn't do both.
The thing that kills me about the Galool JaJa death scene is that FFXIV already has the PERFECT story device to have made it work: The Echo. The only character who NEEDED to be there for the Narrative to work was Wuk Lamat. If it was just her standing there it would have made WAY more sense that she didn't get involved, because at the time she wouldn't have been strong enough to do more then get in the way. The WoL and company should have only made it to the throne room AFTER the duel was over with Wuk Lamat grieving over her father and then the WoL could have had an Echo flash back of the whole event. It would have made sense for everyone else to arrive too late too, because everyone was busy defending Tuliyollal minuets before.
That would be also so good to make a duty instead of a custcene where we fight in burning Tullioyollal towards the throne room and we're too late. Man, that be cool.
That would have been a good rewriting of that scene when that cutscene ended I had the same thought, why didn't we do a Meanwhile/echo moment like we did in other expansions. Then I thought alllllll the way back to ARR where the garleans invaded the scions hideout and killed a bunch of people and how that was a much better version of what we got in DT. Sure the line deliveries Galool JaJa were better performed but the actions taken by characters should have been better I can't see that scene again without being bummed that an ARR scene managed to do it better so many years ago by just having it be an echo event
This is true but it also highlights a main issue: The story writers didn't use the WoL or Krile at all. We're more effective than a nuclear warhead and we've beaten several weapons of mass destruction in combat before. The only time we're even commented on is when Bakool ja ja notes how the WoL isn't someone to mess with.
@@tinysalad3357 That would have been an amazing call back to the scene in the middle of ShB too. Just because we're incredibly powerful doesn't mean we win every fight, and sometimes we can win the small battles, while still losing the big ones.
I remember hearing when DT was first shown this idea of a light-hearted summer vacation expansion, and seeing the Scions all relaxing and having a good time in the trailer. I thought "you know what I'm down for a silly summer vacation with the Scions. That sounds like fun." Cut back the tension and just let these characters relax and shine a bit without the weight of the world on their shoulders, and that's not what we got at all. The closest we got to that was some character moments in Living Memory, G'raha's boat and ice cream scene. Krile meeting and talking to her parents, and the social awkwardness that came with it. Also they sold this idea the scions would be competing against one another. That we'd be in competition with the Dads of The Seventh Dawn, and we really didn't see a lot of that outside of the 91 dungeon where Thancred blocks a path. I would've loved a light-hearted dungeon boss fight against Thancred or something with him talking smack the whole way, and have Urianger doing some trickery stuff to push us towards where Thancred is waiting. We didn't get that. They didn't outright falsely advertise, but it felt like bare minimum of what they said. I don't need every story to be dark or morally grey and "Mature," but if you are going to bring in Mature topics like Racism and Eugenics, then you gotta show them with as much maturity as possible and have the characters respond in a Mature way. Also "Rubber Bullets" in the Wild West inspired zone is just so weak lol. It also felt like so many missed Gameplay opportunities, the defending the bomb train should've been an instance or something. I mean make it like Air Force One at the gold saucer, anything but a cool cutscene that I have no participation in.
Have you ever noticed how during the Fates of this expansion, if your enemies are humanoids, they don't die and just fall over, cursing at you then run away? I thought I was crazy but then the rubber bullets happened and I was like: "Damn, did I actually teleport to Disney land or something???" Why is everything so infantilized now? It's like they baby-proofed everything.
@@Maymei99 I have yeah it's so weird, like playing an entirely different game after murder hoboing our way through 2.0 - 6.0, and then having so many situations where it feels like we aren't allowed to do what we've done for 10-11ish years.
I love how they definitely explained why everyone, including criminals and outlaws, used rubber bullets. Like seriously... you have Ishikawa going all 4th Dimensional and CANONIZING MMO functions like the Duty Finder and Limit Break... and then you get this dude who's like... "Uh.. rubber bullets in guns because fk all." At least explain this weird, totally unnecessary plot point from left field if you're gonna do it...
See problem that is player base to whinny that already before expansion limited info "Its to chill, itd borning." Probably why story entierly cut in half it feels
The fact Zoraal Ja isn't mentioned a single time in this video (outside of Gulool Ja Ja's death scene, in which he wasn't talked about at all) tells you enough about his impact.
I feel those that feel lied to from the trailer and marketing campaign are justified in feeling so. When you look at the Dawntrail trailer and it's promotional material what do you see? The scions being prominently featured, giant monster hunting, old architecture hinting to a link between the Ronkan empire and the first, the hunt for the mysterious city of gold and the vibrant colours and environments inspired by south America. I went into Dawntrail expecting a lower stake adventure that was a mix of Monster Hunter and Indiana Jones with some political stakes. Instead what do we get? The scions are barely featured, we get a diet version of what the marketing promised us for the first couple of levels before we once again go into a drab environment and with the fate of the entire world at stake once again. Sphene and her motivations are pretty much just the diet version of the Ascians once again and it feels like reheated leftovers from Shb. The trailers for the other expansion also don't tell you what the plot of the expansions are but the sell you on the exact tone, theme and encapsulation of what the expansion is about.
I felt before and after I finished DT that it would be the second coming of Stormblood where it will be remembered not for its story but for its battle content
Hopefully the post-patch content saves the expansion's MSQ content like it did for Stormblood. Base Stormblood was ehhh, but the patch content really saved the expansion overall.
@@Zoeila The story post story did set up some story points in shadowbringers though, particularly the weapon fights. You have to remember at the end of 2.0 we were led to think Gaius was dead killed in the praetorium after we beat the ultimate weapon and then SE sat on Gaius until the post stormblood story content then once again put him away until the end of shadowbringers. I think the biggest problem with that expansion is it being split between 2 zones which made getting around hard if you were poor.
The problem with that is people do not play Ff14 exclusively for its battle content because without the story it really does not have that much to do. You can only raid so much.
The "Cutscene WoL" energy is *way* too high in the second half of the story. For the first half it didn't bother me; the WoL is a self-actualized character, and this journey isn't about me throwing my weight around. It is about Wuk Lamat learning to find the strength within herself to lead a nation. But in the second half? It absolutely makes no sense for the WoL to just stand around and let as many things happen as they do.
I remember watching Zarool Ja fight his dad (Gulool Ja Ja, had to google the name again) after he got his super duper tech upgrade and going "Help him. Come on help him." the entire fight. But I get Gulool Ja Ja wanted to have a 1 v 1 with his son, I didn't really agree with it, but I could let it slide. Then when Zarool Ja died and started to be resurrected by his tech I just kept saying "Help him. Help him. HELP HIM! Stop that man from getting back up, he's taking forever to do it, just intervene, the honorable 1 v 1 duel is over, HELP Gulool Ja Ja now!", but no :c we just stand there and let it happen like a prop because the plot needs to happen the way the writers intended instead of things unfolding like actual/believable events. Our WoL, the Scions, and the other characters present never once think to intervene and save a very important and beloved man's life as he is stricken down by his murderous and power hungry son. Yeah okay writers...
@@LemonCreature Others may say, "But it happens too quickly." Meanwhile, in the Endwalker scene where Zenos is about to slice G'raha and Alisaie, we intervene in less than a second-even though we were fully wounded from the solo duty fight we went through. The Dawntrail MSQ has such terrible plot decisions.
For real. If we were given free reins in the story, my WoL would have heard that rez sound from Zoraal Ja and immediately jumped in to put both of his swords into the corpse before the rez could complete.
@@LemonCreature You googled Gulool Ja Ja's name but got Zoraal Ja's name wrong. That's how terrible he was as a villain: You forgot his name, his dad's name, and I bet you can't name his motivation.
Problem is Krile is already pretty complete as a person, she is already pretty mature and the only thing she was missing was combat ability, and she already got that off-screen.
It hurts even more when you realize she’s been done dirty since the start. Her introduction was probably the first and last time she was an interesting character.
Personally I'd rather push her into a hole again to give me enough time to escape off the island before she hauls herself out of there with the power of friendship.
100 quests in the MSQ. 139 "Talk to Wuk Lamat" quest objectives, and that's _not_ including the number of times you have to talk to her to _start_ a quest.
I dont understand why this was hard tbh. In heavensward we literally cutback all the scions minus 1 to focus on new characters for 80% of the game. It was great and it felt like when they came back they were used properly and more interesting and we got a great story with new characters that got the focus in the meantime. Why ignore a template like that.
That's a totally different context. The Scions were removed from the story because of what happened in Uldah. It made sense. In DT, they just have to come up with excuses for not playing major roles in each scene, because for some reason they just couldn't be there. It was totally nonsensical.
The Alexandria stuff did interest me quite a bit but I also think it was drowned out by the bad pacing. If you think of all the other expansions, they kind of work as arcs in a larger story going at a slower pace and not really tying up all the loose ends. Dawntrail introduced and tied up basically everything in the course of a short JRPG aside from the key. All the characters though, their entire stories were done start to finish in that short time and so they all felt shallow.
honestly, the entire first part of the MSQ was completely irrelevant to me as a player, the right of the dawn servant sounds nice on paper, but instead we constantly go to an area and repeat the same steps everywhere. *arrive* - talk to Wuk Lamat - walk to settlement - talk to Wuk Lamat - find the person who gives us our "trial" - find the person and find out our mission. - go on this fetch quest to find out how to solve this, meanwhile everyone else fixes these issues no problem. (which also begs the question, with the bird people, that should automatically eliminate both the mamool ja's, since we solved it with the ritual (which Bakool Ja Ja tried to even interfere) and obviously Zarool Ja didn't even do anything, Koana solved it even better than we did. Alexandria was interesting, once you cross that bridge it finally starts to get interesting, I liked the wild west zone, I don't care much for Erenville, but he was there without being overbearing, he knows the land well and actually helps us get in contact with people, while also allowing us to seperate when it's better to do so (like when we investigate that bandit group, instead of sticking together, we actually seperate first) but then we enter Alexandria, I was interested the moment we enter, we see architecture from the wild west zone, but ravaged already, what happened? then Sphene appeared with FF9 music and I was actually loving it, but it was so obvious that Sphene was sus as fuck, she sticks out like a sore thumb, even in Solution 9. but then it becomes the same old unfortunately, where we just go around and "learn about their culture" ... dude, we're on a mission to kill Zarool Ja, who we know at that point is the KING of Alexandria, meaning that we would effectively declare war against Alexandria ... instead we're learning how they're watering their crops and about some terminally ill kid. it kinda ramps up again a bit later, but it's such a bad pacing and WUK LAMAT WON'T LEAVE US ALONE FOR 5 MINUTES.
Y'shtola apparently recorded from a home studio owing to having recently had a child. And even if the quality isn't the best, the performance is still fine, so it's really not an issue. By contrast, the entire US voice acting studio has serious audio issues the entire time through. The amount of compression on their lines compared to the UK cast is absolutely ridiculous, and pretty much all of the performances beyond GJJ are laughably amateur. Plenty of people praise Koana, and yet his VA voices about 7 side-characters with the exact same voice and intonations, suggesting he's less of a "voice actor" and more of "voice haver." And I mean Wuk Lamat dropping the world's fakest Hispanic accent every third line just goes without saying.
Reminder that we straight up walk away from a terminally ill child with a condition very similar to tempering/sin eater infection and make absolutely no mention to Sphene or anyone else that we could probably cure him.
@@TheChunkeyNinja and that’s absolutely a problem, because it’s lazy and insults my intelligence as a player. They’re just milking obvious low-hanging fruit for post-game content.
@@TheChunkeyNinjaWhy would it ever be brought up again? Not a single character showed any interest in remembering it for later. It's like the people who think Gulool Ja's mother will come up later. If that was really going to happen, Alphinaud or Alisae or G'raha or anyone_ would have brought it up to foreshadow it.
@@Dharengo Why not? There are still plenty of things for stories to explore for 7.1-7.3. The sickness, the kid and his military authority, dealing with the soul system, how the two civilizations interacts with each other... Just cuz they don't mention them in 7.0 means it will be not dealt with in patch updates. EW is a special case where 6.0 resolves all problems, leaving 6.1-6.5 for the 13th and 6.55 to bridge with 7.0. DT should return to the same old format of other expansions, with 7.1-7.3 dealing with immediate threat, then resolve consequences and wrap up the expansion, and 7.4-7.55 bridging to new expansion.
I’m still feeling the whiplash to be honest. I completely trusted FFXIV to provide a great MSQ, and personally the drop in writing quality was shocking. It felt like bad fan fiction.
@@omensoffateendwalker is less good than shadowbringers, but the only true SIN of that expansion was what they did to zodiark. And some points deducted because we have the literal end of the universe hitting us square in the face and no one of importance dies.
I got annoyed with Wuk Lamat near the end of her trials. I was so happy when I went to Shaloni cause she wasn't coming along. Only to have to deal with her again after a few quests. I really don't want to be around her much now.
This, yep. After the coronation ceremony ended and we headed off with Erenville, I thought, "OK, smart! We definitely needed a break from her, and I'm glad they noticed before it was too late." .....
Dude even in shaaloani when we get the break from wuk lamat the story is like "you have to help retrieve the bracelet..... that was a gift from wuk lamat"
SE executives basically decided to cut a bunch of writing, this started late shadowbringers, this is why bozja basically just abruptly ended. They thought the story was getting too dark and they wanted things to be more light-hearted. This is also why many thought Endwalker felt rushed and why the ending for Endwalker was so idealistic and basically no major lasting consequences like the death of a major character (but they still needed to wrap up the story). Dawntrail is basically a whole new chapter so this is the full on "happy go lucky" story that the executives wanted. If I had to guess, they'll see all the massively negative feedback and reverse course HARD... REALLY HARD.
The worst part for me is that this should have been an adventure already. We had all the Azem lore, we know what their position was. This could have been a huge adventure on a new continent. Remove the Scions completely - which would also make it a much much higher impact when they come later! Let us travel with Wuk, Krile and Erenville only (cause they have REASONS to be here). Let the others have a break! Let us make a new group of Tulal people! I think Dawntrail screams "wasted potential" and "missed opportunity" on every single little corner here. The "wait and see" approach sounds absolutely aweful.
Agreed and glad I’m not the only one who feels its time for the scions to take a backseat and let us the hero go out on our own to make new friends along the way. There’s simply too many characters to sustain. If we want a new story arc we need fresh faces.
Furthermore, even if they felt they must have the Scions, only from seeing Alexandria onwards is enough. As Alisaie puts it, Alexandria is comparable to Allagan shenanigans. That would be appropriate to bring in the Scions because now it is a threat that requires them all. It may have been gratuitous, but it at least marks them narratively as for crises if they are not a focus on the story.
They should've done with Wuk Lamat like they've done with Yugiri: mask her or otherwise hide what race she is while introducing her in the prior expacs/updates. Yugiri was introduced in 2.X, 1 and a half expansions before she had her limelight!
its a shame Krile's big moment of character development in this expansion was just learning about her past, so basically she didnt grow at all. moved aside and left to stand in the shadow of the writers new golden girl Wuk Lamat.
@@derpzone7425man this bitch won't disappear he doesn't accept opinions from people who hated msq dawntrail, He is the embodiment of toxic positivity,
I have no problem with the idea of Wuk Lamat as a character, but she should have been part of the supporting cast, not the focal point of the entire story. Helping her become the Dawnservant should have been secondary to the real objective: solving the mysteries surrounding the city of gold, which would have made Krile far more relevant in the grand scheme of things. Going on a journey with Wuk Lamat but contextualizing it around learning more about Krile along the way would have made for a much more balanced story and would have naturally involved the scions a lot more (since they know Krile well by now). Once we help Wuk Lamat take the throne, the narrative could completely transition to one centered around Krile and Erenville.
I think she is fine as a main character, since the focus of the story in the first half is the succesion rite to become King. The second half I would agree she should have become a supporting characters for people like Sphen (which she did do) and having her ideas tested while refusing to yield (which also happened), but letting people like Krile have a bit more focus. Its like the writer didn't know what to do with her other than her origin story.
@@emilioperez6888 I should clarify, I think we should still journey with Wuk Lamat and help her with her rite of succession, but the story events should not tunnel in on it as the primary focus. In Shadowbringers, the overall goal was to kill the Lightwardens, but most story events did not serve this goal, they existed to flesh out the world, its characters (especially Emet-Selch and Ryne), and other plot points that could be tangentially relevant. Dawntrail barely did this, and when it did, it woefully underdeveloped them.
@@thewallsspeaktome3507 I agree, a main character is only compelling when they have memorable interactions with prominent side characters. Even if the WoL was relegated to a "side character", they should have been given ample opportunity to influence the main character and actually feel like an impactful inclusion in the overall plot.
@@thewallsspeaktome3507 In fact, I know of another character who would have been an even better mentor: G'raha. Experienced head of state, expert diplomat, seasoned adventurer, rebuilder of a civilization. Had HE been the one to join her, rather than WoL, it would have made more sense.
I love how NO ONE in 'New World' so much as mentioned anything like recent hardships. As if the whole 'End of Days' didn't JUST HAPPEN. Completely disconnected. It felt so weird.
The best lore reason I’ve heard people conjecture is that since there was no primals draining the land of aether after so many summonings that the final days didn’t visit Tural. It’s not a super good reason but it’s decent enough that it makes some sense
Yeah, that's odd, but I'm going to assume that Tural is simply thicker with aether, so dynamis couldn't affect it before we solved the problem. Or they're so generally happy that they didn't really have any fears to manifest.
@@Yesnaught Not sure about that. The despair of the Mamool Ja and their whole, well, eugenics stuff would absolutely have seen some happen. Just seems like they tried too hard to separate this expansion from previous, when the whole foundation for why we love FF14 is because of the previous. Having come in with Wuk Lamat to essentially put back together a people who were scared from the End of Days events would have been so much more impactful. Her reminding the peoples of who they are, giving them that fighting spirit, etc, instead of 'leaning' about them would have been such a good story to tell. Honestly they just botched it.
The lines of stagnant aether you can see when zofiark first dies... At least two of them criss crossed tural both north and south. For sure they had some final days action. Otherwise they fucked up with their own planet projection.
The thing about Wuk being around all the time is that this is the first expac where they focused so heavily on one character at the expense of others. Every other expac had an ensemble cast that all had equal paths, equal goals, equal time. This was fully the Wuk Lamat show and sometimes her friends. It was like Stormblood dealing with Lyse without the Doma cast to shore things up and shift the focus.
The fact they had us literally wait around doing nothing while she got kidnapped was just fucking insulting. Not only was it so entirely predictable that it felt like watching Blue's Clues, but we're standing there with our dicks in our hands and clicking a spot on the ground to wait for her, repeatedly. It genuinely feels like parts of this expansion were actually included out of spite. I hope this is the last time these writers are trusted with the msq.
@@FoxHoundUnit89I would still give them a chance. I think their entire team is still trying to get used to their new structure and expanded responsibilities within Square Enix as a whole. New blood needs to learn from mistakes and DT is certainly filled with them. I’m sure they’re looking at all the public feedback atm.
They would have made an interesting dungeon mechanic. Aside from being a duo boss, imagine Thancred uses his rogue abilities to occasionally try to shoot you off screen during like a pull or something. Or maybe they jump in during one of the fights to let off an attack or two and leave. I assumed we would have a playful rivalry with the other scions as they follow different claimants, but it turned out to be nothing like that.
In hindsight, Koana's and Bakuul ja ja's teams would've made a LOT more sense as bosses for the first dungeon, rather than entirely random jungle monsters. Heck we already *start* the dungeon fighting Bakuul's gang.
I’m going to defend Zero here. Zero was a blank canvas because she was basically alien to everything about our way of life. She didn’t eat the way we ate, she didn’t interact with others the same way we do, she didn’t even have friends… because she’s from the void where none of that is the same as on the source. Wuk Lamat on the other hand does live on the source but she is SO DUMB and SO SHELTERED that it’s hard to imagine her being real in the world of FFXIV. Lyse had excuses because she had never been to the far East and she hadn’t been home in long time.
Yeah Zero was better. She wasn't perfect, but at least seeing a Voidsent adjust to our reality was unique and was actually world building. Zero at least could tell us about the 13th and how things work there. Wuk doesn't even know her own country, so she doesn't tell us much lore...
Zero being so alien and acting like it was fine and all...the first couple times. She did the same *hat tilt* "friendship...?" thing in every single patch, apparently having forgotten any such moments in previous patches. Her character growth was stuck in a loop until the very end.
@@sirzorba7633 Yeah there was ultimately something off about the Void storyline which could be attributed to similar issues as Dawntrail. But since it was overall a shorter story, the issues never got to shine as badly. Both DT and the Void story also felt too isolated, fair enough we had a detour to garlemald for the void stuff, but how come the only void "king" of interest was Golbez, especially for something so massive as Zodiarks remains being used to invade the source. Would have been better to include more void lords with their own goals for what where to happen when the barrier between the shards would break down, other than just wanting to die. Maybe even had one sneak through the portal and establish his little rule/alliance in a nation we have yet to be at. Instead the setup they have planted feels like it's going to be DT/EW round 3 where everything gets fixed too easily.
If they had used Koana, Erenville, and Krile as significant anchor characters in addition to Wuk Lamat and had them dive in along with Wuk one by one at the end trial it would have felt so much better.
The Scions were neglected. Any nameless characters could have replaced them this expansion. It felt like the Scions were NOT intended to even be there. Writers needed to commit to one or the other.
@@fredy2041 I don't know, Scions are getting stale for me and after the ending of Endwalker, I thought we were gonna split up and they could introduce new characters. Except the Scions came back immediately again soon after the following patch. We could keep a few (such as Graha) but the rest have goals they want to accomplish and I would wish that they go and fulfill those goals of theirs instead of just following us every time. And I really thought this was the direction they were gonna go when they introduced Zero, not knowing how the story is gonna go I thought she was gonna stay in the source and be another regular character. But alas, she now has her reflection to take care of. They tried to do this with Wuk Lamat but this was never going to be a long term thing whether or not she was well liked because how is she going to accompany us if she is the dawnservant? She would just be getting the same treatment as Aymeric and Lyse who both need to tend to their nations. Erenville is a welcome addition although he can't fight so that is a problem for trust parties. In fact, I believe the main reason they sent scions away and bring them back for the few moments is because of trust parties.
