Dawntrail's MSQ story is a disaster and waste of potential. [full spoilers]

[Malthir]

Pretty sure DT should stand for Don't Think as that's what we're being asked to do by the writers.

Hey remember the end of the world last year where a tone rang out across the entire universe, where feeling doubt, fear, dread or anger turned you into monster. No none of you on this entire continent know about that. Don't Think about it

Why did we leave a kid crippled when it's a 5s fix for us. Don't think about it

How did that dude know it was the key. Don't think about it.

How did Lala's from the 6th shard manage to get to the 12th shard when at this point in time the 12th had already faced the second calamity and been rejoined. Don't think about it

Why does Wuk come in from nowhere, get the final blow on the last the boss and steal the final cutscene. Don't think about it

Why are we still playing this. Don't think about it.

[bitterhorn]

You're saying the Wuk can't hear, feel, and think her way to becoming the hokage?

ORIGINAL HOKAGE DO NOT STEAL

well, that and i'm saying "I feel like this lazy storytelling is disrespectful to the previous work whose strength it draws its audience from, and cheapens the emotional connection w/said work that paved its way in advance"

Hell, I'll amend my last comment about throwing "previous" thematic lodestars in the trash, because we don't even have to go back to EW patch content, come to think of it, we just have to jump around a few hours IN THIS SAME EXPANSION to reach that level of internal inconsistency - like what was the point of the lvl 98-99 MSQ emphasizing comforting civilians and what a big monster Zoraal Ja was for being willing to sacrifice "his own people" and then turning around a couple of hours later and being like "just kidding they're not real people, let's make an executive decision to end their collective existence".

And by the "us" in that "let's" I mean the writers, not US, obviously. We're just here to watch this anime filler arc and occasionally press the Netflix "did you fall asleep or are you still watching" button.

[Splorch]

There are 2 main points that killed this expansion for me already-

1- I didn't connect to Wuk Lamat as a character. I didn't feel like I really mentored her. I didn't feel like I helped her become better. To be honest, I felt like I needed to see her fall. She needed some point of true failure, so that I, as a side character, could help to build her back up, but her failings were so minor and were immediately resolved, often with a single line of dialog that she just felt like a one dimensional main hero.

2- We became the Ascians. To the Ascians, who were near god-like in ability, we mere mortals are fragments of their friends and families souls. To the Ascians, we were not truly alive, but were instead shadows and ghosts of their world. Their Reality. We spent hundred of hours fighting against their machinations and design to save our homes, our people, our very world. We tried to reason with them, and honestly to some degree we made headway with Emet. Though we did kill him in the end there was connection. We understood his point of view, but we couldn't find a way to reconcile without the final conflict. He was determined until the end to either bring back his people or ensure that the world he would leave behind would be lead by people worthy of taking up the torch.

In a few hours of game play, I traveled to a reality, and while the game tries to push that this reality is artificial and fake, who the hell am I to make that determination in a few hours. I committed genocide the same as the Ascians did before on the justification that the characters did not see this reality as life. I became a villain in the final act, and every time I travel to that cold dead zone that I destroyed, I feel I have betrayed my entire story up to this point. I have become Death, Destroyer of Worlds. My character has failed to learn from the mistakes of the Ascians.

[EusisLandale]

In a few hours of game play, I traveled to a reality, and while the game tries to push that this reality is artificial and fake, who the hell am I to make that determination in a few hours. I committed genocide the same as the Ascians did before on the justification that the characters did not see this reality as life. I became a villain in the final act, and every time I travel to that cold dead zone that I destroyed, I feel I have betrayed my entire story up to this point. I have become Death, Destroyer of Worlds. My character has failed to learn from the mistakes of the Ascians.

Now we just need Job Quests to come back so Dark Knights can have Fray come back and just be like "Holy shit... What the actual fuck is wrong with you?"

[HighlanderClone]

This actually bothered me about the story more than everything else combined. Like, our merry group of war criminals readily dismisses the Endless as lifeless facsimiles and constructs recreated from dead peoples memories... but literally everything we experience while talking with them seems to contradict this? They are self aware, capable of feeling, decision making, planning and forming memories, and as far as I could tell nothing was brought up to imply that they aren't mentally the same as any living person. Did I miss something?

