The Negative Impact of Poor Character Writing on the Quality of Dawntrail's MSQ

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

Yeah. There was basically no reaction to Krile being from another shard just an “oh cool whatever”.
Even her musing about why Y’sthola didn’t recognize this while answered was just an offside mumbling of her with Y’sthola right next to her.

Thancred and Urianger were just there in the end because “hey look those guys are still here and fight but we don’t show that and also because of the second trial”.
Anyone remember ARR where Thancred was fighting while Y’sthola was casting flow? That was in ARR and DT has nothing in this regard.
No magic bubble, Scions just standing there.
Vitra was also stupid.
You tell me that big dragon and his brood traveled half the world in what, two days?
How convenient.

The most stupid thing though was the finale right before the final zone.
The scions almost all standing back and not coming with us. Sure you guys. You had to protect the gate that was utterly hidden with 4 mages and 2 close combat fighters. Hmhm sure.
There wasn‘t even a scene showing them fighting not anything even implying they had trouble. Guess they just sit back playing cards the entire time, at least Estenien and Thancred.

The more you look the more plot holes shine through.
For me it seems they really wrote themselfs into a trap with the trust system.
They have to include the scions even though they can‘t utilize them.
Why not give us other NPC’s as trust then?
Why not have Bagool JaJa come with us or Koana as well? Heck even introducing a captain of the Guard or something would have worked or even better, don’t kill off Robo-Otis and have him come with us as trust.
Would have also been an interesting meeting with him and his endless version.

The characters are there, the ideas basically write themself.

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It's not even unprecedented. In Ktisis Hyperboreia, the Duty Support during the MSQ is with the Ancients, and as much as I'd just keep that team as Trusts forever, it's obviously not quite feasible, so for the Trust system, we've got our Scions along with us in the distant past. Because it's just a dungeon run for fun, it's fine, nobody cares. They could do that again anytime.

Though I'd have much preferred more of our old company along in the zone, and meaningfully doing something too. There's no reason for them to be underused and waiting outside like this, they're our high-level world-threatening supernatural problem solving team. Ah well.

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Originally Posted by Mnemy

Gods, This is my problem too. Erenville was done so dirty in this expac. Look I know the way they wrote the guy in this expac is that he is grumpy and standoffish but, with the way he talks about his mom whenever shes brought up, it might be reserved but there fondness respect and unending love there. It's obvious he has gripes with her style of parenting ofcourse but there is love there.

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This is something that keeps coming back and bothering me- its like the plot points are right there but they just refused to expand on them and im so disappointed. Sure I guess they could touch on them post-msq, but it won't have the same impact than if it was all in the leadup to eventually having to erase Cahcuia. Any time the two are together, we aren't allowed to see them interact because either we are dealing with Wuk Lamat or Sphene. Cahcuia even asks Erenville to tell her about us and what we've been up to together and then they just have him walk off and we never talk about it again. All these leads into development for multiple characters and its just wasted. The interactions are always just implied to maybe have happened off screen I guess??

Also, we are invited to help Wuk Lamat with the rite of succession but then she just goes and asks around the communities she visits for help anyway. Not that i'm against her trying to learn the cultures, I think its a nice theme overall, but I dont see why people in the group couldn't have also contributed to it more (and help them get more screentime in the process). Like, the first (or second depending on quest order I guess) rite, where she has to capture an alpaca: we go around bartering with the Pelupelu and getting this saddle. Why was no one's first though to ask the gleaner, who's literal speciality is capturing live animals, how to capture an alpaca? I guess Erenville's knowledge about nature and the environment, that Wuk Lamat insisted he came along as guide to help with, isn't actually important when it comes to the rite itself. Instead we end up making the entire process even harder by trying to barter with a guy who just doesn't want us to succeed anyway and tries to actively screw us over.

If they got any of the group more directly involved with the earlier sections of the rites, instead of making us split off and just glue us to Wuk Lamat whilst she goes around and asks random villagers for help, maybe it wouldn't make it feel like there was no reason for them to be there in the first place. It really contributes to making everyone else's personalities feel gutted out this expansion. You could probably easily make an argument for how any of the other members could help out in the other rites, I feel like Erenville and the alpaca was just the glaringly obvious one, and I just wonder what possessed the writing team to be this tunnel vision'd onto Wuk Lamat that they just forgot everyone else existed.

I finally connected my XIV account to the forums just so I could post a reply about how OP really managed to voice out all the frustrations I also had with the MSQ this time around in an extremely concise and cohesive manner. It's also great because now I feel less insane for not enjoying the story when it seemed like a lot of people around me were singing praises for it.

I'm someone who prioritizes how characters are written above a lot of other things when it comes to story. They are the backbone of what makes a story meaningful to me and with how well XIV was doing in terms of fleshing them out, especially the Scions, reading this entire MSQ felt like a slap in the face. I didn't really mind Wuk Lamat's constant appearance. What irked me was that she had so much screen time and yet so little of it was used meaningfully.

FFXIV has always had an obsession with the NPCs interacting with you, which is understandable. But I've always felt that the strongest points of character writing, or showing of a character, were when the NPCs were interacting with other NPCs (eg. Estinien, Ysayle and Alphinaud in HW. Varis with all the leaders in SB. Thancred and Ryne in SHB. Quite literally Emet-Selch and the Scions. Urianger and Moenbryda's parents in EW.) . At our core, the WoL is a blank slate and while they have done it in the past, the dialogue options we can have will not go past a certain template. It gets a bit tiring whenever NPCs only get interactions with us, character writing isn't just about having said character talk to MC, it should also show how they bounce off other characters who have their own ideaologies and different ways of life. Many people have already said we are supposed to be the mentor figure but why should it only be us? Wuk Lamat has the most allies of the contestants and yet she barely has meaningful conversation with any of them. Why does she have to spend so much alone time with the WoL? Why could she not be talking more to other characters like the twins, Krile, or her childhood friend Erenville? It really contributes to her lack of growth when she only gets the same answers from different people void of personality and is also another reason why nothing really makes the player feel attached. I really expected Wuk Lamat and Krile to be talking more and bouncing off each other but there was just none of that despite them being around each other the entire expansion.