But the scions needed to be there so that we can use them for trusts. Unironically. You can tell when the trials happen based on when you have 7 accompanying npcs with you.
Honestly, I think post-trolly should have been the Koana-arc. Wuk Lamat being better suited for staying in town for defense because the strange tech invasion was pushing us to take Koana on the futuristic scifi adventure. This was right up his alley. I loved Wuk Lamat and had no problem with her growth-rate or power-building to the point where she is defeating Bakool Ja Ja. All that felt fine to me and even paced well enough, but her following along post-trolly was just her being there to be there. Yes, she wants to explore and learn of the fate of her missing citizens, but Koana had sooooo many more reasons to come with us into Heritage Found, the defenses of the city being the duty of the new, strengthen and self-assured Vow of Resolve, Wuk Lamat. They could have even kept the train-fight the same, her helping us with the train defense before jumping off and giving an enthusiastic goodluck-sendoff before returning to Tuliyollal. It would have also improved the attempt to redeem Bakool Ja Ja to see him fighting the drones, not alone, but alongside Wuk Lamat. Them side-by-side, building up trust through action.
and apparently, we didn't need Cid/Nero's consultancy at all dealing with high tech problems, could be a good way to feature them but no because the writer didn't know the Ironwork exists.
I just hope in the next expansion Koana takes on a bigger role as a leader or permanent team member. Nothing against Lamat'yi but after her coronation she didn't really had a reason to accompany us at all... and I think the story would've progressed better without her or at least with her on the sidelines. Also the ending was such a huge wasted potential! It would've been so much cooler if we didn't just kill that Princess and all her folks but instead find a compromise to co-exist as neighbours on a truce until the Scions find a way to either keep the Endless alive without killing Lamat'yi's ppl or find a different solution. This way her "you just need to know them to become friends" moral would've developed a real nice twist and a fat expectation jump on her future character growth...but nah, eliminate both villains and end this farce. I was so disappointed!
@@mannifinalsummer4544 Doesn't work. Sphene existed as a computer program of her past memories and the directives to keep her people alive. There was no peace to be had because there was no way to keep her uploaded people running and she couldn't defy her programing. It was a faulty system based on a need for infinite aether/souls when that was a finite resource. She would have had to kill everyone on the source and still wouldn't have had the ability to succeed, but her machine heart couldn't be reasoned with. Sphene's kingdom was doomed because there was no way to achieve her goal of keeping all her uploaded people running, she couldn't even activate all the personalities she was holding in reserve. And the uploaded people we met largely understood this and asked us to unplug them. It's not pretty, but it was a doomed society, long past it's time. At least the people of Solution 9 weren't effected.
@@pastaboy1338 I have this feeling since end of EW, alot of story elements from previous expacs are missing, or scarcely mentioned in side quests, which means people doing side quests/role quests have more of an idea about the setting than people who did patch story for EW and DT.... like I was surprised they even brought Vrtra back and Dravanians, but that was literally it, a minute of fan service
After going through the MSQ Twice now, the best way I can describe it is as a YA novel. Whereas SHB and Base EW were far more adult in their concept and execution, DT reads like a self-published Young Audience story. The heavier issues were passed over too quickly with "The power of Friendship" as the explanation.
I actually went into 7.0 with my Wuk-O-Meter at like a 8.5/10 based off of our adventure together in 6.55. But boy howdy did it drop fast and steeply thoughout the msq…
@@fredy2041 lol you still going around labeling false claims of bigotry about anything Wuk Lamat-related in the TH-cam comments? Pathetic. People are allowed to criticize the character as annoying and wanting to go away, you know.
I genuinely thought Wuk Lamat's happy-go-lucky mindset was going to be challenged by some terrible truth the Dawnservant role holds. Like she becomes DS and then her father says "ye btw if you don't sacrifice a baby a year the golden gate opens and the bad guys come through and kill us all. Have fun!" And she'd have to struggle to make a terrible choice (probably negated by something the Warrior does, but still). But no. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. She bungles her way through the expac and learns absolutely nothing
Gulool Ja Ja’s death could have been fixed so easy. Just have WOL team up with Bakool Ja Ja in a solo duty to fight someone augmented with a beast soul like in the savage raids. We defeat the enemy, see the cutscene with Zarool Ja and cut it with WOL and Bakool Ja Ja sprinting to the throne room. By the time we make it there the king is dead and everyone else is broken, beaten and Zarool Ja is already gone.
Or better yet, a solo instance fighting up to the throne room, only to arrive afterward and have an echo flashback of the Zoraal/Gulool fight, which would make more sense instead of having everyone around watching it happen and not intervening.
Sadly, the conclusion I‘ve arrived at is that the writing was just bad. They wanted to force her onto the throne for whatever reason, giving her no time for true failure or flaws even though that would have made the story much more interesting. The two halves of the story could have been much more interconnected and by doing so, they could have given the plot more room to breathe. They should have let Wuk Lamat fail and learn from her failures. They should have given us more of this rivalry they promised. Maybe they could have had the race to the throne end early because of unforeseen circumstances with the interdimensional fusion. There were so many ways to make the story more exciting, but for some reason they went for the most stale option they could think of.
I feel had been a quiet test audiance, like how would you feel if we did this and made wuka a perm scion for it to be angry backlash for them to just push her to side.
As mixed as the reception is for Dawntrail I'm glad that at least our hero managed to get the vacation we were promised. Estinien just randomly setting sail on a whim even before the beginning of Dawntrail, going wherever he wind takes him, fighting people and even getting even paid to boot, even tasting the local cuisine that region has to offer, what an amazing summer vacation this guy has experienced. Hope we get ours soon 😅
If I could've just had an expansion where we go with G'raha and Estinien off to explore Tural while the others did shit with Wuk Lamat only for us to be brought in once shit got serious, I would've been content.
In retrospect, I don't think I cared much for it at the time, but it's the only zone that felt like a pre-Dawntrail zone. After the MSQ was over, I would have liked more of that.
I'm not convinced it's a matter of "throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks". The problem with Dawntrail is not the plot, nor new ideas...it is that the writing is just BAD. I physically cringed through half of the MSQ. If ARR was a 5/10, this is a 2/10. - Wuk Lamat should have remained a scaredy cat and also a bad fighter for the entire story. This is why she NEEDED the WoL on her team. The one thing she IS good at should be that she already understands her people. So instead of each feat having a local help her, she earns her tablets by knowing what the other Promises don't know (such as the alpaca saddle, harvest flotilla, and banana leaf) and uses that to her advantage. - As for the scions, each Promise should have 2 scions on their team. They simply had to write each Promise to not be cartoonishly evil to begin with so that the scions would be willing to join their team. Imagine how fun it would have been if we actually fought Thancred and Urianger, with them knowing they cant beat us, so they try deterring the WoL with tricks and traps. - My opinion on Gulool Ja Ja (father lizard) and the invasion, is that it should have never happened. Ketenram should have been the one who died. It doesn't make any sense that Zoraal Ja would leave him alive. When the attack happened my immersion dropped to a 0%. It's not that I don't like sci-fi in FFXIV, but the whole thing was just not good, especially since that entire sequence of people dying the WoL did absolutely nothing. We just watched citizens get massacred. - They 100% did Krile dirty. She had the earrings, but it didn't even open the gate without the proper "authority", which completely ruins the scene of her parents telling her they gave that to her in hopes to see her again. The baby lizard should have never existed, it doesn't even make sense since Zoraal Ja is the ONLY lizard in Solution 9? So unless he can lay eggs himself Im not convinced he woulda had a child. Another missed opportunity was Erenville entirely not knowing that Krile had to just turn off her parents before he had to let his own mother go. Anyways, if we had to keep the general plot of 6 feats followed by Alexandria (and all the dungeons and trials) the same. I would rewrite everything else. Absolute terrible MSQ writing.
The new writing team are just not ready to take on a full expansion MSQ if this story had been sidecontent like the Hildebrand plotline it would have been a fun romp, as it is it kinda falls short in far too many ways
I don't really get why they would try targeting a new kind of audience with this expansion when they still require you to get through all of ARR -> Endwalker to get there. The only people who'd make it through all of that story are going to want more of that quality of story telling and those themes. It would only make sense if they had separated this campaign out from the first one (WHICH THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE, HONESTLY) so that the newer audience can choose if they want to start immediately with Dawntrail or go through the original story line. This video is primarily focused on the story of Dawntrail but I feel like Square Enix fumbled the ball and failed to innovate on anything with this expansion. They had the opportunity to really shake things up and try new systems of engagement but it's still predictable. It really needed something like WoW's Dragonriding Mechanic which surprisingly and significantly changed the feel of exploration. Personally, I want Dawntrail to be a filler arc. Do you know how frustrating it is that we've been trying to convince people to play FFXIV but they have to get through ARR before they start experiencing the "Good stuff"? So even if the future expansions are much better, we still have to put people through this Dawntrail campaign first? So yeah, I hope they just abandon whatever plans and ideas they might have had for a new story arc and just start again. Ditch the scions, we've had them for 4 expansions and it's time for new blood. Forget the Warrior of Light's past accolades, they're a stranger in a strange land and no one knows who they are. Lets fuck around with the current job system. They can make up some bullshit about how your job stones are affected by the aether or something in this new world and now you got to level up from scratch with a bunch of new abilities so we can simultaneously keep the balance of ARR->Endwalker in older content but start experimenting with a new class meta so we can get away from homogenized job roles. And since they'd have these two seperate leveling systems this would better support new players wanting to jump into new content without locking them out of experiencing old content since they'd need to level up separately in that campaign arc, further expanding player choice.
I really wish they just focused on either the Rite of succession or Alexandria. There is so much good setup they never capitalize on. For example, one of the first quests you do is to get taccos with Wuk Lamat. In the background you overhear people saying that the Silverscales were decimated (you killed most of them in the Wanderer's Palace) and are now returning home (probably Mamook) without their blessed siblings (whom you have killed as well). Wouldn't it have been much better if the people of Mamook are hostile specifically to you, not because they are all racist, but because you have destroyed the fruits of their sacrifice? It would make sense in the wider narrative of the game and effectively takes you out of the equation (as you would be the obstacle in the trial to begin with), allowing for Wuk to learn to mediate and develop her character. Yet there is no payoff to that early setup, which is in my opinion a real shame. I guess I just wish they've gone a bit deeper with the story.
I think that would have been interesting, but the problem is, Wanderer's Palace is an optional dungeon including it's hard mode varient. While it's unlikely for most to have not done it at least once, there's that chance that a player just ignored the quest and as such, having them be hostile at the WoL likely would lead to more confusion for those players. Its the same kind of issue that the devs had for both the Binding Coils and Crystal Tower (with one had to outright be mandatory due to how intracial the Crystal Tower and a certain cat-boi became to the party.)
I agree with you on a lot of this, but I'd even go as far as to say I didn't dislike the mamook concept either, everyone acts like they're all united but the people of mamook don't feel that way and it's not the wonderful place it's always been. I just wish they put a lot more time into issues like this, the idea they come from not talking to you at all to suddenly "oh its okay here! we'll get you some new plants and you can change your whole lifestyle" and it's all okay in under one level. The whole Rite of Succession felt like it was rushed just to get to Alexandria
@@kiearawagner7901 Yes, I suppose so. To be perfectly honest, I would not mind them making more side content mandatory if it meant a better story. I doubt anyone regrets having done the Crystal Tower, when Shadowbringers was the payoff for it. It feels to me like a waste to ignore 10 years of story setup just because someone might have skipped it, but I get your point.
@@Absinthexx7 Exactly. Generations of anger, hatred, bitterness, and war, all while propagating a horrific eugenics cycle that resulted in hundreds, if not thousands of stillbornes... only to be washed away by Kona being like "oh, we got some seeds that can work here." Like, I have no doubt the post MSQ is going to talk about some of these various topics, I just hope that if they stick with the 7.0 lead writer, he takes a good look at the responses, because there were moments of greatness in the writing and story, but it was hidden behind other issues including trying to push two expansion-worthy storylines into a single expansion.
Preach, you’ve managed to somehow help me sort through the complicated feelings I have with this expansion. I don’t hate it, but every point you’ve made in this video hits the nails on the head. I’m hoping they can somehow turn it around in the patch content and future expansions, and hoping it touches on the aftermath of our actions during the rite of succession. There’s so much potential sitting and waiting, and they just need to actually use it.
Felt like Bakool Ja Ja and Zoraal Ja's plot were the same exact thing. Both trying to live up to expectations of others and finding purpose. Except Bakool's reasonings for being evil made a lot more sense. Zoraal Ja going from failing the trial to full Sith lord felt out of nowhere to me.
I think Zoraal Ja was the most disappointing character, and botched one at the same time. On the first half of the MSQ, It appreared to be a disgruntled general that has been on too many battles with too many losses. Kind like general Sheperd from COD MW 2, which would have explained his motivation and objective to being peace by doing the war to end all wars. It is a flawed character with a flawed view that was challenged by his brother, sister and scions. Maybe he could have changed like Kona, or had a conflict as a general under Wuk Lamat's command on how to run war stuff. However on the second half of the MSQ, his character changes to a civilian killing cyberpunk Darth Vader. With a different motivation, which is being valued and seen as his own person and not a royalty's son or brother. I'm fine this being other motivation for his actions, you can combine It with the first one as well. But in the second half of the MSQ suddendly his first motivation is forgotten. Also, killing civilians goes agasint his character shown when participating in defeating Valigarmanda. He joined our party to defeat It since he said along the lines of "there is no country to rule without its people". Characters assasination in its finest.
I would argue that the most divisive cutscene is not the death of the Dawnservant but rather the very end of the Sphene fight. It is what pushed me and many other from simply being annoyed at Wuk Lamat to actively disliking her and I went into this expansion liking her.
@warhammerguy I already didn't like her and wanted to get away from her, and when almost all my friends abandoned me to guard the fucking door to living memory, my thought was very much 'at least this means there won't be 8 people for the final trial, so I get to do something myself and feel like the WoL mattered to the story at all at least once.' Then she took that away from me, too. And I went from disliking her to never wanting to see her again.
Mine was a lot earlier, lol. I liked her enough in the first two zones, but what got me downright hating her was during the Dawnservant ceremony with the cringe "my happiness is your happiness" with Smile playing in the background (to be fair though, at this point, I also became very aware at this point at the fact she stole the spotlight from any other character)
Sphene is basically a primal of the people of Solution 9 without actually being a primal. Shows pure passion and a want of the people amplified to infinity.
While also being nearly a rip off of Emet. You could swap the Endless out for the Ancients, Living Memory for Amaurot, and Sphene for Emet and you'd have the same thing. Even down to the sunrise over the broken city after the antagonist dies.
except somehow she also wants to keep her people alive while most of the people we talk to are not ok with being alive because they are fueled by other lives.
I find it really sad that the afternoon-long story of the Arcadion made me care more about the people of Solution 9 than the entire latter half of the 7.0 MSQ.
@@Teramoix I didn't even do the raid story because I didn't just not care about the people of solution 9, I actively refused to do anything for them. I'm still mad we did Origenics as a dungeon and didn't blow it up at the end. Fuck every single one of those soul suck scumbags.
The story of the Arcadion also brought up the thought - why didn't Zoraal deploy any of these boss level fighters in his invasions? Used loyal beast-infused soldiers instead of the mindless robots that get slaughtered once the Turali knew they were coming. You basically only fight that one commander, and that's all.
The only thing I didn’t care for is that, assuming it’s like all but the ARR raids (and the first part of Eden) it can be done anytime and make sense for the story at that point, which means we’ll never convince the Alexandrians to stop fucking with souls. I want that shit gone
Around 96 I was already reaching the point of wanting Wuk Lamat to go away, and give the player character some space (it was overbearing and feeling like flat-out babysitting). When the Scions were taken away from us at the very last second when we enter a Reflection (you know, the thing they are EXPERTS in), I was completely done with the story, since everyone felt kind of out-of-character and dumbed down for the (obvious) purpose of making Wuk Lamat be the center stage no matter what. Krile (who I might add, was heavily promoted for this expansion) getting shafted to a 10-minute story was the final nail in the coffin.
Please explain why Wuk, the one person that's not experienced with dimensional travel or other scientific area, was the one that managed to break into the fight but not G'raha or Krile. I was ready to shoot her myself at that point. FFS this is what the WoL does. This is our day job. We didn't need her help. At all.
@@CixiaKyrrah But we were iNsPiReD by her according to the buff that we get in the final stage of the trial kekw. Sometimes it feels like Wuk is the writer's self insert, but idk.
@@zhenoob Don't forget she has 18 million HP and deals 3 times as much damage as anyone else while she's there. I know it's inconsequential, but I don't understand why they hell they banked EVERYTHING on Wuk; unearned screentime, writer/story focus, power levels - all because she's a nice little ditzy cutie who says she understands. I could even have dealt with that, if it wasn't for the fact that it was obviously at the cost of intimate and growth moments for all other characters we know and hold dear, especially Krile (absolutely shafted) and Erenville (Lost 30 years with his mom due to chasing Wuk's bracelet for too long in the desert) and written as a contemplative mute in the final zone, which would be some of the most fucking traumatic shit ever. I just don't get these choices. And it worries me for their future direction.
Honestly the part that almost made me quit playing was when you're forced to play as Wuk Lamat WHILE STANDING RIGHT BESIDE HER. We have only ever taken over characters when WE ARE ABSENT from those scenes. It pissed me off so much that we were forced to play that character in such a horrendously executed fashion. Not to mention the bullshit of her doing *multiple Limit Breaks for no reason other than she borrowed our plot armor*. Like the implication was Dynamis, but that's all it was - an implication that is never explored or addressed ever again. She's basically the Rey of FFXIV. Nothing is earned, and it felt so insulting that they forced us to play her while our character literally stood right there.
@@AverageRandom-n6z i lowkey thought they wrote the story this bad on purpose for clouts. Free marketing. Because if Ishikawa was the supervisor, no way she looked at this and said "oh ok this is good".
Wuk Lamat - Black Hole Sue with 95% screentime and how she warps reality to fit her Scions and other chars turned to husks with no personality Horrid story quest and pacing and the sudden jarring shift in tone in second half Don't get me started on people arguing WoL is a 'mentor' lol, more like a walking camera + cheerleader for Wuk 2/10 MSQ expansion
Let's not forget the indigenous American representation in Tural is SUPPOSED to be the Whalaqee, who've been mentioned in the game since ARR, and are a major part of the BLU quests. In fact BLU comes from the Whalaqee. The 1 - 50 BLU questline is about how they see ceruleum mining as harmful to the planet as they see it as the lifeblood of the planet (much like oil mining). They were absent in Shaaloani and Dawntrail why exactly?
@@BlazinVoid59 There's another tribe as well, with mentions of neighboring groups, all within the far north of Tural, that are met in the Tank role quest. It's honestly better than they didn't have one single tribe act as the indigenous American representation.
Pretty much everyone in Tural is supposed to be based on indigenous people, not just the Whalaqee. The Yok Huy are based on the Incas, especially. Google a picture of Machu Picchu and see if its familiar.
When I was reflecting I think they absolutely Messed up not having graha be accompany us in the first half but randomly in the final third. An xpac focused on exploring a new world and adventure is exactly the dream of graha and to experience it with the warrior of light. We have already done this exact event with the twins times and I don't think they added anything to the story in the first half, they were just there to do menial tasks or bounce off of. Graha was also a leader for many years, especially during trying times and could of invoked his older side especially with plot points like adopted daughter, sacrifice, Alexandria on the brink of destruction, etc. These are all points where graha could invoke his experience and learnings and teacher characters like sphene and wuk lamat. Regardless what they ended up telling was a story that didn't use any of the strengths of the characters, even wuk lamat. If this was a normal jrpg, vast majority of players would of dropped it in the first half.
For me the writers simply forgot who the Scions were characterwise. All the other expansions the Scions were clearly distinctive from each other but this time they reacted all the same. Alphinaud is the one whos most interested in diplomatic relations but he never ask anything. Alisaie is misstrusting in nature and a hothead but this time she was fine with everything. In every other expansion she would instantly misstrust Sphene from the get go but in DT? no reaction at all. the only time i got the feeling to meet an actual Scion i remember from past expansion was G'raha during the gondola ride.
If they made the entirety of patch content dedicated to tying Dawntrail up that would have helped with the pacing. An example would be that we don't actually take down Zoraal'ja right away and instead he is a boss for one of the patches as we start storming his kingdom. The entire MSQ should have ended with Wuk becoming the dawnservant and us not knowing where Zoraal'ja is and what's going to happen with him, saving it for patch content and Sphene not even being introduced until probably the same patch where we find out what Zoraal'ja was getting up to.
I agree! I've been wracking my brain and I think this really is the best way to fix the story even though some things would be different (solution nine zone, the raids, etc). There were things in tural that I genuinely wanted to see while the stakes weren't super high: the people that were against Wuk and supported zoraal ja coming back into play, Koana's past with the nomadic miqote and having to confront it as the dawnservant... and the mamook conflict taking longer than a few minutes. It could've been cool
Agreed! The whole story should have been Tural. Xak Tural should have been part of the trial. There should have been more drama and conflict in the member states you visit. Krile should have gotten focus on confidence building and recollections of Galuf. Erinville could have gotten work on coming out of his shell and spoken more about his relationship or lack there of with his mom. We could have dealt with conflict with the two factions of giants, conflict between Koana and Wuk Lamat, between the Hettsarro and the train builders. We could have seen Shaoloni before the merging and met the waluquee. The Mamook and X’braal relations is rife with potential juicy drama and even the culpability for the man who brought the “peace”. Why weren’t they given lands above the canopy? Why is trade not mandated or an economic solution devised for the ones who stayed? Did he ever try to put a stop to the practice? The resilient son could have been fleshed out as a more rounded character. The zones could be more fleshed out with the wonderful blue quest chains being incorporated more into the main story instead of being optional. We could spend some time separated from Wuk Lamat which each fear requiring she do a task on her own and we get given time to do some vacation or just fun stuff without her. Like instead of sitting by a camp fire while she Lama hunts we could have been running down some leads on the city of gold. Erinville and Krile could take the lead. Heck we could have gotten a near civil war as the climax. Solution 9 could have waited until the patches to start being introduced. With the last patch being the invasion and death of Galuul JA JA. It would have been a very post ARR ending and I think that would be great! That would have also given us a whole expansion to develop and explore Alexandria. I wanted something lower stakes than EW or SB and instead they ended with a multidimensional catastrophe aversion story.
