This xpac msq is....?!!! [Ending spoiler]

...horrible, a whole msq i feel like i am just a background character, my input mean nothing for story

I can understand that in 1st half of the game when i just tag along for an election, but when 2nd half happen when we are dealing with world merging and interdimension stuff, there is nothing change

Only when i face very last boss of xpac that realize i am the strongest of the group, but then when we are about to kill boss, some cs play that make certain character get all credit

I was like wtf a whole story, they literally make a godslayer go and collect some bird poops just to deal with local bandit, i am a warrior of fucking light, not some random grunt from WoW

Unfortunately, for the story to have any relevance, our WoL cannot be part of any smaller stories. We are just far too powerful and can send nearly every threat into oblivion with a high-five to their faces.
The way things are now, we have to be an extra and watch stories play out in which we have no par to play in, like we do in DT, or we have to face ever-increasing threats, or there are just no stakes at play. But we can only get so far, since we already defeated a threat to all existence in the known universe in EW in the form of Meteion and Zeromus.
What's next? Multiverse bad guys who threaten all dimensions? The creator of the universe themselves?

As much as people might dislike it, I honestly think that our character needs a reset of his power level. No more blessing of light, no more empowerment from the additional rejoining of Ardbert and the dragon eye. Just so we CAN have more meaningful writing on a smaller scale.

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

I was like wtf a whole story, they literally make a godslayer go and collect some bird poops just to deal with local bandit, i am a warrior of fucking light, not some random grunt from WoW

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The funny thing is - as much as I always hated WoW's approach to story telling where your character is just a nobody who helps out the actual main characters of the story... At least there they have a gigantic cast of ridiculously OP chads, some of whom have decade old lore from other Warcraft games, have entire books written about them, etc. Characters one could argue are at least supposed to be compelling, the writers at least make the attempt to build them up over time and put them into weird new situations to flash out this side or that side. And sometimes they also fail miserably, no argument there... But then you just ignore the characters that suck and focus on the ones that are okay, which is easily doable when the casts are so large and diverse.

And there despite fetching stuff for those characters, and playing attack dog, you also still feel appreciated and recognized. Because those other OP main NPCs at least have the decency to tell you that yes, you are actually pretty damn amazing, and when it comes from those characters it has some weight.

WoW doesn't put literal nobodies in the center of an expac and then make your character act like a worthless weakling because otherwise the new protagonist would look bad. If WoW did that, the devs would be dragged through the dirt and every Youtuber would be acting like the sky is falling down and Blizzard murdered their families.

Also, I'm just saying - Dawntrail is a contest where we do not get a choice in which contestant we want to support. Would be too hard to let us have an actual choice for once, right? Now look at Battle for Azeroth. Horde and Alliance get two completely different storylines. Completely different locations. It's basically two games in one. Don't want to do Alliance crap? Do the Horde! Hate the Horde? Do the alliance part! Sure, the stories aren't great and they have less voice acting or whatever. But as of now? Dawntrail didn't benefit from what little voice acting is there anyways. And the story sucks too.

Oh and quest design... At least WoW tries something new. Something like the Death Knight start where you fly around on a huge wyrm, aiming and nuking hundreds of mobs below... Is it something revolutionary? No. Best quest design ever? Hell no. Is it better than "talk to NPC, talk to NPC again, talk to NPC, talk to NPC"? Yes, yes it is.

It needed a lot more prepwork to be successful. If dawntrail's plot is what they were dead set on giving us no matter what, then Zero's filler arc with the void shard should have been completely scrapped. In 6.05 we should have met Wuk through Erenville and simply gotten to know her without any mention of the rite of succession. Just let the character breathe over the course of the post-patch content. Have it foreshadowed that something (the rite of succession) is weighing heavily on Wuk's mind, but maybe she doesn't bring it up because she doesn't want to bother someone she's just met with a burden like this. Then, in 6.55, have her finally crack and beg for our help. This accomplishes four things: 1) It makes us, the player, more likely to even like this character since she's ideally getting characterization and being allowed to actually grow on us, 2) It makes the player character's affection for her feel less shoehorned, 3) it makes our willingness to help with her issue actually feel sensible, 4) It lets other characters (hi Krile) breathe in Dawntrail because they're not trying to do an msq and rush wuk's characterization all at once.