The Scions have always been funneled into specific groups since Endwalker. Endwalker is my favourite expansion but I noticed when the twins and G'raha were always in one group, with Y'shtola mostly always in the other with Urianger and Thancred. This got worse in Dawntrail. When characters split up, it's always in the same groups. It gets so tiring because I want to see them talk to each other. When we first get time with Koana, he has to be alone with us for some unknown reason. Why Thancred and Urianger had to be away from us instead of possibly acting like a bridge? I do not know. When Tuliyollal was under attack and Y'shtola called it a reunion of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, yet not a single person in that scene even spoke of calling Thancred and/or Urianger back or even considered the notion until Shaaloani. It felt as if those two suddenly didn't exist. Others have already said it but despite being childhood friends, Wuk Lamat (or any of the other Scions) barely shows any concern for Erenville and him having to deal with his hometown destroyed and his increasing realization that his mother is dead. When Sol9 was attacked, it bothered me that no one questioned if he was safe when he wasn't in the hideout even though he is the only character in the party that cannot fight. You just had to take Cahcuia at her word that she sent the rest out. It makes all of them feel so lifeless and uncaring when it felt like SHB worked so hard to make them feel like a team. To make every other side character feel like they mattered. A lot of these moments where characters just didn't feel like themselves or didn't do what I thought would be natural for characters to do in those situations really took me out of the immersion because wow...they really are just lines of code. There's little to no humanity in the way they speak. These aren't the characters I know and love.

It's just a lot of these coupled with inconsistencies or outright nonsensical happenings that are littered throughout the MSQ that really drive home how it's just not very well-written. Listing them out in short sentences: Wuk Evu not telling the Hanuhanu about their own tradition as their crops wither. The Moblins not being able to discern what seems like basic living condition problems and needing an outsider to teach them about it. The entire kidnapping sequence making Wuk Lamat look weak and us look like incompetent idiots. Koana supposedly being smart yet comes up with the most primitive plan to lure out the kidnapper when he was shown to be able to discern the problem with the Hanuhanu crops at one glance. Valigarmanda supposedly being a world-ending threat, yet there is no consequence to the Yok Huys for it being set free nor is there consequence to Bakool Jaja, the one who set it free. Random bird attacking the conquerer Yok Huys out of nowhere because somehow that was the best way they could think of to show Wuk Lamat's kindness. Bakool Jaja's joke of a redemption arc and how his actions prior do not line up at all with his supposed reason for desperation. The entire cowboy segment where I have to get exposition about the area from a corrupted guy instead of someone more meaningful like maybe Iwaate. A lot of these things add up that by the time we get to the final 2 areas, there just isn't enough left in me to really get as invested when they try and evoke an emotional reaction. It falls flat because all these earlier instances have left such a bitter feeling in my mouth and there's too little emotional buildup to really fully blossom into anything meaningful by the end. It's a shame because I really did like the theme they chose, but the execution is done so poorly it makes me wonder why they chose this to begin with.

A bunch of people have tried to say that the earlier expansions also had similar levels of writing but I disagree. Earlier expansions didn't treat me like I was 10 and didn't feel the need to regurgitate the theme of the expansion every few quests. Base ARR had more consequence than anything in Dawntrail. I'm not going to say that the massacre was super well-written but the tonal shift it did is still one of the more impactful moments and it had a lasting impact by forcing the Scions to permanently move out of the Waking Sands. Tuliyollal got attacked but most of it has gone back to normal by the end of the expansion that it doesn't feel like much was lost. Dawntrail has a bad habit of telling us what we should be feeling about certain characters/events (The last area and Sphene being extremely big examples of this.) Stormblood didn't tell me whether I should forgive Yotsuyu or not, it left that decision up to me. It showed us an alternative to her life and did not use it to erase the atrocities that she had committed. It allowed me to understand her and come to my conclusion more than the expansion themed around understanding. I would say the same of Ilberd, Emet-Selch, Hermes, Venat and Meteion. Whether people agreed with their actions or not is not the point, the point is that the story was written in a way that we could see their motives and their reason for it and still choose how we would judge them. Being void of both that choice and consequence in Dawntrail just shows how shallow and almost fearful the writers were when coming up with this MSQ.

This ended up long but I really hope future MSQs can be better. I cannot see myself continuing to play if this is the quality that I have to deal with for the next 10 years.

OP's post honestly gave name to the off-feeling I'd been having abou this expansion. There were moments I enjoyed, but there were also so many things that kept pulling me out of the story and breaking immerssion, because I kept thinking: The Scions wouldn't do that? The WoL wouldn't react like that? There were just so much tonal dissonance it was striking. And the 2nd Half felt so very rushed...

Reading through the thread, there's so many points that have been brought up that I've felt for myself.

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

I can still remember my bug son from the Heavensward Vath quests and how that was one of the first times along with the DRK storyline that the game really informed me of WoL's character.

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This resonated so well, like I've thoroughly enjoyed that with Zero and Wuk Lamat they've been trying to steer us into this role of Mentor, rather than an OP Godly Dues ex Machina fix for everything cause we're that powerful now. But I've been sorely disappointed that it's mentorship in implication only, with absolutely no real action. I want my WoL to have an active part in fulfilling that role. We could have contested Wuk Lamat's decisions at certain times, we could have asked her, based on OUR experiences with various nations, whether she had considered XYZ perspectives on certain matters. We could have had that cliche mentor-mentee disagreement where Wuk Lamat decides to ignore us to prove a point which... could have lead to that kidnapping. Instead, as 'Mentor' we're effectively useless, just standing there. I think it's GREAT that WoL is taking a ~slight~ backseat, knowing that we're ready to step up when things DO hit the fan. But don't make us an accessory. Make our 'mentorship' role have actual value.

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

Not only that, WoL has been multiple times been implied to be traumatized by witnessing that "assassination" of Nanamo. She should be hyper-protective of Wuk Lamat. And the camera has the fucking gall to zoom in on our face as she watches another young heiress wander off alone with a suspicious stranger - Is that doubt we are supposed to interpret on her face? No. The game makes you wait around doing fucking nothing three times before the thought hits our character's head that the contender for one of the largest empires in the world maybe might be a target.

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This too, was also something that frustrated me. We, as the WoL and as players, have born witness to SO many of these events where someone going off alone in a time of turmoil = something happening to them. The WoL should, and does, know better. So, why did we let her walk off without a bodyguard??? Why were we portrayed to be so foolish, and the Scions so incompetant. All of us have so much experience behind us, and we all just waited there... The scene felt quite embarrassing, because it undermined so much of our past experience.