Nah. Lyse is judged harshly cuz how little she shined in her own expansion. Wuk Lamat is judged harshly cuz she appears everywhere in her own expansion. Both deserves being judged harshly cuz under-representation and over-representation are both bad.
I always liked Lyse and I never understood why people hated her and the whole "she's not Yda anymore" thing... We didn't know Yda at all, we were only treated to a cardboard-cut version of her, and when the time came to flesh out her character, the writer came up with a brilliant twist to add depth to her character that, sadly, not many people appreciated
I really tried to give this expansion a fair shot, knowing that it's the start of a new story arc led by a new writing team, who should be given a chance before everyone goes full doomer. However after playing it and thinking on it for some time it's clear that there are just SO many problems when you dig even slightly deeper. I don't want to write an essay so I'll summarise it as follows: - Omnipresence of Wuk Lamat at the expense of every other character - Neglecting important characters (Krile, Erenville) and rushing their conclusion - Characterisation overall being poor, with the scions basically being cardboard cutouts, and the villains underwhelming - The childish nature of the story telling, genuinely felt like I was watching a kids cartoon at times during the 1st half - Heavy emphasis on telling rather than showing - Plot contrivance in multiple cases, often caused by our character and others acting stupid and passive - Shallow world building, few societal problems and those that do exist are solved immediately - Retreading previous themes in a less interesting way I think when people say 'It's a new arc, don't expect Shadowbringers/Endwalker levels of hype' what they fail to understand is that it's not about the stakes, its about the writing *quality* which has fallen off a cliff since 6.1. I'm still going to remain hopeful that they can rescue things in the patches like they did in Stormblood, but my confidence in the writers has been severely dented.
The old head writer, Ishikawa has said that she stopped writing for FFXIV after 6.0 (she contributed to 6.1 sidequests featuring Omega). This is because she got promoted into senior scenario writer which highly implies she is working on another project, perhaps FFXVII. We are under two new head writers who have been around since ARR.
@@coolyeh1017 Right now they need to hit the emergency Isihikawa button, grab her by the shoulders and put her back in the driver seat. There's no saving this MSQ otherwise.
"think when people say 'It's a new arc, don't expect Shadowbringers/Endwalker levels of hype' what they fail to understand is that it's not about the stakes, its about the writing quality which has fallen off a cliff since 6.1. " THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU I've LITERALLY been saying this since 6.1 and people act like im crazy or try to give me the "oh it's a new story" line. Yes, it's a bad story, it's a hap hazzard rushed poorly written immature mess. Think about it, since 6.1 we have uncovered and ended 2 calamitous world ending threats...where is the low stakes new slow burn setup exactly??? Not to mention they do things like assasinating Vritra, who is an ancient dragon but somehow...SOMEHOW..doesn't understand what a trade agreement is and has to be told be a literal fucking child. Vrtra just gets massacered in EW post patch, and so do the scions in 7.0, they're behaving in this MSQ like they would in some off brand crossover quest, stripped down to their most bare characteristics. They don't contribute much to the story imo, even Krile is just...there.
@@coolyeh1017 Those "new writters" onlyhad roles as a quest designers and one have a visual novel as a project with questionable tags including canibalism but i expected a bit more from the people who did sorrows of werly and the 4 lords and one who worked along in heavensward
@@coolyeh1017l believe Ishikawa is still reviewing at least parts of the story atm. The way I see it, they’ve just had a massive restructuring of their team and are getting used to the new work dynamics, so things are going to fall through the cracks. It doesn’t excuse the writing quality, of course, but it may bring a bit of understanding to the situation. I enjoyed a lot of the little threads that they left and the overall potential of where the story could go, but reflecting on how we got here and all the little moments that could’ve been done better just frustrates me.
2:00 It's really not, tho. YoshiP is extremely vocal about playing coy not giving out any spoilers while actively putting out massive spoilers in the Fanfests and Live Letters... It just happened before you started playing the game. Just take a look back at what they gave away for free in the Fanfests for Heavensward, Strormblood, and Shadowbringers. They have *never* been afraid to give away spoilers if they think it will build hype and sell the expansion. That said: It felt like was written by somebody who understood what has worked in prior expansions but has no understanding of why it worked. Just throwing a bunch of random pieces in the bucket: We need a new character here, but why do all the work to build her up over time (maybe a patch cycle ahead of time) and craft a character which connects with the player when you can just introduce her at the absolute last possible moment and then shove her down the audience's throat? We need a sad part here, but why make all the effort to build a moment that feels earned when we can just poke the player's emotional scars with a sharp pointy stick? They used to be so good at this sort of thing that it is absolutely astonishing how quickly they became so bad at it.
I liked the second half of Dawntrail better too, until I thought about it. I think your point about how DT tackles extremely heavy topics like eugenics and war crimes with the energy of a disney movie can also apply to Living Memory. We functionally COMMIT A GENOCIDE in LM, and are essentially just told "don't think about it too hard they aren't real :)". LM had the potential to ask truly harrowing questions on the nature of life and death, what it means to be alive or for a life to have value, etc. Instead, all the people who hail from a society so pathologically afraid of death that they pervert the laws of nature to avoid it, are just... perfectly fine and happy with being erased from existence, so that we don't feel too bad about it I guess. It's insulting,
Tbh my issues with the discourse isn’t even that ppl have mixed feelings, but that the extremes insist on having the most unproductive conversation as possible about it. While I disagree with Mike on a lot of his points here I appreciate that he clearly has thought a lot about this and understands that there are many different ways to absorb the events of the MSQ. Would love a non-MSQ breakdown of Mike’s thoughts on the more mechanical aspects (encounter design, QoL releases, etc) though that might be more beneficial after the Bozja-esque content is out.
I think having Wuk lose the rite to Koana would be better. This will put Wuk in her place for getting carried too much by the WoL. Then Koana being a smartass that he is would ask Wuk to lead beside him cuz he's bad with people, mirroring the two heads of Gulool in the end. Then, when the dome part started, Koana shouldve just prevent Wuk from going like, "no sis, u staying with me dealing with the invasion, that thing is Scion stuff" and actually do the talk with Azdaja for the cooperation or smth. The dome shouldve been scion only. Shouldve had the WoL linkpearl all the scions and be like, "xcuse me I wanna summon all of u using my crystal, just making sure ur not in the toilet rn or smth" and they be like "yea no prob Azem away" and have the WoL Azem them into the dome.
When going to the dome, I thought for sure we were ganna like, leave Wuk Lamat behind because this was a SCION affair. Giant mysterious dome. It felt like a missed opportunity of awesome to be like, "shit just got real, get the scions and lets go check this out.
I disagree. The scions disbanded, they should not be the main feature of the plot to begin with. They are allegedly meant to be acting as mentors to the new chars at this time but then take valuable screen time away from them in many ocassions. Im fine with Shtola and Graha showing up later when they make sense to but do we really need a boat ride with G'Raha? The scions need to take a back foot and let a new cast of characters build up.
@@ridleyroid9060 The Scions never truly disbanded, that was just for the world to believe they did. They basically said to continue to do their own thing but are ready should a new threat appear. I agree that the scions could take a break every once in a while and make way for other/new characters tho, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be more involved. The second half especially is a matter perfectly for the scions to solve and overcome, even the first half. Wuk essencially absorbed all space of the others.
@@ridleyroid9060 i agree but also we should not give badly written characters so much screen time. If Wuk was a well written character, there would be like 90% less people complaining. DT was hot garbage, i think most people that liked it also liked ff9. that says little about the story and is more 'vibes/aethetics'
@ridleyroid9060 that's fine and all, but they had a scene where they were talking about the scions getting back together, even if in an unofficial capacity, for this new threat, like it was a big deal. Then it kinda wasn't.
At the very least we should have taken the technically minded Koana and left Wuk Lamat to use her people skills to help with the rebuilding. It was very odd to drag a confused Wuk around inside the dome while Koana did... not much back in Tuliyollal? Alphinaud saved the day by setting up an alliance with Radz and Vrtra, after all.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as a lack of Scions in this expansion is concerned. Though I noticed it from a different perspective: pretty much every quest objective, accompaniment quest and cutscene was about Wuk Lamat, to the point that I was already tired of seeing her quite early on. Also consider this: our "inn room" was introduced very early on, but we never got to use it; more infuriating was how we were told that we and the other Scions could use it to rest a bit, and then it was immediately yanked away from us by more Wuk Lamat story points. And then, to add insult to injury, when we finally do get to use it, Wuk Lamat comes and bothers us within about five seconds and then proceeds to drag us around town for the next thirty minutes. To say that she was an utterly exhausting character would be putting it mildly. We never got any alone time by ourselves, nor any with the Scions either. In short, it felt like Wuk Lamat was being shoved in our faces 200% of the time. That was honestly the reason why Shaaloani unexpectedly became my favorite map, because we finally got a break from her. As for the MSQ itself, the pacing felt incredibly off throughout every single part. The Feats felt like they took forever, the Heritage Found portion felt oddly accelerated, and then we waste so much time on nonsensical "visits" in Solution Nine. And call me crazy, but I simply couldn't bring myself to feel any sympathy for these death-evading invaders because everything about their society just felt wrong. Sphene herself felt like a fake right from her introduction. More than that, she was rather childish and naive for a supposed "queen", and apparently lacked an understanding of how the Lifestream works. For all that other people claim that Sphene was a "tragic" character, I feel no sympathy for the out of control robot who knew exactly what she was doing and could have course corrected at any time but chose not to. Erenville was much more interesting to me in Endwalker than in Dawntrail. It felt like they took a good, intelligent character and dumbed him down and turned him into someone he wasn't for this expansion. I don't really agree with the general feeling that Krile didn't get a proper character arc though. The major outstanding questions about her were all answered, and she (and we) got to meet her parents. I mean, yes, Wuk Lamat had far too much screen time, and I would have loved to see more of Krile, but as far her character arc went, I didn't feel that it was incomplete in any way. I wouldn't compare Wuk Lamat to Lyse if I were you though. Stormblood had pacing issues but overall was a very good, and very human, story. Also, people who truly understood Lyse's character arc know that her growth happened organically and in a way that did not overwhelm every other character's presence. Lyse was also generally far more knowledgeable about her people and a great deal more mature as well. The story also did not devolve into the utter nonsense that was Dawntrail's second half. As for why they missed the mark in several areas, it's because they handed the story over to new writers with an apparent lack of proper supervision. What I can tell you for certain is that this expansion's base MSQ has left me feeling utterly disappointed and exhausted, and I never hang out in the new areas as a result because they remind me far too much of the terrible MSQ I experienced in them. I haven't even yet touched the role quests because they seem so boring, nor the crafter and gatherer quests which, while they do seem interesting, still occur in these new areas that I just don't care for. I also have had no enthusiasm for trying out the new extremes and I find the normal raids to be just plain uninteresting. At this point, I can't imagine the patches redeeming the base, but I hope I'm wrong. On the subject of expectations: going into Endwalker after Shadowbringers, I felt excitement. Not only because we were going to be seeing more of the ancients and Hydaelyn but because the story generally seemed like it was going to have a lot of great arcs. Going into Dawntrail from Endwalker though, I didn't feel any enthusiasm from the first time I saw the trailer. I kept waiting for the Live Letters to show something that would truly grab my interest, but it just wasn't there. Even the new maps, beautiful as they were, felt more like barely modified rehashes of older and prettier maps. A contest for a throne also hardly seemed like a fascinating story. Even so, I gave Dawntrail a chance to impress me, and it disappointed me every step of the way. In Endwalker, I did miss Shadowbringers a bit, but 6.0 itself was so good that it didn't make me long for it. In Dawntrail however, the nostalgia for both Endwalker and Shadowbringers hit me hard because of how much better their stories were. And that, to me, is what makes Dawntrail bad.
Krile's story didn't feel _incomplete,_ it just felt perfunctory and half-assed. She was with us basically every step of the way, the only character other than Wuk that was present for every single one of the MSQ dungeons, and yet she had barely more than a _third_ of the spoken lines as a character that didn't even enter the narrative until level 97. The entire Golden City plotline was inextricably tied to Krile and her parents, and yet Krile and her gifted earring weren't even allowed to open the freakin' gate without having to hand the moment off to another character. Krile was effectively a mobile set piece for all but like 3 or 4 sequences in the entire MSQ. We got ~30m to meet and get to know her parents, or their memories at least, before we yeeted them out of existence and they shoved Krile back into the wallpaper.
@@KaedysKor I don't agree with the half-assed part, but I agree that we should have seen more of her. However, the premise of her backstory, I think, is itself to blame. Since where she was from and who she was related to were the only real questions about her and one of them was answered in a much more general way by the second half of the MSQ, it gave us less reason to focus on her. So the writers should have given her something else, another arc that would allow her to be more closely tied to the MSQ. I fully agree with you that the entire second half should have been hers.
Honestly for myself, I have to agree with a lot of this video. The general gist I felt about Dawntrails story, mirrors a lot of Mike's points. The scions are just accessories, Wuk Lumat is a rushed story with no real substance that made me appreciate Lyse during Stormblood. The pokebadge tour for Wuk Lumat was painfully slow at times and her constant ignorance with basic principles of the people she's supposed to become ruler over is just not believable. Then we finally get to the pay off, the thing I care about, the actual Golden City. Nope, hard stop, we gotta go do a disney song moment because we have to crown the new dawnservant(s) (lets be honest here, it was so poorly written everyone could see how this was going to end, the whole Yuk Hoy tablet conversation was just missing Dora the Explorer to 4th wall break the audience.) Then after that? City of Gold? Nope, go to 14's equivalent of Texas. This was the biggest disappointment for me. Honestly, you could remove the entire zone story and absolutely nothing is lost storyline wise. I mean for the love of god, they don't even use real bullets for the duels. Where the hell is the actual stakes? Oh no, I lost, I guess you win the argument. I absolutely hated Shaaloani. If it wasn't for the plot hook of the invasion, I don't know if I would have stayed hooked. Plus seriously, a music montage? When did 14 become a children's movie? Heritage Found and Living Memory, kept me interested because it was finally a story for us, the Warrior of Light, ya know the ACTUAL main protagonist. There were still issues but at least now I could speculate and I wanted to find out. Absolutely enjoyed my time from this point on, up till the final end trial and the Devs go and pull another insult to the player. Its our moment to shine, to be the hero to save the day, and who comes and steals the spotlight. Yep, Wuk Lumat, with her power of friendship bullshit. You had over half the game, can you piss off and let me be the Warrior of Light and feel like I'm saving the world like we always do every expansion? Nope, Devs got to pull a World of Warcraft moment and we don't' save the day, its the NPCs who are the heroes and we're their accessory. We like the scions, they've been with us through thick and thin, don't turn them into set dressing and cameo bits. Use them or don't. Hell, even in Endwalker they did a better job of having them involved with us saving the world. The Warrior of Light still saved the day, but the Scions were there to help us. Notice the key word there, HELP, not steal the show. I understand Yoshi P wanted to step away from dark story lines after FF16, but if you're going to include them don't underplay it. Conflict between Colonization/Modernization and Indigenous peoples/ways of life, resolved with one sentence and never brought up again. Revelation of a culture basing everything in Eugenics, fixed with one town hall meeting. The genocide of the Endless because their way of life conflicts with others, no discussion with everyone else just turn off the computers because we were told to. I would have loved to seen these fleshed out more but sadly I think this is all we're going to get because we have to have more disney music moments instead And most importantly, if you're gong to say that the story will reveal the real story for a character, especially if they've been stated to be a key part of the story, actually do that. Krile's story was so stop and go, it felt butchered. Oh right, forgot, this isn't about the Warrior of Light or the Scions, its the Wuk Lumat show. Dawntrail wasn't a story, it was the Wuk Lamut show, with the whole first season cramped into a jumbled mess to get it out on time. If the devs want to know what works for the playerbase and they were just throwing things out to see what we resonate with please take this to heart. We want to be the hero. We want to save the day. Not some random NPC whom when we met they were asking for our help because they needed our strength and then suddenly they become on par with us with no real good reason or sign of growth. That said, my issues entirely stem with the story and how it was done. Mechanically, I enjoyed the expansion. The dungeons and trials are great. A lot of the classes with their new additions feel great to play. Even the raid serious while quirky is a lot of fun. This the Devs nailed perfectly I feel. So at least my fear of the game not being fun to play is alleviated. TLDR: My complaints are with the story. Gameplaywise I enjoy it a lot.
Dawntrail, to me, story screams “newly-promoted intern handling a story for the first time.” Disappointing stuff when it comes from such a massive game and makes me worried for the future direction of the game that I’ve literally grown up with.
hoping SE learns they cant just expect people to gobble up the story without having anything else to fall back on, the overwhelming lack of gameplay sections made the story even more of a slog to get through
@@hypersleep9336 I was running an alt through skipping scenes, and in the time it took me to complete my first visit to Urqopacha alone, my alt skipping scenes had cleared the first trial in roughly that time. Maybe half an hour longer. So roughly in the time half of one zone took, skipping scenes finished 2 zones, 2 dungeons, and a trial, give or take a little flex time. I was surprised at how many opportunities we could have had for solo story duties we just didn't get.
This is spot on. The number of times my quest bar said nothing but "talk to x" for hours at a time is insane. If I wanted a visual novel that's what I would have bought, not a fucking mmo.
This was my biggest issue. Give us more voiced battle missions. Let us play the game while you tell the story and possibly make cutscenes more impactful in the process.
Luckily, she is very easily sidelined. Now that she is a Dawnservant, she will serve her people. As a traveler who apparently likes to go to new places and never repeat going back to older places save for some side quests, we never have to deal with Wuk Lamat ever again.
There's this insane belief within circles of the XIV Defense Squad that everyone who disliked DawnTrail had already made their mind up before the expansion launched. I am not someone who hated Endwalker patch content, and I was trying (desperately) to enjoy this expansion. I actually did nothing but look for the positives until the credits rolled, but even despite all of this willingness to engage with a new story, found myself really disappointed in the end.
it felt like most everyone was almost out of character throughout the MSQ, btu then I realized, it's simply because Wuk Lamat takes up so much room, feels like they give no space for other characters, even the Warrior of Light 💀 there were times we could have intervened, but simply stood by and did nothing, heck we traveled to the unverse's end and back, to see the WoL forced to take a back seat in situation we NEEDED to step up, infuriated me xD
Thanks Mike for pointing out the way we take their lumber and walk away. 14 has had a history of dealing with tough realities in the past and I was disappointed we handwaved so many of them here. For me however the biggest problem was not Wuk Lamat or her character but the sidelining of the WoL and of the legacy of what that character used to mean. While we are not always the MC - though never has any MC sucked the oxygen out of the room like Wuk does - BUT we were always the protagonist. We saw other peoples' stories through the eyes of the WoL and as part of our own journey. Here the WoL might as well have been furniture in the room. This reduces the illusion of character ageny to nothing. While it is often noted the WoL has no real agency, the story in the past has created the illusion of agency by having our WoL make "choices" that reflect what we know of their character. Not here. From standing around watching the murder of a head of state and father of an ally to pressing the big button in Living Memory because "they aren't truly alive" . In Living Memory the player is clearly going to remember Emet Selch's words to us - "you are not truly alive ergo I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you". Without getting into any kind of debate about what being alive in 14 consists of, the glaring problem here is that the past lines of the MSQ itself will be ringing in the players ears at this point, not to mention the questlines in Ultima Thule, where we help dead people who only exist as memories rebuild a future. DT's MSQ simply handwaves all this as if our WoL has amnesia. My WoL is literally wearing the title "Barrista at the end of the Universe" over his head while all this is going on. This led to a problem for some of us in which we began to feel a real disconnect between ourselves and our character. It's not just that Wuk Lamat or any other MC was too omnipresent - it was that the WoL and the MSQ seems to have forgotten their own legacy. For a game so concerned with the past, with memory, and with honoring legacies this was very hard to take.
The only way this can work is if, for some reason, incorporating Ardbert meant that we are starting to think like an Amaroutine, which is why we are standing back and letting atrocities happen, as we become more like Azem and less like the Warrior of Light. But even this would be post-justification for a horrible story, and Azem was known to be unusually kind as an Ascian to the point of aligning with mortal races on the Source for morality, so even that would not work.
@@iantaakalla8180 Not only was Azem kind, but Azem was characteristically willing to think outside normal Amaroutine parameters! And Ardbert was also excessively kind. So we have all that in us now. I hope the writers will remember it and respect it in future.
@fredy2041 Well, heavensward says otherwise. That expansion fcused on alphinaud, Ysaylenand Estinien. WoL barely did much but we were far more connected to that group than Wuk
Another problem with the Hanuhanu not knowing that the float was an arcane focal point, even with the additional "we just thought it was theatrics" line, is that Wuk Evu, a complete outsider who had been there for 3 years, so had attended at least 2 others festivals, knew what the float was for. Why did he know but the actual Hanuhanu did not? Where did he get this information from? Why didn't he tell anyone?
Especially you would think people that are so close to their culture would have beliefs...They wouldn't call it 'theatrics". That's stuff you see in modern society that are starting to put their cultures on the back burner. It just doesn't make any sense. If they wanted to have them forget about their culture they should've tackled a form of colonization, for example, from the Yok Huy who could have enforced their culture on them while they were in power for a couple of generations.
True, it felt like a stand in for wuk lamat wanting the festival. Kona sees the actual issue and goes to deal with it, bakool has no idea but plans to steal Kona’s work at least, no idea what zooral ja does and wuk is sad there’s no festival
@@Salt_Mage Actually...Does it? You could assume that the Hanu Hanu doesn't have a writing tradition just like the Autochtones people of America which could explain a loss of knowledge over time if elders don't share it perfectly. But then HOW did Wuk Evu learn about it? If there are writings then how did the Hanu Hanu forget? Are they all too dumb to read? However you want to twist it, it's not great. Having an outsider explain a people's culture while every one in that culture is oblivious is just a bad look. You won't see me go to an Autochtone community with my history book telling them about their culture. I would like to attribute this to bad writing, perhaps a course correction like Preach mentioned rather than what you are implying.
