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

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Originally Posted by vonKlippe

This expansion was so bad that we need a Dawntrail Reborn to overwrite it. Keep the outline, turn the Wuk Lamat dial from 11 down to 3, delete every cutscene except the gondola, and start over.

And make Viper and Pictomancer unique instead of reswizzles of existing jobs.

And give me a tackle box ffs, I have a whole inventory screen full of lures and scrip bait.

One thing that truly puzzles me... No one... NO ONE at Square stood up and said "this doesn't work, we can't ship this."

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At this point I am almost convinced they don’t play their own game.
Also please could you keep the gondola? I don’t want it.

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Originally Posted by Donze

I have said this before, starting around lvl 95 MSQ, and now that I am 3 quests from done, i'll say it again, as it has become more and more evident; this feels written for children by someone untested.

I would be happy to list many examples, but the short of it is that the situations and the dialogue are constantly contradicting each other. Being told 'your happy now' when things are sad, being told "ive talked long enough!" when the voiced NPC literally said 2 short things that spanned about 9-12 seconds; even the fact that in the last 8 quests of MSQ, you're doing goofy hijinks dressed up as a mascot. The 2nd half of the story is a horror story to me (by which I mean I find what the bubble and solution 9 et al is horrific and cruel to the people). After all, we just finished Endwalker which spent its expansion and the last 10 years building up to the point where Happiness and Sadness go hand in hand, Venat sundered the damn word rather than people discarding sorrow. Yet, here we are again, so I can understand why some feel the story gets boring.

I dislike that the WoL responses are so forced here, that all these obvious queues are being ignored (I stopped counting after 6 the number of time Erenville gives a somber look and balls a fist or puts his fist to his chin in thought and discomfort over a certain something in the 2nd half). Instead, WoL is forced to respond in the positive about the state of the last zone, despite knowing FULL WELL that its wrong, and that bringing back the ones you loved at the expense of those still alive is the ENTIRE plan (the Ardor) of the Ascians that we have been fighting against for the last 10 years, and just wrapped up. Why the WoL responses seem devoid of WoL's experiences from ARR to Endwalker, meaning that he is hopelessly fun loving and positive about a situations he has first hand knowledge as being wrong, wishful thinking, only makes sense when I suppose this was written for children with memory issues.

I plan to play the MSQ a 2nd time on an alt thats ready to go, and revisit many of my notes and hopefully provide SE with some constructive feedback in places where maybe it just a bad localization thing, but on first wag, I like the story over all, just the pacing if crazy off sometimes and on point others, and the dialogue... dear god.

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Children aren't stupid. They like good stories and can understand any adult theme that they've been reasonably exposed to in the world around them -- love, war, etc. It is a rookie mistake to dumb-down a story for kids. Simplify the language? Yes. Avoid excessive subtlety? Sure. Don't reference real world history that they certainly don't know? Absolutely. Make it more accessible, but don't dumb down the story itself. Kids get bored with crappy stories even more than adults do.

I do agree that it feels like Dawntrail was a good story that was severely dumbed-down in a tragically ignorant attempt to appeal to kids.

I agree with some of OP's points but disagree with others:

1) Wuk Lamat didn't blindly trust Sphene. You said she didn't "act like" she didn't trust Sphene, but I don't know how else the ruler of a country is supposed to act when faced with sudden diplomacy. She took a "wait-and-see" approach since she (correctly) trusted that Sphene didn't like Zoraal Ja. And I'm not sure why Alisaie is mentioned, as nearly every other word out of Alisaie's mouth is about how much she does not trust Sphene, both in and out of cutscenes. And honestly, I wouldn't say Wuk Lamat is stunned by the reveal of Sphene's deception; she's just hurt, which I think is fair to feel after attempted international diplomacy. Essentially, if this "isn't how people act", then you should explain how she should have acted instead.

2) The comment on "Talk-no-Jutsu" is strange to me considering Wuk Lamat killed Zoraal Ja and Sphene. And for Zoraal Ja, she explained to his own kid why she couldn't talk it out. She has a speech about how combat is necessary sometimes for peace. Her response to two leaders who do not regard political enemies as people worthy enough of life is to celebrate all people. (Debates on Living Memory, of course, notwithstanding; I agree that the conflict there is avoided at best, undeveloped at worst). She fights dehumanization with humanity, and still kills people who can't be reasoned with. Perhaps this is a personal problem, but I'm really not sure what else she should have done.

3) I fail to see how the ruler of a country taking the time to understand the people around her and affected by her decisions is a flaw in the writing. If anything, I would say this is the most worthy a political leader has been in XIV since...well, ever, honestly.

4) Ishikawa headed some very good material, but she also headed the plotline that is basically "the Ancients were biologically incapable of saving their home, and that's a part of why it's for the greater good that their world had to be eradicated." Frankly, with direction like that, I gotta say I'm glad she's not the lead writer for a continent focused on indigenous cultures of the West. I say this as a fan of her credited work.

5) The Scions were not there to meddle and I'm glad they didn't. Though, I do agree their writing was flat at times. But this has been an issue since 1.0 and I don't think it's fair to place blame on any specific members of the writing team – it is a team, and a long-standing one at that.

All in all, I mostly view this thread as "things some people didn't like" rather than anything objective about what writing should/shouldn't be. I liked Dawntrail, even with my own criticisms, and I don't think I'm any more or less literate for it.

