Dawntrail's Misleading Advertising

I took the liberty of uploading each image to imgur as I suspect those discord links will expire soon.

https://imgur.com/qllDCwJ

https://imgur.com/hPvG84a

https://imgur.com/NtzGfQC

https://imgur.com/PnoxEV1
https://imgur.com/coiRrGU

https://imgur.com/GD9QTxM

https://imgur.com/w7KHNrw

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Originally Posted by Rehayem

I wanted to see Scions divided, but SE doesn't allow infighting or betrayal between the group of friends in FFXIV. Heavens forbid to take risks!

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We didn’t even need it to be that dark.
Just a friendly competition.

Thancred showing Alisae WHY he is a seasoned scion (I’ll be honest I think she actually needs a bit of humbling).
Urianger and Alphinaud trying to outsmart each other.

All this while still staying friends.
Even the WoL could have been involved and even be challenged with the reason that they know how we fight or outsmart us by getting us out of the way with using our “help stranger in need” mentality where we still somehow get in time to throw a wrench in their path.
Heck at one point it would have even be fun to go against all 4 of them and show them WHY we are the WoL and by that maybe down ZJ and the others HOW strong we are.

So much potential but they blundered it.

Edit:

Just imagine if one trial (maybe we would have had 4 trials for a change) would have been us be the scions in a friendly match.
A fight against several human enemies would also have made for an interesting extreme with fun mechanics.

I'm gonna be honest , I'm not the biggest fan of beach episode tropical settings but that absolutely was what we were advertised and 100% what we did not get at all.

In truth seeing all the trailers and the promotions I was genuinely expecting something akin to what the Island Sanctuary questline was - little bit of adventure at some unexplored jungle island , hawaiian shirts and beach volleyball , whilst also delving into an ancient city mystery ala El Dorado or Uncharted in the second half. Which honestly I would've been down with at the end of the day.
Instead what we got was.......forced retainer to a princess I could not find myself to care about and once again being dragged into politics and world-threatening events that is something they also told us we would not be involved in because our WoL went through so much so it was time for a break.

Yet here we are. Killed a world-threat tier serpent , found a pool storage of dead babies from eugenics experiments , stopped yet another ancient advanced civilization from sucking our souls dry and wiped the memory banks of the same civilization. All while having the cheerleader pompoms gorilla glued to my hands to cheer on the princess that takes credit for everything I do in her bodyguard service. Cool ,cool.

I just wanted to slam dunk some coconuts in my hawaiian shirt man.

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Originally Posted by GreenLeafy

I'm gonna be honest , I'm not the biggest fan of beach episode tropical settings but that absolutely was what we were advertised and 100% what we did not get at all.

In truth seeing all the trailers and the promotions I was genuinely expecting something akin to what the Island Sanctuary questline was - little bit of adventure at some unexplored jungle island , hawaiian shirts and beach volleyball , whilst also delving into an ancient city mystery ala El Dorado or Uncharted in the second half. Which honestly I would've been down with at the end of the day.
Instead what we got was.......forced retainer to a princess I could not find myself to care about and once again being dragged into politics and world-threatening events that is something they also told us we would not be involved in because our WoL went through so much so it was time for a break.

Yet here we are. Killed a world-threat tier serpent , found a pool storage of dead babies from eugenics experiments , stopped yet another ancient advanced civilization from sucking our souls dry and wiped the memory banks of the same civilization. All while having the cheerleader pompoms gorilla glued to my hands to cheer on the princess that takes credit for everything I do in her bodyguard service. Cool ,cool.

I just wanted to slam dunk some coconuts in my hawaiian shirt man.

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I wish this is what happened too. And you spelled out exactly what we got in DT, and how it was not what we were told we would be doing.

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Originally Posted by GreenLeafy

I'm gonna be honest , I'm not the biggest fan of beach episode tropical settings but that absolutely was what we were advertised and 100% what we did not get at all.