[1/2]

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Originally Posted by Loggos

Thank you, I'm glad I'm not alone because it felt the same way to me. [...] I really didn't like how they treated Erenville in the last zone.

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Your entire run down of Erenville and his mother through that whole arc was just spot on. Exactly what I felt. It felt like such a huge disrespect and disservice to the situation, and made everything feel so dismissive. One additional issue which could open a can of worms, but I didn't enjoy that Erenville's family had such a hugely different accent to him. It made it feel even more impersonal, like there was no family connection beyond outward appearance. As even voices go a long way to showing family connection. Wuk Lamat's adopted family all sound similar to each other, even so far as terms of endearment. Erenville was raised and mentored by his mother. Yet there was no family unity in that decision, even her term of endearment (in English) felt so... teasing rather than affection, so all those heartfelt voiced moments had an extra layer of... distance... between them.

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

One thing that really blew my mind was the treatment of Bakool Ja Ja, When we finally hear his backstory (in a 1 minute exposition instead of across the MSQ) it becomes clear that he has a fully legit reason to want to win at all costs.

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There were so many ways they could have shown it too. In those moments he was alone they could have shown the *weight* on his shoulders, the act dropped without an audience. They could have had a private talk about the *cost* of this battle between the two brothers. Something hinting that there's more beyond the facade of MIGHT AND POWER!!! His loss to Wuk Lamat could have weighed heavier, and had him hold onto that feeling of dawning horror that he might actually not succeed, and draw it out before he retreats. He just needed the smallest amount of nuance in the early game to lay down the hints that there was more to him.

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Originally Posted by EshKarasu

Secondly, the setting appeals much more to Koana and his ambition for technological advancement for Tural in a way that can potentially challenge him on his worldview.

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That entire arc was built to give Koana a deep seated reality check, and it honestly shocked me that he wasn't part of it. It would have been better to role reverse them. Wuk Lamat staying behind, seeing her make a diplomatic move to ally with Thavnair, and endear them to her cause with her heart and her passion. To have Koana see this advance world, and understand the horrors of what can happen when you advance too fast, and forget that people are *people*. Seeing how their loss of culture is reflected in their lack of appreciation for life with how easily they came to accept the soul-technology. Their people, who took 30 years to lose their values. There was such a deepseated revelation missed out on being explored.

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I came here from Twitter! A very insightful post from both OP and everyone replying. I've been thinking about the MSQ ever since I finished it (and even during it), and I was SO disappointed with so many things in it that I've recorded several voice memos of myself just arranging my thoughts about it. And, after reading through this entire topic so far... I genuinely do not have anything meaningful to add to this. This topic honestly just feels like such an exact explanation for how I felt about the story, that there is no possible way for me to phrase it better than it already has been by all of you.

I just wanted to come chime in, offer my support and say how glad I am to see people who share my views about the Dawntrail MSQ who are so articulate and frankly, correct, with their critiques. I'll be bookmarking this topic for sure and coming to check up on it later, share it with friends who want to know my stance on the MSQ and stuff like that.

Let's hope that the patch quests are better, although... I dunno. I can't say I have too much hope, there's too many holes in the Dawntrail cheese already. I can only hope that they move whoever's been in charge of some of the side quests, aether current quests and role quests to help out with the MSQ, because there are a lot of them that actually slap super hard.

Edit: actually no i do have something to say because i got so inspired by that erenville discussion, so let me continue below

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Originally Posted by Loggos

I really didn't like how they treated Erenville in the last zone.

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From the start of Erenville finding out the truth about Cahciua, I had a bad feeling about it, and that bad feeling just got worse the longer the final zone went on. Nobody was comforting him or even checking up on him, nobody seemed to care at all and I didn't even get the dialogue choices to care. If anything, sometimes the characters would say something so outrageously rude that I had to get up from my chair and just walk around in my apartment to process what I just witnessed. An example:

After you come back down from the capybara ride (which honestly felt like a very private and emotional moment that Erenville and Cahciua should've just shared by themselves without the WoL because they haven't been able to connect 1-1 AT ALL for years), if you talk with the rest of the cast before continuing, here's what they have to say:

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G'raha: "We'll be there for Erenville."
Me: Thank you G'raha, finally someone expresses any sympathy for this man. Better late than never.

Krile: "It will be hard, but let us send Cahciua off with a smile."
Me: Okay, perfectly reasonable thing for Krile to say.

Wuk Lamat: "We saw you from below. It looked like you were having fun."

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I actually laughed when I saw that, I was so utterly flabbergasted. What do you mean it looked like we were having fun? The person who's supposed to be your childhood friend (which hasn't felt that way at all btw) is going through probably the worst times of his entire life right now. Not even once have you comforted him, checked up on him, or seemingly cared whatsoever about anything else but your weird obsession with Sphene who we met only a few hours ago. And now you say this? What part of your childhood friend's mental anguish when confronted with the reality that he must (essentially) kill his own mother looks fun?

How am I supposed to believe that she is a kind, sympathetic and wonderful person who wants to protect everyone and make sure everyone's happy, when she contradicts that supposed character so often?
Everyone acts as if Koana is the socially inept one, but he's the only person who goes to Gulool Ja Ja's side as he's dying on the floor. Meanwhile Wuk Lamat just stands there not doing anything when she sees her father dying, even though in other scenes she's seen screamcrying and begging for an already dead civilian to drink medicine, or repeatedly begging to help the Heritage Found hunter, or repeatedly begging to help Sphene. It feels almost deliberate, how she goes out of her way to ignore the people closest to her in favour of prioritizing literally everyone else.

Sorry, I got a bit off-track. I just still get mad as I'm typing this. It's all just so weird. I genuinely just hated the last zone aside from the part with Krile's parents and Erenville clapping back at Cahciua..

I have to be honest. I have intentionally not engaged with the forums here for years. I didn't really feel the need to, I was really happy with the game and I had no reason to throw my two cents in on the things I was unhappy with, because they were all pretty small, silly things.

Dawntrail has changed that. Which is to say...

