Character disconnect and disappointing Player Agency in Dawntrail's MSQ [Spoilers]

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Originally Posted by RabendaShin

Had my character opted not to support Wuk Lamat in her claim for the throne, what would have changed? (...snip...)

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This is honestly a cherry on top all of my issues with DT story. The fact, that people in Tural would have been better off, if we never get there. My WoL actually feels guilty about what happened.

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Originally Posted by Rannie

We tell Vath Deftarms "stfu stop whining and do your job" while mentoring them as an adventurer...

Wuk Lamat we just tell her "it's ok booboo you're great and awesome!"

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We also let that mage child in ShB role quests get mauled by a bear, watching at it arms crossed with a look of "kid's gotta learn". And there was that time we threw grenades at the Miqo'te who wanted to train up to become nunh or something.

Mentor WoL is always a blast, too bad there's none of that happening in the DT MSQ.

I don't feel like it's that simple.

For one thing, the Alexandrian invasion was so out of left field nobody could have seen that coming and it isn't rational to blame that on the WOL or Wuk Lamat.

Gulool Ja Ja would not have given us the key or told Krile what he knows. We wouldn't have been able to get into the City of Gold without the key and the gem stones.

And Zarool Ja was still a ticking time bomb. I have no reason to think he wouldn't have acted the same way, stolen the key stones and key from that Roegadyn guy, and set all of this into motion if the contest had been all failures instead of Wuk Lamat winning. Gulool Ja Ja is still aging and really old. One of his heads passed away form old age already. And Zarool's desire was to bring WAR across the seas. I don't think for a moment that he could have actually united or conquered the world but it would have surely caused more death than the one attack on Tuliloyol did.

Not to mention what would happen if Bakool Ja Ja still set loose Valigarmanda and we weren't there to stop it because we were taking part in the rite?

While there was tragedy with Zarool's attack, ultimately Wuk Lamat and Koana's joint leadership was the best outcome that was ever going to come from the rite of succession and an old aging man kicking the can down the road would only leave open the chance of him dying WITHOUT an heir and all falling into chaos.

That's not to say I think the DT msq is perfect and doesn't have issues. But I don't buy into the idea that things would have turned out BETTER if we weren't with Wuk Lamat.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

the Alexandrian invasion was so out of left field nobody could have seen that coming and it isn't rational to blame that on the WOL or Wuk Lamat.

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My point was, that without WoL none of the claimants would find the Golden City. So the invasion wouldn't have happened. And without it Zarool wouldn't be a threat to Eorzea (it's clearly stated that they don't have the means to support even cival travel overseas, let alone military). That is not even includung the fact, that a lot of people wouldn't be intersed in actively taking part in the confict. With the exception of Mamool Ja, they are not militaristic types. And even there it's all that popular, as it turned out.

And is WoL truly the person who shold involve themselves in such issues? Are we now going to track every possible "warmongering" person anywhere on the star and try to stop them?
If anything, if an information comes that there is potential threat to Eorzea, Alliance should step in, send some diplomats to try building relations and find out if the threat is even real*. Not WoL to potentially nuke the issue.


*Our whole "reason" to consider this "threat" were words of a complete stranger, who was brought to us by a sometime acquaintance. Why WoL would ever take them seriously is beyond me.

He wouldn't have won the contest, because he wouldn't have gotten that final keystone. But I don't think that would have stopped Zarool Ja from finding the golden city altogether. Despite not being present when we did the 95 dungeon etc he was still able to find his way there after his advisor stole the key and he stole the keystones. Maybe it would have taken him a bit longer. But I have no reason to think Zarool wouldn't have gotten there eventually.

At one point in the MSQ he openly states his intentions. And several npcs support him taking new territory in the early zones. He's not making a secret of his intentions for war. Sure in 6.55 we only had Wuk's word to take for it but not in 6.0. He had supporters, he was the favored candidate at the start. I don't think he would have won his war, but I do believe he would have carried it out either way. Remember that Gulool JaJa is not immortal. Him deciding to not name a successor only punts the question of who will rule next down the road. It does not solve a problem. It only leaves the nation open to further division and civil war when he does pass away or grows too weak to govern.

He has the political clout to draw forces to his side. He has the will to bring war. Even accounting for what happens in the second half of the msq, I think Wuk Lamat and Koana taking the throne is still the better option in the long run. Plus again, whatever havoc Valigarmanda would have wrought if we hadn't been there, and by extension the twins and Krile, when it happened to nip that problem in the bud before it recovered to full strength.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

That's not to say I think the DT msq is perfect and doesn't have issues. But I don't buy into the idea that things would have turned out BETTER if we weren't with Wuk Lamat.

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Originally Posted by Regis_Paran

My point was, that without WoL none of the claimants would find the Golden City. So the invasion wouldn't have happened. And without it Zarool wouldn't be a threat to Eorzea (it's clearly stated that they don't have the means to support even cival travel overseas, let alone military). That is not even includung the fact, that a lot of people wouldn't be intersed in actively taking part in the confict. With the exception of Mamool Ja, they are not militaristic types. And even there it's all that popular, as it turned out.

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What would you define as 'better'? I'm not posing that any story without Wuk Lamat's forced involvement would lead to a 'happier' future or one filled with less conflict. We could have delved into lore of the Golden City alongside Krile and Erenville, their personal goals align with that. We could still have had the Alexandrian invasion in one form or another, had someone else ventured into the other shard. Bakool Ja Ja could have had some screentime of his own while he finally told us the dark parts of his people's culture. Bad events would still have happened, and lead to a similar state we find ourselves in at the end of the Dawntrail MSQ. This includes Wuk and Koana being in charge, because Zarool Ja would have showed his hand, and Bakool Ja Ja would have found understanding.

Like Regis_Paran stated, the threats and turmoil in Tural are very much confined to the events taking place in the trials for ascension. They lack the military force, the technology, and support to conquer. Bear in mind, canonically Eorzea has mechs, lasers, and advanced magics - and have used them before.