In truth seeing all the trailers and the promotions I was genuinely expecting something akin to what the Island Sanctuary questline was - little bit of adventure at some unexplored jungle island , hawaiian shirts and beach volleyball , whilst also delving into an ancient city mystery ala El Dorado or Uncharted in the second half. Which honestly I would've been down with at the end of the day.
Instead what we got was.......forced retainer to a princess I could not find myself to care about and once again being dragged into politics and world-threatening events that is something they also told us we would not be involved in because our WoL went through so much so it was time for a break.

Yet here we are. Killed a world-threat tier serpent , found a pool storage of dead babies from eugenics experiments , stopped yet another ancient advanced civilization from sucking our souls dry and wiped the memory banks of the same civilization. All while having the cheerleader pompoms gorilla glued to my hands to cheer on the princess that takes credit for everything I do in her bodyguard service. Cool ,cool.

I just wanted to slam dunk some coconuts in my hawaiian shirt man.

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My exact thoughts

Very little of the marketing or lead up to the expansion really contained much of Poochie or how much they planned on pushing her. Sure by the time second Fanfest happened we had 6.55 and were introduced to her, but I didn't get the vibe that we were going to be joined at her hip from how the expansion was presented.

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Originally Posted by Rehayem

I wanted to see Scions divided, but SE doesn't allow infighting or betrayal between the group of friends in FFXIV. Heavens forbid to take risks!

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I still regret that they did not allow Scions to fight Zenos in our body in that duty. That would have been so cool.

Not sure why they have all these lines they are unwilling to cross, it makes the story so limited.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

We didn’t even need it to be that dark.
Just a friendly competition.

Thancred showing Alisae WHY he is a seasoned scion (I’ll be honest I think she actually needs a bit of humbling).
Urianger and Alphinaud trying to outsmart each other.

All this while still staying friends.
Even the WoL could have been involved and even be challenged with the reason that they know how we fight or outsmart us by getting us out of the way with using our “help stranger in need” mentality where we still somehow get in time to throw a wrench in their path.
Heck at one point it would have even be fun to go against all 4 of them and show them WHY we are the WoL and by that maybe down ZJ and the others HOW strong we are.

So much potential but they blundered it.

Edit:

Just imagine if one trial (maybe we would have had 4 trials for a change) would have been us be the scions in a friendly match.
A fight against several human enemies would also have made for an interesting extreme with fun mechanics.

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All these makes sense if we were not stuck playing cameraman.
There was no reason whatsoever for the Scions to go against each other ( in a sportsmanship way) at all because anyone that was not a claimant had absolute no agency, why would they delay the WoL at all...

The more I think about DT... do you guys, remember Team Bakool JaJa 's henchmen? That's us on another team, at least Bakool JaJa was candid with them lmao
Lizard A, Lizard B, Lizard C and Lizard Cameraman.

We were robbed of an adventure, Estinien just lived the dream.
That's what I thought we were going to have, an exploration and sometimes we would cross paths with other characters but we would have a story/discovery/challenges of our own.

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Originally Posted by Rehayem

I wanted to see Scions divided, but SE doesn't allow infighting or betrayal between the group of friends in FFXIV. Heavens forbid to take risks!

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They tease this all the time, and it's always an empty threat. Even the way the trailer was shot for Shadowbringers made it seem like there was going to be some conflict between Alphinaud and the WoL - nothing resembling that happened.

The closest we got was in Heavensward with Urianger palling around with the WoD and Ascians, but even then you knew there was an ulterior motive and explanation just waiting to be put out there.

Since I know they'll never make us enemies against any of these characters, I'd rather them not waste the time creating scenarios that try to "trick" us into thinking it'll happen.

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Originally Posted by MartinFreeman

All good points. While I am not in the meeting room, so I cannot tell you why they made the decision that they did, I have a feeling that the team of FF14 has unfortunately started meeting with their "consultants." Wuk fits a lot of checkboxes for the initiative that the company is finally putting to the forefront, and that also includes the many themes in the story itself to the point this expansion is literally just Disneyland in both presentation and other aspects. From the songs, to the zones, and unfortunately to the narrative. There is no high tension, no point to anything, and love and friendship always wins. That's the theme.