And if this game survived after 4.1 reinventing trickle-down economics explicitly to justify exploiting one of the most vulnerable demographics of people on Hydaelyn, then I seriously doubt it's in danger now.

I had issues with some of the writing just before the second half of Urqopacha. I also think that sometimes most characters did repeat their points a little too frequently rather than dimply letting their thoughts organically play out.

Beyond that, I am very satisfied with the writing of Dawntrail and look forward to more from the writer. I shed tears twice because parts of the narrative resonated very deeply.

I was on board with a Wuk Lamat coming of age story until after the attack on Tuliyollal when she stated that she must kill her brother. The way she said it seemed weirdly cold compared to how she was before and it's unlike any other scene when a character displays deep emotions. There's usually a close-up and audio cue of them balling their fists tightly, followed by a shot of them gritting their teeth before they make their statement, but there wasn't anything like that with her statement. When these audios cues aren't present on one of the most expressive characters in the game, it felt kind of eerie, like she somehow immediately morphed into the perfect vow of resolve. In the aftermath of the second trial, when she starts crying, I was wondering how she was hiding any of that sentiment when she was consistently portrayed as a person who literally can't hide their emotions before then, the only hint being a text observation by a guard saying that her hands were shaking when she stated her goal of killing Zoraal Ja.

I came to the conclusion that the current writer seems to really dislike characters creating their own conflict so they dialed down her emotions for that span of the story, leaving us with no clear character growth and all exposition.

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Originally Posted by Xellith

What even WAS the message behind dawntrail? "Genocide is okay as long as it's in self defense" is what I took away.

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top minds of final fantasy xiv itt

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Isn't that the message your ilk takes from every expansion?

Sorry we are discussing Dawntrail, not any fringe theories about data memories being real people.

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Emet-Selch: "But yes, moral relativism and all that. Case in point - I do not consider you to be truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you."

I'd say "You have become Emet-Selch after he went wacko" but you might somehow think that's a compliment.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

So we are jumping from not understanding the purpose and meaning of genocide to also not understanding who or what Emet is. Emet is a humanoid Ancient commenting on his perception of, for the purposes of this game, actual human beings. The reason Emet says this with sarcastic inflection is because he knows it's bs and just doesn't care. He's rationalizing rejoining, which also happens to be an aggression against the entire world. You're talking about Emet like his goal is to slaughter worlds when it's not-- it's to rejoin them back into a singular world.

The issue with Endless is not one of perception. You either accept that they're fascimilies or you don't.

Not accepting it is voluntarily co opting of the writing on the part of players. No thanks. I'm going to go by what the game is about.

And I'm not worried about you think of me at all. Do you not realize you're sitting here saying the writers are fascist, Erenville is fascist, Krile is fascist, etc? Why would I care what you think when your perception of what happened in this story is so completely disturbing?

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Why is people disagreeing with writers such a novel concept to you, if the purpose of fiction was to blindly accept whatever it said and put zero extra thought into it we wouldn't be talking about anything. To examine a piece of media from multiple angles is part and parcel with any narrative, especially one that poses ethical dilemmas that are frustratingly ignored and brushed over. If you don't care and are happy to accept the most surface level parts of the text without question or examination why are you even bothering to engage people on this, you can go on your merry way.

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Originally Posted by Wired-Lain

Why is people disagreeing with writers such a novel concept to you, if the purpose of fiction was to blindly accept whatever it said and put zero extra thought into it we wouldn't be talking about anything. To examine a piece of media from multiple angles is part and parcel with any narrative, especially one that poses ethical dilemmas that are frustratingly ignored and brushed over. If you don't care and are happy to accept the most surface level parts of the text without question or examination why are you even bothering to engage people on this, you can go on your merry way.

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XIV has an additional issue that started early, but became very pronounced with EW, where it has conflicting messages. This isn't even a DT issue, although DT exacerbates it.
Sometimes, a lot of naturalist arguments are thrown around ("this is against the natural cycle, so it's bad" or "this is the way of nature, so it's good"), but often use technology or unnatural ways to solve natural problems. All of Sharlayan and Garlemald hinge on technology to flourish, and this is never seen as wrong, nor are "unnatural" solutions to problems. It becomes even more complicated when you consider most of the world was populated by creatures originally designed by the ancients through a meticulous process (as unnatural as it can get). Hell, in a way, dying is unnatural, as the kind of mortality most races in XIV have is the result of the Sundering, basically the actions of a magic super-weapon. Is using electrope to farm bad? If it is, is using Sharlayan techniques bad, even if they hinge on magic or some process of magically-assisted artificial selection (something we're shown they do in Labyrinthos)?

On the other hand, there is also dissonance in a lot of messages that appear in EW regarding suffering. Obviously, you need to know when to let go, and going around murdering entire worlds (be it Emet-Selch or Sphene or whomever) to revive your loved ones is morally reproachable. But then there's that whole tirade of "growing through suffering" or becoming stronger for it, and how societies without pain or scarcity eventually go into suicidal atrophy. That seems at odds with the ultimate goals of the scions or the WoL, which is to relieve people of suffering and establish lasting, world-wide peace. If, hypothetically, through great feats of magic and technology, all war, disease and strife is gone from the world, potentially perpetually, does the world become worse for it? Do we turn into the Ea or something, and lose our way? Does it become the moral thing to do then, in such an hypothetical state of Etheirys, to... create strife and war? So people remember suffering once again, and relearn how to endure and surpass it?I, personally, do not agree with this message to begin with- terrible things happen, and we need to move on, yes. But, if I could, I'd make it so no one needs to do that, so that no one needs to bury a loved one that was prematurely taken, or endure hunger and pain. But the game itself is sometimes at odds with that message.