The rite of succession was also kind of a joke. When the current dawnservant says that if the winner of the trials isn't up to snuff, that he'll simply refuse to cede power... all the stakes are just lost at that point. Like, the dude flat out says "if none of them are worthy I just won't give it up" and he tells you this near the beginning of the story iirc, so there's no pressure through any of it. If you were ever concerned that a warmongering psychopath might get into office, well, worry not, because the current ruler won't let that happen even if he wins. Why am I here to help with this? If you just want a leader who fits your standards, maybe teach them yourself instead of letting strangers do it? Just a thought.

And the pacing. The pacing was god awful. Everyone already knows the start is rough, but at the end too. At the end there's literally your new enemy (once again a petite girl at the root of all evil, and she even sounds like meteion. were they voiced by the same person?) building a death star in the background and you pull up to stop it... but wait! Wuk wants to talk to some more people. So now, at the end of the game, you get to drop all that tension and just go on more fetch quests. More talking quests. Pick up some ice cream! Star in a play! I was pumped when we arrived at the final zone, but by the end of all that bullshit I was exhausted and honestly mad as hell but for all the wrong reasons. When the credits rolled, I thought "finally" instead of "wow, what a story." Including Krile's parents, and Erenville's goodbye to his mother, should've been all for that part. Everything else, wtf are we doing. These aren't people. They're memories of people, brought to life with Aether. I'm tired of hearing ascian comparisons. These people already lived. Their real selves have been dead for decades, maybe even centuries. It's not a valid comparison. It was weird and borderline psychotic when Wuk decided that we had to get to know these literal ghosts before pulling the plug on them. And when she interjected herself into Krile's reunion to send me on another fetch quest for ice cream, I wanted to scream. Just stop. Stop shoehorning this character into everything to make up for your inability to pace out the story properly beforehand. The best part of this story was when every scion and Wuk all left, and it was just me and erenville in a wild west zone. It was small stakes. There was a reason for why I couldn't just use my WoL powers to nuke everything. There was a villain I absolutely detested. It didn't drag itself out, and it felt good to see it through. More of that, please.

And god damn, the cutscenes too. Even the cutscenes dragged. Do we NEED to cut away to my character nodding every other minute? It's like the writers felt compelled to remind you that you're even present, because you're so absent from everything meaningful. It was so predictable and cringey. I can take being a background character in my own game if the plot's good (it wasn't) or the other characters are interesting (they're not), but stop pretending like my presence matters by panning to my dude every other sentence. "See! There's you! You're in this scene too!" God, damn. And don't forget constantly panning to other scions to have them all nod too. Like what the hell?? Just deliver your message and end the scene. This whole story dragged like crazy. hire an editor next time. jesus christ. kudos to whatever director decided to pan to me standing there while the king got murdered by his own son btw, that was real "kino" real high tier shit, like I've had planets thrown at me and lived but I guess I'm just not fast enough to catch a suped up lizard in pimped out soul armor, alright

there's so much more i could complain about here, like how wuk totally jobs to the two headed dude and then 1v1s him like a day later, or all the times my character just stands there doing nothing while bad guys hold innocent people hostage and stuff, because "gotta let wuk handle it" because apparently other people should have to undergo trauma and possible loss of life so that wuk can get stronger like bruh what
what
why am I even here
there are like 2 moments in the entire journey where you get to have dialogue options with wuk that inform her thought process and encourage her to think like a reasonable leader, and outside of that, all you do is walk in wuk's shadow for 40 hours. there's no training arc. there's no come to jesus moment. she just walks from place to place, with your character nodding in the background, and magically gets stronger and develops leadership traits. hell, at least koana's group had moments where urianger and thancred mentored the lad. where was that for us? i could have stayed home and nothing would've changed. even if the psychopath had gained power, his dad would've just said "hmmm, nah" and that would've been the end of it. but all of that could be forgiven if the pacing weren't such. a. slog. "talk to 3 npcs" is the only kind of quest these people know how to make apparently, because that's all we do. talk to 3 npcs. pick up trash on the ground. find the sparkly area on the floor and then wait while a bar fills. over and over again for 80 quests.