Well, that's another problem that Tural is supposed to be a continental power with Zoraal Ja even mocking Garlemald, when from what we see, a single City State of Eorzea with the help of some adventurer and Cid could be enough to drive them off and I'm not including the WoL in that.

It's even more funny when Zoraal Ja said that they just have to invade Sharlayan to take their technology when even Garlemald at the height of it's power was cautious enough to not try it.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

At one point in the MSQ he openly states his intentions. And several npcs support him taking new territory in the early zones. He's not making a secret of his intentions for war..

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I remember that one of those NPCs was a merchant, intersted in expanding their sales to the new teritorries. I do wonder if that merchant would be willing to take up arms and risk their life for it...

Zarool Ja never hidden his plans, true. But do you remember why he wanted war? To make people undersrtand how great peace is. It's extremely convoluted reason in itself. So let me ask you again - how big an army would he truly gather? Again, I'd like ot remind you that as a whole, Tural people are not interested in war or conquest. Would some follow him? Sure. Would they truly be a threat? Debatable at best. And definitely they wouldn't be at the point WoL gets involved.

That's why you need to build actual relations between countires. And not do it as a byline "we signed treaty with Radz-at-Han via linkpearl, that's why wy suddenly have dragon to fight for us".

I was having a discussion elsewhere about why good fiction written in the 2nd person is such a rarity.
The general consensus is that anything written in the 2nd person needs to make a lot of assumptions on the part of the reader to tell its story and when those assumptions are at odds with the reader it becomes hard to keep up the suspension of disbelief.
When you are told how a character feels, thinks or acts in a first or third person perspective medium you might think to yourself "that's stupid" or "well I would do things differently" but this is a different person's story so you keep up the suspension of disbelief.
When a story tells you how to think, act or feel and your reaction is "that's stupid, I would never" it leads to narrative dissonance and you end up not really enjoying the story.

As I was having said discussion something clicked, this is a big part of why I did not enjoy my time with the DT MSQ. Having these feelings of friendship with and unconditional support for Wuk Lamat, and later total agreement with what goes down in Living Memory, forced on the WoL and by extension me.
The WoL is not a premade character like, for example, in other mainline FF titles with their own backstory and motivations I just happen to be in charge of. The WoL has always been my character.
Of course, I always expected to go along with what plot wants, that's how storytelling in an MMO works. However, in the past we have always been able to express dissatisfaction with snarky dialogue choices or have been able to try and futilely argue another point and have that attempt be acknowledged.
DT has robbed me of that outlet leading to this character disconnect and me emotionally checking out of a lot of the story.
When I try to be snarky or brood in silence instead of affirming something I think is dumb it gets framed as "oh no, they're not disagreeing they are in so much agreement they just don't know how to put it into words!"
When I try to argue a different point the game goes "*bzzzt*Wrong answer! Let's pretend you never said that and try again, here let me remove that answer from the selection I'm sure you'll get it right this time."
I know my choices never mattered, I know it's always been an illusion but having that illusion taken from me makes me hate having to go through the experience.

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Originally Posted by Endy_Sinkai

I truly do not understand this whole idea people are coming up with that "this was Wuks story." No. Stop right there ✋️. Every single piece of marketing PR live letter fan fest ect ect said nothing about this being wuks journey.

This was always market since jump as OUR new adventure. So why In the name of bloody twelve am I the BG NPC?

There is a clear difference between 1.0-EW and DT. But at no point where we ever told during any part of the literal year from NA FF to DT launch that this was anything else besides OUR new chapter.

So if you feel lied to by yoshi P and the marketing team then good because you where and you are not a complete white knight simp for this sorry excuse of an msq.

Because had they told us even 1/100th of the truth of what this expansion was I bet no where near the same amount of people would have bought it.

This is the first time since 1.0's launch I genuinely feel lied to by the dev team and wish I could issue a full refund.

I cannot even bring myself to enjoy what content is there because I am primarily a story player and that is a complete mess.

Sorry I have been holding back since I beat the msq on day 3 of early access.

And honestly I wanted to explode with anger then. However I choose to sit on it and see how I felt.

It somehow has gotten even worse the more time I have sat with the story because now that the hype wore off and I can critically think about the story. There where soooooo many plot holes and horrible nonsense writing that its reminded me of season 8 of GOT levels of bad.

Sorry rant over

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I guess if you didn't pay attention the prepatch at all or the live letters explaining our role in things you could come to this conclusion.

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Originally Posted by Regis_Paran

This is honestly a cherry on top all of my issues with DT story. The fact, that people in Tural would have been better off, if we never get there. My WoL actually feels guilty about what happened.

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Wrong. The only way you could come to this conclusion is if you entirely ignore the story that happened and substitute your head canon.

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Originally Posted by CerusSerenade

1. Your breakdown leaves Mamook to continue to bear resentment to the rest of Tural, continue mass baby sacrifices, and continue subverting the rest of the nation.

2. There's nothing stopping Soreel Ja from still stealing the Inter-dimensional Key, Zoraal Ja from stealing the keystones, and opening the Golden City, WITHOUT Wuk Lamat and Koana, and likely with Wuk Lamat and Bakool Ja Ja dead. Therefore he keeps the cheat death device and Tural falls to ruin. The scions will be involved too late and with no information on the golden city gate, letting Sphene commence with interdimensional fusion and end the world.

3. Without participating in the rite with Wuk Lamat, we'd have no authority to learn anything about the golden city, let alone even approach given Mamook guards and hides it.

4. Eerenville would not only have to lose his mother, he wouldn't get any closure either.

You have grossly misunderstood the events of the story to spin this narrative that somehow Wuk Lamat is the cause for everything going wrong. It is entirely off base.

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Originally Posted by Zackneifein

Well, that's another problem that Tural is supposed to be a continental power with Zoraal Ja even mocking Garlemald, when from what we see, a single City State of Eorzea with the help of some adventurer and Cid could be enough to drive them off and I'm not including the WoL in that.