It makes it very hard for me to consume the story without thinking of these things. There's also the ton of lore retcons on top of this, which make it even more incongruent, and harder to digest with no thought. Ofc, everyone will have their read on this. I just find it discordant.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the story of this game has been a "whose genocide/omnicide is more justified" pissing contest since the beginning, but especially since Shadowbringers. The Hunting Logs having the sentient races in them is a contentious topic. The entire Ascian plotline is literally this. Even G'raha Tia is willing to erase an entire timeline and all the people who live in it because he misses his friends – the only reason why he doesn't have consequences is because... well, actually, it's never explained, so we don't know why.

I fail to see what the issue is all of a sudden when Venat's Sundering cutscene is one of the more highly regarded cutscenes in the game.

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Originally Posted by TELOS

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the story of this game has been a "whose genocide/omnicide is more justified" pissing contest since the beginning, but especially since Shadowbringers. The Hunting Logs having the sentient races in them is a contentious topic. The entire Ascian plotline is literally this. Even G'raha Tia is willing to erase an entire timeline and all the people who live in it because he misses his friends – the only reason why he doesn't have consequences is because... well, actually, it's never explained, so we don't know why.

I fail to see what the issue is all of a sudden when Venat's Sundering cutscene is one of the more highly regarded cutscenes in the game.

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G'raha Tia didn't "erase a whole timeline because he misses his friends". He was trying to save the world, by going back in time and getting the person most likely to be able to save the First, and in the process, stop the 8th Umbral Calamity from happening. Were you reading the story at all?

Also, he didn't erase that timeline, it's still going on somewhere, he's just not there anymore. We actually have a short story about that.

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Originally Posted by duckorz

What makes FFXIV special is how Natsuko Ishikawa treats its characters.

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I mean I think we're putting so much weight on Ishikawa being a master writer, after all she did write in the Endwalker MSQ "And then the Warrior of Light stands there awestruck and watches as how the most important political person in Radz-at-Han gets eaten by a monster".

That being said, I liked reading through your analysis, but some of the points I wanted to challenge were already challenged by another person. I honestly want the MSQ to be a better thing to experience through, I enjoyed Dawntrail, but I'll say that i'm honestly disastisfied with the story not for the quality of the writing or characters, but because it has the same predictable structure we've been getting for the past 7 years.

I think the only thing I wanted to add is that comparing Namikka to Venat or the Crystal Exarch is kind of unfair given the weight of each character in the story.

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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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Having just done the last trial (and finish DT), I was expecting Sphene to say "I hate you. You destroy my people" (okay that might be a bit OOC from Sphene, but I desperately want the game to stop agreeing with Wuk).

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

G'raha Tia didn't "erase a whole timeline because he misses his friends". He was trying to save the world, by going back in time and getting the person most likely to be able to save the First, and in the process, stop the 8th Umbral Calamity from happening. Were you reading the story at all?

Also, he didn't erase that timeline, it's still going on somewhere, he's just not there anymore. We actually have a short story about that.

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To add to this.
It wasn’t his decision alone.
Many people came together and said „yes it’s worth the risk of us being erased for a better timeline somewhere else“.
There was resistance but even that is implied to have died down at the end when Midgardsommr was beginning to help and Omega „reawakened“.

That timeline is bleak but it’s also full of hope.
The Ascians may win there but they will absolutely not have an easy time because everyone is now united against them.

I wish we got more short stories from there.
I really wonder if the Ascians win there how Emet Selch and Elidibus will look back.
Will they be full of regret?
Because I don‘t think the „new rejoined“ people would look kindly at it all.

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

G'raha Tia didn't "erase a whole timeline because he misses his friends". He was trying to save the world, by going back in time and getting the person most likely to be able to save the First, and in the process, stop the 8th Umbral Calamity from happening. Were you reading the story at all?

Also, he didn't erase that timeline, it's still going on somewhere, he's just not there anymore. We actually have a short story about that.

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He did it to save the world, huh? Which world? Definitely not his world as he abandoned it taking with him knowledge and technology that could have greatly improved the lives of the people living in the world he abandoned. Was the Source in a bad state after the eighth umbral calamity? Yes. But the Source has been in a bad state after every umbral calamity, and people have rebuilt. And thanks to the short story we know that they will rebuild again...just without the help of the Exarch and the Crystal Tower.

Maybe you think the First is the world he wanted to save. Why? Until he traveled there he knew nothing about them. The truth is he rewrote time to undo the death of one person fully expecting that action to erase himself and the original timeline. And actually, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with G'raha being so in love with the WoL that he was willing to delete an entire timeline to save them. What I'm not okay with is the preachiness and 'forge ahead' nonsense when we're over here rewriting time to get our desired outcomes. The hypocrisy is galling.