150% to EVERYTHING here. I went into this expansion with such high hopes, like 'oh man it'll be awesome! Wuk Lamat seems like fun, what we've seen from the zones looks great, it'll be nice to just have a real beach episode sort of feel!' I don't think I have ever been this disappointed by a story before. And I played through WoW BfA and the prepatch leading into it. (RIP Teldrassil. I still think you deserved better.) But back to the topic at hand.

This story has so many handwaves in it I'm actually shocked that even the people who wrote it weren't a little embarrassed. It's genuinely heartbreaking, I tried so hard to give the story the benefit of the doubt. Every time I had criticisms, I was like 'oh, well it's just because I'm in a bad mood that I'm picking everything apart like this. It's not as bad as it seems.' It was, in fact, not that. That is what I think they call copium.

Honestly all of the major things that I have issues with people have already talked about. Though I have another example for this sort of handwaving 'don't think too hard on it' moments that are littered through this expansion. If there is a genuine explanation for it somewhere that I missed, please tell me.

So we learn pretty early on that attacking an elector without their consent will get you disqualified. That's all well and good. Zoraal Ja gets disqualified for attacking the elector in Mamook. Fantastic. As you'd expect he would.

Bakool Ja Ja kidnaps an elector and he doesn't get disqualified. Sure, he runs off the second that fight is over before he could be, but... really? We were told that even attacking one will set off some string of people who would tell Gulool Ja Ja that you're disqualified. And nothing about kidnapping and threatening to have your lackeys kill one. I dunno, it's bugged me since it happened.

Also, I absolutely agree with everyone saying Erenville was done dirty in the final zones. While I wouldn't try and say the pain is anywhere comparable, seeing as though both my parents are still alive, I lost my childhood dog a few weeks before Dawntrail released. He had a vet appointment, and we were told he needed to be put to sleep right then and there. I didn't even get a chance for a real goodbye. That was genuinely the worst day of my life. I had a lot of complicated feelings about it and I'm not sure I'll ever really get over them fully, if I'm being a little too honest. The fact that you don't even get a single chance to speak with Erenville and offer him even a moment of 'you're not alone, and you're not in the wrong for whatever you're feeling right now' just felt horrible.

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

And then in Living Memory...

https://i.postimg.cc/P5WccFLX/image.png
"My COLLEAGUE". I get introducing his full name, but couldn't you say also...FRIEND?

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It could be worse. She could have waved her hand at him generically and said "... and this is "name here" an adventurer from Eorzea." Not a friend, not a comrade, not even a casual acquaintance, just some adventurer.

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Originally Posted by Mints

FFXIV has always had an obsession with the NPCs interacting with you, which is understandable. But I've always felt that the strongest points of character writing, or showing of a character, were when the NPCs were interacting with other NPCs (eg. Estinien, Ysayle and Alphinaud in HW. Varis with all the leaders in SB. Thancred and Ryne in SHB. Quite literally Emet-Selch and the Scions. Urianger and Moenbryda's parents in EW.)

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Funny thing, one of thing I feared about DT was the fact that, with all the scions present, they could "suffocate" the story by having too many characters with similar point of view, on the contrary to the Ysayle/Alphinaud/Estinien trio of HW. Their different takes on the narrative is what makes the narrative interesting. Ironically, the character that suffocated the story is the new one, we're only served her point of view for the whole expansion and the scions are irrevelant.

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Originally Posted by Archaeothyris

How am I supposed to believe that she is a kind, sympathetic and wonderful person who wants to protect everyone and make sure everyone's happy, when she contradicts that supposed character so often?
Everyone acts as if Koana is the socially inept one, but he's the only person who goes to Gulool Ja Ja's side as he's dying on the floor. Meanwhile Wuk Lamat just stands there not doing anything when she sees her father dying, even though in other scenes she's seen screamcrying and begging for an already dead civilian to drink medicine, or repeatedly begging to help the Heritage Found hunter, or repeatedly begging to help Sphene. It feels almost deliberate, how she goes out of her way to ignore the people closest to her in favour of prioritizing literally everyone else.

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This. Oh my god this so so so so much.
I feel absolutely genuinely terrible about any character in the story who is shown as "close" to her because she treats them like absolute fodder. You pointed out the issues with Erenville so I gotta point out the issues I had with Koana. The entire part since the kidnapping until her succession was absolutely driving me incredibly insane and just pushed me to find her genuinely fully insufferable as it went on. Koana panics that his sister is in trouble and loses his temper to find her which barely gets acknowledged. Afterwards when Valigarmanda is unleashed we have to sit there and watch her say to us and the twins how she's so happy to know that she has someone that has her back after she asks us to help her with the fight. Meanwhile Koana is right there listening to this. After telling us he dedicated his life for her to not feel alone because he knows the pain of it. But anything he does for her just doesn't matter I guess.
Later he fully gives away his claim to the throne and all of his aspirations just to help her and after the fight him saying how he knows that she's the better ruler because she's so nice to everyone and her response is,wow thanks big bro!
She neglects his feelings so much so the dude literally comes to your quarters to tell you that he's upset that she genuinely doesn't acknowledge anything he does but sings you praises constantly because you're just the shiny new toy in her found family.
And THEN she has the gall at the ceremony to say hey lets rule together - not because I appreciate you but because I know I'm the brawn and you can be the brains. :)

I genuinely felt bad walking away to Fantasy Texas and seeing him stuck there with her in the throne room because she just could not care less about the person he really is. I wish he could've just joined us for the 2nd half of the story and she can sit there and deal with the reality of ruling herself without us babying her throughout the entire thing whilst Koana gets more character progression with facing how tech advancement can also go poorly as several people pointed out in this thread.

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Originally Posted by GreenLeafy

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Completely agreed, I feel so bad for him!

In general, I have an issue with how people treat Koana in this story because the whole time we're being banged on the head with "we should accept people for who they are", "we have to try to understand their side of the story", "we shouldn't be out here telling other cultures what to do". Meanwhile literally everyone and their grandmother is yapping at Koana about how he has to change his personality in order to be likeable and for people to be able to connect with him. Like bro, he doesn't have a disease that you need to cure, the man's an introvert!!!

Now I would understand this angle if Koana was shown to be cold, uncaring and genuinely difficult to connect with, but it is so clear to anyone with eyes that he expresses love in his own way even though he is more reserved about it. There clearly are people throughout the story who love him for who he is and were able to connect with him, too. Yet another demonizing introverts in media moment, yippee.