It's even more funny when Zoraal Ja said that they just have to invade Sharlayan to take their technology when even Garlemald at the height of it's power was cautious enough to not try it.

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Yeah it'd be a real shame if Tural military was completely stumped by the enemy having an air force. Not like that was ever an issue for people challenging Garlemald.

Somehow I don't think they could've sweet-talked Vrtra to deal with airships if they were themselves the aggressors. So the whole Tural invasion plan seems like a complete non-threat once we actually see them in action, just like the Alexandrian military turned out to be a complete non-threat. They really, really should have just committed to the vacation adventure plotline instead of trying to immediately have world-ending stakes that collapsed like houses of cards the moment they were even slightly tested.

I was beyond excited for the Final Fantasy IX content/references, yet the entire last map('s plot) was so bad that I couldn't enjoy a second of it.
Why am I playing theater while a companion character is trying to cope with the loss of their mother after thinking her safe and alive just days ago? Why do I have nothing to say to it?

Obviously MSQ will never cater fully to one's own preferences, but this time around it was nothing but a drag. I'm still waiting for the "journey of my life" that the ending song is preaching about.

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Originally Posted by CerusSerenade

Your breakdown leaves Mamook to continue to bear resentment to the rest of Tural, continue mass baby sacrifices, and continue subverting the rest of the nation.

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I will give you our role in ending the children sacrifice. But considering how Bakool Ja Ja and his mother felt about it, change was already on the way. As for the Mamook still resenting the rest - with all due respect - so what? Is that now WoL job to solve tensions inside random nations?

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There's nothing stopping Soreel Ja from still stealing the Inter-dimensional Key, Zoraal Ja from stealing the keystones, and opening the Golden City,

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How would he even know what that key is for? Or that it's even a key? Also, I claim that they wouldn't even find the Golden City without us.

Not to mention, Zoraal Ja only went there because he lost the fight for the throne.
If he won - or if he took the throne by force - he would have no reason to pursue it further, because he would be busy building his army (with debatable reasults, as I wrote in a separate reply).

And neither Erenville wouldn't lose is mother nor other citizens of Yyasulani would lost 30 years and their loved ones outside the dome.

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Originally Posted by Astrus

When a story tells you how to think, act or feel and your reaction is "that's stupid, I would never" it leads to narrative dissonance and you end up not really enjoying the story.

As I was having said discussion something clicked, this is a big part of why I did not enjoy my time with the DT MSQ. Having these feelings of friendship with and unconditional support for Wuk Lamat, and later total agreement with what goes down in Living Memory, forced on the WoL and by extension me.
The WoL is not a premade character like, for example, in other mainline FF titles with their own backstory and motivations I just happen to be in charge of. The WoL has always been my character.
Of course, I always expected to go along with what plot wants, that's how storytelling in an MMO works. However, in the past we have always been able to express dissatisfaction with snarky dialogue choices or have been able to try and futilely argue another point and have that attempt be acknowledged.
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(snip for length)

That's exactly it.
Now I'm a hobby writer and like to roleplay my game characters, make up their backstories and motivations and so on, and as such, I'm used to my characters clashing with a game narrative here and there. Comes with the territory. I've had that in the past with 14 too, but that was different, and I didn't mind that.
In earlier expansions, I had instances where my WOL would handle things differently or feel differently or have different core beliefs than the linear MMO narrative demanded, but that was on me; I'd set up this character and so I'd have an alternative scenario for some situations and outcomes in my head as my personal head story, running parallel to the "official" game story, and it was just fine having that. The difference was, I always thought the overall story was good, it had things to say, and my character overall felt like they had agency and could personalise responses. And I had fun puzzling out how to make a few key changes to my own WOL's story but still let the main narrative continue, connect everything, find the most elegant or fun compromises for those cases. It was part of engaging with the story for me, and I always liked that the game provided me with something I could think about to that extent.

Until Dawntrail I'd never simply had to say, "For the sake of my own sanity, none of this happens, the whole expansion is scrapped" - and at the same time it doesn't even matter because my character had no place in it anyway, except for the rare few moments with Erenville before Wuk Lamat inserted herself into the situation again.

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Originally Posted by Regis_Paran

I will give you our role in ending the children sacrifice. But considering how Bakool Ja Ja and his mother felt about it, change was already on the way. As for the Mamook still resenting the rest - with all due respect - so what? Is that now WoL job to solve tensions inside random nations?



How would he even know what that key is for? Or that it's even a key? Also, I claim that they wouldn't even find the Golden City without us.

Not to mention, Zoraal Ja only went there because he lost the fight for the throne.
If he won - or if he took the throne by force - he would have no reason to pursue it further, because he would be busy building his army (with debatable reasults, as I wrote in a separate reply).

And neither Erenville wouldn't lose is mother nor other citizens of Yyasulani would lost 30 years and their loved ones outside the dome.

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Sareel Ja was able to obtain it on his own for Zoraal Ja, and brought it specifically to open the gate, so I'd say it's pretty obviously apparent that they knew what it was for and was planning on this contingency.

You also seem to forget that Zoraal Ja was always going to lose the last two steps of the rite of succession, meaning that no matter what, he fails, he can't steal it from Koana or Bakool Ja Ja because they would also fail. Koana and Bakool Ja Ja couldn't take on the shade of Gulool Ja Ja themselves.

Again, Erenville WOULD lose his mother, and what's worse is he wouldn't get any closure over the matter. You missed crucial details that mean that Etheirys meets it's ruin without our intervention in both the rites and the events that follow.

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Originally Posted by CerusSerenade

1. Your breakdown leaves Mamook to continue to bear resentment to the rest of Tural, continue mass baby sacrifices, and continue subverting the rest of the nation.

2. There's nothing stopping Soreel Ja from still stealing the Inter-dimensional Key, Zoraal Ja from stealing the keystones, and opening the Golden City, WITHOUT Wuk Lamat and Koana, and likely with Wuk Lamat and Bakool Ja Ja dead. Therefore he keeps the cheat death device and Tural falls to ruin. The scions will be involved too late and with no information on the golden city gate, letting Sphene commence with interdimensional fusion and end the world.