Right? Like have the tribal significance, but then have the twins notice the arcane nature of it. And then find out they weren't the smartest because this guy was thinking the same. Only now old guy has a fresh presepective from the new comers and they work together for a solution. Instead we get the typical Hollywood "everyone before me is dumb and stuck in the old ways, and I can solve all this because I am just that smart and modern."
Preach does a great job to pointing out the flaws of DT. Many of those I also had while playing the story with my 2 other friends, which also shared the same problems/concerns. It was very cartoonish/unrealistic/idealistic to be plausible and thus enjoyable. From a game that delivered us scenes like Emet's speech about his people being gone and wanting to bring them back, from Seto having one last farewell with Ardbert, to Papalimo sacrificing himself for the greeter good and specially Yda/Lise, to the horrifying death of Tesleen. There are so many moments that are great and show both the good and bad. DT is legit the expansion that mocks all of those moments by reducing it to what the 'SMILE' song entails. Which btw I would like to bring up the song SMILE and the trolley making moment. It's a moment that was done before in ShB when we built the Talos to climb Mount Gulg, hell some of the characters are the 1st counterparts. But while I cherished that moment in ShB because I grew to know the problems of each and every one of those NPCs in ShB I couldn't care LESS about the NPCs in DT, and it was made it double worse for a song that was just telling 'You should be happy now cause they are united. Believe me you united them! LOOK BE HAPPY OK!' DT is by far one of the lowest moments in in FF XIV MSQ.
At the end of the day, I find that there's just no direction the story is going. At the end of ARR, we still had Lahabrea to deal with. We still had the Garlean Empire on our doorstep. We still had Ala Mhigo to liberate. We still has Ishgard to visit. We still had stuff to do that was teased to us throughout the ARR story. There's nothing at the end of Dawntrail. We have a key that somehow is connected to Azem and that's it. There's nothing else. Tural is a happy joyous place with sunshine and rainbows and no strife whatsoever. The Power of Friendship ^TM made sure that even the conflict we encountered was resolved with a few words of kindness and a promise to be the bestest leader ever. Solution 9 is shown integrating into Tural society. Every direction they could have pointed the game in was resolved by the end. Dawntrail fails to setup the future of the game. It felt like a patch MSQ that outstayed its welcome. And the very fact that we have to rely on the patch MSQ to save this is just disastrous. Sidenote: I ran the Great Gubal Library the other day. You know, that dungeon aaaaaaaall the way back in Heavensward? There's a book there. It teases the City of Gold. A myth that no one has seen, that no one knows where it is. We've been teased about the City of Gold for FOUR expansions. And when we finally get to go hunt for it, we're told within the first half hour of the expansion that it had already been found and the leader of the nation knew exactly where it was this whole time. What the ever loving hell.
The new writers just seem to lack the ability to tease things. They have to say and reveal everything explicitly. They can't even do subtext, they have to literally tell you "I am showing the importance of friendship now" lol.
My biggest problems were the pacing of the first half, all of the filler in the second half, the WoL and Scions becoming side characters and the numerous times we were involved in things that we shouldn't have been.
I think another thing to mention are that the villains of the expansion are very bland. They either have very similar motivations to other characters from previous expansions, or they just are completely uncompelling. I remember when Gra'ha asked Sphene "What will you do when you drain the source of all their aether? It'll be a neverending cycle" and she just had no response and completely ignored the question.
I do agree that Wuk Lamat was a rushed character and i quickly grew to dislike her. I don't take the hiding new character thing as easy though they did it in post heavensward masterfully with Yugiri.
idk if i buy into the idea that Dawntrail wasn't misleading, like 85% of the content in the trailer happens post-MSQ and the fight with Gulool ja ja is a sparring match instead of a serious conflict.
My main issue isn't with the MSQ as a concept, because I truly did have a good time with Wuk Lamat and parts of the tale. My problem is with the MSQ as a package. This absolutely felt like 2 different stories that each needed time to breathe. Like you brought up early on, the main MSQ should have been strictly the Dawnservant trials so that way we could actually get to know some of these characters a bit more. Give them more screentime and not have it *just* be the Wuk Lamat show. Then we could have ended on a cliffhanger with the dome being generated and not having an immediate way in, leaving a great hook for post-MSQ. It's like a soup was made, but a few steps were skipped. Sure, it's probably still edible by the end, but it's not gonna taste anywhere near as good as if the proper time was taken.
The biggest issue I had with a lot of the obstacles we run into in this MSQ is that we, the WoL are a literal god killing walking fantasy weapon of mass destruction, and then we just sit back and do nothing or pretend we couldn't stop the bad guys from doing something. This also applies to many of the scions, who at this point are all super seasoned at their fields, and Estenien alone could take on half of Tural.
On top of what has already been said, there's so many elements of the DT MSQ that are either extremely jarring compared to the other MSQ, incoherent, schizophrenic or straight out dangerous from a story standpoint going forward, all that because they seem like they didn't take a step back to think about the implications of what they were writing. Jarring, because the whole south of Tural feels like it's populated by cultures with the political depth of Carebears that have next to no frictions or have some that can be fixed in a single exchange or lucky event, I mean, the war between the Mamool and Hrothgars lasted for at least multiple decades for them to ravage a fifth of the map, discover and grow multiple two-head military leaders which completely warped one of the belligerents' society... and all that stops thanks to a damn barbecue and no resolution to the problems that caused that war? Are you kidding? After the things we saw with the Dragonsong, Garlemald or even the Ala Mhigan refugees? Same with the Moblins, a whole decade-spanning society changed overnight by a single sentence. This makes them all feel like the cultural equivalent of Potemkin villages, fakes with next to no depth, basically Disney villages, the Smile song not helping with that. You see more problems inside the Hingan society with only Kugane than you do with multiple cultures in multiple maps in DT. Incoherent. Basically anything related to Zoraal Ja, like really, anything, we're talking about someone who spent 30 years preparing an attack against an unprepared force, while leading a faction that dominated its own shard... and came up with a kitchen sink army made up of maid robots badly repurposed for war, civilian motorcycles with just a gun strapped on it, forbid the use of feral souls outside of the military to see only one guy use them (while he could've recruited the Arcadion contestants in his army) and his only seemingly real military ship got stared down to explosion by the weakest of the first brood who is on top of that, missing an eye, while Garlemald with massively lower tech put Midgardsomr down. We're talking about someone who randomly, yet specifically attacked (somehow sliced his back open without killing him) Ketenramm (he's another can of worms, guy is supposedly past his race's life expectancy yet fights and looks better than when he was young, I was expecting some Fountain of Youth given that) to discover after the attack that he had a set of extra keystones which he was about to need, how convenient. We're talking about a guy who somehow made a kid appear out of nowhere (try to find a mamool in Solution 9) to suddenly be ok with giving him absolute power. We're talking about a guy those motivations are never really explained or shown outside of the trial where we kill him and never showing his childhood which supposedly was terrible enough to fuel him for more than 50 years. Schizophrenic, the whole Living Memory zone is a constant back and forth between "They are real livin' beans!" and "It's ok, they are just puppets, shut them down lol!" it feels like it was written by two different persons with the completely opposite view on it, especially after the whole Omicron beast tribe quests, it felt extremely weird on how it handled it. I had an extra backlash at the end of the Alexandria dungeon with Wuk saying "Why would you delete those memories?" while she spent the last two hours erasing everyone else's in Living Memory. Dangerous, because they introduced multiple very horrible elements for all future discourses of "Why didn't they just use x?" because they seem to have no idea about the implications of what they are writing, the Regulators being the most shining example of that. For the resurrection part to work, you need it to have at least some time-related magic and/or massive healing going on, why? Because NPCs directly said that it can save you from being crushed to death by accident by a massive stone for example... which would just kill you again after being resurrected since you're still being crushed by it, same with blood loss from missing limbs, does it regrow the limb for you not to die again of blood loss? If you get decapitated, will a whole new body sprout from your neck? Same when dying from an enemy, it takes so much time to resurrect you in a very obvious way that there's almost no military application for an army that mostly deals with melee combat. It's a feature that literally only works if your world is turn-based. And that's without even talking about the other logistical aspects of it like: "Wouldn't a Turali require 7 times the amount of souls to get resurrected compared to an Alexandrian since the former are from the source and latter from a shard?" among other things. But the most dangerous element is the fact that those things allow you to remotely rewrite someone's memory just by putting them on their head, imagine if we had that during Endwalker, Meteon alone would've been dealt with just by slapping it on her head, every genocidal villain going forward will have to have a counter mesure to justify not using it on them unless they pull out a moronic "No! I'd rather see the villain wipe out multiple cities rather than do as low as rewriting someone's memories" like they did with the moronic justification as to why they didn't intervene during Gulool Jaja vs Zoraal Ja. I honestly dread what's coming up. I feel like every time I start thinking a little deeper into an element of DT, I keep finding problems, it didn't happen that regularly with the previous expansions or even ARR.
I don't understand why we can't slap one of those to every scion and world leader. And i would have expected full out war for those immortality devices... But we all know it isn't happening. No one would ever care about vastly superior technology owned by only one nation, right?
I loathe Wuk Lamat. A horribly written character, the VA couldn't do anything to salvage that train wreck. The MSQ was so bad...I quit playing. I just can't. It was that bad. We, as you said, are basically an atomic bomb in an environment where they're using clubs, and we're regulated to watching someone's fetish learn the power of friendship...and sitting idly by while horrendous things happen, because Wuk Lamat. Just. No. I was PISSED when that furball took the glory at killing Sphene. Really? What are we even doing here. The WoL could conquer the whole continent alone, yet...we're the glorified escort/fetch servant of Wuk Lamat. A childish, uninspired character. Straight up 0/10 on the MSQ. The environments and stuff, that is great. The music is terrible in this xpac too, it just does not fit. They screwed up bad on this xpac...very bad.
a big thing for me in DT is the fact that they really hyped up and put a lot of focuses on the scions and that they will be in different teams and compete in the succession only for the actually story to have very little of that kind of element. Krile is also a disappointment for me in DT since this was also supposed to be somewhat Krile heavy but we ended up just getting a little bit fo the story that is actually Krile centric while at other time it feels like she's just there because she have the macguffin earing that we need later in the story. The whole thing with DT being us more or less on the side line and it being more of the journey of Wuklamat is actually something that I'm fine with, do I think that her character can be handled better? Sure. But the real pain point for me is just that they set up the expectation of this expansion being like a fun vacation with the scions and maybe comes with the side of friendly competition between the scions. where as the actual expansion is more like us coming into Tural as the body guard of wuklamat and watch her going through her own story.
Bodyguard... perhaps. I think we were suddenly channeling Emmanellain de Fortemps' defense of Ishgard this expansion. We watched dutifully as the trials happened pretty much without us needing to do more than walk and click villagers so that Wuk Lamat would talk to them. Then we watched more, as cutscenes happened and were drawn out longer than they really needed to be, telling the same message over and over in case we missed it the first two times. And as the story made sure everything that might have been a remotely interesting obstacle was resolved (or just waved away) by other people with minimum of effort, that there was never any reason for us to do anything but go on watching.
how they were marketing it was that this would actually fracture the Scions, they even said "who will you stand with" implying you would have a choice in the matter. when I saw that I was instantly "oh, i'm joining Y'shtola's team for sure" but then when 6.55 released and we introduced with Wuk Lamat, I was like "yeah ... we will be going with her ... aren't we" I didn't like her in 6.55, she came off way to strong as a first introduction and is also a complete 180 of her actual character in DT. in 6.55, she comes off as this super confident person who will always forge ahead. meanwhile in DT Wuk loses = wuk is sad Wuk wins = wuk is sad and in both cases WE need to encourage her to continue. Another issue I have is how in 6.1 through 6.5 they setup that in order to travel to another reflection (minus the crytal tower method Graha used) you need to find a rift somewhere in your world that connects to that reflection, like the void gate to the 13th, it also makes sense for the 1st since whenever we travel back in the story, we use the portal inside the crystal tower, this again made sense. now we have this device that can apparently connect reflections together, we don't exactly know how it works yet, but we got a literal device that can connect reflections, since Sphene has been doing this for a while now, even without that device since Galool Ja Ja had it, but I just hate it that finding a portal, means to open said portal and widen it, while also stabilizing it, was just tossed away and be like "yeah, we got this magic device that can do everything now"
"Familiarity breeds contempt" rings true to me as it relates to Wuk. When I went across the bridge, I finally felt relief, but it was too short lived. MSQ left a lot to be desired. It was the most "meh" story to date for me. Hopefully Wuk isn't a big feature in the 7.xx post MSQ, I have spent way too much time with that character for my liking. I wouldn't appreciate Aymeric either if he was around as much as her.
I don't know if complete removal of the Scions is the answer but they have to be either gone or actively participating, not this half-done fan-service thing they did in DT. It would make sense to me that Y'shtola hangs back and works on her 'History of Etheirys' books she's mentioned before, or for Alphinaud & Alisaie to become fully fledged diplomats for Sharlayan and can't adventure with us anymore. This offers opportunities for us to fill the roster with newer characters and have new story arcs instead of Estinien running up to us when a trial is about to start, then fly away when it's over. I think a rotating cast of Scions going forward would be far more interesting.
"but they have to be either gone or actively participating, not this half-done fan-service thing they did in DT" my thoughts exactly. They have to pick a lane and stick to it. Either let the scions become full background npcs or actually write them doing things. This half-ass thing they did in DT is just not pleasing anyone.
So obviously this expansion is very divisive and the conversation surrounding it can get pretty heated. Like Mike mentioned in the video even in our own office we don't agree on it - I cannot tell you how long me and Mike have spent debating aspects of this MSQ 😂
As ever though even when we are critical, we are trying to do so through well reasoned discussion and to offer balanced takes on the subject. I hope y'all in the comments can do the same.
You've just made an enemy for life...
The only defense I have of the sudden power creep of Wuk-Lamat.... Akasha is probably involved. I bet she had some sprinkled on the tacos. I really hope that they find more data on that USB Earring.
By far, the worst expansion. YoshiP failed hard.
@tinyblackmage i think expansion was just fine 🤷♂️ i still think way better then the Ala Migo portion of stormblood
@@fredy2041 Gosetsu is BAE
What annoyed me throughout the MSQ is that nobody ever seems to say the things you'd want them to say, or ask the questions you'd want them to ask. Bakool Ja Ja kidnaps a contest judge and releases a monster that threatens half the continent, but nobody ever mentions that maybe he should get disqualified.
The WoL sees Sphene during the attack on Tuliyollal. Never mentions it. Krile sees the robots sucking glowing orbs out of dead bodies. Never mentions it.
We come to a place where everybody has a weird thing on their heads, a thing we saw Zoral Ja use to revive himself and power himself up. This is clearly something very important. Do we ask what those are? Eventually, yes, but first we spent an hour on learning about farming techniques.
We learn that Krile's earring is a storage device, with data on it from people from another world. Do we ask what's on this? Nope, because we have to get not-Grenolt an energy drink.
Hey, to be fair, it was a really really awesome energy drink.
Erenville never asks his mother how she died.
@@ChainedFei They _need_ to make it either an emote or a purchasable consumable. Absolutely criminal that it's a 1-and-done thing.
I'll be honest, I stopped attempting to take the story seriously when the group let Wuk Lamat wander off on her own because some random elezen said there was a message for her early in the MSQ. I was just staring at my own character going "you idiot." When Koana started yelling at the player about "how could you let this happen?" I was like "yeah good question."
It's one of those plots that requires everyone involved to make the dumbest choices they can to keep it moving, which can be pretty frustrating to sit through.
After it looked like Bakool Ja Ja was going to kill someone for not give him what he wanted and released that monster from the prison, I kept wondering why my WoL wouldn't just kill him already. How much more damage was he allowed to do before he was stopped.
When they pointed out the earing was a data storage device, I was slowly getting angrier and angrier as they kept talking about everything else. I was about to lose it when it looked like you were about to leave without anyone at least starting to look at the data. Just before I popped, thankfully one of the NPCs asked to look at the data.
For a character introduced in Heavensward. This was Krile's moment, and unfortunately she was given the shortest straw after 9 years of waiting.
It felt like Krile had more screentime in the trailer than she did the MSQ.
Her earring had more screentime than her
When she didn't even get to open the door and instead it was the baby lizard that did it I had to ask myself "why were the scions even here with us in the first place?"
@@the7blargsTrust dungeon.
That whole scene where Krile was like “Yeah I’m from another reflection.” And everyone was just like “Cool Krile, anyway what’s up Wuk Lamat?” Was the biggest slap in the face ever.
LOL
It’s crazy because ardbert and Emet have the most dialogue in shb but they paced it out in a way that made you intrigued in them looking forward to your next conversation
Wuk just won’t shut tf up
Wuk has nothing to say but she'll spend half an hour saying it
@@SuperDarknut Then she will say it again another half an hour later in case you forgot. Dawntrail really is a lot of telling, rather than doing.
Yes, and they never said the same thing over and over.
There is a reason people compared her to Poochie from The Simpsons.
@@RicardoSantos-oz3uj yes. If she had said her see and learn shit line one more time I'd have stabbed a pen in my ear.
Krile got less lines than cahciua.... The npc introduced in the story at like, 97/98.... Wtf
Krile was also the only character aside form Wuk that was with us for _every single dungeon,_ and yet got fewer lines than a character that literally died at level 97 and was only occasionally present prior to that (Galool Ja Ja)
Also, remember what Krile was there for? To lean more about Grandpa Baldesian (sp?), the man that raised her, and that plot got discarded HARD. Poor Krile.
It is alright, because Cahciua is actually a cool character
Remember how excited Thancred and Urianger were about being against us and his fellow friends in the competition and all they actually did against us was blocking a path with some rocks in the first dungeon? They should had been a dungeon boss at the very least, what a missed opportunity.
Yes, this. Exactly this. Give us a Magus Sisters style fight in the first dungeon where we fought Koana and Thancred and urianger together. Make them leave upon defeat (we don't need to kill them), so that it don't impact future scenes and such.
Heck, we teamed up with Koana team more times than we fought against *Bakool Ja Ja*. What kind of "rivalry" was that?
@@NibelungJ A dungeon boss that's an enemy party (tank, healer, 2 dps) of your friends would have been super sick
Also the fact that that conversation happens _after_ that dungeon, so it's not paid off even slightly past that point.
@Acrysalis so kill urangie quickly then murk thancrad and beat up the ranged dps
Have them be the first trial instead of what we actually got. That woulda been cool. Also, the ambiguity of people wondering if Thancred EX is a real thing, or just a meme like Raubahn EX.
One thing I don't see many people touch on was the wasted potential of Varligarmanda. This thing was centuries old and feared across the nation. Even the mighty Galool Ja Ja and his companions could only seal it away.
Yet it gets freed from a single spell, injures like 6 giants in the temple and goes for a nap in the mountains. We then chase it with Erenville's magic finger and defeat it with the power of friendship 5 mins after it's released. Wuk even seems to take credit for the kill afterwards.
I feel like it should have been an actual threat, we see it wipe out a settlement or 2. Kill some innocents. Live up to its fearsome reputation.
It was also a moment for the WoL to shine. Like stand back, let the established godslayer deal with it. I get it's only the first trial boss but give it some build up. You can spend half a quest zone trading for a saddle or learning a recipe for tacos but spare only a handful of quests on the release of such a major threat.
Yeeaaah, that was disappointing indeed. It caused no real damage, wasn't really scary, didn't even remotely live up to the hype created around it. And served no real purpose afterward either. I was kinda hoping, when it was clear it was going to be dealt with immediately, that maybe we were just going to knock some sense into it, and we'd have a temporary Auspice-like companion for a while. But didn't even get that much out of it.
"I expected...more"
-Zoraal Ja on Valigarmanda
I agree with this. Good example: Viper job questline.
Compare that to FF6, where Valigarmanda starts the whole plot of FF6 by freeing Terra from the slave crown and starting her adventure.
What a waste...
That was really a constant problem throughout DT - the villains weren't really ever allowed to be _threatening._ The invasion that sparks the whole second half of the plot, an invasion of soul-stealing space age people tearing up the capital city of a continental empire... kills a midsize Christmas party's worth of people and then leaves and never does anything remotely threatening again.
The big defend-the-barricades cutscene has the automated soldiers downed by single shots (when before they kept getting back up) and forget to use guns and cannons so the heroes can look cool... and we just sorta forget how the resistance tells us about their weaknesses because it doesn't matter anyway, swords and spears work just fine against them now that the heroes' music is playing.
Dawntrail is deeply, _deeply_ frustrating to me because of how it totally refuses to ever get any dirt under its fingernails for any reason. It's... saccharine. Pristine. Even the sad bits are sanitized.
My WoL watching the Scions start walking away: "No wait please don't leave me alone with he.......Heyyyyyy Wuk Lamat"
Same exact feeling, every single time. My WoL, "Come baaaaaaaaack..... 😭"
My WoL just staring at Erenville who said could quietly checkout if we didn't enjoy aiding Wuk Lamat as a companion, "You. Lied. To. Me. Wuk Lamat would never allow me to leave, she's asked me already in 3 different instances to stay! What about my demeanor around her makes her think I want to be around her anymore!? She even called me family! Why!?"
Erenville: "If I must suffer this, then I would wish for company that I can enjoy suffering alongside."
Even if Hrothgals weren't introduced yet they still could have introduced her earlier. Au Ra weren't properly introduced until 3.0 in HW yet Yugiri first appears in 2.2 of ARR. And it's not like it's a surprise, we've known for a while that Hrothgals were in the works.
And even if HrothGal models weren't ready for even and NPC, there are hacks they could have done. Yugiri was originally a Miqote body (and the actual reason she was covered was to cover all that up). They definitely could have hacked together something while they worked to do it properly for DawnTrail.