Like, what happened to accepting and loving people as they are? Same with Erenville. As an introvert myself, it genuinely pissed me off. And as if Wuk Lamat saying that bs wasn't enough, Thancred and Urianger have a talk with Koana about that as well?? You'd think THOSE TWO of all people would understand the subtlety of reserved people and how they express their love to those they care about. And then when he expresses his emotions more strongly as was the advice from people around him, it's made into a joke and everyone laughs at him? WHAT?!!??!!?

I can't express enough how disappointing the writing in this expansion was compared to previous expansions. Agree with EVERYTHING op wrote.

I want to post this video here.
I think it is a good summary of Dawntrail both positiv and negativ and I agree with many points in it.
I also liked the point about the references at the end.

It's not as deep as the post of OP but I wanted to share it anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpJWH1ClYqs

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I want to post this video here.
I think it is a good summary of Dawntrail both positiv and negativ and I agree with many points in it.
I also liked the point about the references at the end.

It's not as deep as the post of OP but I wanted to share it anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpJWH1ClYqs

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I can't agree with this video when the person says she likes Bakool Ja Ja's character development and argues that the Scions shouldn't be in the story anymore.
Bakool Ja Ja's "development" was his personality completely changing from one scene to the other suddenly without any buildup, and never being punished or seeing consequences of his actions.

And the Scions being part of the story isn't the problem - the problem is that the current writer just can't write them in there in a meaningful way. It makes me sad that some people will keep arguing against the scions using Dawntrail as "evidence", while I still firmly believe the characters have a lot to offer in the hands of a competent writer.

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Originally Posted by xirune

I also hated the way the song "Footfalls" was used in that scene - the main themes of expansions, the ones with vocals that are used in the cinematic trailers, are special and should only be used in really big, important moments! Not just any moment where a character from that expansion shows up and does something! Imagine if there was just a scene with a character from Shadowbringers showing up and doing something cool, and it suddenly hit us with "ONE BRINGS SHADOW ONE BRINGS LIGHT", it would feel like kind of ridiculous overkill and unearned. That's what the Vrtra scene was like, it felt like just a cheap attempt to play on people's love for Endwalker by being like, "look guys, a character from Endwalker is here! And the Endwalker theme is playing!! You guys like Endwalker, right?? Please feel something!!"

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Exactly, I was the same way, it was as irritating as could be. That song belongs to Endwalker, and here it's unfitting and completely unearned.
I'm not going to like it better because I liked Endwalker, I'm going to like it even less and be even more irritated precisely because I liked Endwalker. We're thinking feeling people who can discern these things, not dopamine bots, press a music button, get attachment.

That was a great post! I didn't read all of it, but summed up the general aspect of it. I stopped playing FFXIV shortly after buying Dawntrail because I just got...bored.

I hope they spice it up or something, I found myself skipping so many cutscenes that I was surprised; FFXIV is supposed to be an game known for it's story.

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Originally Posted by xirune

"Please feel something!!"

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This was exactly how I felt. It felt like such a betrayal, honestly. I love Vrtra, he was so hot and cool and amazing for doing what he did, but riding on the coattails of the actually good storytelling legacy that FFXIV has accumulated for years for such an obvious goosebumps-farming moment? Genuinely, piss off... I honestly felt the same way about the last MSQ dungeon too. It's as if the writers took what made Amaurot and Dead Ends so special, made a copy of it, spent hours to make it so the likelihood of you feeling any sort of way towards the people in the dungeon vision was gone, and then thought it was a slamdunk of a dungeon. Like, no. The reason why Amaurot and Dead Ends are so, so incredibly special (to me at least) is because there was proper build up to CARE what was going on in those dungeons.

Amaurot would not have felt like anything if we hadn't spent most of the MSQ listening to Emet-Selch and learning about the Ancients, their civilization and their tragedy from a man who we knew we could never avoid conflict with. It was a partnership doomed from the start, but that's a big part of why the journey felt so meaningful. He saw his old friend in us, and in him we saw a glimpse of what we used to be. We cannot get those times back, we do not want to get those times back, but we as a traveler have almost an obligation to hear about this tragedy that shaped the world. Instead, Sphene is automatically our friend the moment we meet her, and the big twist with her isn't even a twist because she's been shady in cutscenes from the get-go. Plus there wasn't enough time to properly care about her.

Dead Ends would not have felt like anything if we hadn't gone through... well, everything. It wasn't even just about the Meteia and their despair, it wasn't just about the Ancients who we spent the majority of ShB and a big chunk of EW learning about, it was about the entire world. It was about everyone we know and have known, ever. It was about even creatures we never got to know, who experienced tragedy and died. Dead Ends is just, so much. Instead with Alexandria, we spend what feels like 6 hours of MSQ yo-yoing between "oh well we should learn about these people and be compassionate" vs "actually no they don't matter because they aren't real". It feels so... empty. I do not care for these characters. I've been told several times to care, but whenever the game attempts to make me care, I remember it just a second ago making it so that I simply cannot care. Making an entire final flashback dungeon based on a society I have such a complete void of any emotion for just because it worked so well two previous times, without even understanding what made them work so well in the first place? I can't believe someone actually decided this was a good idea.

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

I still firmly believe the characters have a lot to offer in the hands of a competent writer.

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The scions have never had anything to offer, not since 2.0.

Ask anyone about Y'shtola's personality, and nine times out of ten you'll get a reference to something that happened in the story six or seven years ago in Stormblood's patches.

G'raha joined the scions and immediately turned into a cardboard cutout of a wet cat (in more ways than one).

Part of that is just that FFXIV's structure is fundamentally not good for telling stories about protagonists because they have to rely on the main character being a silent demi-god with no actual control over themself. Wuk Lamat was their attempt at changing that dynamic, and they flubbed it immediately. The closest thing we have to proper 'good guy' development is Zenos, acting as our anti-hero deuteragonist in Endwalker,

Disclaimer: I haven't read the whole thread, but I just wanted to add my two-cents to the OP's post.

I 100% agree with what the OP says about the characters falling flat in DT and a lot of decision-making during the course of the story seems irrational (such as Wuk Lamat trusting Sphene 100% off the bat, and that the Turali people who were sucked into Heritage Found seeming to be happily assimilated into their dystopian culture, and Erenville not even batting an eye at this terrible thing.)