and then there were so many parts that should have been more interactive but just weren't. like at the beginning where wuk tells you about all the cool stuff her dad did, ... by making you walk from stone to stone, clicking it, and waiting. And then you get to sit there and read exposition dumps from an unvoiced wuk lamat about what her dad did. this is ... THE MOST boring way to deliver information in a video game. this is a game. an interactive visual medium. our character can jump into people's memories and witness shit firsthand. there are SO many better ways you could deliver backstory info through this context, but the writers kept choosing boring exposition nearly every single time. imagine if, even once, we got to just play as the dawnservant and actually live this cool stuff out firsthand. or remember the weaponized train? WE ALREADY HAVE AN ON RAILS SHOOTING SYSTEM IN THE GAME, it's at the gold saucer. they could have just GIVEN US THAT and let us ACTUALLY PLAY that portion. instead, watch a cutscene!

did they forget?
did they forget that this is a game??
i can't bruh, this msq was so bad. so so bad. i'm glad i'm done. i'm glad it's over.

i was annoying when final boss finally realize i am the only one pose a danger for her among other NPC, such an insult for whoever wrote story in ShB and EW

This whole expansion was just a waste of time.
Every "plot beat" was predictable and glaringly obvious to the point where none of it was a surprise.
Wuk Lamat took up like 80% of the dialogue, and when the V/a is so shit it's unbearable.
The WoL didn't need to be here at all.
Fluffed up graphics and good dungeons don't cover for the fact this MSQ sucked. It was worse than pre-nerf ARR. Fetch quest after fetch quest.

first half of story remind me about majin buu arc of DBZ, but then after new threat surface, instead of switch focus back on goku, they keep insist to go on with gohan

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

first half of story remind me about majin buu arc of DBZ, but then after new threat surface, instead of switch focus back on goku, they keep insist to go on with gohan

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Hey! My boy Gohan had at least some character in the Cell saga.
Goten, or Boruto would fit Wuk Lamat better imo.

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

i was annoying when final boss finally realize i am the only one pose a danger for her among other NPC, such an insult for whoever wrote story in ShB and EW

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That part honestly felt very jarring, I agree. If the entire point of Dawntrail was for us to mentor a capable leader, then it should've followed that -- at the very least -- Wuk would have been recognized by the sphenebot as well. Otherwise, what was the point? And of course, in the end, Wuk crashes through anyway and has her Gaia E8 moment except it's somehow even cringier because the delivery is super flat and feels like the va was just given the lines with no direction or something. If you watch it in japanese, the va actually grunts while wuk is lifting the hand off of her and it actually seems like she got to see the scene as she voiced it. I wonder if maybe the english vas don't get this, because it's a problem throughout the english dub and it's part of why so many people have insisted on jp for years now, but i digress.

Honestly... it just felt like an excuse to get us alone so we would have to use the dutyfinder for the finale dungeon tbh, but they did it in the laziest way possible. They even used exposition to explain why we were alone. Like, the boss looks at us point blank and goes "i have removed the others because u r so vewwy strong uwu..." now compare that to endwalker, where there's a very good reason for why we're the only one left to confront the endsinger. there's a good way and a bad way to pick off the main cast, that's all I'm saying. This writer felt like he was new or something, idk man.

I don't mind not being the protagonist. What I do mind is that the Scions have had their personalities removed. If they weren't around, I wouldn't even have noticed. Not to mention they seem to awfully conveniently only turn up for Trusts and then disappear again half the time.

That and I'm really, really tired of my WoL being forced to be a naive, trusting idiot. The only way Sphene could have been more obvious would be if she had a giant sign say "I'm the main villain, ask me how" and yet the only person having a reasonable reaction to her was Alisae, of all people.