They were supposed to be added alongside male Viera in EW. I remember people being livid waiting.
@@skillganon606 I THINK it had to do with FF16 consuming manpower at the time? They introduced both male Hroth and female Viera at the same time, no idea why they'd settle for their counterparts one at a time instead unless they literally couldn't do both.
Imagine how different the lore could be if they introduced the races earlier. The Bozjan queen was suppose to be a hrothgal.
@@numberc8420 Bozja without hrothgals felt wrong in so many ways, since it was literally *their* zone. It was like a wedding without the bride, idk.
Estinien took the vacation ... we were promised... and he even got rewarded for fighting gulol jaja
The thing that kills me about the Galool JaJa death scene is that FFXIV already has the PERFECT story device to have made it work: The Echo.
The only character who NEEDED to be there for the Narrative to work was Wuk Lamat. If it was just her standing there it would have made WAY more sense that she didn't get involved, because at the time she wouldn't have been strong enough to do more then get in the way. The WoL and company should have only made it to the throne room AFTER the duel was over with Wuk Lamat grieving over her father and then the WoL could have had an Echo flash back of the whole event. It would have made sense for everyone else to arrive too late too, because everyone was busy defending Tuliyollal minuets before.
That would be also so good to make a duty instead of a custcene where we fight in burning Tullioyollal towards the throne room and we're too late. Man, that be cool.
That would have been a good rewriting of that scene
when that cutscene ended I had the same thought, why didn't we do a Meanwhile/echo moment like we did in other expansions. Then I thought alllllll the way back to ARR where the garleans invaded the scions hideout and killed a bunch of people and how that was a much better version of what we got in DT. Sure the line deliveries Galool JaJa were better performed but the actions taken by characters should have been better
I can't see that scene again without being bummed that an ARR scene managed to do it better so many years ago by just having it be an echo event
This is true but it also highlights a main issue: The story writers didn't use the WoL or Krile at all. We're more effective than a nuclear warhead and we've beaten several weapons of mass destruction in combat before. The only time we're even commented on is when Bakool ja ja notes how the WoL isn't someone to mess with.
Or alternatively we have a poorly timed Echo that takes us out of the fight
@@tinysalad3357 That would have been an amazing call back to the scene in the middle of ShB too. Just because we're incredibly powerful doesn't mean we win every fight, and sometimes we can win the small battles, while still losing the big ones.
I remember hearing when DT was first shown this idea of a light-hearted summer vacation expansion, and seeing the Scions all relaxing and having a good time in the trailer. I thought "you know what I'm down for a silly summer vacation with the Scions. That sounds like fun." Cut back the tension and just let these characters relax and shine a bit without the weight of the world on their shoulders, and that's not what we got at all. The closest we got to that was some character moments in Living Memory, G'raha's boat and ice cream scene. Krile meeting and talking to her parents, and the social awkwardness that came with it. Also they sold this idea the scions would be competing against one another. That we'd be in competition with the Dads of The Seventh Dawn, and we really didn't see a lot of that outside of the 91 dungeon where Thancred blocks a path. I would've loved a light-hearted dungeon boss fight against Thancred or something with him talking smack the whole way, and have Urianger doing some trickery stuff to push us towards where Thancred is waiting. We didn't get that. They didn't outright falsely advertise, but it felt like bare minimum of what they said. I don't need every story to be dark or morally grey and "Mature," but if you are going to bring in Mature topics like Racism and Eugenics, then you gotta show them with as much maturity as possible and have the characters respond in a Mature way. Also "Rubber Bullets" in the Wild West inspired zone is just so weak lol. It also felt like so many missed Gameplay opportunities, the defending the bomb train should've been an instance or something. I mean make it like Air Force One at the gold saucer, anything but a cool cutscene that I have no participation in.
Have you ever noticed how during the Fates of this expansion, if your enemies are humanoids, they don't die and just fall over, cursing at you then run away? I thought I was crazy but then the rubber bullets happened and I was like: "Damn, did I actually teleport to Disney land or something???" Why is everything so infantilized now? It's like they baby-proofed everything.
@@Maymei99 I have yeah it's so weird, like playing an entirely different game after murder hoboing our way through 2.0 - 6.0, and then having so many situations where it feels like we aren't allowed to do what we've done for 10-11ish years.
I love how they definitely explained why everyone, including criminals and outlaws, used rubber bullets.
Like seriously... you have Ishikawa going all 4th Dimensional and CANONIZING MMO functions like the Duty Finder and Limit Break... and then you get this dude who's like...
"Uh.. rubber bullets in guns because fk all."
At least explain this weird, totally unnecessary plot point from left field if you're gonna do it...
It definitely felt like a completely different game, and for a much younger audience.
@@josie_the_valkyrie A softer and more fragile audience, for sure.
We could have had a comfy low stake story with Krile and Erenvile...
Sorry but Erenville is trash
It really could've been chill and low stakes and *then* leave all the "saving the world...again" drama for 7.1 - 7.3
See problem that is player base to whinny that already before expansion limited info "Its to chill, itd borning." Probably why story entierly cut in half it feels
@@MrSquigeon still better than Woke Lmao
Well this is only the first part of the entire expansion, and hopefully you know there is more story
The fact Zoraal Ja isn't mentioned a single time in this video (outside of Gulool Ja Ja's death scene, in which he wasn't talked about at all) tells you enough about his impact.
I feel those that feel lied to from the trailer and marketing campaign are justified in feeling so.
When you look at the Dawntrail trailer and it's promotional material what do you see?
The scions being prominently featured, giant monster hunting, old architecture hinting to a link between the Ronkan empire and the first, the hunt for the mysterious city of gold and the vibrant colours and environments inspired by south America.
I went into Dawntrail expecting a lower stake adventure that was a mix of Monster Hunter and Indiana Jones with some political stakes.
Instead what do we get? The scions are barely featured, we get a diet version of what the marketing promised us for the first couple of levels before we once again go into a drab environment and with the fate of the entire world at stake once again.
Sphene and her motivations are pretty much just the diet version of the Ascians once again and it feels like reheated leftovers from Shb.
The trailers for the other expansion also don't tell you what the plot of the expansions are but the sell you on the exact tone, theme and encapsulation of what the expansion is about.
I felt before and after I finished DT that it would be the second coming of Stormblood where it will be remembered not for its story but for its battle content
Hopefully the post-patch content saves the expansion's MSQ content like it did for Stormblood. Base Stormblood was ehhh, but the patch content really saved the expansion overall.
Which means thankfully I get to enjoy it because I loved storm blood too.Can't wait for 6 years from now.When I get to enjoy storm blood 3
@@aznhomigpost patches didn't save shit they just continued being colorist
@@Zoeila The story post story did set up some story points in shadowbringers though, particularly the weapon fights. You have to remember at the end of 2.0 we were led to think Gaius was dead killed in the praetorium after we beat the ultimate weapon and then SE sat on Gaius until the post stormblood story content then once again put him away until the end of shadowbringers. I think the biggest problem with that expansion is it being split between 2 zones which made getting around hard if you were poor.
The problem with that is people do not play Ff14 exclusively for its battle content because without the story it really does not have that much to do. You can only raid so much.
The "Cutscene WoL" energy is *way* too high in the second half of the story.
For the first half it didn't bother me; the WoL is a self-actualized character, and this journey isn't about me throwing my weight around. It is about Wuk Lamat learning to find the strength within herself to lead a nation.
But in the second half? It absolutely makes no sense for the WoL to just stand around and let as many things happen as they do.
I remember watching Zarool Ja fight his dad (Gulool Ja Ja, had to google the name again) after he got his super duper tech upgrade and going "Help him. Come on help him." the entire fight. But I get Gulool Ja Ja wanted to have a 1 v 1 with his son, I didn't really agree with it, but I could let it slide.
Then when Zarool Ja died and started to be resurrected by his tech I just kept saying "Help him. Help him. HELP HIM! Stop that man from getting back up, he's taking forever to do it, just intervene, the honorable 1 v 1 duel is over, HELP Gulool Ja Ja now!", but no :c we just stand there and let it happen like a prop because the plot needs to happen the way the writers intended instead of things unfolding like actual/believable events. Our WoL, the Scions, and the other characters present never once think to intervene and save a very important and beloved man's life as he is stricken down by his murderous and power hungry son. Yeah okay writers...
Sure there’s a reason.
The WoL wants to fight the strongest enemy that they can, so we just let them power up.
@@LemonCreature
Others may say, "But it happens too quickly." Meanwhile, in the Endwalker scene where Zenos is about to slice G'raha and Alisaie, we intervene in less than a second-even though we were fully wounded from the solo duty fight we went through. The Dawntrail MSQ has such terrible plot decisions.
For real. If we were given free reins in the story, my WoL would have heard that rez sound from Zoraal Ja and immediately jumped in to put both of his swords into the corpse before the rez could complete.
@@LemonCreature You googled Gulool Ja Ja's name but got Zoraal Ja's name wrong. That's how terrible he was as a villain: You forgot his name, his dad's name, and I bet you can't name his motivation.
I really think they did Krile dirty on this one
We better get a whole patch for her and her alone.
Problem is Krile is already pretty complete as a person, she is already pretty mature and the only thing she was missing was combat ability, and she already got that off-screen.
Yoshi-P better apologize to Krile yet again. Girl didn't single handedly keep the Scions alive in Shb to get treated like this over and over again.
@@FF-tp7qs That's the problem. She got it...off screen.
It hurts even more when you realize she’s been done dirty since the start.
Her introduction was probably the first and last time she was an interesting character.
You say this is a divisive MSQ?
I think you should talk to Wuk Lamat to found out why.
Personally I'd rather push her into a hole again to give me enough time to escape off the island before she hauls herself out of there with the power of friendship.
100 quests in the MSQ. 139 "Talk to Wuk Lamat" quest objectives, and that's _not_ including the number of times you have to talk to her to _start_ a quest.
Speak to Wuk Lamat Again
No you have to talk to 3 other NPCs first to get their opinions, and then return to Wuk Lamat.
I dont understand why this was hard tbh. In heavensward we literally cutback all the scions minus 1 to focus on new characters for 80% of the game. It was great and it felt like when they came back they were used properly and more interesting and we got a great story with new characters that got the focus in the meantime. Why ignore a template like that.
That's a totally different context. The Scions were removed from the story because of what happened in Uldah. It made sense. In DT, they just have to come up with excuses for not playing major roles in each scene, because for some reason they just couldn't be there. It was totally nonsensical.
The Alexandria stuff did interest me quite a bit but I also think it was drowned out by the bad pacing. If you think of all the other expansions, they kind of work as arcs in a larger story going at a slower pace and not really tying up all the loose ends. Dawntrail introduced and tied up basically everything in the course of a short JRPG aside from the key. All the characters though, their entire stories were done start to finish in that short time and so they all felt shallow.
honestly, the entire first part of the MSQ was completely irrelevant to me as a player, the right of the dawn servant sounds nice on paper, but instead we constantly go to an area and repeat the same steps everywhere.
*arrive*
- talk to Wuk Lamat
- walk to settlement
- talk to Wuk Lamat
- find the person who gives us our "trial"
- find the person and find out our mission.
- go on this fetch quest to find out how to solve this, meanwhile everyone else fixes these issues no problem. (which also begs the question, with the bird people, that should automatically eliminate both the mamool ja's, since we solved it with the ritual (which Bakool Ja Ja tried to even interfere) and obviously Zarool Ja didn't even do anything, Koana solved it even better than we did.
Alexandria was interesting, once you cross that bridge it finally starts to get interesting, I liked the wild west zone, I don't care much for Erenville, but he was there without being overbearing, he knows the land well and actually helps us get in contact with people, while also allowing us to seperate when it's better to do so (like when we investigate that bandit group, instead of sticking together, we actually seperate first)
but then we enter Alexandria, I was interested the moment we enter, we see architecture from the wild west zone, but ravaged already, what happened?
then Sphene appeared with FF9 music and I was actually loving it, but it was so obvious that Sphene was sus as fuck, she sticks out like a sore thumb, even in Solution 9.
but then it becomes the same old unfortunately, where we just go around and "learn about their culture" ... dude, we're on a mission to kill Zarool Ja, who we know at that point is the KING of Alexandria, meaning that we would effectively declare war against Alexandria ... instead we're learning how they're watering their crops and about some terminally ill kid.
it kinda ramps up again a bit later, but it's such a bad pacing and WUK LAMAT WON'T LEAVE US ALONE FOR 5 MINUTES.
Y'shtola apparently recorded from a home studio owing to having recently had a child. And even if the quality isn't the best, the performance is still fine, so it's really not an issue.
By contrast, the entire US voice acting studio has serious audio issues the entire time through. The amount of compression on their lines compared to the UK cast is absolutely ridiculous, and pretty much all of the performances beyond GJJ are laughably amateur. Plenty of people praise Koana, and yet his VA voices about 7 side-characters with the exact same voice and intonations, suggesting he's less of a "voice actor" and more of "voice haver." And I mean Wuk Lamat dropping the world's fakest Hispanic accent every third line just goes without saying.
Also not having budget to voice the very first cutscene of the expansion... I mean, how greedy you need to be to cut those...
Reminder that we straight up walk away from a terminally ill child with a condition very similar to tempering/sin eater infection and make absolutely no mention to Sphene or anyone else that we could probably cure him.
Hundo percent that's a post msq thing
@@TheChunkeyNinjaI'm doubtful of that, but even if it is that doesn't excuse the fact that not a single one of us ever thought to speak up about it.
@@TheChunkeyNinja and that’s absolutely a problem, because it’s lazy and insults my intelligence as a player. They’re just milking obvious low-hanging fruit for post-game content.
@@TheChunkeyNinjaWhy would it ever be brought up again? Not a single character showed any interest in remembering it for later.
It's like the people who think Gulool Ja's mother will come up later. If that was really going to happen, Alphinaud or Alisae or G'raha or anyone_ would have brought it up to foreshadow it.
@@Dharengo Why not? There are still plenty of things for stories to explore for 7.1-7.3. The sickness, the kid and his military authority, dealing with the soul system, how the two civilizations interacts with each other... Just cuz they don't mention them in 7.0 means it will be not dealt with in patch updates.
EW is a special case where 6.0 resolves all problems, leaving 6.1-6.5 for the 13th and 6.55 to bridge with 7.0. DT should return to the same old format of other expansions, with 7.1-7.3 dealing with immediate threat, then resolve consequences and wrap up the expansion, and 7.4-7.55 bridging to new expansion.
Holy shit, I feely so vindicated, I was making the same exact expression when they made us pair up with WL instead of Alphi and Ali x.x
I’m still feeling the whiplash to be honest. I completely trusted FFXIV to provide a great MSQ, and personally the drop in writing quality was shocking. It felt like bad fan fiction.
@@Salmissa76 it was bad in endwalker as well
Well, I guess we shoudn't take anything for granted
More like a bad nightmare…
exactly, it totally shattered any expectations i had
ive gone from hyped for what comes next to thinking if i should become a story skipper
@@omensoffateendwalker is less good than shadowbringers, but the only true SIN of that expansion was what they did to zodiark. And some points deducted because we have the literal end of the universe hitting us square in the face and no one of importance dies.
I got annoyed with Wuk Lamat near the end of her trials. I was so happy when I went to Shaloni cause she wasn't coming along. Only to have to deal with her again after a few quests. I really don't want to be around her much now.
This, yep.
After the coronation ceremony ended and we headed off with Erenville, I thought, "OK, smart! We definitely needed a break from her, and I'm glad they noticed before it was too late."
.....
Dude even in shaaloani when we get the break from wuk lamat the story is like "you have to help retrieve the bracelet..... that was a gift from wuk lamat"
@@AmallieGames That's actually a good point that I'd forgotten. Even when she finally crawled out of my butt, she left her jewelry behind.
@@AmallieGames I know but I would rather keep company with the bracelet than deal with wuk lamat again.
SE executives basically decided to cut a bunch of writing, this started late shadowbringers, this is why bozja basically just abruptly ended. They thought the story was getting too dark and they wanted things to be more light-hearted. This is also why many thought Endwalker felt rushed and why the ending for Endwalker was so idealistic and basically no major lasting consequences like the death of a major character (but they still needed to wrap up the story). Dawntrail is basically a whole new chapter so this is the full on "happy go lucky" story that the executives wanted.
If I had to guess, they'll see all the massively negative feedback and reverse course HARD... REALLY HARD.
The worst part for me is that this should have been an adventure already. We had all the Azem lore, we know what their position was. This could have been a huge adventure on a new continent. Remove the Scions completely - which would also make it a much much higher impact when they come later! Let us travel with Wuk, Krile and Erenville only (cause they have REASONS to be here). Let the others have a break! Let us make a new group of Tulal people!
I think Dawntrail screams "wasted potential" and "missed opportunity" on every single little corner here. The "wait and see" approach sounds absolutely aweful.
Agreed and glad I’m not the only one who feels its time for the scions to take a backseat and let us the hero go out on our own to make new friends along the way. There’s simply too many characters to sustain. If we want a new story arc we need fresh faces.
Bring Zero. She'd have had a LOT to say about the Solution 9 situation.
Furthermore, even if they felt they must have the Scions, only from seeing Alexandria onwards is enough. As Alisaie puts it, Alexandria is comparable to Allagan shenanigans. That would be appropriate to bring in the Scions because now it is a threat that requires them all. It may have been gratuitous, but it at least marks them narratively as for crises if they are not a focus on the story.
I was OK with Wuk Lamat unit she interrupted my fight in the Last Trial. After we honored her request not to interrupt her fight with Bakool Ja Ja.
They should've done with Wuk Lamat like they've done with Yugiri: mask her or otherwise hide what race she is while introducing her in the prior expacs/updates. Yugiri was introduced in 2.X, 1 and a half expansions before she had her limelight!
its a shame Krile's big moment of character development in this expansion was just learning about her past, so basically she didnt grow at all. moved aside and left to stand in the shadow of the writers new golden girl Wuk Lamat.
She didn't even get to open the gate with her earring.
@@25xxfrostxx indeed, seemed weird that her parents would give her a key, esp. if it was only usable by the king
We spent more time fetching ice cream than we did on resolving Krile’s arc.
@@fredy2041 toxic positivty behavior
@@derpzone7425man this bitch won't disappear he doesn't accept opinions from people who hated msq dawntrail, He is the embodiment of toxic positivity,
I have no problem with the idea of Wuk Lamat as a character, but she should have been part of the supporting cast, not the focal point of the entire story. Helping her become the Dawnservant should have been secondary to the real objective: solving the mysteries surrounding the city of gold, which would have made Krile far more relevant in the grand scheme of things. Going on a journey with Wuk Lamat but contextualizing it around learning more about Krile along the way would have made for a much more balanced story and would have naturally involved the scions a lot more (since they know Krile well by now). Once we help Wuk Lamat take the throne, the narrative could completely transition to one centered around Krile and Erenville.
You just wanna be sensible.
I think she is fine as a main character, since the focus of the story in the first half is the succesion rite to become King.
The second half I would agree she should have become a supporting characters for people like Sphen (which she did do) and having her ideas tested while refusing to yield (which also happened), but letting people like Krile have a bit more focus.
Its like the writer didn't know what to do with her other than her origin story.
@@emilioperez6888 I should clarify, I think we should still journey with Wuk Lamat and help her with her rite of succession, but the story events should not tunnel in on it as the primary focus. In Shadowbringers, the overall goal was to kill the Lightwardens, but most story events did not serve this goal, they existed to flesh out the world, its characters (especially Emet-Selch and Ryne), and other plot points that could be tangentially relevant. Dawntrail barely did this, and when it did, it woefully underdeveloped them.
@@thewallsspeaktome3507 I agree, a main character is only compelling when they have memorable interactions with prominent side characters. Even if the WoL was relegated to a "side character", they should have been given ample opportunity to influence the main character and actually feel like an impactful inclusion in the overall plot.
@@thewallsspeaktome3507 In fact, I know of another character who would have been an even better mentor: G'raha. Experienced head of state, expert diplomat, seasoned adventurer, rebuilder of a civilization. Had HE been the one to join her, rather than WoL, it would have made more sense.
I love how NO ONE in 'New World' so much as mentioned anything like recent hardships. As if the whole 'End of Days' didn't JUST HAPPEN. Completely disconnected. It felt so weird.
It odd innit?
The best lore reason I’ve heard people conjecture is that since there was no primals draining the land of aether after so many summonings that the final days didn’t visit Tural. It’s not a super good reason but it’s decent enough that it makes some sense
Yeah, that's odd, but I'm going to assume that Tural is simply thicker with aether, so dynamis couldn't affect it before we solved the problem. Or they're so generally happy that they didn't really have any fears to manifest.
@@Yesnaught Not sure about that. The despair of the Mamool Ja and their whole, well, eugenics stuff would absolutely have seen some happen. Just seems like they tried too hard to separate this expansion from previous, when the whole foundation for why we love FF14 is because of the previous.
Having come in with Wuk Lamat to essentially put back together a people who were scared from the End of Days events would have been so much more impactful. Her reminding the peoples of who they are, giving them that fighting spirit, etc, instead of 'leaning' about them would have been such a good story to tell.
Honestly they just botched it.
The lines of stagnant aether you can see when zofiark first dies...
At least two of them criss crossed tural both north and south.
For sure they had some final days action.
Otherwise they fucked up with their own planet projection.
The thing about Wuk being around all the time is that this is the first expac where they focused so heavily on one character at the expense of others. Every other expac had an ensemble cast that all had equal paths, equal goals, equal time.
This was fully the Wuk Lamat show and sometimes her friends. It was like Stormblood dealing with Lyse without the Doma cast to shore things up and shift the focus.
The fact they had us literally wait around doing nothing while she got kidnapped was just fucking insulting. Not only was it so entirely predictable that it felt like watching Blue's Clues, but we're standing there with our dicks in our hands and clicking a spot on the ground to wait for her, repeatedly. It genuinely feels like parts of this expansion were actually included out of spite. I hope this is the last time these writers are trusted with the msq.
@@FoxHoundUnit89I would still give them a chance. I think their entire team is still trying to get used to their new structure and expanded responsibilities within Square Enix as a whole.