But I also want to bring attention to the fact that the "bones" of the story do, indeed make sense. It's Wuk Lamat's blind naivety that warps the Scion's behavior so drastically. When I ran Origenics, I paid special attention to the Scions' dialogue since I used them as a Trust. They were very vocal about the absolute horrors that the Alexandrian society was built on; it's just Wuk Lamat who just doesn't seem to care because she wants to see value in even the most vile of societal cultures. Because the story is Wuk Lamat's, and only her's, she flattens out the entire "arc" of the story to be one about the power of friendship, instead of digging into the very obvious (and imo cleverly done) subtle themes that are hinted at during the course of the story.

I honestly believe that someone took the bones of a story that explored what it means to be a good leader (Wuk Lamat who actually puts the well fare of all societies first and foremost, and Sphene who is unwilling to sacrifice her people's happiness for the good of other societies) and air brushed it so badly that it takes incredible effort to get any real meaning out of the story.

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Originally Posted by koko-on-da-forumz

The scions have never had anything to offer, not since 2.0.

Ask anyone about Y'shtola's personality, and nine times out of ten you'll get a reference to something that happened in the story six or seven years ago in Stormblood's patches.

G'raha joined the scions and immediately turned into a cardboard cutout of a wet cat (in more ways than one).

Part of that is just that FFXIV's structure is fundamentally not good for telling stories about protagonists because they have to rely on the main character being a silent demi-god with no actual control over themself. Wuk Lamat was their attempt at changing that dynamic, and they flubbed it immediately. The closest thing we have to proper 'good guy' development is Zenos, acting as our anti-hero deuteragonist in Endwalker,

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I think a whole new team of Wuk Lamat, Koana, Krile, Bakool JaJa (after some time), Otis and Sphene would have been interesting. Throw in G'raha too and Estinien if we need some scions.
That could have been a good dynamic. some kind of "new scions" if only just for Dawntrail and would have captured really nice the sense of "new adventure".
They could have had a good dynamic and the finale would have been far more deep if Sphene and Otis were with us for a longer time.
Instead we got the Wuk show season 1 to 100.
just imagine each character having their own spotlight and us as the veteran adventure.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Dawntrail might as well be evidence that they don't know what to do with the Scions anymore. Especially those with their personal arcs resolved (Thancred, Urianger, Alphinaud, arguably Estinien)

Even disregarding the poor characterization direction in Dawntrail as a whole Urianger, for example, is completely off-character taking some mercenary job just because Thancred invited him. Nothing in how he was written as a character since his introduction in 1.X made him come across as someone who'd take the job as someone's bodyguard just for sake of it.

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Thancred could still work in my opinion if they used his personality more. You know, the charmer like we saw in the TRAILER.
Urianger needs a break. he had great character development but he is at a dead end right now.
Y'sthola is as deep as a puddle like always.
The twins didn't have a story since Garlemald and even that is a reach to call it a story because they do absolutely nothing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

I can't agree with this video when the person says she likes Bakool Ja Ja's character development and argues that the Scions shouldn't be in the story anymore.
Bakool Ja Ja's "development" was his personality completely changing from one scene to the other suddenly without any buildup, and never being punished or seeing consequences of his actions.

And the Scions being part of the story isn't the problem - the problem is that the current writer just can't write them in there in a meaningful way. It makes me sad that some people will keep arguing against the scions using Dawntrail as "evidence", while I still firmly believe the characters have a lot to offer in the hands of a competent writer.

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It's fine to not agree with those points I understand that but what about the others?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

I can't agree with this video when the person says she likes Bakool Ja Ja's character development and argues that the Scions shouldn't be in the story anymore.
Bakool Ja Ja's "development" was his personality completely changing from one scene to the other suddenly without any buildup, and never being punished or seeing consequences of his actions.

And the Scions being part of the story isn't the problem - the problem is that the current writer just can't write them in there in a meaningful way. It makes me sad that some people will keep arguing against the scions using Dawntrail as "evidence", while I still firmly believe the characters have a lot to offer in the hands of a competent writer.

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Dawntrail might as well be evidence that they don't know what to do with the Scions anymore. Especially those with their personal arcs resolved (Thancred, Urianger, Alphinaud, arguably Estinien)

Even disregarding the poor characterization direction in Dawntrail as a whole Urianger, for example, is completely off-character taking some mercenary job just because Thancred invited him. Nothing in how he was written as a character since his introduction in 1.X made him come across as someone who'd take the job as someone's bodyguard just for sake of it.

Thank you for putting this together OP. This perfectly sums up my feelings towards the character writing for the MSQ. There is no challenge, no consequences, no backlash, no back and forth between ideas and characters. Bakool Ja Ja unleashed Valigarmanda upon Urqopacha, which could of killed many people, and he isn't punished in any way. I would of loved to have him accompany us and have him clash heads with the scions and Zoraal Ja.

I'm glad you mentioned the Graha Boat Ride Scene . I thought that was a great scene that had strong writing behind it.

I hope the character writing and quality of the MSQ improves in Post-DT

Koana got mad, it was a character moment, he was a character, I liked it. I liked most of the characters as horribly as they were used in this shonen-anime bastardization of a final fantasy story, good characters, horrible execution (Switch the writers, thanks. They have watched way too much Naruto). The Scions are basically a bunch of wet blankets that don't feel anything, spout out personal motivations, but don't really feel anything about them. Or just go "Yeah, let's fight this thing" or "Heres the solution to this thing you're searching." At least Krile got some development, but not nearly as enough and it was a blip in the end.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I think a whole new team of Wuk Lamat, Koana, Krile, Bakool JaJa (after some time), Otis and Sphene would have been interesting. Throw in G'raha too and Estinien if we need some scions.
That could have been a good dynamic. some kind of "new scions" if only just for Dawntrail and would have captured really nice the sense of "new adventure".

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I'm going to go out on a limb and sayu that this would have been terrible too. The writer can not handle writing one character well for significant screentime, much less six. Otis and Sphene are some of the worst, laziest characters to enter our presence. Bakool Jaja started as a Speed Racer tier villain and heelturned after one chitchat. Koana is more of a symbol to communicate a theme than a character. Wuk, obviously, everyone hates.

I don't understand the fan commitment to Krile. She's fine. She was always fine. She's no more interesting or less interesting than the other Scions--at least until Dawntrail where her entire backstory was rewritten to be bad tearjerk fodder rather than a suitable catharsis.

