Dawntrail hype in a nutshell

[Aldath]

Graha is more over rated than even Y'shtola is
*sip tea*

He gets the privilege of being a cat boy. Make him a Roe or a Lala and you'll see how he loses celebrity status.

[Mayhemmer]

Be prepared for Y'shtola to magically know everything about Tural and it's surroundings despite never knowing anything about it before, because why should the player discover all this when the community's waifu can just explain it to us like our WoL's are idiots?

What I'm unfortunately prepared for is more of having too many conflicts in the story where the group is at a low, and having one npc walk in and provide a convenient macguffin that instantly solves the problem, with absolutely zero input from the player. See: the literal first cutscene in patch 6.5 MSQ. It makes me genuinely upset when it happens.

[Tahbitha]

Estinien buying a banana for 30,000 gil

He better hope Tataru doesn't find out about that...

[Oizen]

Graha is more over rated than even Y'shtola is
*sip tea*

G'raha should have died in shadowbringers.

[Connor]

G'raha should have died in shadowbringers.

Even if he had he’d probably still find a way to show up for Endwalker lol

[Jojoya]

What I'm unfortunately prepared for is more of having too many conflicts in the story where the group is at a low, and having one npc walk in and provide a convenient macguffin that instantly solves the problem, with absolutely zero input from the player. See: the literal first cutscene in patch 6.5 MSQ. It makes me genuinely upset when it happens.

That seemed a lot more reasonable to me than Urianger showing up out of nowhere in the Lochs to hand us the "disable Fordola's Echo" rod or Hydaelyn conveniently granting us the power to revive everyone in UT before anyone (including her) could have known there would be such a need.

I'm glad we're not a complete Mary Sue with the answers to every problem and that our companions make important contributions independent of us. It only comes across poorly when we get a sudden solution to a problem we didn't know we were going to have.

[Jojoya]

G'raha should have died in shadowbringers.

Agreed.

Even if he had he’d probably still find a way to show up for Endwalker lol

To do what, though? 99% of G'raha's usefulness was given to us when the soul vessels for the Scions were made. I can't think of anything he did in Endwalker that couldn't have been done by one of the other Scions. UT felt weird, as if each section was planned out then all of a sudden it was "oops, we have one more Scion than we need, what to do?"

[Avoidy]

Alphinaud is my favorite Scion. Watching his character arc has been one of the few things I've enjoyed about this storyline. He begins as this insufferable pompous brat and gets humbled, hard, and then grows from there into a capable leader. That was in 5.3. Since then, the writers have kind of gone in a weird loop with him where he's back to doubting himself and kind of just along for the ride. As someone who loves this character, I no longer think he serves a purpose and it sucks to watch him just blunder along. It's clear that the writers are just keeping him around because they're afraid of making the fans mad if he goes away. With that being said, I will die on this hill: When Zenos bodysnatched the WoL in Endwalker, instead of floundering around evilly and getting exposed in 2 seconds by everyone with a functioning brain, he should have stealthily approached the Scions in our body, and then impaled Alphinaud while our character pitifully crawled back to camp in the body of a wounded soldier. It would've been tragic as hell. A young life with so much potential, snuffed out in an instant by a villain whose only motivation was to get us aggro'd enough to finally pay attention to him and fight him to the death. In the aftermath, the team has to deal with trusting the WoL again; even though they know he was bodysnatched, it's still hard for them to come to terms with what they just saw and move past it. Meanwhile, Alisaie actually gets room to breathe because her twin isn't hogging all the air, and she has to become her own person while also coping with tragedy. You meet the twins' parents and it's awkward and dark, and maybe their mother slaps you in a moment of grief and the whole deliveries questline is centered around rebuilding trust and helping each other through your shared grief. And after the group gathers their resolve and pushes forward, the group's one liners about overcoming despair in the final battle against Endsinger carry far more resonance and weight because the expansion centered around overcoming a heavy loss. But it was clear that the writers wanted us to kind of like Zenos, so even though he was an unquestionable villain, he couldn't be too bad, and he couldn't kill anyone who actually mattered, and god forbid anyone important suffer even a serious injury, because XIV fans can hardly handle criticism about the game; if their favorite character dies, they might melt down, fly to SE HQ and commit a crime.

I don't think the writers have had the balls to do away with anyone important in years. It speaks volumes that anytime they need to flashback to a sad moment, it's way the hell back in heavensward or something. And no, before someone jumps in to suggest it, I don't think the only way to create meaning in a story is by killing off characters. There are lots of missed opportunities in this game. Another moment was when Krile got kidnapped in stormblood, and they hooked her up to that mindf**k machine that pumps her full of horrifying Echo memories or whatever. She's in that thing for god knows how long, basically having endless hyper-realistic night terrors, and when you finally get her out... she's just fine! Nothing to unpack there at all. Imagine if she'd actually undergone serious trauma, and then, idk, actually talked about it and had to work through it. Maybe then she wouldn't be the most boring character in the team. idk! Maybe stop being afraid to let people actually suffer and overcome genuine hardships in your stories. Christ. Every other FF game is fine with letting people die, with letting characters suffer and overcome real challenges and come out stronger for it, but only in XIV are the writers so scared of pissing off the fans that they just give us the same flat ass story over and over again where in the end everyone's fine and nothing changes and maybe at worst, yshtola "Dies" but comes back to life 2.3 minutes later before a fanboy can get mad enough to write death threats to Square. It's like a Saturday morning cartoon at this point, and when Graha gave that goofy grin and bit the taco I could tell DT was gonna be more of the same. Actual Disney-VHS-sequel vibes.

btw the stuff I said about alphi could apply to pretty much any scion at this point. The squad's had a great long run and their arcs concluded really well. It's just dragging at this point.

[Connor]

snip

He’d eat a highly detailed food item, of course. Character development? He can’t eat that I’m afraid

/s lol

[Oizen]

I cant wait for the 8.0 trailer where we get to watch G'raha Tia eat pizza.

Yes 8.0 is going to be in XIV Italy.