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

I can understand that in 1st half of the game when i just tag along for an election, but when 2nd half happen when we are dealing with world merging and interdimension stuff, there is nothing change

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They even keep giving us nods, but ask for no actual input. It's all WUK LAMAT making the decisions. It's not until the very end that FINALLY someone asks us a genuine question for advice since we have some expertise in, you know, interdimensional shenanigans, but by that point it's not even relevant because the ending has already been set.

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

Only when i face very last boss of xpac that realize i am the strongest of the group, but then when we are about to kill boss, some cs play that make certain character get all credit

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When Wuk Lamat showed up in the middle of the trial I legitimately could not help but laugh. In the final fight's climax, I was just laughing at how poorly this whole thing was done. Between the shoddy EN voicework (SpHeEEEene!1!), the hilariously immense power level difference yet they are somehow able to clash blades (seriously, you're telling me all this time that Wuk Lamat can fight an otherworldly supermech if she simply yells hard enough? Why didn't she ungabunga the entire fleet then as her city was being massacred?), and the terrible face animation (graphics update btw), I couldn't take the game seriously anymore. Embrace the dumb, we're in it for the dumb, it's so bad it's funny, I guess.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

I don't mind not being the protagonist. What I do mind is that the Scions have had their personalities removed. If they weren't around, I wouldn't even have noticed. Not to mention they seem to awfully conveniently only turn up for Trusts and then disappear again half the time.

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At this point it seems evident that they are forcing the party composition of 1 tank, 1 healer and 2 DPS to travel with you just so the WoL can play whichever role they choose and always have a Trust party ready. Alphinaud was quite literally just a healbot we dragged along and had nothing to do throughout the story.

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

At this point it seems evident that they are forcing the party composition of 1 tank, 1 healer and 2 DPS to travel with you just so the WoL can play whichever role they choose and always have a Trust party ready. Alphinaud was quite literally just a healbot we dragged along and had nothing to do throughout the story.

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Which is ultra stupid btw, because just like... a patch or two ago they solved this VERY SAME problem with Y'shtola... By saying "you know what, she's good with arcane arts, was a conjurer, etc, she can heal just fine." All those "classes" are just suggestions when it comes to NPCs anyways, we see that all the time with "flexible" trust members. Any one can heal if the devs want them to heal. And if they aren't too lazy to write a single line explaining it. I feel like at this point this stuff with giving new jobs to scions is more of a detriment than anything. Krile became a pictomancer for what? To be in the trailer and to get shoehorned into DPS role for trusts? Amazing.

I loved how the final zone was just Amaurot again but with ice cream stands.

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Originally Posted by Sheriyana

I loved how the final zone was just Amaurot again but with ice cream stands.

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Yeah, and we even got the Amaurot-lite backdrop in a warm colour scheme - "we know you guys liked Amaurot", and so on - but the foreground we interacted with was easy nostalgia fodder like amusement parks, I guess because making a bureaucratic metropolis a beloved setting of loss and nostalgia is a feat of times past. Immediately pretty childhood nostalgia is safer. And I did appreciate the too-sugary-sweet cloying theme of the art direction in general, for that uncanny "this is wrong" feeling they were going for. I did. But the metropolis wallpaper was quite blatant.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

I don't mind not being the protagonist. What I do mind is that the Scions have had their personalities removed. If they weren't around, I wouldn't even have noticed. Not to mention they seem to awfully conveniently only turn up for Trusts and then disappear again half the time.

That and I'm really, really tired of my WoL being forced to be a naive, trusting idiot. The only way Sphene could have been more obvious would be if she had a giant sign say "I'm the main villain, ask me how" and yet the only person having a reasonable reaction to her was Alisae, of all people.

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We should always be the protagonist, just not necessarily the main character in the plot line. Just to clarify Protagonist means either the main or on of the major characters in a story. Generally this character is the one that drives the narrative forward weather they are the main character or not.

Take for example the Lady Iceheart section of HW. We are not the Main character in that story arc, we are a protagonist of the story though. In DT's story we are neither.

and the cs with the train is the worse, they let WOL take up a side gun and show us shot just one time at taget while a whole scion being maim down by some random mobs, then let wut take all credit in cs

the power scales is mess up consider how much scion and WoL being through over the years

It's one thing for WoL not to be the main character, she rarely is after all, but if you can't give another character the spotlight without forcing us to hold the idiot ball, you should rewrite the scene.