Because say saving the First was his true goal. Once we find out what caused the Flood, G'raha could have gone back in time again and warned Ardbert saving the entire planet from the Flood. Now THAT would be saving the world. So why is that never considered? Because his actual goal has been met, the WoL is alive and that's all he cares about. Also, if he did go back in time again, the timeline would split again so while A First would be spared the pain and suffering brought on by the Flood, OUR First would remain unchanged. And to that, I say exactly.

If this is all about saving the world, why don't we go back to before the creation of Meteion and warn the convocation? That'd be saving the world too, wouldn't it?

But no, the past is the past. You must forge ahead and soldier on...unless the WoL drops dead then time to dropkick time and space into the trash bin because some things are more important than a timeline full of people. Am I right?

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

G'raha Tia didn't "erase a whole timeline because he misses his friends". He was trying to save the world, by going back in time and getting the person most likely to be able to save the First, and in the process, stop the 8th Umbral Calamity from happening. Were you reading the story at all?

Also, he didn't erase that timeline, it's still going on somewhere, he's just not there anymore. We actually have a short story about that.

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I know he didn't erase the timeline. I read the short story. I'm also talking about exclusively his motivation/intent. He didn't care if he was going to erase the timeline, and in that exact short story they talk about how it's a possibility. They all knew it was a risk, and he did it anyway.

And I'm also saying there's no lore reason why he didn't erase the timeline. Considering what Endwalker's treatment of the Ancients was, where you explicitly cannot change the events of the past, it's a head-scratcher.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Genocide is the destruction of a people on the basis of identity. Is G'raha wiping out the timeline because of the group identity or is his motivation missing his friends? Which is it? You cannot call him genocidal just because his actions result in a large scale death. Just because you may have been abusing the word forever, does not make it ok. Also as someone else noted, the timeline is just stranded and didn't result in mass death.

Ancients and Endless aren't even human, even in the context of the storytelling. It's a needless and excessive term to use. The Ancients were in a philosophical conflict and even in the case of the sacrifices, weren't targeting people for any specific reason (well at least not yet).

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1) You are missing the forest for the trees. There's no need to be pedantic about genocide.

2) In my post, I specifically included omnicide, which is the killing of an entire universe, which absolutely includes an erased timeline. G'raha Tia was willing to erase a timeline. He may not have actually done it for reasons unknown, but he accepted those consequences.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

To add to this.
It wasn’t his decision alone.
Many people came together and said „yes it’s worth the risk of us being erased for a better timeline somewhere else“.
There was resistance but even that is implied to have died down at the end when Midgardsommr was beginning to help and Omega „reawakened“.

That timeline is bleak but it’s also full of hope.
The Ascians may win there but they will absolutely not have an easy time because everyone is now united against them.

I wish we got more short stories from there.
I really wonder if the Ascians win there how Emet Selch and Elidibus will look back.
Will they be full of regret?
Because I don‘t think the „new rejoined“ people would look kindly at it all.

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If "it wasn't his decision alone" is a good reason to justify it, then there should be no qualms with shutting down the Endless, as they were all on-board with the decision.

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Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon

He did it to save the world, huh? Which world? Definitely not his world (...snip for lenght)

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You didn't read the short story I linked, did you? I recommend going back to it.

Although I do very much enjoy the idea of G'raha Tia being madly in love with the WoL, that's not the canon reason. It's clear that his admiration of the WoL as a hero played a huge part because of the amount of hope and trust he had on them, and he did personally want to save the WoL. So much so that he was willing to sacrifice himself in the end, AFTER saving the First - which no, he didn't want to save for any personal connection at first, but as explained in the MSQ, it's an important step to stopping the 8th Umbral Calamity: he had to stop the rejoining. But it wasn't a decision he made alone. They decided it was worth the risk, if not for them, then for another timeline, where the calamity wouldn't happen. It's in that story.

Also, the Crystal Tower isn't presented as an easy to use time machine that can go back and forth at will anytime he wants. He arrived in the First after the Flood of Light already happened, and I think it's been also mentioned that they didn't have control of when exactly would he arrive there, considering how time flows differently. He just needed to arrive before the death of the WoL. His plan was based on what he knew from the Source, because there was no way he had any knowledge about the First other than knowing about the rejoining.

Also quoting Voidmage's response:

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

To add to this.
It wasn’t his decision alone.
Many people came together and said „yes it’s worth the risk of us being erased for a better timeline somewhere else“.
There was resistance but even that is implied to have died down at the end when Midgardsommr was beginning to help and Omega „reawakened“.

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Even if G'ahara original time lined got erased, it will still be stupid to call his action genocidal. He didn't come up with the plan, he was entrusted with it by the very people at risk of being erased. This is like accusing a doctor who performing a consented euthanasia on terminally ill patients "murderer". Yes, someone people truly believe that, doesn't make them right.

But people always use the most extreme and hyperbolic words to push their message, what else is news?

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Originally Posted by TELOS

If "it wasn't his decision alone" is a good reason to justify it, then there should be no qualms with shutting down the Endless, as they were all on-board with the decision.