I bet my bottom dollar that this is exactly why they misled us. They did not want to tell their playerbase that they were under new orders from a cultural standpoint. Long live the king.

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https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...3kA/giphy.webp

I feel the same. It's like they either wanted to sell a better story, or many rewrites happened at some point.

I get they didn't want to reveal her during the first Fanfest because of the female Hroth surprise, but by the last one and the extended trailer, there was no excuse to not show her as a very present character if that was the case.

Sure, none of the previous trailers are that accurate, but they're also not misleading. The Dawntrail trailer barely tells us anything about the story, but what it tells us is "we are in Tural with the Scions, and they're trying to figure out something". Also, it's a nitpick, but there's also an interesting shot that shows the long bridge between Tullyolal and Shaaloani, that didn't have any notable mention on the MSQ at all?! We crossed it with Erenville, but there was no scene or commentary in it. I wish there was more to it, specially considering how different and distant it seemed to be. It's like they inteded for something to be there but gave up on it.

Also, something that also makes me suspect rewrites, is the poster:

https://i.ibb.co/0FRPRyZ/dt.png

First, doesn't it seem like Sphene was added later? I feel like she is painted in a different way, and it's not related at all to the characters below her.
Everyone else, is related to the first part of the story. Gulool Ja Ja for some is reason is the largest character. Then the left half is the Wuk Lamat team (minus the twins, which were just as important as Urianger and Thancred in the end), and the right is Koana's team + Zoraal Ja. We would've imagined that Urianger and Thancred would've been more relevant, yet Urianger has like, 12 very generic lines.
And Bakool Ja Ja isn't there, even though he is one of the characters with the most lines, and one of the characters that influence the first part the most.

And now, notice Wuk Lamat's size.
A lot of people compare Wuk Lamat with Lyse, since they're both the main characters of their expansions. But we knew from the very beginning Lyse was going to be important, both from a very large sequence in the trailer (which when it was revealed, we didn't know who she was!), and, look at the poster:

https://i.ibb.co/KNrFpDc/sb.png

She is larger than everyone else.
If Wuk Lamat's part was over after the Rite, the poster as it is would've made sense. But for someone that is heavily around all the time during, treated like the main character the entire game and even the final boss battle, it doesn't look like that's what they're trying to sell us.

Also, in Stormblood, Lyse is the one that got the Yoshitaka Amano collector's art, while in Dawntrail, it's the Warrior of Light. Yet there's people that believe we were never intended to be the main character.

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

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You know, now that you mention it, yeah. Sphene looks completely out of place and shaded differently. Huh.

Those shoes must be seriously tight, to worry about petite issues like this?

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

It's like they either wanted to sell a better story, or many rewrites happened at some point.

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This has been my working theory as well. It would explain the bizarre amount of unvoiced cutscenes, the shoddy writing, and the tone change at lvl 96. I seriously wonder if something had to be reworked at the last minute, it would explain so much.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

The most Karen post I've ever seen.

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Man right here showing and hinting serial killer vibes.....

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

Those shoes must be seriously tight, to worry about petite issues like this?

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It's a whole lot of many "petite issues" that when you put together, create a massive problem.
The way the expansion is advertised and talked about before and during release creates expectations. If the expectations were more aligned with the final product, it's possible that less people would be that dissatisfied with it.
It wouldn't fix the other issues, but it would definitely be one less thing to be upset about.

And I think more than that, this points towards a bigger issue. Why does the material not align with the final product so much, when we never had anything like it happen in the past? Was that deliberate, or the result of production problems?

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Originally Posted by sylphlands

This has been my working theory as well. It would explain the bizarre amount of unvoiced cutscenes, the shoddy writing, and the tone change at lvl 96. I seriously wonder if something had to be reworked at the last minute, it would explain so much.