The writing was set up to force us into an "us or them" situation, which is... hamfisted, but fine. But the happy-happy heroic celebration afterwards did not at all mirror my mood when the credits were rolling. Like what the hell? We may have just committed genocide, at least feel bad about it for more than a few minutes?

I'm seriously not sure if I missed something important, because as is there is a very easy parallel to be drawn between our heroes and one of our previous major villains.

It's a major philosophical conundrum that they just sorta... gleaned over.

[Raven2014]

It's a major philosophical conundrum that they just sorta... gleaned over.

That's a major understatement for a lot of things in DT.

First I disagree with your take on Zoraal Ja. In the end, my thought on him was "so we had to go through all of that craps just because this guy have a daddy issue?" My thought would have been a bit difference if he got more exposition, and we can interact with him more and understand a bit more. He would have made a far more interesting companion than Wuk.

Second I agree with your take on Bakool Ja Ja. I would go father and say it's so non-sensical it's insulting. At the very least the story should have shown some hints about his true character and inner struggle. But nope, throughout the entire story he was 100% an unapolegtically evil bully character, there was not even a tinsy bit sight that he was actually trying. And in the end we just supposed to take his mother's word and that is "he's just desperate". I was like ... hell no lady, your son has never act with a single drop of desperation or remorse.

[HighlanderClone]

That seems to be a main hiccup for 7.0 . A lot of telling and exposition, but not showing.

I feel like this has been the trend for multiple expansions now, and it has never been worse in Dawntrail. The few moments when they actually did show and not tell (like Erenville's body language) are so precious in FF14 but in a quality game would be expected.

The latter part is just Shadowbringers again, Endwalker again, and the 13th again.

It kind of worked in those cases because in ShB it was new, Endwalker was a direct sequel so it makes sense that they'd be playing with those themes again, and the 13th was part of EW so I thought their goal was to mirror it.

But pulling this again? It feels like they have no ideas at all left in the tank.

Which is why I wish they did something different with the theme of memories. Instead it's just Emet Selch's nostalgia 2.0.

This would have been a much more enjoyable adventure. Instead we got... whatever this is. One of the great mysteries was the location of the Golden Cities (yes plural, it has been retconned to just one), yet instead of piecing clues to it's location together, we just get it handed to us on a golden plate, ruining all the mystery around it.

And don't get me started on the 2nd part. They tried to do a 2nd Endwalker, without the buildup and failed miserably. So many plotholes... Like when Sphene closed the portal and the barrier disappears showing us blue skies, only for it to still be there in the zone.

They tried to copy themes from their successful expansions, but instead made something worse than StB.

Good eye, I didn't notice that at all. Makes me wonder whether this xpac was rushed, considering how late Wuk Lamat was introduced to us.

I don't think the first part would be as bad if we at least could choose between Wuk Lamat or Koana to support, given that both of them end up being Dawnservants, there would be no narrative loss. And the WoL ends up positively engaged with both of them anyway. It would be, of course, more development work to provide the narrative branch, but it would help. Plus, a reason to repeat it in New Game + or another character. However, that alone wouldn't suffice, they defnitely would need to address the pacing because a boring quest with Koana wouldn't be so different than boring quests with Wuk Lamat.

But ultimately, what hurts DT for me is not the premise of the first part, not even Wuk Lamat as a character. The plot's idea is good, but the execution of that writing is not, to the point I agree with the OP's perception that the only culture that is actually interesting is the last one with the children sacrifice conundrum.

I was super disappointed that the 'cultural quests' weren't special and just fetch stuff or talk to people. The cooking could be a minigame, where you control the contestant (just to make sure there's no CUL advantage from the WoL). The closest thing we have from a novelty is the Pelupelu quests with a special pop up with the trade, and I can hardly think that's remotely sufficient.

Said in another post, but the bulk of those quests resume to "Let's split our party and talk to the locals to learn about mundane aspects of their culture that totally could be explained in a few lines of dialogue."

Another thing that bothered me is the 'reason' for why the Twins wanted to embark on the journey. To help Garlemald? Why then they didn't bring someone from there like Jullus? Plus what ever the twins learned there that they didn't know already from similar cultures they found in HW, SB and ShB? Honestly I don't think their presence contributed with anything narration wise. Krile already could fill in the 'scholarly' niche anyway.

More reason for us to get rid of the Scions tbh... Alphinaud and Alisaie have completed their arcs a long time ago. They can stay in Garlemald and be ambassadors there. It's fine for people to move on and live their own lives...