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I was just adding aditional information there. Nothing more.
If you want my opinion on the endless then it would be:
I think they are alive. They are a form of "clones" of the originals but nonetheless themself. Otherwise the whole thing with Krile's and Erenvilles parents wouldn't make no sense for me.
Their death was sad and a tragedy but the game didn't give us any other options and I say the game, because there clearly was a way and it get's to fast handwaved with "they all want that anyway".
I never said I justify genocide nor will I allow anyone to put those words into my mouth or twist my posts for that argument. Are we clear?

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

Although I do very much enjoy the idea of G'raha Tia being madly in love with the WoL, that's not the canon reason. It's clear that his admiration of the WoL as a hero played a huge part because of the amount of hope and trust he had on them, and he did personally want to save the WoL. So much so that he was willing to sacrifice himself in the end, AFTER saving the First - which no, he didn't want to save for any personal connection at first, but as explained in the MSQ, it's an important step to stopping the 8th Umbral Calamity: he had to stop the rejoining. But it wasn't a decision he made alone. They decided it was worth the risk, if not for them, then for another timeline, where the calamity wouldn't happen. It's in that story.

Also, the Crystal Tower isn't presented as an easy to use time machine that can go back and forth at will anytime he wants. He arrived in the First after the Flood of Light already happened, and I think it's been also mentioned that they didn't have control of when exactly would he arrive there, considering how time flows differently. He just needed to arrive before the death of the WoL. His plan was based on what he knew from the Source, because there was no way he had any knowledge about the First other than knowing about the rejoining.

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I am not a fan of the G'Raha romance thing but I agree that the WoL is probably the most important person for them and that he was happy to take that risk and responsibility.
Yes, it was a huge amount of the survivors of the calamity. It is implied that the calamity was one of the most devastating and I wouldn't be surprised if even Elidibus had a hand in helping with stuff after that (that's his whole role).

Yeah they didn't have control. They used the towers power and Alexanders time stuff together with Omegas travel power and landet actually 100 years before they planed as far as I remember.
It was a huge gamble like you implied.

Edit:
I just saw you quoted me for the argument. Ah well, you are correct. Take my answer anyway. xD

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I was just adding aditional information there. Nothing more.
If you want my opinion on the endless then it would be:
I think they are alive. They are a form of "clones" of the originals but nonetheless themself. Otherwise the whole thing with Krile's and Erenvilles parents wouldn't make no sense for me.
Their death was sad and a tragedy but the game didn't give us any other options and I say the game, because there clearly was a way and it get's to fast handwaved with "they all want that anyway".
I never said I justify genocide nor will I allow anyone to put those words into my mouth. Are we clear?

Edit:
I just saw you quoted me for the argument. Ah well, you are correct. Take my answer anyway. xD

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It's fine, sorry it was confusing :x should've answered all of it before quoting you for clarity! I'm in full agreement with you here! :)


Just my two cents on the Endless, I think i'ts yet another example of something the game handled badly. It's actually a really cool discussion to have, if we really think they're alive and how that should be treated...except the story didn't go that route and didn't want us to have that discussion. It decided for us that we just shouldn't think too much about it, they're unsustainable and should be shut down, just wanted us to go "shhh, think of the emotional scenes and move on. If you think TOO much it will break those scenes, so just...don't think."

And after the tribe quests in Ultima Thule, and what was presented to us in the area in general, it's also inconsistent with what the game understands consists of life. Is it the memory? Is it the soul? From my understanding, it was the consciousness. And the Endless are conscious. They're able to interact and form new memories.

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

It's fine, sorry it was confusing :x should've answered all of it before quoting you for clarity! I'm in full agreement with you here! :)


Just my two cents on the Endless, I think i'ts yet another example of something the game handled badly. It's actually a really cool discussion to have, if we really think they're alive and how that should be treated...except the story didn't go that route and didn't want us to have that discussion. It decided for us that we just shouldn't think too much about it, they're unsustainable and should be shut down, just wanted us to go "shhh, think of the emotional scenes and move on. If you think TOO much it will break those scenes, so just...don't think."

And after the tribe quests in Ultima Thule, and what was presented to us in the area in general, it's also inconsistent with what the game understands consists of life. Is it the memory? Is it the soul? From my understanding, it was the consciousness. And the Endless are conscious. They're able to interact and form new memories.

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It's fine.

Fully agree.
The endless are an interesting phylosophical thing in the story and I would enjoyed that topic in the game and out of it.
It's too bad the game won't go into that whole thing deeper.
We could have had flashbacks to Emet's words, we could have had Endless struggling with the decision and Wuk Lamat having character growth there, or we could have had with the deactivations Sphene breaking down more and more. Instead even she was fine with it and didn't even comment on the whole thing.
Even the credits are a happy ever after.

What a bummer.
Such a missed chance.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I was just adding aditional information there. Nothing more.
If you want my opinion on the endless then it would be:
I think they are alive. They are a form of "clones" of the originals but nonetheless themself. Otherwise the whole thing with Krile's and Erenvilles parents wouldn't make no sense for me.
Their death was sad and a tragedy but the game didn't give us any other options and I say the game, because there clearly was a way and it get's to fast handwaved with "they all want that anyway".
I never said I justify genocide nor will I allow anyone to put those words into my mouth or twist my posts for that argument. Are we clear?