3. Without participating in the rite with Wuk Lamat, we'd have no authority to learn anything about the golden city, let alone even approach given Mamook guards and hides it.

4. Eerenville would not only have to lose his mother, he wouldn't get any closure either.

You have grossly misunderstood the events of the story to spin this narrative that somehow Wuk Lamat is the cause for everything going wrong. It is entirely off base.
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You have grossly misunderstood the initial post I made, instead trying to spin the narrative that I am of the opinion Wuk Lamat is the biggest issue with the story told in Dawntrail. Ad hominem is not a way to address my complaints regarding player agency. Your arguments are entirely off base.

Your breakdown of my argument (and many of the valid additions in this thread by other people voicing their complaints) remains superficial at best, and fails at its core to take into account that in the hypothetical scenario of our character choosing not to aid in Wuk Lamat's trials, none of the other promises would have made much progress either. Galool Ja Ja and the ones supervising the trials would have made sure of that. In example, the moblins tell us forcing someone to become a potsworn is not happening. Similarly, the cooking contest only provides the ones able to listen to the local history with the leaves required for winning.

You can only get to the Golden City with the tablets. No one does the trials correctly, so no one fulfills that objective. No one is able to open the gate, because Ketenram isn't there to get mugged. Even so, no one but Galool Ja Ja would be aware he has the keys.

If we had gone into Tural on our own, instead of as a supporting character for Wuk Lamat, we could still have had an adventure that addressed any of the major plot points. In example, both Erenville and Krile have discovering the Golden City as a goal. They have shown to be avid researchers, knowledgable and unwavering in their efforts to get to the bottom of things. They don't need authority, they never had to before.

I know I am running off hypothetical, but the root issue remains: why did we willingly decide to mess with local politics, despite being warned not to. Why didn't we go with Estinien to play Monster Hunter instead of Dawntrail?

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Originally Posted by RabendaShin

You have grossly misunderstood the initial post I made, instead trying to spin the narrative that I am of the opinion Wuk Lamat is the biggest issue with the story told in Dawntrail. Ad hominem is not a way to address my complaints regarding player agency. Your arguments are entirely off base.

Your breakdown of my argument (and many of the valid additions in this thread by other people voicing their complaints) remains superficial at best, and fails at its core to take into account that in the hypothetical scenario of our character choosing not to aid in Wuk Lamat's trials, none of the other promises would have made much progress either. Galool Ja Ja and the ones supervising the trials would have made sure of that. In example, the moblins tell us forcing someone to become a potsworn is not happening. Similarly, the cooking contest only provides the ones able to listen to the local history with the leaves required for winning.

You can only get to the Golden City with the tablets. No one does the trials correctly, so no one fulfills that objective. No one is able to open the gate, because Ketenram isn't there to get mugged. Even so, no one but Galool Ja Ja would be aware he has the keys.

If we had gone into Tural on our own, instead of as a supporting character for Wuk Lamat, we could still have had an adventure that addressed any of the major plot points. In example, both Erenville and Krile have discovering the Golden City as a goal. They have shown to be avid researchers, knowledgable and unwavering in their efforts to get to the bottom of things. They don't need authority, they never had to before.

I know I am running off hypothetical, but the root issue remains: why did we willingly decide to mess with local politics, despite being warned not to. Why didn't we go with Estinien to play Monster Hunter instead of Dawntrail?

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Your assumption that Zoraal Ja and Sareel Ja wouldn't ambush Ketenram despite having done so with minimal interaction in the final trial is baseless. Sareel Ja clearly has his sources, and while he acts surprised that he had the keystones, he would have likely found out eventually.

As for authority to find the golden city, it's a well guarded secret of the Dawnservant. Defying sovereign authority is kind of a big no-no unless you want to start an international incident, which Krile has the good sense NOT to do. Even then, they wouldn't even be able to interact with it without the tablets and keystones, which they wouldn't be given.

You're not going off hypotheticals, you're going off pure head-canon while ignoring established information.

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Originally Posted by CerusSerenade

Sareel Ja was able to obtain it on his own for Zoraal Ja, and brought it specifically to open the gate, so I'd say it's pretty obviously apparent that they knew what it was for and was planning on this contingency.

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Originally there were three people at the gate - Galuf -who left Tural soon after and is now dead, Gulool Ja Ja and Ketenramm. Unless Zoraal or Sareel happened to overheard them specifically talking about it, I see not reasonable way they could have learn about the key and how to use it on their own.


So without WoL helping to find the Golden City, the only solution for Zoraal would be to give up or try good, old patricide / regiside but without Alexandrian upgrades.

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Originally Posted by Regis_Paran

Originally there were three people at the gate - Galuf -who left Tural soon after and is now dead, Gulool Ja Ja and Ketenramm. Unless Zoraal or Sareel happened to overheard them specifically talking about it, I see not reasonable way they could have learn about the key and how to use it on their own.


So without WoL helping to find the Golden City, the only solution for Zoraal would be to give up or try good, old patricide / regiside but without Alexandrian upgrades.

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So you're just conveniently ignoring the cutscene where Sareel Ja arrives with the key in hand, stating he stole it from the treasury vault, and guided Zoraal Ja to the gate of the Golden City, handing the key to him to which Zoraal Ja uses to open the gate?

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Originally Posted by CerusSerenade

So you're just conveniently ignoring the cutscene where Sareel Ja arrives with the key in hand, stating he stole it from the treasury vault, and guided Zoraal Ja to the gate of the Golden City, handing the key to him to which Zoraal Ja uses to open the gate?

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No. I'm questioning how he knew what it was and how and where to use it. Just another instance of poor writing.

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Originally Posted by CerusSerenade

Your assumption that Zoraal Ja and Sareel Ja wouldn't ambush Ketenram despite having done so with minimal interaction in the final trial is baseless. Sareel Ja clearly has his sources, and while he acts surprised that he had the keystones, he would have likely found out eventually.