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I suspect the main story was originally written around conflict between Wuk Lamat and and Zoraal Ja's individual goals, with Krile being a secondary driver and Erenville providing the "bridge," because he had explored the New World on his gleaner travels (not as a native). The story would have led to the City of Gold after exploring the continent for clues to its location and helping its people with their own local conflicts along the way. Koana may have been an actual Sharlayan who was trying to find the City of Gold for his own reasons.

Gulool Ja Ja, not really sure, but he may have been intended to try and prevent the Warrior of Light from reaching the City of Gold, maybe because he knew what was there and was worried about it getting loose.

The Rite of Succession "arc" feels like it took central focus at some point and the more thought-out original story was stapled inside of that arc. New characters were created or altered to fit this new focus (Bakool Ja Ja created, Koana altered to become the second promise). Zones were altered to provide challenges/rewards for the rite of succession. It feels like someone had a "good idea," and meddled with something that would have been much better in the end.

Some of the responses here just show why consumerism works so well. Some people will literally accept anything, and seemingly even prefer lies.

As far as SHB, I think the ratio speaks for itself. It's not misleading and never was.

Misdirection in promotional material isn't a new thing - a lot of us remember the lead up to ShB and how that was being promoted under the guise of becoming a "warrior of darkness" - which we did end up doing - just not in the way you would first expect. THAT'S an example of setting up expectations and then pivoting to something surprising and meaningful. There was no such payoff in the DT misdirection which is why it feels so dishonest this time. I also agree with people that suspect that the DT story was the victim of multiple rewrites.

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Originally Posted by OgruMogru

Misdirection in promotional material isn't a new thing - a lot of us remember the lead up to ShB and how that was being promoted under the guise of becoming a "warrior of darkness" - which we did end up doing - just not in the way you would first expect. THAT'S an example of setting up expectations and then pivoting to something surprising and meaningful. There was no such payoff in the DT misdirection which is why it feels so dishonest this time. I also agree with people that suspect that the DT story was the victim of multiple rewrites.

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This tbh. There's a pretty substantial difference between subverting expectations (SHB) and straight up lying (DT). ������

They really lied to us. In our face, after paying the expansion and having Wuk Lamat forced to our throats.

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

I feel the same. It's like they either wanted to sell a better story, or many rewrites happened at some point...

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I somewhat wonder if the ultimate original plan was for Wuk to have only Wol/Krile/Erenville with them and then have Thancred/Urianger with Koana, or maybe even with Zoraal Ja given he is front and center beside Wuk, but then sometime down the line shifted to "We must make it so ALL the scions are here, no matter how minor" and just threw the twins in with Wuk, and found specific ways to also throw Estinien, Graha, and Y'shtola in the story as well. It's like parts of the story were specifically written or re-written so all the Scions HAD to be included to progress the plot at some point.

If there were a bunch of re-written things, I wonder if that is what ultimately resulted in what we got for Dawntrail as a whole: where they changed so much and didn't have enough time to flesh it out anymore that they HAD to focus on just one or two characters as a whole for the MSQ, giving us Dawnlamat, or Wuktrail, or whatever you want to call it, because it seems odd to look at the MSQ story as a whole and go "This is what the devs and writers genuinely intended Dawntrail to be the whole time."

I think about the loose plot threads of dawntrail like Wuk's Dad or the "Your Role in this is far from over" line spoken to Bakool Jaja and wonder how bad the development must have gone

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Originally Posted by OgruMogru

Misdirection in promotional material isn't a new thing - a lot of us remember the lead up to ShB and how that was being promoted under the guise of becoming a "warrior of darkness" - which we did end up doing - just not in the way you would first expect. THAT'S an example of setting up expectations and then pivoting to something surprising and meaningful. There was no such payoff in the DT misdirection which is why it feels so dishonest this time. I also agree with people that suspect that the DT story was the victim of multiple rewrites.

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I've never understood people who thought we were going to change sides to become “Warrior of Darkness”.