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I was just talking about the original subject, the Endless and how XIV treats the deaths of societies historically, being discussed. I also explicitly was not calling it genocide, but omnicide. Nothing you've said here changes my response.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Even if G'ahara original time lined got erased, it will still be stupid to call his action genocidal. He didn't come up with the plan, he was entrusted with it by the very people at risk of being erased. This is like accusing a doctor who performing a consented euthanasia on terminally ill patients "murderer". Yes, someone people truly believe that, doesn't make them right.

But people always use the most extreme and hyperbolic words to push their message, what else is news?

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Erasing a timeline is quite literally omnicide. No one is calling it genocide. And your reasoning for justifying G'raha Tia's actions extremely easily applies to the Endless, which is my entire point.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Even if G'ahara original time lined got erased, it will still be stupid to call his action genocidal. He didn't come up with the plan, he was entrusted with it by the very people at risk of being erased. This is like accusing a doctor who performing a consented euthanasia on terminally ill patients "murderer". Yes, someone people truly believe that, doesn't make them right.

But people always use the most extreme and hyperbolic words to push their message, what else is news?

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Do you truly believe he got the permission of everyone in that timeline to wipe them out of existence? That no one, on any world, in that entire universe wanted to keep existing?

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

You didn't read the short story I linked, did you? I recommend going back to it.

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I've obviously read the story because I referenced it when describing the state of the world he abandoned.

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Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon

But no, the past is the past. You must forge ahead and soldier on...unless the WoL drops dead then time to dropkick time and space into the trash bin because some things are more important than a timeline full of people. Am I right?

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Pretty much this.

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Originally Posted by TELOS

And your reasoning for justifying G'raha Tia's actions extremely easily applies to the Endless, which is my entire point.

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Then I don't get your point. Unlike all the previous incarnation of the same theme, the Endless to me is a completely fail attempt to incite an argument that doesn't exist. The Endless is nothing more than projection of a self-serving AI that just happen to have a large amount of data to emulate a person. Say ... since we can already have almost a nominal conversation with chatGPT, and if MS decide to parterup with the people running Vocaloid ... in a decade we'll probably have something like the Endless. At that point, if MS decide to shut down chatGPT server would you be screaming bloody murder? I know I won't.

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Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon

Do you truly believe he got the permission of everyone in that timeline to wipe them out of existence? That no one, on any world, in that entire universe wanted to keep existing?

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And I'll bluntly tell you this kind of argument is ... , well I won't say it because it'll just be mean. But if you want to twisted into a form of universal consensus than:

- Not everyone want to die defending their country, so drafting in a defensive war is genocidal your own population.

- Not everyone want to obey or agree to the law, so the laws shouldn't exist.

- Not everyone want to die for a cause, so even a righteous revolution is a genocidal. Do you really think every single British colonists were all on board the American revolution, like every single one?

- Will you care about writing a story about the evil Washington who forced colonist to become independent from England?

The narrative you try to use here is like bringing a club and just blunt any story telling to death, no exception. The point of the narrative is G'ara was entrusted with the mission and carried the will of the people of his timeline. That's the motif necessary for the story to move forward. Now of course, there probably are 101 ways to poke hole at that story, I'm just saying yours is probably the worst way to do it.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Then I don't get your point. Unlike all the previous incarnation of the same theme, the Endless to me is a completely fail attempt to incite an argument that doesn't exist. The Endless is nothing more than projection of a self-serving AI that just happen to have a large amount of data to emulate a person. Say ... since we can already have almost a nominal conversation with chatGPT, and if MS decide to parterup with the people running Vocaloid ... in a decade we'll probably have something like the Endless. At that point, if MS decide to shut down chatGPT server would you be screaming bloody murder? I know I won't.

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The reason why I said what I said is because people are saying what happened to the Endless is sad because "they're people". I'm bringing up that the same thing applies to G'raha Tia's original timeline that he was willing to erase to say this is not an issue unique to Dawntrail. If you're not saying this, then obviously my point doesn't apply to you.

G'raha Tia was still happy to commit omnicide though.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

And I'll bluntly tell you this kind of argument is ... , well I won't say it because it'll just be mean. But if you want to twisted into a form of universal consensus than:

- Not everyone want to die defending their country, so drafting in a defensive war is genocidal your own population.

- Not everyone want to obey or agree to the law, so the laws shouldn't exist.

- Not everyone want to die for a cause, so even a righteous revolution is a genocidal. Do you really think every single British colonists were all on board the American revolution, like every single one?

- Will you care about writing a story about the evil Washington who forced colonist to become independent from England?

The narrative you try to use here is like bringing a club and just blunt any story telling to death, no exception. The point of the narrative is G'ara was entrusted with the mission and carried the will of the people of his timeline. That's the motif necessary for the story to move forward. Now of course, there probably are 101 ways to poke hole at that story, I'm just saying yours is probably the worst way to do it.

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You are the one claiming that having the consent of a handful of scientists means that wiping out their universe is no longer omnicide. You are the one claiming that consent of a tiny group of people given the vastness of the universe removes responsibility for wiping out millions if not billions of people who did not consent and would have never had a clue who the WoL is.

He did not carry out "the will of the people" he carried out the will of one group of people on one continent, on one shard, which ran the risk of wiping out an entire universe. And again, that's not my issue, my issue is how preachy we get about moving forward and not looking back, when one of our friends risked wiping out an entire universe to keep us around. But when it comes to any other people "that's against nature" "we are meant to live and die." Yeah, no one was making that speech when they were inventing timetravel so that we would have the "natural" death we were "meant" to have.