We are back in ARR in how silly WoL's passivity looks and she should be ten times as experienced by now.

find the way sphene straight up give that lizzard man an alpha procol over her army and spare no leeway for her to overwrite it without explain anything is strange, that end up his command to amry bot slaughter all of her people, then paint herself up as a real boss that behind everything, she want war, she want more soul so her people can keep living make no sense in that decision

if she really that powerful and love her people so much, she can easy overwrite any order from lizzard man and even take control of his body consider how much he modified his with all of these machine part, or atleast explain how an outsider like him can get such power in technology advance civilization

nothing being explain, everything just happen like some goddamn disney movie

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

and the cs with the train is the worse, they let WOL take up a side gun and show us shot just one time at taget while a whole scion being maim down by some random mobs, then let wut take all credit in cs

the power scales is mess up consider how much scion and WoL being through over the years

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Wuk Lamat went from losing to Bagool Jaja to defeating him whiel he had support to deflecting bullets to almost soloing the final boss herself.
That's just blatant favourism on the writers part. I really wonder who greenlit this story.

I wonder when we learn that she's actually the true Azem with us just being her pupil in ages past or something like that.

The gameplay is awesome this time but the story completely drained my willpower to even do the extreme trials. I just don't want anything to do with the New World anymore...

Hmm how cool would have been if we actually became a competent kingmaker. We should have had moments when we'd have to seriously keep Wuk Lamat in check and guide her.

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Originally Posted by LucienFaust

Hmm how cool would have been if we actually became a competent kingmaker. We should have had moments when we'd have to seriously keep Wuk Lamat in check and guide her.

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*Nods* *Punches fist*

I don't really mind not being the main character but I do mind being made into a character who doesn't matter at all. We didn't have anything to do, we could have been replaced by a house plant and it wouldn't have made a difference. We have been an observer before but we have never been this indifferent.

I liked Wuk Lamat in the beginning but because she was always there and always talking and not giving us any room to breathe, she grew stale very soon. In general her character was more of a Mary Sue than an actual believable character. Towards the end I would have given anything to spend more time with anyone else but her, but then she even ruined the last trial for me. I feel like when a new character is introduced they can't give them 98% of time because we don't have any ties to them before and what ties could have been made were ruined for me by their constant presence.

And then the characters I do care about were pushed aside and made meaningless. I understand we probably want to move on from the Scions eventually but it needs to be done better than this. They too were reduced into blank wall flowers. I want to like the characters I spend my adventures with and I can't stand it if the Wuk Lamat show continues in patches. At least atm it seems like we are off to adventure with Erenville but I fear she will insert herself like she did in that trial.

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

find the way sphene straight up give that lizzard man an alpha procol over her army and spare no leeway for her to overwrite it without explain anything is strange, that end up his command to amry bot slaughter all of her people, then paint herself up as a real boss that behind everything, she want war, she want more soul so her people can keep living make no sense in that decision

if she really that powerful and love her people so much, she can easy overwrite any order from lizzard man and even take control of his body consider how much he modified his with all of these machine part, or atleast explain how an outsider like him can get such power in technology advance civilization

nothing being explain, everything just happen like some goddamn disney movie

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This point always bothered me about the narrative because, as far as I read, I have NO IDEA how he came into power. Even with time dilation in effect it still doesn't make sense. How does he help Sphene? What purpose does he actually have that allows him to benefit her in any capacity? Why the hell would she give control over her army to him? Sure, it was her idea to slaughter the people of the Source for their aether but Sphene and Zoraal Ja's motivations are not aligned. It's head scratching at best and downright infuriating at worst.

Not only that but the scene where Otis protects her because she's been damaged by lightning? She could have just...swapped robot bodies like she's done before. Not only that but the more you think about it, if she gave complete military control over all bodies then how was she even able to maintain control of the soldier unit in the first place?

This story has so many plot holes it makes the Marianas Trench look like a kiddie pool.