I mean, we had already fought being of pure Light, we already knew that too much of any element was bad, that Hydaelyn wasn't responsible and nothing in the trailer indicate that we were going astray from Hydaelyn motives.

It's not even close of being lied about "exploring an unknown continent" when we are basically doing tourism and Wuk Lamat being absent from nearly all promotional material until the very end where she appear like 10 secondes in the last version of the trailer, while being the overbearingly overpresent main character.

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Originally Posted by Zackneifein

It's not even close of being lied about "exploring an unknown continent" when we are basically doing tourism and Wuk Lamat being absent from nearly all promotional material until the very end where she appear like 10 secondes in the last version of the trailer, while being the overbearingly overpresent main character.

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This felt fishy to me too! She's more of a main character in this expac than the warrior of light, but we wouldn't know that going by both the patches and the trailer. The trailer especially made it seem like we'd be getting the experience that Estinien got. (At least one of my favs is having a good time lol...)

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

It's a whole lot of many "petite issues" that when you put together, create a massive problem.
The way the expansion is advertised and talked about before and during release creates expectations. If the expectations were more aligned with the final product, it's possible that less people would be that dissatisfied with it.
It wouldn't fix the other issues, but it would definitely be one less thing to be upset about.

And I think more than that, this points towards a bigger issue. Why does the material not align with the final product so much, when we never had anything like it happen in the past? Was that deliberate, or the result of production problems?

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It doesn't really matter.

None of the MSQ's has ever been fantastic, not even HW or ARR.. you play therse games most of all for other reasons.

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Originally Posted by OgruMogru

Misdirection in promotional material isn't a new thing - a lot of us remember the lead up to ShB and how that was being promoted under the guise of becoming a "warrior of darkness" - which we did end up doing - just not in the way you would first expect. THAT'S an example of setting up expectations and then pivoting to something surprising and meaningful. There was no such payoff in the DT misdirection which is why it feels so dishonest this time. I also agree with people that suspect that the DT story was the victim of multiple rewrites.

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I was just about to bring this up. How amazing of a twist would that have been to switch sides or at least have to actually harness the power of darkness and get a blessing of the dark to create a sort of balance of the aspecs and give us some new power or tool to work with to solve whatever issue came our way. I was so hyped for them to make this phenominal twist, which had the potential to add so much depth to the story only for it to be just a different name for the same thing that is barely a blip on the radar of the story, while it was almost the entirety of the advertising.

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Originally Posted by OgruMogru

Misdirection in promotional material isn't a new thing - a lot of us remember the lead up to ShB and how that was being promoted under the guise of becoming a "warrior of darkness" - which we did end up doing - just not in the way you would first expect. THAT'S an example of setting up expectations and then pivoting to something surprising and meaningful. There was no such payoff in the DT misdirection which is why it feels so dishonest this time. I also agree with people that suspect that the DT story was the victim of multiple rewrites.

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That's what the people who didn't play FF3 thought. Because it's all down to that. Copying existing plots from previous FF and changing things. The Warriors of Darkness were NEVER different from the Warriors of Light. FF3 has 2 worlds, one of Light and one of Darkness. They are just called that because it's the magic/energy they use more. In both worlds, they are heroes and good people. FF14 drinks from everything the other games of the franchise has. Like a 70% of ideas, lore and more are just copied. Even the music and many names like Krile, Galuf, Venat (ff12) and others.

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Originally Posted by Themarvin

None of the MSQ's has ever been fantastic, not even HW or ARR.

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This is true. And it's also why it's important to keep expectations in check. Especially when it comes to writing.

I mean, we're not talking about MegaTen, Xeno Gears/Saga/Blade, or The Legend of Heroes. We're talking about Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy is a lot like the Tales (series); and while I love both of these, if you're expecting better or more depth than a Saturday morning cartoon, you're only playing yourself.