They're all bad, they've always been bad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PaleYonder

Exactly, I was the same way, it was as irritating as could be. That song belongs to Endwalker, and here it's unfitting and completely unearned.
I'm not going to like it better because I liked Endwalker, I'm going to like it even less and be even more irritated precisely because I liked Endwalker. We're thinking feeling people who can discern these things, not dopamine bots, press a music button, get attachment.

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Thinking now on it, wouldn't something from Heavensward have been far more appropriate, with this moment being us reaping the benefits of the progress we started mending the relationship between mankind and the dragons?

As much as the dragons showing up killed any stakes when it came to Zoraal Ja actually being a threat, I don't think it's a bad idea to have Vrtra come to the rescue. You know rather than expect the player to have simply forgot he exists and we have a really powerful air support to call on now, so why wouldn't we? (Although it's a bit weird there was no mention at all he was swayed to help Tural because of the Scion's involvement, considering how much their word should weigh for him after we helped save his sister).

Like so many things, the idea had merit but the execution was lacking.

I don't want a brand new team. I'd be thrilled to have the WoL on their own with a single new person for a bit, then another new person, then a small group, etc, and slowly build some COMPLETELY NEW relationships. Put the WoL in a totally new alien world where no one knows who they are. Sure the Isekai slant is cliche, but it's soo fun! :D

I was both worried and excited for this expansion. Worried because they were trying something new and I wanted it to succeed because I want 10 more years of FFXIV. Excited because we were promised an adventure. A city of gold. Hanging out with Erenville and Krile. The trailer made me wonder, what was going to happen once I crossed the sea and got off that boat?

Well, what happened is that a third of the way into DT I found myself reading story feedback on the forums instead of watching an MSQ cutscene. Before, I never even skipped lines in a sidequest.

I'm at the halfway point now past

the attack on Tuliyollal

and this is what Alisaie says:

Oh, you're back. By that, I take it to mean Lamaty'i is feeling better.

Alisaie doesn't even use a nickname for Alphinaud but she uses one for someone she's known a few months? This isn't Alisaie. This isn't any of the Scions, WoL included. It's like we got brainwashed into loving Wuk Lamat, on top of having our individual personalities and bonds to each other erased. It creeps me out. There's also the WoL seeing a vision through the Echo, yet nobody reacts to it and they don't tell anyone about it. What has our iconic power become, a flashback device? Not the first time either.

You can say that again! We've been to the literal edge of existence. Some mysterious giant dome shouldn't scare us!

This is an actual line by Alisaie.

Despite the amazing scenery, music, dungeons, for the first time ever I can't bring myself to finish the MSQ. The story is why I play FFXIV, if it's going to be this bad from now on then there's nothing to look forward to. If the XIV team doesn't listen to the feedback and make a U-turn on this, then I will chalk 7.0 up to my WoL having a bad dream and cut my losses.

Ι couldn't agree more and I wish I could like this more than once.
I am worried about the future of final fantasy.
(Personal sidenote: I would give my kidney for just one more scene with Emet-selch and Hythlodaeus, meanwhile we got so many pointless poorly written voiced scenes with essentially muppets)

I have been playing and paying for this game for almost 10 years now. They need to deliver with the actual good written characters and quality execution.
We are not asking for perfection, just for the writing team to respect us. Our time and emotional investment.
And the fan-base needs to have standards.
I hope the team hears your voice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aquarys

I honestly believe that someone took the bones of a story that explored what it means to be a good leader (Wuk Lamat who actually puts the well fare of all societies first and foremost, and Sphene who is unwilling to sacrifice her people's happiness for the good of other societies) and air brushed it so badly that it takes incredible effort to get any real meaning out of the story.

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This happens constantly through Dawntrail, there are constantly tiny nuggets of really good ideas and things worth exploring throughout the entire expansion. Every so often some character (even Wuk Lamat) will say something that COULD have been writing gold and you think to yourself "That there, that was someone's post-it note during the whiteboarding session they had right at the very beginning of the dev cycle." Then somewhere along the line all those post-it notes were gathered up, given to the writer who then went and buried them all in a Wuk Lamat fanfic. You can tell there were initially good ideas but they never made it out of the whiteboard meeting room and never got sewn into cohesive whole.

It makes me question their supervision and production methodology, how did they go from lots of little snippets of good ideas, to the smothered mess of what we got? Was there no editorial process? No back and forth? No supervision? Did that whiteboard meeting happen then Yoshi-P and Ishikawa just went on holidays for 2 years and came back to check only after the expansion was baked and done? It makes it even MORE frustrating because it's definitely one of those "see what could have been" things.

EDIT: Also, the vast number of logical inconsistencies and plot holes tells me there was no story editor, or they were asleep at their desk. The only explanation I can come up with is, again, the complete abandonment of the MSQ into the hands of one guy or small group.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by koko-on-da-forumz

I'm going to go out on a limb and sayu that this would have been terrible too. The writer can not handle writing one character well for significant screentime, much less six. Otis and Sphene are some of the worst, laziest characters to enter our presence. Bakool Jaja started as a Speed Racer tier villain and heelturned after one chitchat. Koana is more of a symbol to communicate a theme than a character. Wuk, obviously, everyone hates.

I don't understand the fan commitment to Krile. She's fine. She was always fine. She's no more interesting or less interesting than the other Scions--at least until Dawntrail where her entire backstory was rewritten to be bad tearjerk fodder rather than a suitable catharsis.

They're all bad, they've always been bad.

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I‘ll be honest.
I don‘t think you will ever get deep characters in this game you are searching for.
Emet Selch was a lucky hit of the writers and they had lot of existing lore beforehand, like a puzzle.

The final fantasy series is full of trope characters and that’s not a bad thing as is the tales of series.
Characters like Otis and Sphene are actually pretty fitting for the series. They are like ff9 characters.
I think trope characters can work if written good and thats where they failed.

With that idea they could have at least used them to ping pong off one another and not just one character 24/7.
I think part of the Wuk problem is also that they really wanted to show their new character like „look everyone, we made this brand new character. Isn’t she great? Isn’t she just like the scions? Don’t you want do go on an adventure with her, hmmm?“

The writing is a problem yes but the biggest problem for me is Wuk Lamat.
She had way too much screentime and at least in my opinion that’s also because the scions are done as characters. They have nothing else to do.
The characters in ff14 were never its strength, it was putting them into an interesting scenario and using them to show our own character. Without us they would be nothing really.