As for authority to find the golden city, it's a well guarded secret of the Dawnservant. Defying sovereign authority is kind of a big no-no unless you want to start an international incident, which Krile has the good sense NOT to do. Even then, they wouldn't even be able to interact with it without the tablets and keystones, which they wouldn't be given.

You're not going off hypotheticals, you're going off pure head-canon while ignoring established information.

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Originally Posted by CerusSerenade

So you're just conveniently ignoring the cutscene where Sareel Ja arrives with the key in hand, stating he stole it from the treasury vault, and guided Zoraal Ja to the gate of the Golden City, handing the key to him to which Zoraal Ja uses to open the gate?

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We don't know Sareel Ja's connections, abilities, sources or intentions, he never got enough screentime. You too are going off headcanon and assumptions.
The Scions and allies have ignored authority before. We have done our own research into forbidden locations before. If there were an international incident to happen, Tural would not fare well against the Eorzean forces.

You are accusing me of doing the exact same you yourself are doing. By that merit, none of your contributions to this thread have been any less head-canon than mine. You're ignoring established information as it fits you, as well as the traits of characters that have been with us since before Dawntrail.

I can only assume you enjoyed this expansion's MSQ seeing you act so willing to defend it, and am happy for you that you had a good time.

I think what isn't hitting many of you, and it never really does, is that most of this writing team does not think or care nearly as much about the story as players do. They will read your post, not care, and msq will be more of the same.

This should have been obvious since the patches when they completely failed to set up a premise for even visiting Tural outside "we have nothing better to do".

The thing is, people cling to a handful of very high moments the team has pulled off, mostly in 6.0 and 5.0, and then overrate them as they can do no wrong, when the writers egularly do wrong every expansion.

That's not to say the OP is a waste of time or anything. It's just worth considering when things in the story don't make sense, when lore is screwed, etc it's because the writing team simply doesn't care. Seems obvious. They think combat and graphics will satisfy you enough to coast on vibes

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

I think what isn't hitting many of you, and it never really does, is that most of this writing team does not think or care nearly as much about the story as players do. They will read your post, not care, and msq will be more of the same.

This should have been obvious since the patches when they completely failed to set up a premise for even visiting Tural outside "we have nothing better to do".

The thing is, people cling to a handful of very high moments the team has pulled off, mostly in 6.0 and 5.0, and then overrate them as they can do no wrong, when the writers egularly do wrong every expansion.

That's not to say the OP is a waste of time or anything. It's just worth considering when things in the story don't make sense, when lore is screwed, etc it's because the writing team simply doesn't care. Seems obvious. They think combat and graphics will satisfy you enough to coast on vibes

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Thank you for the edit, I was about to reply with a snarky comment in the vein of "just consume the product, you living wallets".

I am aware of the usual futility of providing feedback like this. I mainly started this thread to see if there were more people who had found the same, after seeing so much overly positive feedback regarding the MSQ on Twitter. That was a real disconnect with reality, too.

The story has never been perfect, but I always came out liking it overall, even the weaker aspects. The quality drop this time is simply baffling though.

Case in point: For a palate cleanser I got my character into some casual crafting, starting almost from scratch cause it's a recently promoted alt. I'm currently in Ishgard helping a little dragonling become a crafter, talking to people, offering guidance. It's utterly irrelevant cutesy slice-of-life optional side quest fluff. And it's got more politics, worldbuilding, local culture, NPCs with (some) discernible personality, and us acting as an accomplished mentor, guiding this little dragon, than any of Dawntrail has. I actually care about this.
It's depressing.

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Originally Posted by RabendaShin

We don't know Sareel Ja's connections, abilities, sources or intentions, he never got enough screentime. You too are going off headcanon and assumptions.
The Scions and allies have ignored authority before. We have done our own research into forbidden locations before. If there were an international incident to happen, Tural would not fare well against the Eorzean forces.

You are accusing me of doing the exact same you yourself are doing. By that merit, none of your contributions to this thread have been any less head-canon than mine. You're ignoring established information as it fits you, as well as the traits of characters that have been with us since before Dawntrail.

I can only assume you enjoyed this expansion's MSQ seeing you act so willing to defend it, and am happy for you that you had a good time.

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It is not an assumption that Sareel Ja stole the Interdimensional key and gave it to Zoraal Ja. This happened, or are you disputing that it did?

The scions don't ignore the authority of nations where they have been firmly warned not to do something when it doesn't directly tie to the sake of the world. Even in times of crisis they don't just ignore the authority of the people they interact with. The biggest example is Sharlayan and Garlemald. It would have been easy to simply wipe out the remaining military forces, but we work with them to our detriment instead.

For me to be doing "the exact same thing as you" I'd have to fail to provide in-game references to why they would do this. I provided reference to Ketennram having the keystones, Zoraal Ja and Sareel Ja having no real interaction with him, yet still ambushing him AND finding the gate to the golden city. Zoraal Ja loses in the rite of succession in all possible scenarios, so nothign would change.

You have "well if we didn't back Wuk Lamat no one would have suffered!" with no substantiating information beside your head canon that somehow Zoraal Ja would ONLY have found the Golden City if Wuk Lamat won, which makes no sense. Zoraal Ja doesn't care about Wuk Lamat winning, he cares about himself losing.

The only person ignoring anything is you, and it's clearly obvious that you either MASSIVELY story skipped, or you're illiterate. Either way there's nothing more to argue. You're just factually incorrect.

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Originally Posted by RabendaShin

Thank you for the edit, I was about to reply with a snarky comment in the vein of "just consume the product, you living wallets".

I am aware of the usual futility of providing feedback like this. I mainly started this thread to see if there were more people who had found the same, after seeing so much overly positive feedback regarding the MSQ on Twitter. That was a real disconnect with reality, too.