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Originally Posted by Aurumis

That's what the people who didn't play FF3 thought. Because it's all down to that. Copying existing plots from previous FF and changing things. The Warriors of Darkness were NEVER different from the Warriors of Light. FF3 has 2 worlds, one of Light and one of Darkness. They are just called that because it's the magic/energy they use more. In both worlds, they are heroes and good people. FF14 drinks from everything the other games of the franchise has. Like a 70% of ideas, lore and more are just copied. Even the music and many names like Krile, Galuf, Venat (ff12) and others.

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Yes and my point wasn't that I was surprised by it in ShB - I too have played 3 - but that the writing and references were well executed and thoughtfully recontextualized so that it enriched the story we got in ShB. This consideration regarding both weaving in past references within DT itself and setting up expectations during promotional materials was executed horribly for DT. No consideration and no follow-through. If I'm promised "the best summer vacation ever" it is not a clever subversion to provide the worst summer vacation ever instead.

I've enjoyed everything that doesn't have Wuk Lamat in it.

...which isn't a lot.

Still remembering when they originally told us Shadowbringers would be about the Fall of Garlemald at the NA fanfest and showed screenshots of the like... two scenes of Estinien and Gaius to drive it in. Or when they really did imply Island sanctuary would be huge and somewhat close to personal housing and started slowly walking it back throughout the expansion until we got what we got. The graphics update for Dawntrail was overhyped by them too. It does look pretty good and generally better, but SE also made it seem like the changes were going to be far more substantial.

They mislead all the time since it's all just advertising, but sometimes it does cross into outright lying too.

Honestly? Just assume nothing in any of the trailers is true unless it shows actual gameplay (you should do this for all trailers anyway) and then ignore any supposed context they give in the launch trailer that has gameplay. Also, just assume everything at Fanfest isn't true or so deeply misleading it might as well be. It's the only way to not be disappointed. Never forget: Basically anytime YoshiP talks, advertising is the main objective.

Upcoming example: People expecting huge changes when they announce whatever is going on with the graphics update at the end of this month. All the changes are almost certainly going to be fairly minor.

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Originally Posted by Coratanni

Is it bad that I actually wanted to join Thancred and Urianger's side and ditch WL?

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Not at all. In fact, I thought we had more to offer in mentoring Koana, and Thancred and Urianger (especially Thancred) were better equipped to mentor Wuk. Wuk is just WoL lite. Our role in her quest came down to hired muscle and yes man. Thancred could have helped Wuk using his experience with Ryne and her self doubt, whereas the WoL could have helped Koana with the more human side of ruling.

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Originally Posted by Coratanni

Is it bad that I actually wanted to join Thancred and Urianger's side and ditch WL?

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The entire 1st part of the MSQ I just kept wanting to join Koana. As the feat went on we got to see more and more of Koana's changes overtime. With our experience traveling all over and actually having seen, and taken part in, many different cultures around the star, we could've helped Koana grow from someone who seemed to not really care at all about his nation's culture and was adamant that technology was the only way forward to someone who learns the importance of it and what culture means about the happiness of Tural's people as a whole and embrace it...

Where as Wuk was just "I love peace, now let's be friends" every step of the way and really barely seemed to change or grow much over the course of the feat and it always got the perfect outcome to nearly every situation because of it as we just yes man her the entire time.

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Originally Posted by Arzalis

Or when they really did imply Island sanctuary would be huge and somewhat close to personal housing and started slowly walking it back throughout the expansion until we got what we got.

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Man I remember when they first introduced the concept of Island Sanctuary , me and my friend that wanted to just be retired farmers at this point were excited we get basically retirement content. They said there would be so much to do - interact and do things with your minions , mounts , have them roam everywhere!! Exploring and decorating your new island freely , you finally get your own gardening plots!! A haven to showcase and have fun with your collections more or less.

As time went on they spoke about it less , and less , and at some point it felt like it was all a collective fever dream until they released it finally , after many delays and pushbacks. To ultimately get....... a tropical reskin of Diadem with extremely rigid decorating , barely anything to do with your minions other than have them as decoration filler and outright useless materials outside of the island. You couldn't even garden with seeds from the main game , it was all new seeds that were just fodder to get the new made up grind currency. That also had basically 0 QoL at initial release by having to pick up your items 1 by 1 from the menus lmao.