This was such a cool discussion until the regulars got here.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Even if G'ahara original time lined got erased, it will still be stupid to call his action genocidal. He didn't come up with the plan, he was entrusted with it by the very people at risk of being erased. This is like accusing a doctor who performing a consented euthanasia on terminally ill patients "murderer". Yes, someone people truly believe that, doesn't make them right.

But people always use the most extreme and hyperbolic words to push their message, what else is news?

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Graha's timeline still exists but is kinda of a dead end timeline. It was actually mentioned that even if Graha changes the past their "present" would not change at all telling the player that is basically a new timeline that diverged from when Graha appeared in the past.

They just tried to give one world a chance even if theirs is kinda done for no matter what

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Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon

You are the one claiming that having the consent of a handful of scientists means that wiping out their universe is no longer omnicide. You are the one claiming that consent of a tiny group of people given the vastness of the universe removes responsibility for wiping out millions if not billions of people who did not consent and would have never had a clue who the WoL is.

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I'm sorry, but did you play the same expansion I did? Or were you a cutsceen skipper?

- His timeline were described as completely broken, there was no way just a "tiny group" of people, no matter how smart can accomplish the project.

- Rather, it was described it was a pan-generational projects that were only realized by a collective effort of the people of that time line.

- And the thread that tied the world together were the legend of the WoL.

- His timeline wasnt on a mission to erase itself. They are on the mission to revive the one figure that they believe can delivery them. Erasure wasn't the goal, it was just an accepted risk.

- Just like when you try a dangerous procedure that may kill the patience, the doctor is not accused of murder when the treatmeant went wrong.

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He did not carry out "the will of the people" he carried out the will of one group of people on one continent, on one shard, which ran the risk of wiping out an entire universe.

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Now you're just reaching. Should we start discussing quantum physic next? The heck is this entire universe thing come from.

Did you forget that in his time line, the First already cease to exist and merge into the source? Can genocide a world that's already no longer exist. Even if you try to argue intention, it doesn't change the fact his mission gave an entire Shard a chance it would never have otherwise.

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They just tried to give one world a chance even if theirs is kinda done for no matter what

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Exactly

His mission if success, at worst would be able to spare the First from annihilation at the cost of their own. And at best, it will save both if that's what they dare to hope for.

I think a lot of the issues people have taken with how the WoL is handled is how stripped of character they were this expac. I'll elaborate on one example of this.

One of the things I can't shake and troubles me greatly is how quickly our WoL is made to defy their pre-established philosophy. I want to bring you back to Shadowbringers for a quote:

Emet-Selch: "I do not consider you to be truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you."

I don't need to get into the details - we all played ShadowBringers and know what happened there. So why then do we - the great heroes who oppose this philosophy then go to Living Memory and murder the last traces of human life on one of the Source's reflections? Because we don't consider them to be truly alive; ergo, we're not guilty of murder for killing them? Why was the solution to the last vestiges of humanity on a reflection clawing onto anything they could for dear life killing them? Because Sphene was being bad? Because the "low stakes" we were promised are actually the highest they've ever been since blasphemies literally almost wiped out The Source? Because we went from "haha rite of succession" to "all life on the source will be wiped out in 10 minutes better hurry lol?" Was there really no other solution there? It's truly baffling to me how we made that logical and philosophical leap with little to no exploration of the situation at all minus G'raha's musings on the boat ride.

The way the story as a whole was handled is baffling to me moreso than anything else. I can't make sense of most of it.

I think the lowest level of all of this -- below character depth and development, cutscene torture, plot holes, etc. -- is that the Dawntrail writer(s) had absolutely *no* respect for the people who were expected to pay to experience this story.

I take back what I said before about no one at Square saying "this is awful, we can't ship this." Now I think that probably a lot of people who worked on this expac thought and maybe even said "I really don't like this game, but our target audience will." They thought it was crap, but they thought we'd *love* it. Maybe they wrote it for kids and they think kids are too stupid to comprehend and enjoy a rich and detailed story with a cast of extraordinary characters, or maybe they wrote it for all of us and they think we're all a bunch of cheap Anime-worshipping morons who will just buy whatever they sell. Whomever they imagined the audience to be, the people at Square thought very, very little of them.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I'm sorry, but did you play the same expansion I did? Or were you a cutsceen skipper?

- His timeline were described as completely broken, there was no way just a "tiny group" of people, no matter how smart can accomplish the project.

- Rather, it was described it was a pan-generational projects that were only realized by a collective effort of the people of that time line.

- And the thread that tied the world together were the legend of the WoL.

- His timeline wasnt on a mission to erase itself. They are on the mission to revive the one figure that they believe can delivery them. Erasure wasn't the goal, it was just an accepted risk.

- Just like when you try a dangerous procedure that may kill the patience, the doctor is not accused of murder when the treatmeant went wrong.

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The timeline isn't "completely broken." People on the Source are fighting over limited resources, yet they have enough resources to dedicate centuries to figuring out timetravel. And you claim that it wasn't even a small group that had enough free time and support to do this, so by your own argument there is a society functional enough to work on getting into the Crystal Tower and rewriting history, imagine what they could have accomplished if they had put all that effort towards moving forward rather than looking back. Do you really believe the First was in better shape than the Source in the alternate timeline?