Without the WoL there is no FF14. There was no dynamic between Wuk and the others and an anti dynamic between her and the WoL.

At the end of the day though you are probably right that the writing would have also failed in that regard I‘m just having fun with the idea.
It could have really been a new beginning. Some kind of mini ff9 with a quirky cast and us instead of prodigy’s number 33362.


Edit:
I really need to stop to mumble and write so much.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I‘ll be honest.
I don‘t think you will ever get deep characters in this game you are searching for.
Emet Selch was a lucky hit of the writers and they had lot of existing lore beforehand, like a puzzle.

The final fantasy series is full of trope characters and that’s not a bad thing as is the tales of series.
Characters like Otis and Sphene are actually pretty fitting for the series. They are like ff9 characters.
I think trope characters can work if written good and thats where they failed.

With that idea they could have at least used them to ping pong off one another and not just one character 24/7.
I think part of the Wuk problem is also that they really wanted to show their new character like look everyone, we made this brand new character. Isn’t she great? Isn’t she just like the scions? Don’t you want do go on an adventure with her, hmmm?“

The writing is a problem yes but the biggest problem for me is Wuk Lamat.
She had way too much screentime and at least in my opinion that’s also because the scions are done as characters. They have nothing else to do.
The characters in ff14 were never its strength, it was putting them into an interesting scenario and using them to show our own character. Without us they would be nothing really.

Without the WoL there is no FF14. There was no dynamic between Wuk and the others and an anti dynamic between her and the WoL.

At the end of the day though you are probably right that the writing would have also failed in that regard I‘m just having fun with the idea.
It could have really been a new beginning. Some kind of mini ff9 with a quirky cast and us instead of prodigy’s number 33362.


Edit:
I really need to stop to mumble and write so much.

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To be fair Shadowbringers didn't really use much backstory lore, it created it all. The Ascians existed they worshiped Zodiark and that was literally all we knew about them until Shadowbringers. In fact the game didn't really have much of a major narrative outside of Garleans are trying to take over.

I think this is where they missed a beat here with

Sphene and the endless

I think the story and further story would have been better if they

A Never resolve who's going to lead in Tural. As in don't do Wuk corrination, they should have wrote that Gulool was so furious about the eugenics and biases of the mamool that he calls of the contest to be stopped until he resolves this. Then have the betrayal and his death leaving the country without an actual ruler. It would give them so much room with later content to explore character development of the contestants and also give Wuk so much needed developement.
B After defeating Zarool, Sphene does her no peace speach and vanishes with her essentially army. This gives us a unknowable enemy that's tech advanced and could come from anywhere.

FF14 has always been at it's best when the A plot is hidden and sprinkled about inside the B plot.
Ultimately the writers wrote this like endwalker resolving all plot threads, but they should have been writing it like shadowbringer. Setting up plot leaving more unexplained and open than they resolve.

That scene with Footfalls just made me immediately want to replay EW rather than continue DT. And we were in the middle of one of the biggest budget scenes in the whole expansion.

Beautifully written, thank you for this post. I hope it reaches their ears. Dawntrail MSQ has saddened me, and I’m worried of how it will continue from now on. I hope they will read and pay close attention to posts like this one and fix the writing from its foundations.

I was also quite (positively) perplexed at the end, not only with G’raha, but with Krile and Erenville as well. Their experiences with their parents deeply touched me. And it is for all the reasons you already stated that Wuk Lamat’s loss of Namikka or Gulool Ja Ja did not make me care.
There is some subtext, at least, concerning Erenville, as he slowly builds up the meeting with his mother throughout DT. And then we finally get to meet the person he’s been referring to, only to learn that he has to let her go. I think there was pay off there. Similarly with Krile, however I expected SO much more Krile than what we got, it’s very unfair for the character. Still, the last area helped these two characters come to the spotlight a little more.

I would also like to add that I’m very intrigued by the lore that they have presented, and I think that that part of the MSQ has a lot to give. I’m positive if they fix the writing the lore they have constructed will shine and we’ll get to learn where sweet Emet-Selch is sending us. Unfortunately, however good the lore is it can’t lift the story.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

That scene with Footfalls just made me immediately want to replay EW rather than continue DT. And we were in the middle of one of the biggest budget scenes in the whole expansion.

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It's frustrating that they attacked the city, killed the Dawnservant, and then hovered in the air instead of engaging us directly, then Zereel asked us to confront him while offering no guidance on how to reach his tower. Later, when he grew impatient due to our prolonged delay and took to the field, I found it hard to comprehend how this sequence of events unfolded.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

That scene with Footfalls just made me immediately want to replay EW rather than continue DT. And we were in the middle of one of the biggest budget scenes in the whole expansion.

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It was the same for me.

I know the Vtra scene was complete nonsense but it was still my favourite scene in DT, however not in a way that made me like DT more. On the contrary. I liked it because it was distinctively not DT, no matter how absurd and shoehorned it was, because at this point I really didn't care about the expac's story anymore. I just saw my favourite dragon and heard my favourite song and thought wow this is miles better than my last 40 hours of gametime that led up to this. Can I go and do this instead?
Really sad that the best thing about Dawntrail for me is the thing that is the furthest away from Dawntrail lol.

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Originally Posted by ClayyLmao

Agreed. If Sphene-bot, at the very end had been like "No, you're wrong Wuk, I am right" and then died, I think it would've been a better way for Wuk to have to face the fact that you can't just Talk No Jutsu your way out of every problem.

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I ain't reading 20+ pages of comments so idk if this idea went any further, but here's my two cents.

I'd prefer if Zereel Ja had done that. His heel-face turn was cheap and unconvincing in the first place, so nix it. Have Wuk Lamat learn that some problems can't be solved so easily halfway through the expac instead of at the very end. She feels a bit jaded. Everything with Zoraal Ja compounds that feeling. And then Sphene-bot, who despite being uncompromising in her goals is never portrayed as malicious, can teach Wuk Lamat that even though it's not always possible, you always have to try, because sometimes it is possible.

Have Wuk Lamat fall and then rise again, not just fall at the very end.