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That's why I was editing because I felt like it came across as "this is pointless" when I'm moreso just trying to help people not get so frustrated, even though it's hard, especially when your education or personal interest is in a writing field, you know? I care a lot about stories, but I had to adjust my expectations playing through the game because I realized they're just never going to get the pacing right, lore will be hit and miss, characters won't always be well portrayed etc. Part of that is the talent of any given writer and another is how many different people are on the team I think. It isn't just Ishikawa at a desk, FF has always been an IP where director, producer, translators, even composers, junior writers etc all have hands on the story. That has upsides and downsides.

That problem is compounded by the fact the story has to gel with all these other components i.e. the battle content, crafting content, side quests. Story is such an enormous task not to mention the budget and resources that go toward everything else in the game. Every expansion always has rough spots and more polished spots imo, like they just had more time and resources on a task on any given day. Or that was the day the expert whatever worked on it.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

I think what isn't hitting many of you, and it never really does, is that most of this writing team does not think or care nearly as much about the story as players do. They will read your post, not care, and msq will be more of the same.

This should have been obvious since the patches when they completely failed to set up a premise for even visiting Tural outside "we have nothing better to do".

The thing is, people cling to a handful of very high moments the team has pulled off, mostly in 6.0 and 5.0, and then overrate them as they can do no wrong, when the writers egularly do wrong every expansion.

That's not to say the OP is a waste of time or anything. It's just worth considering when things in the story don't make sense, when lore is screwed, etc it's because the writing team simply doesn't care. Seems obvious. They think combat and graphics will satisfy you enough to coast on vibes

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To be fair, it also doesn't help that a lot of the community has this toxic positivity "The devs can do no wrong" attitude.

Personally, I'm willing to overlook flaws in the writing if the overall experience is fun, but this MSQ was kind of like having your face shoved in some dung and having to pretend you enjoyed it, and there's tons of morons who'll go "Oh! The dung was so lovely! I loved shoving my face in it!" so it's not like SE has all that much incentive to see things changed.

Being overly negative (Like with the OW2 community) has its own issues, but being overly positive just leads to stagnation and a revolving door of players, which is what we're feeling right now.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

To be fair, it also doesn't help that a lot of the community has this toxic positivity "The devs can do no wrong" attitude.

Personally, I'm willing to overlook flaws in the writing if the overall experience is fun, but this MSQ was kind of like having your face shoved in some dung and having to pretend you enjoyed it, and there's tons of morons who'll go "Oh! The dung was so lovely! I loved shoving my face in it!" so it's not like SE has all that much incentive to see things changed.

Being overly negative (Like with the OW2 community) has its own issues, but being overly positive just leads to stagnation and a revolving door of players, which is what we're feeling right now.

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Indeed. It also doesn't help that the team was on an upward trajectory through the last arc. The writing was becoming more and more critically acclaimed over time, which makes it easier to overlook blunders or inconsistencies present in all those expansions and forget just how dull the storytelling can get. I think the toxic positivity is driven around high points in HW, SHB, and now EW, which all had very high "highs". Some players are going to tell you that you just don't "get it" or you're hating because the team had Ws in the past.

And let's just be real some consumers are better at adjusting their expectations to "none" than others when it's convenient for them.

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

To be fair, it also doesn't help that a lot of the community has this toxic positivity "The devs can do no wrong" attitude.

Personally, I'm willing to overlook flaws in the writing if the overall experience is fun, but this MSQ was kind of like having your face shoved in some dung and having to pretend you enjoyed it, and there's tons of morons who'll go "Oh! The dung was so lovely! I loved shoving my face in it!" so it's not like SE has all that much incentive to see things changed.

Being overly negative (Like with the OW2 community) has its own issues, but being overly positive just leads to stagnation and a revolving door of players, which is what we're feeling right now.

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A certain suspension of disbelief is required for any form of entertainment media. It’s also something many writers bank too much on when dealing with Mary-Sues or situations where sharks are in need of being jumped. Regarding the MSQ… all I can say is the classic “I’m not angry, just disappointed”.

I had expected better from this game I enjoyed for its story before, and hope some of the complaints in the forum are addressed. The silence from the devs is deafening, though I don’t expect much.

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Originally Posted by PaleYonder

The story has never been perfect, but I always came out liking it overall, even the weaker aspects. The quality drop this time is simply baffling though.

Case in point: For a palate cleanser I got my character into some casual crafting, starting almost from scratch cause it's a recently promoted alt. I'm currently in Ishgard helping a little dragonling become a crafter, talking to people, offering guidance. It's utterly irrelevant cutesy slice-of-life optional side quest fluff. And it's got more politics, worldbuilding, local culture, NPCs with (some) discernible personality, and us acting as an accomplished mentor, guiding this little dragon, than any of Dawntrail has. I actually care about this.
It's depressing.

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I recommend doing all the role quests after MSQ as a palette cleanser too. Really feels like I have my character back after her being held hostage for 30 hours by the MSQ.

And fuck, the quest hook is "there are beasts running amok"? And when I go to the quest objective, there's a dude there lying on the ground surrounded by purple smoke and I actually fight the damn beasts? Revolutionary.

They even immediately after show how badass the NPC lead of the quest chain is, by having him easily kill some more monsters that show up to threaten WoL. Something I'm told I must hate from the bottom of my heart because of my "main character syndrom", but I dunno, somehow the little agency made all the red go away. It's the darnedest thing.

And when there's another cutscene where the villain gets away, blam, straight from the cutscene into another fight as I'm jumped by the villain's underlings. So it doesn't look like I just let her walk away for no reason. Wow. Gameplay and story? Working together?

Seriously though, is there an entirely different team directing the role quests, and why aren't they directing the MSQ?

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Indeed. It also doesn't help that the team was on an upward trajectory through the last arc. The writing was becoming more and more critically acclaimed over time, which makes it easier to overlook blunders or inconsistencies present in all those expansions and forget just how dull the storytelling can get. I think the toxic positivity is driven around high points in HW, SHB, and now EW, which all had very high "highs". Some players are going to tell you that you just don't "get it" or you're hating because the team had Ws in the past.