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Originally Posted by arstoka

This point always bothered me about the narrative because, as far as I read, I have NO IDEA how he came into power. Even with time dilation in effect it still doesn't make sense. How does he help Sphene? What purpose does he actually have that allows him to benefit her in any capacity? Why the hell would she give control over her army to him? Sure, it was her idea to slaughter the people of the Source for their aether but Sphene and Zoraal Ja's motivations are not aligned. It's head scratching at best and downright infuriating at worst.

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I mean, he holds the key/artifact that allows for dimensional merging. Without that, the Alexandrians are 100% stuck in their shard, slowly running out of energy and growing more and more desperate. I can see Zoraal Ja using the key and their desperation as leverage to force himself into more power than Sphene be willing to give him under different circumstances.

...With that said, it does feel like a ton of this is just not properly addressed ingame and instead handwaved away, like most plot points in the expansion.

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

I mean, he holds the key/artifact that allows for dimensional merging. Without that, the Alexandrians are 100% stuck in their shard, slowly running out of energy and growing more and more desperate. I can see Zoraal Ja using the key and their desperation as leverage to force himself into more power than Sphene be willing to give him under different circumstances.

...With that said, it does feel like a ton of this is just not properly addressed ingame and instead handwaved away, like most plot points in the expansion.

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whatever he hold, the moment he modified his body and use her computer device, she already has full control over his body if story make little sense, it's like common knowledge in any scifi story at this point

sphene is not a little girl like she look, she is a war machine that feed on living souls for hundred of years now

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

I don't mind not being the protagonist. What I do mind is that the Scions have had their personalities removed. If they weren't around, I wouldn't even have noticed. Not to mention they seem to awfully conveniently only turn up for Trusts and then disappear again half the time.

That and I'm really, really tired of my WoL being forced to be a naive, trusting idiot. The only way Sphene could have been more obvious would be if she had a giant sign say "I'm the main villain, ask me how" and yet the only person having a reasonable reaction to her was Alisae, of all people.

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The Scions losing their personalities and Y'shtola's voice sounding glitchy at times has me becoming a conspiracy theorist that the Scions were swapped out with robots.

WAKE UP SHEEPLE! I'm onto you Yoshi P....

https://media1.tenor.com/m/epZEhbl7X...infoil-hat.gif

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

whatever he hold, the moment he modified his body and use her computer device, she already has full control over his body if story make little sense, it's like common knowledge in any scifi story at this point

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He seemed to have forced his way into admin permissions that actually superseded her authority when it came to the army, since she couldn't stop the attack on Solution Nine. I don't think it makes much sense (she could have given him limited permissions, making him believe he was in control), but it's what the narrative says.

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Originally Posted by FlowerMilk

The Scions losing their personalities and Y'shtola's voice sounding glitchy at times has me becoming a conspiracy theorist that the Scions were swapped out with robots.

WAKE UP SHEEPLE! I'm onto you Yoshi P....

https://media1.tenor.com/m/epZEhbl7X...infoil-hat.gif

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Actually, the Scions voice acting in general was pretty average at best eh? I was a bit shocked at how uninterested they sounded most of the time.

Wonder if I'm the only one who wished to be more in the background.
I had plenty of instances where the dialog options were so awful and bland I just wanted a "..."

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

I don't mind not being the protagonist. What I do mind is that the Scions have had their personalities removed. If they weren't around, I wouldn't even have noticed. Not to mention they seem to awfully conveniently only turn up for Trusts and then disappear again half the time.

That and I'm really, really tired of my WoL being forced to be a naive, trusting idiot. The only way Sphene could have been more obvious would be if she had a giant sign say "I'm the main villain, ask me how" and yet the only person having a reasonable reaction to her was Alisae, of all people.

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Graha: Should I stay behind too?
Yshtola: Nope, they need a healer.

And the Alisaie scene was particularly amusing since she spends most of it hovering her hand over her sword.

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

I mean, he holds the key/artifact that allows for dimensional merging. Without that, the Alexandrians are 100% stuck in their shard, slowly running out of energy and growing more and more desperate. I can see Zoraal Ja using the key and their desperation as leverage to force himself into more power than Sphene be willing to give him under different circumstances.