And here I was , a still naive me expecting something akin to WoW Garrisons where at the very least I could have a tiny hub of materials that were relevant to all my crafting. Its ironic that they managed to make a genuinely worse and more useless version of that. Imagine how cool it would've been if you as a capped gatherer could choose 1-2 of the legendary/ephemeral nodes to respawn at a timer in your sanctuary. But alas ,nothing but another timesink until you get enough backlog to just leave it to automate itself to grind out the currency for more collectables and glamour. A pity.

Ever since then , good faith I had from years just started to dissipate more and more throughout Endwalker and now DT. The misleading promo just goes deeper and deeper as time goes and I've been on this train ride since 2015. I'm willing to gamble the new different planet exploration content thing is gonna be as boring as Starfield. Island Sanctuary 2.0. - Farmville grind across the galaxy. Please look forward to it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Originally Posted by Arzalis

...Or when they really did imply Island sanctuary would be huge and somewhat close to personal housing and started slowly walking it back throughout the expansion until we got what we got...

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Originally Posted by GreenLeafy

...They said there would be so much to do - interact and do things with your minions , mounts , have them roam everywhere!! Exploring and decorating your new island freely , you finally get your own gardening plots!! A haven to showcase and have fun with your collections more or less...

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Island Sanctuary was certainly hyped up by the devs to be this grand thing, only to ultimately be released as a time-gated, spreadsheet, point and click sim where the mammets do pretty much all of the work and you pay them 300 cowries or so a day to keep things running like a factory. There was nothing really "relaxing" about it in the long run. They made capturing animals complete RNG and also time-gated, made it so you had to really min-max the workshops to get the most out of it, and had to constantly make sure you had large stacks of some specific materials because they were used in so many more recipes then others materials [Laver, Sugarcane and Sap for example are used in 8-9 recipes each and always require several per recipe, where as something like the multicolored isleblooms and palm leaf are used in...2.]

Also the keynote slide, when Island Sanctuary was first revealed...

https://www.pcgamesn.com/wp-content/...er-580x334.jpg

There ain't no horse anywhere. Couldn't even give us that before leaving Island Sanctuary to die.

I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if they WANTED Island Sanctuary to be much more then what we got, but the games spaghetti code just couldn't make it a reality.

I think Sphagetti code is more of a community excuse and the reality is SE doesn't give the game that big of a budget.

If spaghetti code is the reason they can't pull off the things they say they want to do at this point I'd much rather them spend the money ,time and effort on updating or outright changing the game's engine after a decade instead of pushing out a half-baked graphics update that breaks lighting across the game and still keeps half the textures crunchy regardless. Don't care for sugarcoating the pile of outdated code when the rest of the gameplay continues to be ass. Gimme a new plate of spaghetti. Or stop promising us things they literally can't even push out of the dev brainstorming office.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

I think Sphagetti code is more of a community excuse and the reality is SE doesn't give the game that big of a budget.

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Believe me, this game has more than enough budget; it just loves to play it safe because that's Yoshida's directing style, which is ironic since he was the one who took the bold decision of nuking XIV to make ARR. And this isn't speculation, he's said before that there's a structure to everything because it's less risk, more money. I don't know if you played FFXVI: that game has the same issues as XIV despite it's massive budget. The gameplay parts are amazing, but all the dungeons are corridors with mob sections, and the maps are relatively big and open with nothing to discover, and most side quests are "go here, talk to guy, go back".

The only reason why he promoted those modes with grandeur is because he's a good PR speaker. As a director, I don't doubt he was the one who axed chunks of projects. That's why I think he's better off as CEO and brand representative than Director, and I wish XVI and DT made them realize that.

I wanted to feel as though we were actually competing. Not just being along for the ride. Every little thing was weighted in Wuk's favor.

Was a solo instance where we fight Thancred and Urianger as Wuk and Koana race toward a goal really so much to ask for?