Dawntrail's Misleading Advertising

I agree with this and I think some replies are a little pedantic. The marketing for this expac absolutely didn't live up to what was portrayed. The scions being "divided" is personally my biggest qualm, because that sounded so interesting in theory, but...Thancred/Urianger are still our buddies and we end up working together very quickly with Koana? There was little to no tension between us and any of the Scions which was supposed to be a selling point.

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Originally Posted by Maltrea

While I don't care about trailers being misleading, as they've always just been a tool to generate hype and sell you the idea of the expansion, the keynote address info has been kind of annoyingly inaccurate, as they try to sell you the "vacation", "fun adventure with your friends" and this "playful competition with the scions", but we practically get none of that. Not even in the first part of the MSQ (And whatever traces there are of it, it's completely trampled on by piss poor writing, but that's a whole 'nother matter)

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100% agree with this! The vacation marketing makes absolutely no sense. We're essentially hired by Wuk Lamat to help her win the throne, which is decidedly not a vacation, but even putting that aside...how is anything that happens in the actual MSQ even remotely a vacation?! There are world-ending consequences all over again and it just felt so misleading, especially when I keep being told by people defending DT's writing that this was a low stakes fun little vacay for the wol...

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Originally Posted by Oizen

This was such a big tagline they kept touting and its not even a part of the story.
No battle against the other scions, no heated arguments, quite literally nothing. Nothing except some rocks in a path.

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Seems like Yoshi P is just living up to the expectations he set during the Live Letter Part LXVIII. Yoshi P admitted during that live letter to just ignoring things that are inconvenient in the world of FFXIV or things they don't know what to do with, so it's absolutely no surprise to me the falsely hyped up divide between the Scions ended up getting very little thought.

It kind of reminds me of how in ShB we got told in detail about how the sundering happened because of a huge battle between Hydaelyn and Zodiark ("they fought, and they fought, and they fought... with all her strength she smote him - dealing a blow so devastating that it split the very fabric of reality"), but the metaphorical cutscene from EW doesn't contain any metaphors for this major conflict. To me that also comes off as "ignoring things that are inconvenient."

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Originally Posted by sylphlands

100% agree with this! The vacation marketing makes absolutely no sense. We're essentially hired by Wuk Lamat to help her win the throne, which is decidedly not a vacation, but even putting that aside...how is anything that happens in the actual MSQ even remotely a vacation?! There are world-ending consequences all over again and it just felt so misleading, especially when I keep being told by people defending DT's writing that this was a low stakes fun little vacay for the wol...

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Low stakes (lorewise not combatwise) would have made perfect sense.

I've seen people that like the story argue that people people that don't like it want bigger stakes. That's not true. We just don't like the story, which weirdly had big stake s out of left field. I don't see anyone complaining that the stakes were not as big as Endwalker or Shadowbringers.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

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Even as someone who thoroughly enjoyed Dawntrail. I was *super* disappointed that nothing was done with the "Scions divided" plot point.

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Originally Posted by sylphlands

The scions being "divided" is personally my biggest qualm, because that sounded so interesting in theory, but...Thancred/Urianger are still our buddies and we end up working together very quickly with Koana? There was little to no tension between us and any of the Scions which was supposed to be a selling point.

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I agree that the "Divided Scions" they did alongside the overview of Dawntrail was just a whole lotta...nothing. Sure, it DID happen: "Team Dad is helping one of the other Dawnservant claimants! Oh boy, you got some competition!"...And it amounts to practically nothing.

Sure, they help Koana a handful of times, which results in them helping Wuk and us a bunch of those times because plot. Sure, they give Koana some life lessons with some words once in awhile, if mainly because the devs gotta meet that "Hear, Feel, Think" quota. Then the "Scions Divided" part ultimately fizzles out when Koana goes "I quit, help my sister", and then they help Wuk get the 7th Keystone and peace out. We don't even get fully past the 94/95 zone before the "Scions divided" part is just dropped and we move on.

that bit about the scion division was waaaaaaaaay more ominous than it turned out to be. from the phrasing in the pic op showed, it was implied that the division would happen as some unintended consequence of discovering the city of gold. in reality it was super minor and quickly forgotten about. biggest disappointment by far.

It really just goes to show how they're just scrapping together some random story for Dawntrail.

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

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!