...With that said, it does feel like a ton of this is just not properly addressed ingame and instead handwaved away, like most plot points in the expansion.

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That makes a lot of sense and I appreciate the clarification since the story tends to leave a lot of gaps in places that can only be understood retroactively.

My one concern is that...the 12th shard was the calamity of lightning and thus was absorbed through the 2nd umbral calamity. As for how the timing works on that...your guess is as good as mine (unless I'm misunderstanding the lore here which you should feel free to correct me if I'm misunderstanding).

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Originally Posted by Kaecilius

He seemed to have forced his way into admin permissions that actually superseded her authority when it came to the army, since she couldn't stop the attack on Solution Nine. I don't think it makes much sense (she could have given him limited permissions, making him believe he was in control), but it's what the narrative says.

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he can't force himself to anything, sphene is not little girl like she look, she is a war machine that feed on living souls for hundreds of year, she is a system, and his artifact also being made (by azem, i asume) long before alexandrian build their network so it has no control over network, only plot hole is writer straightly give him absolute power over sphene system and doesn't explain anything, and i don't think he is a good hacker also consider when he met sphene his knowledge is from medieval time

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

he can't force himself to anything, sphene is not little girl like she look, she is a war machine that feed on living souls for hundreds of year, she is a system, and his artifact also being made (by azem, i asume) long before alexandrian build their network so it has no control over network, only plot hole is writer straightly give him absolute power over sphene system and doesn't explain anything, and i don't think he is a good hacker also consider when he met sphene his knowledge is from medieval time

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I think they were going with the Idea, Sphene gave him control to do what was needed, that her current form couldnt do without Guilt and thus gave him Authority over military so her guilt couldnt intervene, Hence why after he's gone she "changes" herself to rid herself of the Original Sphenes ideals so she can do Tyrannical things, The concept is fine, but the writing and delivery is poor, It probably would have been better with Zoraal Ja revealed being more of a lackey and not attacking Solution 9, Instead with his death triggering some sort of failsafe in Sphene that commenced her rewriting into what was needed.

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Originally Posted by ZodaSoda

I think they were going with the Idea, Sphene gave him control to do what was needed, that her current form couldnt do without Guilt and thus gave him Authority over military so her guilt couldnt intervene, Hence why after he's gone she "changes" herself to rid herself of the Original Sphenes ideals so she can do Tyrannical things, The concept is fine, but the writing and delivery is poor, It probably would have been better with Zoraal Ja revealed being more of a lackey and not attacking Solution 9, Instead with his death triggering some sort of failsafe in Sphene that commenced her rewriting into what was needed.

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dunno, that's the thing i never understand from writer point of view, not sure if he didn't think about it or can't find an explain good enough so he just let it blank, but think about a super computer that miscalculate to the point that let a person suppose to be under her control turn her army to her people that she has been show overprotect them is the biggest plot hole of story

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Originally Posted by arstoka

That makes a lot of sense and I appreciate the clarification since the story tends to leave a lot of gaps in places that can only be understood retroactively.

My one concern is that...the 12th shard was the calamity of lightning and thus was absorbed through the 2nd umbral calamity. As for how the timing works on that...your guess is as good as mine (unless I'm misunderstanding the lore here which you should feel free to correct me if I'm misunderstanding).

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I think we have way too many unknowns at this moment. I don't think they even confirm their reflection is the 12th Shard, but that is what makes the most sense given the evidence.

There's also the fact that we don't know how time dilation affected their shard. There's thousand of years in the Source between the 2nd umbral era and the 5th umbral era (when the lalafells crossed over with the key), but it could easily have been 5 minutes for the Alexandrians point of view if the writers want that to be the case.

Presumably Sphene-bot had spent a long time rebuilding her realm by the time the lalafells arrived, and the dome could have been erected to shield them from the 12th shard rejoining... But we just don't really know.

also i want to add, writer probly want to mimic how kuja batray garland and end up destroy terra leave only small number of gnome survive in FF9, but can't find good way to write it down, so they just let it happen