New blood needs to learn from mistakes and DT is certainly filled with them. I’m sure they’re looking at all the public feedback atm.
@@PanickedPixelexcuses excuses
Guess the fanbase treated lyse too harshly.
@@FoxHoundUnit89just like every other expansion where we stand there and do nothing while plot happens in front of us
Im going to die mad that we didn't get to fight urianger and thancred that would have been absolutely amazing
Solo duty us vs Urianger and Thancred would have been so awesome.
They would have made an interesting dungeon mechanic.
Aside from being a duo boss, imagine Thancred uses his rogue abilities to occasionally try to shoot you off screen during like a pull or something. Or maybe they jump in during one of the fights to let off an attack or two and leave.
I assumed we would have a playful rivalry with the other scions as they follow different claimants, but it turned out to be nothing like that.
In hindsight, Koana's and Bakuul ja ja's teams would've made a LOT more sense as bosses for the first dungeon, rather than entirely random jungle monsters. Heck we already *start* the dungeon fighting Bakuul's gang.
I’m going to defend Zero here.
Zero was a blank canvas because she was basically alien to everything about our way of life. She didn’t eat the way we ate, she didn’t interact with others the same way we do, she didn’t even have friends… because she’s from the void where none of that is the same as on the source.
Wuk Lamat on the other hand does live on the source but she is SO DUMB and SO SHELTERED that it’s hard to imagine her being real in the world of FFXIV.
Lyse had excuses because she had never been to the far East and she hadn’t been home in long time.
Zero and Lyse was alright, the way they behaved was reasonable enough. I just don't like how they de-gothed Zero at the end.
Yeah Zero was better. She wasn't perfect, but at least seeing a Voidsent adjust to our reality was unique and was actually world building.
Zero at least could tell us about the 13th and how things work there. Wuk doesn't even know her own country, so she doesn't tell us much lore...
Zero being so alien and acting like it was fine and all...the first couple times. She did the same *hat tilt* "friendship...?" thing in every single patch, apparently having forgotten any such moments in previous patches. Her character growth was stuck in a loop until the very end.
@@sirzorba7633 Yeah there was ultimately something off about the Void storyline which could be attributed to similar issues as Dawntrail. But since it was overall a shorter story, the issues never got to shine as badly. Both DT and the Void story also felt too isolated, fair enough we had a detour to garlemald for the void stuff, but how come the only void "king" of interest was Golbez, especially for something so massive as Zodiarks remains being used to invade the source.
Would have been better to include more void lords with their own goals for what where to happen when the barrier between the shards would break down, other than just wanting to die. Maybe even had one sneak through the portal and establish his little rule/alliance in a nation we have yet to be at. Instead the setup they have planted feels like it's going to be DT/EW round 3 where everything gets fixed too easily.
I really liked Zero and her character development. I also actually loved the world engulfed in darkness. It had atmosphere and kick arse boss music.
If they had used Koana, Erenville, and Krile as significant anchor characters in addition to Wuk Lamat and had them dive in along with Wuk one by one at the end trial it would have felt so much better.
The Scions were neglected.
Any nameless characters could have replaced them this expansion.
It felt like the Scions were NOT intended to even be there. Writers needed to commit to one or the other.
Scions were there because of the trailer. It’s all marketing
@@omensoffate With how little we saw of the scions, it feels more like false advertising.
@@fredy2041 I don't know, Scions are getting stale for me and after the ending of Endwalker, I thought we were gonna split up and they could introduce new characters. Except the Scions came back immediately again soon after the following patch. We could keep a few (such as Graha) but the rest have goals they want to accomplish and I would wish that they go and fulfill those goals of theirs instead of just following us every time. And I really thought this was the direction they were gonna go when they introduced Zero, not knowing how the story is gonna go I thought she was gonna stay in the source and be another regular character. But alas, she now has her reflection to take care of.
They tried to do this with Wuk Lamat but this was never going to be a long term thing whether or not she was well liked because how is she going to accompany us if she is the dawnservant? She would just be getting the same treatment as Aymeric and Lyse who both need to tend to their nations. Erenville is a welcome addition although he can't fight so that is a problem for trust parties.
In fact, I believe the main reason they sent scions away and bring them back for the few moments is because of trust parties.
But the scions needed to be there so that we can use them for trusts. Unironically. You can tell when the trials happen based on when you have 7 accompanying npcs with you.
Skip more cutscenes. I am sure you will find them somewhere.
Honestly, I think post-trolly should have been the Koana-arc. Wuk Lamat being better suited for staying in town for defense because the strange tech invasion was pushing us to take Koana on the futuristic scifi adventure. This was right up his alley. I loved Wuk Lamat and had no problem with her growth-rate or power-building to the point where she is defeating Bakool Ja Ja. All that felt fine to me and even paced well enough, but her following along post-trolly was just her being there to be there. Yes, she wants to explore and learn of the fate of her missing citizens, but Koana had sooooo many more reasons to come with us into Heritage Found, the defenses of the city being the duty of the new, strengthen and self-assured Vow of Resolve, Wuk Lamat. They could have even kept the train-fight the same, her helping us with the train defense before jumping off and giving an enthusiastic goodluck-sendoff before returning to Tuliyollal. It would have also improved the attempt to redeem Bakool Ja Ja to see him fighting the drones, not alone, but alongside Wuk Lamat. Them side-by-side, building up trust through action.
and apparently, we didn't need Cid/Nero's consultancy at all dealing with high tech problems, could be a good way to feature them but no because the writer didn't know the Ironwork exists.
Or, you know, it could've just been the promised Krile-arc and a bit more Erenville interaction
I just hope in the next expansion Koana takes on a bigger role as a leader or permanent team member. Nothing against Lamat'yi but after her coronation she didn't really had a reason to accompany us at all... and I think the story would've progressed better without her or at least with her on the sidelines.
Also the ending was such a huge wasted potential! It would've been so much cooler if we didn't just kill that Princess and all her folks but instead find a compromise to co-exist as neighbours on a truce until the Scions find a way to either keep the Endless alive without killing Lamat'yi's ppl or find a different solution. This way her "you just need to know them to become friends" moral would've developed a real nice twist and a fat expectation jump on her future character growth...but nah, eliminate both villains and end this farce. I was so disappointed!
@@mannifinalsummer4544 Doesn't work. Sphene existed as a computer program of her past memories and the directives to keep her people alive. There was no peace to be had because there was no way to keep her uploaded people running and she couldn't defy her programing. It was a faulty system based on a need for infinite aether/souls when that was a finite resource. She would have had to kill everyone on the source and still wouldn't have had the ability to succeed, but her machine heart couldn't be reasoned with. Sphene's kingdom was doomed because there was no way to achieve her goal of keeping all her uploaded people running, she couldn't even activate all the personalities she was holding in reserve.
And the uploaded people we met largely understood this and asked us to unplug them. It's not pretty, but it was a doomed society, long past it's time. At least the people of Solution 9 weren't effected.
@@pastaboy1338 I have this feeling since end of EW, alot of story elements from previous expacs are missing, or scarcely mentioned in side quests, which means people doing side quests/role quests have more of an idea about the setting than people who did patch story for EW and DT.... like I was surprised they even brought Vrtra back and Dravanians, but that was literally it, a minute of fan service
I almost couldnt believe Dawn trail was the same game as Shadowbringers.
After going through the MSQ Twice now, the best way I can describe it is as a YA novel. Whereas SHB and Base EW were far more adult in their concept and execution, DT reads like a self-published Young Audience story.
The heavier issues were passed over too quickly with "The power of Friendship" as the explanation.
Legend has it that Square Enix lost the same bet to Disney 14 times in a row, and this song 18:04 was the only way to settle up.
It hits you like a ton of bricks and immediately it become the Lion King.
I actually went into 7.0 with my Wuk-O-Meter at like a 8.5/10 based off of our adventure together in 6.55. But boy howdy did it drop fast and steeply thoughout the msq…
@@fredy2041 How is this harassing the VA?
@@fredy2041 get lost NPC
@@fredy2041 lol you still going around labeling false claims of bigotry about anything Wuk Lamat-related in the TH-cam comments? Pathetic.
People are allowed to criticize the character as annoying and wanting to go away, you know.
Don't feed the trolls, folks. Report and move on.
@@fredy2041 we get it, you hate women
I genuinely thought Wuk Lamat's happy-go-lucky mindset was going to be challenged by some terrible truth the Dawnservant role holds. Like she becomes DS and then her father says "ye btw if you don't sacrifice a baby a year the golden gate opens and the bad guys come through and kill us all. Have fun!" And she'd have to struggle to make a terrible choice (probably negated by something the Warrior does, but still). But no. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. She bungles her way through the expac and learns absolutely nothing
Gulool Ja Ja’s death could have been fixed so easy. Just have WOL team up with Bakool Ja Ja in a solo duty to fight someone augmented with a beast soul like in the savage raids.
We defeat the enemy, see the cutscene with Zarool Ja and cut it with WOL and Bakool Ja Ja sprinting to the throne room. By the time we make it there the king is dead and everyone else is broken, beaten and Zarool Ja is already gone.
Or better yet, a solo instance fighting up to the throne room, only to arrive afterward and have an echo flashback of the Zoraal/Gulool fight, which would make more sense instead of having everyone around watching it happen and not intervening.
Sadly, the conclusion I‘ve arrived at is that the writing was just bad. They wanted to force her onto the throne for whatever reason, giving her no time for true failure or flaws even though that would have made the story much more interesting. The two halves of the story could have been much more interconnected and by doing so, they could have given the plot more room to breathe. They should have let Wuk Lamat fail and learn from her failures. They should have given us more of this rivalry they promised. Maybe they could have had the race to the throne end early because of unforeseen circumstances with the interdimensional fusion. There were so many ways to make the story more exciting, but for some reason they went for the most stale option they could think of.
I feel had been a quiet test audiance, like how would you feel if we did this and made wuka a perm scion for it to be angry backlash for them to just push her to side.
As mixed as the reception is for Dawntrail I'm glad that at least our hero managed to get the vacation we were promised.
Estinien just randomly setting sail on a whim even before the beginning of Dawntrail, going wherever he wind takes him, fighting people and even getting even paid to boot, even tasting the local cuisine that region has to offer, what an amazing summer vacation this guy has experienced. Hope we get ours soon 😅
Out of all the Scions he was the only one that very sparse appearance made sense because of who he is.
Someone on the subreddit said it best: "Estinien got the vacation we deserved."
Beach episode next patch or its busted
WoL should hand over the Azem crystal to Estinien, he does a way better job Azem'ing while WoL plays hype man for the writer's fursona.
If I could've just had an expansion where we go with G'raha and Estinien off to explore Tural while the others did shit with Wuk Lamat only for us to be brought in once shit got serious, I would've been content.
Best part of the expansion was the actual vacation where I got to hang out with my Homeboy Erenville in Arizona.
In retrospect, I don't think I cared much for it at the time, but it's the only zone that felt like a pre-Dawntrail zone. After the MSQ was over, I would have liked more of that.
Quite a few people hated that part, I enjoyed it.
Sadly, even that became about Wuk with the bracelet quest. :/
Hell yeah dude. When that tumbleweed rolled by during the duel I lost my mind laughing.
I even dressed up for it but then the game made me look stupid for it as we pretty much instantly went back lol
I'm not convinced it's a matter of "throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks". The problem with Dawntrail is not the plot, nor new ideas...it is that the writing is just BAD. I physically cringed through half of the MSQ. If ARR was a 5/10, this is a 2/10.
- Wuk Lamat should have remained a scaredy cat and also a bad fighter for the entire story. This is why she NEEDED the WoL on her team. The one thing she IS good at should be that she already understands her people. So instead of each feat having a local help her, she earns her tablets by knowing what the other Promises don't know (such as the alpaca saddle, harvest flotilla, and banana leaf) and uses that to her advantage.
- As for the scions, each Promise should have 2 scions on their team. They simply had to write each Promise to not be cartoonishly evil to begin with so that the scions would be willing to join their team. Imagine how fun it would have been if we actually fought Thancred and Urianger, with them knowing they cant beat us, so they try deterring the WoL with tricks and traps.
- My opinion on Gulool Ja Ja (father lizard) and the invasion, is that it should have never happened. Ketenram should have been the one who died. It doesn't make any sense that Zoraal Ja would leave him alive. When the attack happened my immersion dropped to a 0%. It's not that I don't like sci-fi in FFXIV, but the whole thing was just not good, especially since that entire sequence of people dying the WoL did absolutely nothing. We just watched citizens get massacred.
- They 100% did Krile dirty. She had the earrings, but it didn't even open the gate without the proper "authority", which completely ruins the scene of her parents telling her they gave that to her in hopes to see her again. The baby lizard should have never existed, it doesn't even make sense since Zoraal Ja is the ONLY lizard in Solution 9? So unless he can lay eggs himself Im not convinced he woulda had a child. Another missed opportunity was Erenville entirely not knowing that Krile had to just turn off her parents before he had to let his own mother go.
Anyways, if we had to keep the general plot of 6 feats followed by Alexandria (and all the dungeons and trials) the same. I would rewrite everything else. Absolute terrible MSQ writing.
The new writing team are just not ready to take on a full expansion MSQ if this story had been sidecontent like the Hildebrand plotline it would have been a fun romp, as it is it kinda falls short in far too many ways
I don't really get why they would try targeting a new kind of audience with this expansion when they still require you to get through all of ARR -> Endwalker to get there. The only people who'd make it through all of that story are going to want more of that quality of story telling and those themes. It would only make sense if they had separated this campaign out from the first one (WHICH THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE, HONESTLY) so that the newer audience can choose if they want to start immediately with Dawntrail or go through the original story line.
This video is primarily focused on the story of Dawntrail but I feel like Square Enix fumbled the ball and failed to innovate on anything with this expansion. They had the opportunity to really shake things up and try new systems of engagement but it's still predictable. It really needed something like WoW's Dragonriding Mechanic which surprisingly and significantly changed the feel of exploration.
Personally, I want Dawntrail to be a filler arc. Do you know how frustrating it is that we've been trying to convince people to play FFXIV but they have to get through ARR before they start experiencing the "Good stuff"? So even if the future expansions are much better, we still have to put people through this Dawntrail campaign first?
So yeah, I hope they just abandon whatever plans and ideas they might have had for a new story arc and just start again. Ditch the scions, we've had them for 4 expansions and it's time for new blood. Forget the Warrior of Light's past accolades, they're a stranger in a strange land and no one knows who they are. Lets fuck around with the current job system. They can make up some bullshit about how your job stones are affected by the aether or something in this new world and now you got to level up from scratch with a bunch of new abilities so we can simultaneously keep the balance of ARR->Endwalker in older content but start experimenting with a new class meta so we can get away from homogenized job roles. And since they'd have these two seperate leveling systems this would better support new players wanting to jump into new content without locking them out of experiencing old content since they'd need to level up separately in that campaign arc, further expanding player choice.
I really wish they just focused on either the Rite of succession or Alexandria. There is so much good setup they never capitalize on.
For example, one of the first quests you do is to get taccos with Wuk Lamat. In the background you overhear people saying that the Silverscales were decimated (you killed most of them in the Wanderer's Palace) and are now returning home (probably Mamook) without their blessed siblings (whom you have killed as well).
Wouldn't it have been much better if the people of Mamook are hostile specifically to you, not because they are all racist, but because you have destroyed the fruits of their sacrifice? It would make sense in the wider narrative of the game and effectively takes you out of the equation (as you would be the obstacle in the trial to begin with), allowing for Wuk to learn to mediate and develop her character. Yet there is no payoff to that early setup, which is in my opinion a real shame.
I guess I just wish they've gone a bit deeper with the story.
I'm mad. I was better off not thinking about that far more interesting story tangent. 👍
I think that would have been interesting, but the problem is, Wanderer's Palace is an optional dungeon including it's hard mode varient. While it's unlikely for most to have not done it at least once, there's that chance that a player just ignored the quest and as such, having them be hostile at the WoL likely would lead to more confusion for those players. Its the same kind of issue that the devs had for both the Binding Coils and Crystal Tower (with one had to outright be mandatory due to how intracial the Crystal Tower and a certain cat-boi became to the party.)
I agree with you on a lot of this, but I'd even go as far as to say I didn't dislike the mamook concept either, everyone acts like they're all united but the people of mamook don't feel that way and it's not the wonderful place it's always been. I just wish they put a lot more time into issues like this, the idea they come from not talking to you at all to suddenly "oh its okay here! we'll get you some new plants and you can change your whole lifestyle" and it's all okay in under one level. The whole Rite of Succession felt like it was rushed just to get to Alexandria
@@kiearawagner7901 Yes, I suppose so. To be perfectly honest, I would not mind them making more side content mandatory if it meant a better story.
I doubt anyone regrets having done the Crystal Tower, when Shadowbringers was the payoff for it.
It feels to me like a waste to ignore 10 years of story setup just because someone might have skipped it, but I get your point.
@@Absinthexx7 Exactly. Generations of anger, hatred, bitterness, and war, all while propagating a horrific eugenics cycle that resulted in hundreds, if not thousands of stillbornes... only to be washed away by Kona being like "oh, we got some seeds that can work here."
Like, I have no doubt the post MSQ is going to talk about some of these various topics, I just hope that if they stick with the 7.0 lead writer, he takes a good look at the responses, because there were moments of greatness in the writing and story, but it was hidden behind other issues including trying to push two expansion-worthy storylines into a single expansion.
Preach, you’ve managed to somehow help me sort through the complicated feelings I have with this expansion. I don’t hate it, but every point you’ve made in this video hits the nails on the head. I’m hoping they can somehow turn it around in the patch content and future expansions, and hoping it touches on the aftermath of our actions during the rite of succession.
There’s so much potential sitting and waiting, and they just need to actually use it.
Felt like Bakool Ja Ja and Zoraal Ja's plot were the same exact thing. Both trying to live up to expectations of others and finding purpose. Except Bakool's reasonings for being evil made a lot more sense. Zoraal Ja going from failing the trial to full Sith lord felt out of nowhere to me.
I think Zoraal Ja was the most disappointing character, and botched one at the same time.
On the first half of the MSQ, It appreared to be a disgruntled general that has been on too many battles with too many losses. Kind like general Sheperd from COD MW 2, which would have explained his motivation and objective to being peace by doing the war to end all wars.
It is a flawed character with a flawed view that was challenged by his brother, sister and scions. Maybe he could have changed like Kona, or had a conflict as a general under Wuk Lamat's command on how to run war stuff.
However on the second half of the MSQ, his character changes to a civilian killing cyberpunk Darth Vader. With a different motivation, which is being valued and seen as his own person and not a royalty's son or brother.
I'm fine this being other motivation for his actions, you can combine It with the first one as well. But in the second half of the MSQ suddendly his first motivation is forgotten.
Also, killing civilians goes agasint his character shown when participating in defeating Valigarmanda. He joined our party to defeat It since he said along the lines of "there is no country to rule without its people".
Characters assasination in its finest.
I didn't think anything could make me appreciate Stormblood but here we are.
I would argue that the most divisive cutscene is not the death of the Dawnservant but rather the very end of the Sphene fight.
It is what pushed me and many other from simply being annoyed at Wuk Lamat to actively disliking her and I went into this expansion liking her.
@warhammerguy I already didn't like her and wanted to get away from her, and when almost all my friends abandoned me to guard the fucking door to living memory, my thought was very much 'at least this means there won't be 8 people for the final trial, so I get to do something myself and feel like the WoL mattered to the story at all at least once.' Then she took that away from me, too. And I went from disliking her to never wanting to see her again.
*yells in lowercase* "sfeeeen, lissen to me!"
@@Adu767 "Let's be friends, I just massacred your people but leave their legacy to me" said wuk lamat calmly while beating sphene to death.
Mine was a lot earlier, lol. I liked her enough in the first two zones, but what got me downright hating her was during the Dawnservant ceremony with the cringe "my happiness is your happiness" with Smile playing in the background (to be fair though, at this point, I also became very aware at this point at the fact she stole the spotlight from any other character)
Sphene is basically a primal of the people of Solution 9 without actually being a primal. Shows pure passion and a want of the people amplified to infinity.
She's alexander a primal and not primal technology primal
While also being nearly a rip off of Emet. You could swap the Endless out for the Ancients, Living Memory for Amaurot, and Sphene for Emet and you'd have the same thing. Even down to the sunrise over the broken city after the antagonist dies.
Souls instead of land aether, but yeah. A Primal with extra steps
except somehow she also wants to keep her people alive while most of the people we talk to are not ok with being alive because they are fueled by other lives.
@@Xeare204 shes like ramuh
I find it really sad that the afternoon-long story of the Arcadion made me care more about the people of Solution 9 than the entire latter half of the 7.0 MSQ.
@@Teramoix I didn't even do the raid story because I didn't just not care about the people of solution 9, I actively refused to do anything for them. I'm still mad we did Origenics as a dungeon and didn't blow it up at the end. Fuck every single one of those soul suck scumbags.
The story of the Arcadion also brought up the thought - why didn't Zoraal deploy any of these boss level fighters in his invasions? Used loyal beast-infused soldiers instead of the mindless robots that get slaughtered once the Turali knew they were coming. You basically only fight that one commander, and that's all.
The only thing I didn’t care for is that, assuming it’s like all but the ARR raids (and the first part of Eden) it can be done anytime and make sense for the story at that point, which means we’ll never convince the Alexandrians to stop fucking with souls. I want that shit gone
@pll3827 It was his own idea too!
ye you also dont even care about the scions anymore, they are just puppets for the trust dungeons - so sad.
Around 96 I was already reaching the point of wanting Wuk Lamat to go away, and give the player character some space (it was overbearing and feeling like flat-out babysitting).
When the Scions were taken away from us at the very last second when we enter a Reflection (you know, the thing they are EXPERTS in), I was completely done with the story, since everyone felt kind of out-of-character and dumbed down for the (obvious) purpose of making Wuk Lamat be the center stage no matter what. Krile (who I might add, was heavily promoted for this expansion) getting shafted to a 10-minute story was the final nail in the coffin.