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I'll be honest. If the criticism get's Square to finally pull the pants up and care more about the game again then I will "forgive" all this.
I think you are right that the players actually care more about the story then they do and that they probably had a pretty high horse to sit on after EW.
The dungeons showed that a slap in the face to wake them up can actually work (and yes it was the criticism no matter how they want to sell it as their own idea). Lets hope it's the same with the story because it seems to be more players criticizing it then the combat back then.

For me some live letters have shown some kind of disconnect of the devs if not arrogance (Yoshida's "you care so much for the story?" for questions about Azem or that one time with the Hrothgar hair debacle (you know, those stupid pictures?)).
It was sometimes like a mentallity of "too big to fail" or "they will buy it anyway".
Dissapointing in the story though get's bad when that is the thing the game prides itself on and the one thing both casuals and hardcore players enjoy to a big chunk.
There was always some nagging and hating but all in all the story was regarded as good to great. DT... I really don't know when the last time was I saw such a big split everywhere, not just here.

I wait for the first patch and then I will see.

It's just crazy to me that ff14 has that stepchild status at square. It really seems like it was successfull to this day despite Square (not the devs mind you) not because of it.
They have the favourite child ff7 and and then ff14.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

It'll be interesting what interviews and other dev statements are like (such as LLs). EW had this glowing aura around it and a very high MC score. DT is now the lowest. I'm not sure what they can say. "Sorry we f'd that up, please play the patches"? Lol. It's not like they can fix the MSQ, not for this level anyway.

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They probably won't apologize for it nor do I think it is needed (just do better and actually recognize the feedback).
There may be remarks like "we tried something but it was not received as we thought" or "we got a lot of feedback and will look into how to be better to hold your and our standard".

They probably have a few meetings now if only because of the scores on the internet and may slightly adjust the patch story but not much (maybe switch Wuk Lamat for someone else and have no voiceover there).
Who knows. Maybe they even knew that the story would be diverse in the reception and the patch story is somethingelse entirely to then quickly respont to feedback, like the void questline.

It'll be interesting what interviews and other dev statements are like (such as LLs). EW had this glowing aura around it and a very high MC score. DT is now the lowest. I'm not sure what they can say. "Sorry we f'd that up, please play the patches"? Lol. It's not like they can fix the MSQ, not for this level anyway.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I'll be honest. If the criticism get's Square to finally pull the pants up and care more about the game again then I will "forgive" all this.
I think you are right that the players actually care more about the story then they do and that they probably had a pretty high horse to sit on after EW.
The dungeons showed that a slap in the face to wake them up can actually work (and yes it was the criticism no matter how they want to sell it as their own idea). Lets hope it's the same with the story because it seems to be more players criticizing it then the combat back then.

For me some live letters have shown some kind of disconnect of the devs if not arrogance (Yoshida's "you care so much for the story?" for questions about Azem or that one time with the Hrothgar hair debacle (you know, those stupid pictures?)).
It was sometimes like a mentallity of "too big to fail" or "they will buy it anyway".
Dissapointing in the story though get's bad when that is the thing the game prides itself on and the one thing both casuals and hardcore players enjoy to a big chunk.
There was always some nagging and hating but all in all the story was regarded as good to great. DT... I really don't know when the last time was I saw such a big split everywhere, not just here.

I wait for the first patch and then I will see.

It's just crazy to me that ff14 has that stepchild status at square. It really seems like it was successfull to this day despite Square (not the devs mind you) not because of it.
They have the favourite child ff7 and and then ff14.

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I also get the "too big to fail" vibe. And yeah the devs have comments like the one you mentioned, where they point out that players are thinking more about the story than them. They just expect you to vibe your way through the experience because it's a game. It's very unfortunate that certain people on the team just throw their hands up on storytelling because it's a popular game. But they' eat up credit when the writing is praised..

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

I recommend doing all the role quests after MSQ as a palette cleanser too. Really feels like I have my character back after her being held hostage for 30 hours by the MSQ.

And fuck, the quest hook is "there are beasts running amok"? And when I go to the quest objective, there's a dude there lying on the ground surrounded by purple smoke and I actually fight the damn beasts? Revolutionary.

They even immediately after show how badass the NPC lead of the quest chain is, by having him easily kill some more monsters that show up to threaten WoL. Something I'm told I must hate from the bottom of my heart because of my "main character syndrom", but I dunno, somehow the little agency made all the red go away. It's the darnedest thing.

And when there's another cutscene where the villain gets away, blam, straight from the cutscene into another fight as I'm jumped by the villain's underlings. So it doesn't look like I just let her walk away for no reason. Wow. Gameplay and story? Working together?

Seriously though, is there an entirely different team directing the role quests, and why aren't they directing the MSQ?

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Revolutionary indeed! Thanks a lot for that advice, I'll make sure to check that out. I was going to ignore the role quest NPC entirely cause I was so soured on the whole region and the expansion's storytelling.

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Originally Posted by PaleYonder

Revolutionary indeed! Thanks a lot for that advice, I'll make sure to check that out. I was going to ignore the role quest NPC entirely cause I was so soured on the whole region and the expansion's storytelling.

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It's just the MSQ that is an absolute dumpster fire. The Side Quests, Role Quests, and Deliveries are blessedly Wuk free.

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Originally Posted by PaleYonder

Revolutionary indeed! Thanks a lot for that advice, I'll make sure to check that out. I was going to ignore the role quest NPC entirely cause I was so soured on the whole region and the expansion's storytelling.

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If anything most of the side content seems better fleshed out and respectful to the player. I noticed when doing the blue quests for the aethercurrents. I’m considering checking out all of the yellow sidequests for the first time in this game. The cornservant quest was a decent appetizer.

It's sad to say but, after having completed a couple of the Role Quests (Tank, Healer, MDPS and Botanist/Miner) it's clear that those with the skill to craft engaging character driven stories have been put to work on the """optional""" content.

Not to disparage the writing team but, while I found myself thoroughly enjoying and immersed in the small stories, I kept getting pulled out wondering 'why wasn't this in MSQ?'.