And keep in mind, because of the short story we know that Midgard woke up and is helping them forge a path forward which means there was a path forward, but they spent 200 years looking back, even if it meant ending their own existence, but it didn't, which means now they have to move forward and fix their problems anyway. Had G'raha stayed, they could have had their own Crystarium, they knew changing history would do absolutely nothing for them and they were okay with that, but they also risked wiping out people who wouldn't have been okay with that.

Like you can't argue that it was this massive generational project AND they were so fubared it was okay for them to give up on their own universe because one piece of one planet was going through it's 7th dark age.

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Originally Posted by vonKlippe

This was such a cool discussion until the regulars got here.

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But the regulars have been here since the first couple of pages :o

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Originally Posted by HighlanderClone

This deserves a bump. I read it on xivd and I had a few thoughts but don't really have the time to write it down right now...



I agree with most of your points but the biggest thing I don't agree with is that character writing is the biggest problem this expansion. Wuk Lamat is annoying but an equivalently serious problem is the complete absence of depth with the story's themes...

I will expand on it later. I know that a lot of people enjoyed ShB, EW because the characters were written decently in those two xpacs. But IMO the themes also got shallower and shallower and deep philosophical issues are just raised without much exploration. Ishikawa to me is a worse writer than what came before because she doesn't seem to care much for sociological storytelling. An entire avenue for depth has been removed with her writing. One of the biggest reasons why I thought Les Miserables or War and Peace are great works is because they tell the story of a society through its characters. ShB and EW don't have much of that and therefore despite the stakes actually feels less epic than SB IMHO.

Subjectively IMO her writing is also less mature. Even in ShB and EW it feels like problems are solved too easily, which robs us of the opportunity to sit with and ponder certain facets of the human condition. The worlds become far less grounded starting in ShB and entire societies start to feel like props that exist just so Ishikawa can moralize about hope.

I am not saying sociogical storytelling is superior, just that the importance of character writing depends on your own preferences. A deep story typically needs to be deep across several dimensions, like character, society, theming. I genuinely think focusing on just the character writing means that the story in FF14 will never be profound and match the heights of great literature. Although, perhaps I should not be expecting a video game to deliver writing as profound as the classics in the first place...

Also with DT we have nothing. So I suppose improvement in any direction would be positive.

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I'm playing EW atm and noticed the people of FFXIV just feel empty and culture-less. Like they no longer feel as if they to exist after I exit the game. I realized that what theyre missing is something like a "sociological" heart. So I searched google for Ishikawa and "sociological" and found your comment.

I couldn't agree more with what you said. I LOVED the DRK quests and was super excited when I found out Ishikawa was heading ShB and EW. The people and settlements in ARR-SB had weight to them. They felt real. They had that certain element of soulfulness and life.

I'm still on EW, but starting in ShB, I felt the side characters we meet in the settlements along the way just lost something. They all feel the same. Like the people in Palaka's Stand in EW feel the same as the people in Wright in ShB. Sure, one is Indian inspired, but thats about it. There's just a certain groundedness that's missing. This was really glaring in Eulmore in ShB. I was not convinced at all by their moral, societal, and political transformation.

Edit: I'm in Radz rn and even the people there feel the same as the Crystarium people. Just kinda your boilerplate people experiencing a time of great distress. They just seem to be missing that certain something. I cant even articulate what that is, but its not there.

The writing for the WOL was terrible. I understand they wanted to make Wuk Lamat the main character for this expansion but her character has so many flaws and story elements that contradict themselves that it just puts more pressure on the overall story to be good and its not.

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Originally Posted by JohnLakeside

I'm playing EW atm and noticed the people of FFXIV just feel empty and culture-less. Like they no longer feel as if they to exist after I exit the game. I realized that what theyre missing is something like a "sociological" heart. So I searched google for Ishikawa and "sociological" and found your comment.

I couldn't agree more with what you said. I LOVED the DRK quests and was super excited when I found out Ishikawa was heading ShB and EW. The people and settlements in ARR-SB had weight to them. They felt real. They had that certain element of soulfulness and life.

I'm still on EW, but starting in ShB, I felt the side characters we meet in the settlements along the way just lost something. They all feel the same. Like the people in Palaka's Stand in EW feel the same as the people in Wright in ShB. Sure, one is Indian inspired, but thats about it. There's just a certain groundedness that's missing. This was really glaring in Eulmore in ShB. I was not convinced at all by their moral, societal, and political transformation.

Edit: I'm in Radz rn and even the people there feel the same as the Crystarium people. Just kinda your boilerplate people experiencing a time of great distress. They just seem to be missing that certain something. I cant even articulate what that is, but its not there.

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Nameless NPCs in the settlements of ARR like Swiftperch, Aleport, Golden Bazaar, etc, are written like they have their own little backstories, and the settlements themselves have long pasts leading to what they are when you visit. Meanwhile settlements like the ones in later expansions are basically "this is place where we fish then send fish to city" and the like. To me that's one of the biggest differences.

It also makes the fact after Heavensward the number of hamlets with houses you can enter became a lot more scarce be more than just a coincidence. It highlights how little care they started putting into the design of those locations beyond a surface level.