Please explain why Wuk, the one person that's not experienced with dimensional travel or other scientific area, was the one that managed to break into the fight but not G'raha or Krile. I was ready to shoot her myself at that point. FFS this is what the WoL does. This is our day job. We didn't need her help. At all.
@@CixiaKyrrah But we were iNsPiReD by her according to the buff that we get in the final stage of the trial kekw. Sometimes it feels like Wuk is the writer's self insert, but idk.
@@zhenoob Don't forget she has 18 million HP and deals 3 times as much damage as anyone else while she's there. I know it's inconsequential, but I don't understand why they hell they banked EVERYTHING on Wuk; unearned screentime, writer/story focus, power levels - all because she's a nice little ditzy cutie who says she understands.
I could even have dealt with that, if it wasn't for the fact that it was obviously at the cost of intimate and growth moments for all other characters we know and hold dear, especially Krile (absolutely shafted) and Erenville (Lost 30 years with his mom due to chasing Wuk's bracelet for too long in the desert) and written as a contemplative mute in the final zone, which would be some of the most fucking traumatic shit ever.
I just don't get these choices. And it worries me for their future direction.
Honestly the part that almost made me quit playing was when you're forced to play as Wuk Lamat WHILE STANDING RIGHT BESIDE HER. We have only ever taken over characters when WE ARE ABSENT from those scenes. It pissed me off so much that we were forced to play that character in such a horrendously executed fashion. Not to mention the bullshit of her doing *multiple Limit Breaks for no reason other than she borrowed our plot armor*. Like the implication was Dynamis, but that's all it was - an implication that is never explored or addressed ever again. She's basically the Rey of FFXIV. Nothing is earned, and it felt so insulting that they forced us to play her while our character literally stood right there.
@@AverageRandom-n6z i lowkey thought they wrote the story this bad on purpose for clouts. Free marketing. Because if Ishikawa was the supervisor, no way she looked at this and said "oh ok this is good".
Wuk Lamat - Black Hole Sue with 95% screentime and how she warps reality to fit her
Scions and other chars turned to husks with no personality
Horrid story quest and pacing and the sudden jarring shift in tone in second half
Don't get me started on people arguing WoL is a 'mentor' lol, more like a walking camera + cheerleader for Wuk
2/10 MSQ expansion
I'm pretty sure Y'shtolas voice being off has something to do with the VA having a kid around that time
Let's not forget the indigenous American representation in Tural is SUPPOSED to be the Whalaqee, who've been mentioned in the game since ARR, and are a major part of the BLU quests. In fact BLU comes from the Whalaqee. The 1 - 50 BLU questline is about how they see ceruleum mining as harmful to the planet as they see it as the lifeblood of the planet (much like oil mining).
They were absent in Shaaloani and Dawntrail why exactly?
I think theres just more to Tural we havent seen yet purely just cause the Walaqee are present in the Fisher quests
I'm also expecting to see them in 8.45 when the blue mage update to level 100 and we get to learn Tural spells.
@@BlazinVoid59 There's another tribe as well, with mentions of neighboring groups, all within the far north of Tural, that are met in the Tank role quest. It's honestly better than they didn't have one single tribe act as the indigenous American representation.
Pretty much everyone in Tural is supposed to be based on indigenous people, not just the Whalaqee. The Yok Huy are based on the Incas, especially. Google a picture of Machu Picchu and see if its familiar.
The Whalaqee are present in some of the DoH/DoL quests and side quests.
We never reach their far further northern lands either.
When I was reflecting I think they absolutely Messed up not having graha be accompany us in the first half but randomly in the final third.
An xpac focused on exploring a new world and adventure is exactly the dream of graha and to experience it with the warrior of light. We have already done this exact event with the twins times and I don't think they added anything to the story in the first half, they were just there to do menial tasks or bounce off of. Graha was also a leader for many years, especially during trying times and could of invoked his older side especially with plot points like adopted daughter, sacrifice, Alexandria on the brink of destruction, etc. These are all points where graha could invoke his experience and learnings and teacher characters like sphene and wuk lamat.
Regardless what they ended up telling was a story that didn't use any of the strengths of the characters, even wuk lamat. If this was a normal jrpg, vast majority of players would of dropped it in the first half.
For me the writers simply forgot who the Scions were characterwise. All the other expansions the Scions were clearly distinctive from each other but this time they reacted all the same. Alphinaud is the one whos most interested in diplomatic relations but he never ask anything. Alisaie is misstrusting in nature and a hothead but this time she was fine with everything. In every other expansion she would instantly misstrust Sphene from the get go but in DT? no reaction at all. the only time i got the feeling to meet an actual Scion i remember from past expansion was G'raha during the gondola ride.
If they made the entirety of patch content dedicated to tying Dawntrail up that would have helped with the pacing.
An example would be that we don't actually take down Zoraal'ja right away and instead he is a boss for one of the patches as we start storming his kingdom.
The entire MSQ should have ended with Wuk becoming the dawnservant and us not knowing where Zoraal'ja is and what's going to happen with him, saving it for patch content and Sphene not even being introduced until probably the same patch where we find out what Zoraal'ja was getting up to.
I agree! I've been wracking my brain and I think this really is the best way to fix the story even though some things would be different (solution nine zone, the raids, etc). There were things in tural that I genuinely wanted to see while the stakes weren't super high: the people that were against Wuk and supported zoraal ja coming back into play, Koana's past with the nomadic miqote and having to confront it as the dawnservant... and the mamook conflict taking longer than a few minutes. It could've been cool
Agreed! The whole story should have been Tural. Xak Tural should have been part of the trial. There should have been more drama and conflict in the member states you visit. Krile should have gotten focus on confidence building and recollections of Galuf. Erinville could have gotten work on coming out of his shell and spoken more about his relationship or lack there of with his mom. We could have dealt with conflict with the two factions of giants, conflict between Koana and Wuk Lamat, between the Hettsarro and the train builders. We could have seen Shaoloni before the merging and met the waluquee. The Mamook and X’braal relations is rife with potential juicy drama and even the culpability for the man who brought the “peace”. Why weren’t they given lands above the canopy? Why is trade not mandated or an economic solution devised for the ones who stayed? Did he ever try to put a stop to the practice?
The resilient son could have been fleshed out as a more rounded character. The zones could be more fleshed out with the wonderful blue quest chains being incorporated more into the main story instead of being optional.
We could spend some time separated from Wuk Lamat which each fear requiring she do a task on her own and we get given time to do some vacation or just fun stuff without her. Like instead of sitting by a camp fire while she Lama hunts we could have been running down some leads on the city of gold. Erinville and Krile could take the lead.
Heck we could have gotten a near civil war as the climax. Solution 9 could have waited until the patches to start being introduced. With the last patch being the invasion and death of Galuul JA JA. It would have been a very post ARR ending and I think that would be great!
That would have also given us a whole expansion to develop and explore Alexandria.
I wanted something lower stakes than EW or SB and instead they ended with a multidimensional catastrophe aversion story.
The best thing about the expansion is that I realize I judged Lyse too harshly.
Nah. Lyse is judged harshly cuz how little she shined in her own expansion. Wuk Lamat is judged harshly cuz she appears everywhere in her own expansion. Both deserves being judged harshly cuz under-representation and over-representation are both bad.
@@ViewTube_Emperor_of_Mankind Lyse still sucked. A pile of dung doesnt make another pile of dung shine. Its still a pile of dung.
I will still always yearn for the journey with Raubahn I never got.
nah lyse still sucks. both dont need to correlate.
I always liked Lyse and I never understood why people hated her and the whole "she's not Yda anymore" thing... We didn't know Yda at all, we were only treated to a cardboard-cut version of her, and when the time came to flesh out her character, the writer came up with a brilliant twist to add depth to her character that, sadly, not many people appreciated
I really tried to give this expansion a fair shot, knowing that it's the start of a new story arc led by a new writing team, who should be given a chance before everyone goes full doomer.
However after playing it and thinking on it for some time it's clear that there are just SO many problems when you dig even slightly deeper. I don't want to write an essay so I'll summarise it as follows:
- Omnipresence of Wuk Lamat at the expense of every other character
- Neglecting important characters (Krile, Erenville) and rushing their conclusion
- Characterisation overall being poor, with the scions basically being cardboard cutouts, and the villains underwhelming
- The childish nature of the story telling, genuinely felt like I was watching a kids cartoon at times during the 1st half
- Heavy emphasis on telling rather than showing
- Plot contrivance in multiple cases, often caused by our character and others acting stupid and passive
- Shallow world building, few societal problems and those that do exist are solved immediately
- Retreading previous themes in a less interesting way
I think when people say 'It's a new arc, don't expect Shadowbringers/Endwalker levels of hype' what they fail to understand is that it's not about the stakes, its about the writing *quality* which has fallen off a cliff since 6.1.
I'm still going to remain hopeful that they can rescue things in the patches like they did in Stormblood, but my confidence in the writers has been severely dented.
The old head writer, Ishikawa has said that she stopped writing for FFXIV after 6.0 (she contributed to 6.1 sidequests featuring Omega). This is because she got promoted into senior scenario writer which highly implies she is working on another project, perhaps FFXVII. We are under two new head writers who have been around since ARR.
@@coolyeh1017 Right now they need to hit the emergency Isihikawa button, grab her by the shoulders and put her back in the driver seat. There's no saving this MSQ otherwise.
"think when people say 'It's a new arc, don't expect Shadowbringers/Endwalker levels of hype' what they fail to understand is that it's not about the stakes, its about the writing quality which has fallen off a cliff since 6.1. "
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
I've LITERALLY been saying this since 6.1 and people act like im crazy or try to give me the "oh it's a new story" line. Yes, it's a bad story, it's a hap hazzard rushed poorly written immature mess.
Think about it, since 6.1 we have uncovered and ended 2 calamitous world ending threats...where is the low stakes new slow burn setup exactly??? Not to mention they do things like assasinating Vritra, who is an ancient dragon but somehow...SOMEHOW..doesn't understand what a trade agreement is and has to be told be a literal fucking child. Vrtra just gets massacered in EW post patch, and so do the scions in 7.0, they're behaving in this MSQ like they would in some off brand crossover quest, stripped down to their most bare characteristics. They don't contribute much to the story imo, even Krile is just...there.
@@coolyeh1017 Those "new writters" onlyhad roles as a quest designers and one have a visual novel as a project with questionable tags including canibalism but i expected a bit more from the people who did sorrows of werly and the 4 lords and one who worked along in heavensward
@@coolyeh1017l believe Ishikawa is still reviewing at least parts of the story atm. The way I see it, they’ve just had a massive restructuring of their team and are getting used to the new work dynamics, so things are going to fall through the cracks.
It doesn’t excuse the writing quality, of course, but it may bring a bit of understanding to the situation. I enjoyed a lot of the little threads that they left and the overall potential of where the story could go, but reflecting on how we got here and all the little moments that could’ve been done better just frustrates me.
2:00 It's really not, tho. YoshiP is extremely vocal about playing coy not giving out any spoilers while actively putting out massive spoilers in the Fanfests and Live Letters... It just happened before you started playing the game. Just take a look back at what they gave away for free in the Fanfests for Heavensward, Strormblood, and Shadowbringers. They have *never* been afraid to give away spoilers if they think it will build hype and sell the expansion.
That said: It felt like was written by somebody who understood what has worked in prior expansions but has no understanding of why it worked. Just throwing a bunch of random pieces in the bucket:
We need a new character here, but why do all the work to build her up over time (maybe a patch cycle ahead of time) and craft a character which connects with the player when you can just introduce her at the absolute last possible moment and then shove her down the audience's throat?
We need a sad part here, but why make all the effort to build a moment that feels earned when we can just poke the player's emotional scars with a sharp pointy stick?
They used to be so good at this sort of thing that it is absolutely astonishing how quickly they became so bad at it.
I liked the second half of Dawntrail better too, until I thought about it. I think your point about how DT tackles extremely heavy topics like eugenics and war crimes with the energy of a disney movie can also apply to Living Memory. We functionally COMMIT A GENOCIDE in LM, and are essentially just told "don't think about it too hard they aren't real :)". LM had the potential to ask truly harrowing questions on the nature of life and death, what it means to be alive or for a life to have value, etc. Instead, all the people who hail from a society so pathologically afraid of death that they pervert the laws of nature to avoid it, are just... perfectly fine and happy with being erased from existence, so that we don't feel too bad about it I guess. It's insulting,
Tbh my issues with the discourse isn’t even that ppl have mixed feelings, but that the extremes insist on having the most unproductive conversation as possible about it.
While I disagree with Mike on a lot of his points here I appreciate that he clearly has thought a lot about this and understands that there are many different ways to absorb the events of the MSQ.
Would love a non-MSQ breakdown of Mike’s thoughts on the more mechanical aspects (encounter design, QoL releases, etc) though that might be more beneficial after the Bozja-esque content is out.
Thank god. I'm so glad to see big creators not sugarcoat it.
I think having Wuk lose the rite to Koana would be better. This will put Wuk in her place for getting carried too much by the WoL. Then Koana being a smartass that he is would ask Wuk to lead beside him cuz he's bad with people, mirroring the two heads of Gulool in the end. Then, when the dome part started, Koana shouldve just prevent Wuk from going like, "no sis, u staying with me dealing with the invasion, that thing is Scion stuff" and actually do the talk with Azdaja for the cooperation or smth. The dome shouldve been scion only. Shouldve had the WoL linkpearl all the scions and be like, "xcuse me I wanna summon all of u using my crystal, just making sure ur not in the toilet rn or smth" and they be like "yea no prob Azem away" and have the WoL Azem them into the dome.
this is good.
When going to the dome, I thought for sure we were ganna like, leave Wuk Lamat behind because this was a SCION affair. Giant mysterious dome. It felt like a missed opportunity of awesome to be like, "shit just got real, get the scions and lets go check this out.
I disagree.
The scions disbanded, they should not be the main feature of the plot to begin with. They are allegedly meant to be acting as mentors to the new chars at this time but then take valuable screen time away from them in many ocassions. Im fine with Shtola and Graha showing up later when they make sense to but do we really need a boat ride with G'Raha?
The scions need to take a back foot and let a new cast of characters build up.
@@ridleyroid9060 The Scions never truly disbanded, that was just for the world to believe they did. They basically said to continue to do their own thing but are ready should a new threat appear. I agree that the scions could take a break every once in a while and make way for other/new characters tho, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be more involved. The second half especially is a matter perfectly for the scions to solve and overcome, even the first half. Wuk essencially absorbed all space of the others.
@@ridleyroid9060 i agree but also we should not give badly written characters so much screen time. If Wuk was a well written character, there would be like 90% less people complaining. DT was hot garbage, i think most people that liked it also liked ff9. that says little about the story and is more 'vibes/aethetics'
@ridleyroid9060 that's fine and all, but they had a scene where they were talking about the scions getting back together, even if in an unofficial capacity, for this new threat, like it was a big deal. Then it kinda wasn't.
At the very least we should have taken the technically minded Koana and left Wuk Lamat to use her people skills to help with the rebuilding. It was very odd to drag a confused Wuk around inside the dome while Koana did... not much back in Tuliyollal? Alphinaud saved the day by setting up an alliance with Radz and Vrtra, after all.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as a lack of Scions in this expansion is concerned. Though I noticed it from a different perspective: pretty much every quest objective, accompaniment quest and cutscene was about Wuk Lamat, to the point that I was already tired of seeing her quite early on. Also consider this: our "inn room" was introduced very early on, but we never got to use it; more infuriating was how we were told that we and the other Scions could use it to rest a bit, and then it was immediately yanked away from us by more Wuk Lamat story points. And then, to add insult to injury, when we finally do get to use it, Wuk Lamat comes and bothers us within about five seconds and then proceeds to drag us around town for the next thirty minutes. To say that she was an utterly exhausting character would be putting it mildly. We never got any alone time by ourselves, nor any with the Scions either. In short, it felt like Wuk Lamat was being shoved in our faces 200% of the time. That was honestly the reason why Shaaloani unexpectedly became my favorite map, because we finally got a break from her.
As for the MSQ itself, the pacing felt incredibly off throughout every single part. The Feats felt like they took forever, the Heritage Found portion felt oddly accelerated, and then we waste so much time on nonsensical "visits" in Solution Nine. And call me crazy, but I simply couldn't bring myself to feel any sympathy for these death-evading invaders because everything about their society just felt wrong. Sphene herself felt like a fake right from her introduction. More than that, she was rather childish and naive for a supposed "queen", and apparently lacked an understanding of how the Lifestream works. For all that other people claim that Sphene was a "tragic" character, I feel no sympathy for the out of control robot who knew exactly what she was doing and could have course corrected at any time but chose not to.
Erenville was much more interesting to me in Endwalker than in Dawntrail. It felt like they took a good, intelligent character and dumbed him down and turned him into someone he wasn't for this expansion. I don't really agree with the general feeling that Krile didn't get a proper character arc though. The major outstanding questions about her were all answered, and she (and we) got to meet her parents. I mean, yes, Wuk Lamat had far too much screen time, and I would have loved to see more of Krile, but as far her character arc went, I didn't feel that it was incomplete in any way.
I wouldn't compare Wuk Lamat to Lyse if I were you though. Stormblood had pacing issues but overall was a very good, and very human, story. Also, people who truly understood Lyse's character arc know that her growth happened organically and in a way that did not overwhelm every other character's presence. Lyse was also generally far more knowledgeable about her people and a great deal more mature as well. The story also did not devolve into the utter nonsense that was Dawntrail's second half. As for why they missed the mark in several areas, it's because they handed the story over to new writers with an apparent lack of proper supervision. What I can tell you for certain is that this expansion's base MSQ has left me feeling utterly disappointed and exhausted, and I never hang out in the new areas as a result because they remind me far too much of the terrible MSQ I experienced in them. I haven't even yet touched the role quests because they seem so boring, nor the crafter and gatherer quests which, while they do seem interesting, still occur in these new areas that I just don't care for. I also have had no enthusiasm for trying out the new extremes and I find the normal raids to be just plain uninteresting. At this point, I can't imagine the patches redeeming the base, but I hope I'm wrong.
On the subject of expectations: going into Endwalker after Shadowbringers, I felt excitement. Not only because we were going to be seeing more of the ancients and Hydaelyn but because the story generally seemed like it was going to have a lot of great arcs. Going into Dawntrail from Endwalker though, I didn't feel any enthusiasm from the first time I saw the trailer. I kept waiting for the Live Letters to show something that would truly grab my interest, but it just wasn't there. Even the new maps, beautiful as they were, felt more like barely modified rehashes of older and prettier maps. A contest for a throne also hardly seemed like a fascinating story. Even so, I gave Dawntrail a chance to impress me, and it disappointed me every step of the way. In Endwalker, I did miss Shadowbringers a bit, but 6.0 itself was so good that it didn't make me long for it. In Dawntrail however, the nostalgia for both Endwalker and Shadowbringers hit me hard because of how much better their stories were. And that, to me, is what makes Dawntrail bad.
Krile's story didn't feel _incomplete,_ it just felt perfunctory and half-assed. She was with us basically every step of the way, the only character other than Wuk that was present for every single one of the MSQ dungeons, and yet she had barely more than a _third_ of the spoken lines as a character that didn't even enter the narrative until level 97. The entire Golden City plotline was inextricably tied to Krile and her parents, and yet Krile and her gifted earring weren't even allowed to open the freakin' gate without having to hand the moment off to another character. Krile was effectively a mobile set piece for all but like 3 or 4 sequences in the entire MSQ. We got ~30m to meet and get to know her parents, or their memories at least, before we yeeted them out of existence and they shoved Krile back into the wallpaper.
@@KaedysKor I don't agree with the half-assed part, but I agree that we should have seen more of her. However, the premise of her backstory, I think, is itself to blame. Since where she was from and who she was related to were the only real questions about her and one of them was answered in a much more general way by the second half of the MSQ, it gave us less reason to focus on her. So the writers should have given her something else, another arc that would allow her to be more closely tied to the MSQ. I fully agree with you that the entire second half should have been hers.
0:08 Unfortunate cropping
😂 this was great
go to sleep
Honestly for myself, I have to agree with a lot of this video. The general gist I felt about Dawntrails story, mirrors a lot of Mike's points. The scions are just accessories, Wuk Lumat is a rushed story with no real substance that made me appreciate Lyse during Stormblood. The pokebadge tour for Wuk Lumat was painfully slow at times and her constant ignorance with basic principles of the people she's supposed to become ruler over is just not believable. Then we finally get to the pay off, the thing I care about, the actual Golden City. Nope, hard stop, we gotta go do a disney song moment because we have to crown the new dawnservant(s) (lets be honest here, it was so poorly written everyone could see how this was going to end, the whole Yuk Hoy tablet conversation was just missing Dora the Explorer to 4th wall break the audience.)
Then after that? City of Gold? Nope, go to 14's equivalent of Texas. This was the biggest disappointment for me. Honestly, you could remove the entire zone story and absolutely nothing is lost storyline wise. I mean for the love of god, they don't even use real bullets for the duels. Where the hell is the actual stakes? Oh no, I lost, I guess you win the argument. I absolutely hated Shaaloani. If it wasn't for the plot hook of the invasion, I don't know if I would have stayed hooked. Plus seriously, a music montage? When did 14 become a children's movie?
Heritage Found and Living Memory, kept me interested because it was finally a story for us, the Warrior of Light, ya know the ACTUAL main protagonist. There were still issues but at least now I could speculate and I wanted to find out. Absolutely enjoyed my time from this point on, up till the final end trial and the Devs go and pull another insult to the player. Its our moment to shine, to be the hero to save the day, and who comes and steals the spotlight. Yep, Wuk Lumat, with her power of friendship bullshit. You had over half the game, can you piss off and let me be the Warrior of Light and feel like I'm saving the world like we always do every expansion? Nope, Devs got to pull a World of Warcraft moment and we don't' save the day, its the NPCs who are the heroes and we're their accessory.
We like the scions, they've been with us through thick and thin, don't turn them into set dressing and cameo bits. Use them or don't. Hell, even in Endwalker they did a better job of having them involved with us saving the world. The Warrior of Light still saved the day, but the Scions were there to help us. Notice the key word there, HELP, not steal the show.