These small stories made me feel more integrated into the world, more interested in the customs and cultures of the individuals I was aiding. There was a point in one of those stories (which I will not spoil) that had the NPC companion bring up a really good point that I had not thought of and it felt refreshing. It felt like I was engaging with intelligent characters who could look at the world with different perspectives from their own experiences that mirrored my own.

I ended up crying over the resolution to one of the quest lines despite not dropping a single tear during MSQ, it moved me so much and this was because we were slowly building connections with the NPCs in the story who were working together, bouncing off of each other, reflecting their flaws and faults back at one another, reacting naturally. And to top it off, there was, once again, acknowledgement of the WOL and their accomplishments and abilities throughout the stories. Even if it's a bit of a cop-out saying 'say character regards you as xyz now' it was already reflected in the dialogue that, even if that little pop up didn't appear, I would still feel like my esteem with the NPC had changed in some way.

In my humble opinion, this is what Dawntrail should have been at it's heart. Not about supporting a candidate in a cross-country propaganda tour but as series of smaller stories about working alongside, helping and, sometimes, butting heads against different cultures as we learn more about the continent and it's people.

Looking back on it now, I really thought that's what Dawntrail was going to be (before the patch content with Wuk Lamat came out). I was hopeful that we would be able to go to a foreign land, awash of our titles as Star Savior and Champion of Eorzea and be allowed to be a normal person adventuring and exploring.

As much as the game wants you to think you're on vacation, that you're supposed to relax and take it easy, how can you do that when the reason you're brought to Tural in the first places is by the titles you hold? When you've been singled out because of your skills and experiences and knowledge only to tap out and play games on your phone while you baby sit a sheltered princess who can seemingly do no wrong.

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Originally Posted by arstoka

It's sad to say but, after having completed a couple of the Role Quests (Tank, Healer, MDPS and Botanist/Miner) it's clear that those with the skill to craft engaging character driven stories have been put to work on the """optional""" content.

Not to disparage the writing team but, while I found myself thoroughly enjoying and immersed in the small stories, I kept getting pulled out wondering 'why wasn't this in MSQ?'.

These small stories made me feel more integrated into the world, more interested in the customs and cultures of the individuals I was aiding. There was a point in one of those stories (which I will not spoil) that had the NPC companion bring up a really good point that I had not thought of and it felt refreshing. It felt like I was engaging with intelligent characters who could look at the world with different perspectives from their own experiences that mirrored my own.

I ended up crying over the resolution to one of the quest lines despite not dropping a single tear during MSQ, it moved me so much and this was because we were slowly building connections with the NPCs in the story who were working together, bouncing off of each other, reflecting their flaws and faults back at one another, reacting naturally. And to top it off, there was, once again, acknowledgement of the WOL and their accomplishments and abilities throughout the stories. Even if it's a bit of a cop-out saying 'say character regards you as xyz now' it was already reflected in the dialogue that, even if that little pop up didn't appear, I would still feel like my esteem with the NPC had changed in some way.

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This was my experience as well.
The sidestories are really great this time.

I have a theory, maybe tinfoil hat but whatever.
The sidequests worked because they didn't have to go to a proxy like Wuk Lamat but were directed at only us.
Because there is no character that "remarks" on things just to say something or to be in a scene or to complete a dialogue the NPC's have to tell more and tell it in more detail.

The MSQ had the problem of unnaturla dialogue because in nature the characters have to react to stuff. The other expansions also had this problem but this time almost all of it went through one single character that also had to react.

Just my two cents.

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Originally Posted by RabendaShin

If anything most of the side content seems better fleshed out and respectful to the player. I noticed when doing the blue quests for the aethercurrents. I’m considering checking out all of the yellow sidequests for the first time in this game. The cornservant quest was a decent appetizer.

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Yup, that's what I'm doing right now. Crafting, side quests, slowly starting to level jobs - nice and relaxing. Just like this expansion's supposed to be. Too bad MSQ writer(s) didn't get the memo.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

I think what isn't hitting many of you, and it never really does, is that most of this writing team does not think or care nearly as much about the story as players do. They will read your post, not care, and msq will be more of the same.

This should have been obvious since the patches when they completely failed to set up a premise for even visiting Tural outside "we have nothing better to do".

The thing is, people cling to a handful of very high moments the team has pulled off, mostly in 6.0 and 5.0, and then overrate them as they can do no wrong, when the writers egularly do wrong every expansion.

That's not to say the OP is a waste of time or anything. It's just worth considering when things in the story don't make sense, when lore is screwed, etc it's because the writing team simply doesn't care. Seems obvious. They think combat and graphics will satisfy you enough to coast on vibes

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Actually forced to agree.

The first thing most think of when anyone mentions Shadowbringers is the (admittedly absolutely epic) "This is our future. Our Story" moment. The elements of the story most think of when Endwalker is being discussed is either 'The Walk' or Zenos breaking reality, scoffing at the apocalypse and then basically telling us we were better than whatever the hell that thing (Endsinger) was.

That means that the chaff gets ignored. Shadowbringers was fantastic. On the other hand it gave us the catastrophic bore that was Ran'jit who kicked everyone's ass effortlessly, and sort-of beat the WoL, the first few times we fought him. Fell down a damn hole but inexplicably survived, was defeated by Thancred but magics himself away somehow. None of which is really explained. Its like they wanted another Zenos but didn't bother explaining why this one was an OP powerhouse. And then reappears from no-where without explanation to fight, and be defeated by, the WoL. That should've been Thancred's win.

And Endwalker - well, the issues with Endwalker's story have been discussed in numerous threads over several years.

But those negatives are all but forgotten because of the aforementioned moments of awesome. Unfortunately, Dawntrail doesn't really have one of those moments per-se. The final boss might have been one if not for the limelight being redirected to Wuk Lamat. I might have said that the 'Vrtra to the Rescue' cutscene might qualify.... but since it was an Endwalker character, and they played Endwalker music, I think that cutscene relies too heavily on nostalgia.