I understand Yoshi P wanted to step away from dark story lines after FF16, but if you're going to include them don't underplay it. Conflict between Colonization/Modernization and Indigenous peoples/ways of life, resolved with one sentence and never brought up again. Revelation of a culture basing everything in Eugenics, fixed with one town hall meeting. The genocide of the Endless because their way of life conflicts with others, no discussion with everyone else just turn off the computers because we were told to. I would have loved to seen these fleshed out more but sadly I think this is all we're going to get because we have to have more disney music moments instead
And most importantly, if you're gong to say that the story will reveal the real story for a character, especially if they've been stated to be a key part of the story, actually do that. Krile's story was so stop and go, it felt butchered. Oh right, forgot, this isn't about the Warrior of Light or the Scions, its the Wuk Lumat show.
Dawntrail wasn't a story, it was the Wuk Lamut show, with the whole first season cramped into a jumbled mess to get it out on time. If the devs want to know what works for the playerbase and they were just throwing things out to see what we resonate with please take this to heart. We want to be the hero. We want to save the day. Not some random NPC whom when we met they were asking for our help because they needed our strength and then suddenly they become on par with us with no real good reason or sign of growth.
That said, my issues entirely stem with the story and how it was done. Mechanically, I enjoyed the expansion. The dungeons and trials are great. A lot of the classes with their new additions feel great to play. Even the raid serious while quirky is a lot of fun. This the Devs nailed perfectly I feel. So at least my fear of the game not being fun to play is alleviated.
TLDR: My complaints are with the story. Gameplaywise I enjoy it a lot.
Dawntrail, to me, story screams “newly-promoted intern handling a story for the first time.” Disappointing stuff when it comes from such a massive game and makes me worried for the future direction of the game that I’ve literally grown up with.
hoping SE learns they cant just expect people to gobble up the story without having anything else to fall back on, the overwhelming lack of gameplay sections made the story even more of a slog to get through
@@hypersleep9336 I was running an alt through skipping scenes, and in the time it took me to complete my first visit to Urqopacha alone, my alt skipping scenes had cleared the first trial in roughly that time. Maybe half an hour longer. So roughly in the time half of one zone took, skipping scenes finished 2 zones, 2 dungeons, and a trial, give or take a little flex time. I was surprised at how many opportunities we could have had for solo story duties we just didn't get.
This is spot on. The number of times my quest bar said nothing but "talk to x" for hours at a time is insane. If I wanted a visual novel that's what I would have bought, not a fucking mmo.
This was my biggest issue. Give us more voiced battle missions. Let us play the game while you tell the story and possibly make cutscenes more impactful in the process.
The part where you follow 2 different npcs back to back made me legit mad and go “wtf?”
Good thing I enjoyed the story, but I do hope they add more variety to the content.
I hope to never see Wuk Lamat again. That's where I'm after this shitshow poor written story.
Luckily, she is very easily sidelined. Now that she is a Dawnservant, she will serve her people. As a traveler who apparently likes to go to new places and never repeat going back to older places save for some side quests, we never have to deal with Wuk Lamat ever again.
There's this insane belief within circles of the XIV Defense Squad that everyone who disliked DawnTrail had already made their mind up before the expansion launched. I am not someone who hated Endwalker patch content, and I was trying (desperately) to enjoy this expansion. I actually did nothing but look for the positives until the credits rolled, but even despite all of this willingness to engage with a new story, found myself really disappointed in the end.
I was chewing on the walls to get in and the story was so awful it took me three weeks to finish. I finished Endwalker in 3-4 days when it came out.
it felt like most everyone was almost out of character throughout the MSQ, btu then I realized, it's simply because Wuk Lamat takes up so much room, feels like they give no space for other characters, even the Warrior of Light 💀 there were times we could have intervened, but simply stood by and did nothing, heck we traveled to the unverse's end and back, to see the WoL forced to take a back seat in situation we NEEDED to step up, infuriated me xD
Thanks Mike for pointing out the way we take their lumber and walk away. 14 has had a history of dealing with tough realities in the past and I was disappointed we handwaved so many of them here. For me however the biggest problem was not Wuk Lamat or her character but the sidelining of the WoL and of the legacy of what that character used to mean. While we are not always the MC - though never has any MC sucked the oxygen out of the room like Wuk does - BUT we were always the protagonist. We saw other peoples' stories through the eyes of the WoL and as part of our own journey. Here the WoL might as well have been furniture in the room. This reduces the illusion of character ageny to nothing. While it is often noted the WoL has no real agency, the story in the past has created the illusion of agency by having our WoL make "choices" that reflect what we know of their character. Not here. From standing around watching the murder of a head of state and father of an ally to pressing the big button in Living Memory because "they aren't truly alive" . In Living Memory the player is clearly going to remember Emet Selch's words to us - "you are not truly alive ergo I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you". Without getting into any kind of debate about what being alive in 14 consists of, the glaring problem here is that the past lines of the MSQ itself will be ringing in the players ears at this point, not to mention the questlines in Ultima Thule, where we help dead people who only exist as memories rebuild a future. DT's MSQ simply handwaves all this as if our WoL has amnesia. My WoL is literally wearing the title "Barrista at the end of the Universe" over his head while all this is going on. This led to a problem for some of us in which we began to feel a real disconnect between ourselves and our character.
It's not just that Wuk Lamat or any other MC was too omnipresent - it was that the WoL and the MSQ seems to have forgotten their own legacy. For a game so concerned with the past, with memory, and with honoring legacies this was very hard to take.
The only way this can work is if, for some reason, incorporating Ardbert meant that we are starting to think like an Amaroutine, which is why we are standing back and letting atrocities happen, as we become more like Azem and less like the Warrior of Light. But even this would be post-justification for a horrible story, and Azem was known to be unusually kind as an Ascian to the point of aligning with mortal races on the Source for morality, so even that would not work.
@@iantaakalla8180 Not only was Azem kind, but Azem was characteristically willing to think outside normal Amaroutine parameters! And Ardbert was also excessively kind. So we have all that in us now. I hope the writers will remember it and respect it in future.
The raid story is better than the MSQ imo.
I'm more excited to fight for the Heavyweight belt than I am for literally anything else mentioned in the MSQ.
Facts af. The raid story feels like a breath of fresh air. Can't wait to be an MSQ skipper till they get rid of Wuk and get better writers
@@fredy2041 No, that's not why people hate the main story
@fredy2041 Well, heavensward says otherwise. That expansion fcused on alphinaud, Ysaylenand Estinien. WoL barely did much but we were far more connected to that group than Wuk
Which raid story
Another problem with the Hanuhanu not knowing that the float was an arcane focal point, even with the additional "we just thought it was theatrics" line, is that Wuk Evu, a complete outsider who had been there for 3 years, so had attended at least 2 others festivals, knew what the float was for. Why did he know but the actual Hanuhanu did not? Where did he get this information from? Why didn't he tell anyone?
Especially you would think people that are so close to their culture would have beliefs...They wouldn't call it 'theatrics". That's stuff you see in modern society that are starting to put their cultures on the back burner. It just doesn't make any sense. If they wanted to have them forget about their culture they should've tackled a form of colonization, for example, from the Yok Huy who could have enforced their culture on them while they were in power for a couple of generations.
True, it felt like a stand in for wuk lamat wanting the festival. Kona sees the actual issue and goes to deal with it, bakool has no idea but plans to steal Kona’s work at least, no idea what zooral ja does and wuk is sad there’s no festival
Wuk Evu is explicitly there to study the Hanuhanu culture, him knowing isn’t that far fetched imo.
@@Salt_Mage Actually...Does it? You could assume that the Hanu Hanu doesn't have a writing tradition just like the Autochtones people of America which could explain a loss of knowledge over time if elders don't share it perfectly. But then HOW did Wuk Evu learn about it? If there are writings then how did the Hanu Hanu forget? Are they all too dumb to read? However you want to twist it, it's not great. Having an outsider explain a people's culture while every one in that culture is oblivious is just a bad look. You won't see me go to an Autochtone community with my history book telling them about their culture. I would like to attribute this to bad writing, perhaps a course correction like Preach mentioned rather than what you are implying.
Right? Like have the tribal significance, but then have the twins notice the arcane nature of it. And then find out they weren't the smartest because this guy was thinking the same. Only now old guy has a fresh presepective from the new comers and they work together for a solution.
Instead we get the typical Hollywood "everyone before me is dumb and stuck in the old ways, and I can solve all this because I am just that smart and modern."
THANK YOU. This was such a great video. Honestly voicing a lot of how I've been feeling with the story for so long.
Preach does a great job to pointing out the flaws of DT. Many of those I also had while playing the story with my 2 other friends, which also shared the same problems/concerns. It was very cartoonish/unrealistic/idealistic to be plausible and thus enjoyable. From a game that delivered us scenes like Emet's speech about his people being gone and wanting to bring them back, from Seto having one last farewell with Ardbert, to Papalimo sacrificing himself for the greeter good and specially Yda/Lise, to the horrifying death of Tesleen. There are so many moments that are great and show both the good and bad. DT is legit the expansion that mocks all of those moments by reducing it to what the 'SMILE' song entails. Which btw I would like to bring up the song SMILE and the trolley making moment. It's a moment that was done before in ShB when we built the Talos to climb Mount Gulg, hell some of the characters are the 1st counterparts. But while I cherished that moment in ShB because I grew to know the problems of each and every one of those NPCs in ShB I couldn't care LESS about the NPCs in DT, and it was made it double worse for a song that was just telling 'You should be happy now cause they are united. Believe me you united them! LOOK BE HAPPY OK!'
DT is by far one of the lowest moments in in FF XIV MSQ.
At the end of the day, I find that there's just no direction the story is going. At the end of ARR, we still had Lahabrea to deal with. We still had the Garlean Empire on our doorstep. We still had Ala Mhigo to liberate. We still has Ishgard to visit. We still had stuff to do that was teased to us throughout the ARR story.
There's nothing at the end of Dawntrail. We have a key that somehow is connected to Azem and that's it. There's nothing else. Tural is a happy joyous place with sunshine and rainbows and no strife whatsoever. The Power of Friendship ^TM made sure that even the conflict we encountered was resolved with a few words of kindness and a promise to be the bestest leader ever. Solution 9 is shown integrating into Tural society. Every direction they could have pointed the game in was resolved by the end.
Dawntrail fails to setup the future of the game. It felt like a patch MSQ that outstayed its welcome. And the very fact that we have to rely on the patch MSQ to save this is just disastrous.
Sidenote: I ran the Great Gubal Library the other day. You know, that dungeon aaaaaaaall the way back in Heavensward? There's a book there. It teases the City of Gold. A myth that no one has seen, that no one knows where it is. We've been teased about the City of Gold for FOUR expansions. And when we finally get to go hunt for it, we're told within the first half hour of the expansion that it had already been found and the leader of the nation knew exactly where it was this whole time. What the ever loving hell.
The new writers just seem to lack the ability to tease things. They have to say and reveal everything explicitly. They can't even do subtext, they have to literally tell you "I am showing the importance of friendship now" lol.
My biggest problems were the pacing of the first half, all of the filler in the second half, the WoL and Scions becoming side characters and the numerous times we were involved in things that we shouldn't have been.
I think another thing to mention are that the villains of the expansion are very bland. They either have very similar motivations to other characters from previous expansions, or they just are completely uncompelling. I remember when Gra'ha asked Sphene "What will you do when you drain the source of all their aether? It'll be a neverending cycle" and she just had no response and completely ignored the question.
I think they are setting her up to be the end boss of this storyline but as I am already an old fart with health problems I probably won't see it
I do agree that Wuk Lamat was a rushed character and i quickly grew to dislike her. I don't take the hiding new character thing as easy though they did it in post heavensward masterfully with Yugiri.
idk if i buy into the idea that Dawntrail wasn't misleading, like 85% of the content in the trailer happens post-MSQ and the fight with Gulool ja ja is a sparring match instead of a serious conflict.
My main issue isn't with the MSQ as a concept, because I truly did have a good time with Wuk Lamat and parts of the tale. My problem is with the MSQ as a package.
This absolutely felt like 2 different stories that each needed time to breathe.
Like you brought up early on, the main MSQ should have been strictly the Dawnservant trials so that way we could actually get to know some of these characters a bit more. Give them more screentime and not have it *just* be the Wuk Lamat show. Then we could have ended on a cliffhanger with the dome being generated and not having an immediate way in, leaving a great hook for post-MSQ.
It's like a soup was made, but a few steps were skipped. Sure, it's probably still edible by the end, but it's not gonna taste anywhere near as good as if the proper time was taken.
The biggest issue I had with a lot of the obstacles we run into in this MSQ is that we, the WoL are a literal god killing walking fantasy weapon of mass destruction, and then we just sit back and do nothing or pretend we couldn't stop the bad guys from doing something. This also applies to many of the scions, who at this point are all super seasoned at their fields, and Estenien alone could take on half of Tural.
It's crazy how Bakool had the best character arc in DT.
On top of what has already been said, there's so many elements of the DT MSQ that are either extremely jarring compared to the other MSQ, incoherent, schizophrenic or straight out dangerous from a story standpoint going forward, all that because they seem like they didn't take a step back to think about the implications of what they were writing.
Jarring, because the whole south of Tural feels like it's populated by cultures with the political depth of Carebears that have next to no frictions or have some that can be fixed in a single exchange or lucky event, I mean, the war between the Mamool and Hrothgars lasted for at least multiple decades for them to ravage a fifth of the map, discover and grow multiple two-head military leaders which completely warped one of the belligerents' society... and all that stops thanks to a damn barbecue and no resolution to the problems that caused that war? Are you kidding? After the things we saw with the Dragonsong, Garlemald or even the Ala Mhigan refugees?
Same with the Moblins, a whole decade-spanning society changed overnight by a single sentence. This makes them all feel like the cultural equivalent of Potemkin villages, fakes with next to no depth, basically Disney villages, the Smile song not helping with that.
You see more problems inside the Hingan society with only Kugane than you do with multiple cultures in multiple maps in DT.
Incoherent. Basically anything related to Zoraal Ja, like really, anything, we're talking about someone who spent 30 years preparing an attack against an unprepared force, while leading a faction that dominated its own shard... and came up with a kitchen sink army made up of maid robots badly repurposed for war, civilian motorcycles with just a gun strapped on it, forbid the use of feral souls outside of the military to see only one guy use them (while he could've recruited the Arcadion contestants in his army) and his only seemingly real military ship got stared down to explosion by the weakest of the first brood who is on top of that, missing an eye, while Garlemald with massively lower tech put Midgardsomr down.
We're talking about someone who randomly, yet specifically attacked (somehow sliced his back open without killing him) Ketenramm (he's another can of worms, guy is supposedly past his race's life expectancy yet fights and looks better than when he was young, I was expecting some Fountain of Youth given that) to discover after the attack that he had a set of extra keystones which he was about to need, how convenient.
We're talking about a guy who somehow made a kid appear out of nowhere (try to find a mamool in Solution 9) to suddenly be ok with giving him absolute power.
We're talking about a guy those motivations are never really explained or shown outside of the trial where we kill him and never showing his childhood which supposedly was terrible enough to fuel him for more than 50 years.
Schizophrenic, the whole Living Memory zone is a constant back and forth between "They are real livin' beans!" and "It's ok, they are just puppets, shut them down lol!" it feels like it was written by two different persons with the completely opposite view on it, especially after the whole Omicron beast tribe quests, it felt extremely weird on how it handled it. I had an extra backlash at the end of the Alexandria dungeon with Wuk saying "Why would you delete those memories?" while she spent the last two hours erasing everyone else's in Living Memory.
Dangerous, because they introduced multiple very horrible elements for all future discourses of "Why didn't they just use x?" because they seem to have no idea about the implications of what they are writing, the Regulators being the most shining example of that. For the resurrection part to work, you need it to have at least some time-related magic and/or massive healing going on, why?
Because NPCs directly said that it can save you from being crushed to death by accident by a massive stone for example... which would just kill you again after being resurrected since you're still being crushed by it, same with blood loss from missing limbs, does it regrow the limb for you not to die again of blood loss? If you get decapitated, will a whole new body sprout from your neck? Same when dying from an enemy, it takes so much time to resurrect you in a very obvious way that there's almost no military application for an army that mostly deals with melee combat. It's a feature that literally only works if your world is turn-based.
And that's without even talking about the other logistical aspects of it like: "Wouldn't a Turali require 7 times the amount of souls to get resurrected compared to an Alexandrian since the former are from the source and latter from a shard?" among other things.
But the most dangerous element is the fact that those things allow you to remotely rewrite someone's memory just by putting them on their head, imagine if we had that during Endwalker, Meteon alone would've been dealt with just by slapping it on her head, every genocidal villain going forward will have to have a counter mesure to justify not using it on them unless they pull out a moronic "No! I'd rather see the villain wipe out multiple cities rather than do as low as rewriting someone's memories" like they did with the moronic justification as to why they didn't intervene during Gulool Jaja vs Zoraal Ja.
I honestly dread what's coming up. I feel like every time I start thinking a little deeper into an element of DT, I keep finding problems, it didn't happen that regularly with the previous expansions or even ARR.
I don't understand why we can't slap one of those to every scion and world leader. And i would have expected full out war for those immortality devices... But we all know it isn't happening. No one would ever care about vastly superior technology owned by only one nation, right?
Estinien has done this lone wolf thing his whole game career, drg’s sb story is literally peak estinien
I loathe Wuk Lamat. A horribly written character, the VA couldn't do anything to salvage that train wreck. The MSQ was so bad...I quit playing. I just can't. It was that bad. We, as you said, are basically an atomic bomb in an environment where they're using clubs, and we're regulated to watching someone's fetish learn the power of friendship...and sitting idly by while horrendous things happen, because Wuk Lamat. Just. No. I was PISSED when that furball took the glory at killing Sphene. Really? What are we even doing here. The WoL could conquer the whole continent alone, yet...we're the glorified escort/fetch servant of Wuk Lamat. A childish, uninspired character. Straight up 0/10 on the MSQ. The environments and stuff, that is great. The music is terrible in this xpac too, it just does not fit. They screwed up bad on this xpac...very bad.
a big thing for me in DT is the fact that they really hyped up and put a lot of focuses on the scions and that they will be in different teams and compete in the succession only for the actually story to have very little of that kind of element. Krile is also a disappointment for me in DT since this was also supposed to be somewhat Krile heavy but we ended up just getting a little bit fo the story that is actually Krile centric while at other time it feels like she's just there because she have the macguffin earing that we need later in the story. The whole thing with DT being us more or less on the side line and it being more of the journey of Wuklamat is actually something that I'm fine with, do I think that her character can be handled better? Sure. But the real pain point for me is just that they set up the expectation of this expansion being like a fun vacation with the scions and maybe comes with the side of friendly competition between the scions. where as the actual expansion is more like us coming into Tural as the body guard of wuklamat and watch her going through her own story.
Bodyguard... perhaps. I think we were suddenly channeling Emmanellain de Fortemps' defense of Ishgard this expansion. We watched dutifully as the trials happened pretty much without us needing to do more than walk and click villagers so that Wuk Lamat would talk to them. Then we watched more, as cutscenes happened and were drawn out longer than they really needed to be, telling the same message over and over in case we missed it the first two times. And as the story made sure everything that might have been a remotely interesting obstacle was resolved (or just waved away) by other people with minimum of effort, that there was never any reason for us to do anything but go on watching.
how they were marketing it was that this would actually fracture the Scions, they even said "who will you stand with" implying you would have a choice in the matter.
when I saw that I was instantly "oh, i'm joining Y'shtola's team for sure" but then when 6.55 released and we introduced with Wuk Lamat, I was like "yeah ... we will be going with her ... aren't we" I didn't like her in 6.55, she came off way to strong as a first introduction and is also a complete 180 of her actual character in DT.
in 6.55, she comes off as this super confident person who will always forge ahead.
meanwhile in DT
Wuk loses = wuk is sad
Wuk wins = wuk is sad
and in both cases WE need to encourage her to continue.
Another issue I have is how in 6.1 through 6.5 they setup that in order to travel to another reflection (minus the crytal tower method Graha used) you need to find a rift somewhere in your world that connects to that reflection, like the void gate to the 13th, it also makes sense for the 1st since whenever we travel back in the story, we use the portal inside the crystal tower, this again made sense.
now we have this device that can apparently connect reflections together, we don't exactly know how it works yet, but we got a literal device that can connect reflections, since Sphene has been doing this for a while now, even without that device since Galool Ja Ja had it, but I just hate it that finding a portal, means to open said portal and widen it, while also stabilizing it, was just tossed away and be like "yeah, we got this magic device that can do everything now"
"Familiarity breeds contempt" rings true to me as it relates to Wuk. When I went across the bridge, I finally felt relief, but it was too short lived. MSQ left a lot to be desired. It was the most "meh" story to date for me. Hopefully Wuk isn't a big feature in the 7.xx post MSQ, I have spent way too much time with that character for my liking. I wouldn't appreciate Aymeric either if he was around as much as her.
I don't know if complete removal of the Scions is the answer but they have to be either gone or actively participating, not this half-done fan-service thing they did in DT. It would make sense to me that Y'shtola hangs back and works on her 'History of Etheirys' books she's mentioned before, or for Alphinaud & Alisaie to become fully fledged diplomats for Sharlayan and can't adventure with us anymore. This offers opportunities for us to fill the roster with newer characters and have new story arcs instead of Estinien running up to us when a trial is about to start, then fly away when it's over. I think a rotating cast of Scions going forward would be far more interesting.
@@dash_o_pepper Estinien imo is the only character that was done well because of who he is as a person.
"but they have to be either gone or actively participating, not this half-done fan-service thing they did in DT" my thoughts exactly. They have to pick a lane and stick to it. Either let the scions become full background npcs or actually write them doing things. This half-ass thing they did in DT is just not pleasing anyone.
@@Arcturus187 They should've just had the back bone to get rid of the scions at the end of endwalker.
A very fair and well articulated critique. Here's to better days and your continued coverage of FFXIV.