[HighlanderClone]

I'm worried that the writers feel the need to make every last zone, dungeon and boss be super emotional endeavors. I really don't think they need to be one upping Shadowbringers and Endwalker like that, or following the same formula. While I did shed some tears in the last section, it felt 100% hamfisted and not like any of these story beats were there organically, but rather they were really thinking of ways to how to make the player emotional in this last segment of the MSQ.

Honestly, it's not needed. The last zone, dungeon and trial should sound and look great, and the battle content should be top notch, and that is enough. The added melodrama that is so obviously forced because '' the last expansions did that as well and we expect players to be disappointed if we don't do the same again '' is not needed, and will eventually narrow down the kind of stories they can tell.

Agreed. Even the emotional scenes feel formulaic at this point...

I cant believe I killed so many souls to safe the Source. Nice gg, thanks for letting me do another genocide!

Joke aside, the expansion suffers from 3 regions in 1 - Tural, Solution Nine (North Tural) and Alexandria. It lacked so much development and storytelling to actually learn the more important areas. Instead we spend 70% with beast tribes instead of Alexandrias issues.

Remember when we had a full expansion for 1 shard? Yeah, Shadowbringers made you journey through so many locations. The last map got so unbearable due to the constant unnecessary meetups. Holy hell, I was delivery boy for getting Krile ice cream?

It's super sad that we had no proper development with Sphene. It would of been so much better to get to know her and get attached to her. Such a wasted chance.
It feels like we're speedrunning the story, so the game can finally get into maintanence mode.

Honestly I thought it would've been fine for us to have 3 regions in one, but they just spent 80% of the MSQ on filler. For every hour we spend learning about absolutely nothing like the Pelupelu arc, we could've spent that hour developing Alexandria, the royal family conflict, or even unexplored ideas like memory manipulation, further.

Remember back when Alphinaud tried to unite Eorza with the Grand Company of Eorzea, with his visions of moral justice, the nations working together for a Lasting Peace, bound by the power of friendship, even though he really knew nothing about the lands of Eorzea and was just the grandson of a high profile savior of the land?

He learned a hard lesson about naivete and the complexities of ruling.

If only he had gone to Tural instead of Eorzea, where that would have been Super Effective™. No Merlwyb or Raubahn to put him in his place when demanding they do the Right Thing. No Ilberd to erupt from underlying tensions. No political complexity at all. He wouldn't even have had to go around commanding his Warrior of Light lackey to kill primals, either. All he'd have needed was some voiceless muscle to stand around making the "Wow, everyone is an idiot, but it's kinda funny" face, who would occasionally offer some forced words of encouragement and take care of the Obvious Villains. Alphinaud could even take credit for that while being seasick and getting spit on by some alpacas.

All would've been well.

2.55 was such a good story beat to be honest. IDK why 3.0 just retconned all of it. It just feels like the story becomes less and less mature as we go through each expansion.

I agree with nearly everything. I don't feel exactly 100% with Zoraal Ja, but I can see where you're coming from. I thought his personage early on in the story was closer to Leto II, who wanted to walk the Golden Path. Do what needed to be done, as vile and atrocious as it is. Plunge the star into a constant state of war until conflict was intrinsically repulsive to the people.

That said. I also felt like Wuk Lamat had very little character development and it made zero sense why she was a worthy candidate for Dawnservant. She seemingly always had the answer and the right perspective from the get-go. Learning about cultures was always the answer to EVERY SINGLE TEST. She was never wrong. She never fucked up or caused pain or conflict because of her naivety. She was grossly reluctant to admit she had fears or faults for quite a long time, and when she finally did, she still reverted to hiding her true feelings and pretending she wasn't afraid of flying or walking alone in Solution Nine. This isn't a leader putting on a façade for her subjects to inspire them or so they don't lose hope. This is a person hiding and putting up walls with her comrades, people who crossed an ocean and left their homes to help her. She never learned.

Even Koana realized that his focus on the future was too single minded and he learned to appreciate that seemingly mundane traditions have value to a people and their culture. Koana had actual personal growth. Koana stepped down from being a candidate for Dawnservant so he could help with Wuk Lamat's trial. Koana's personal sacrifice for his aspirations to Dawnservant so he could help his sister was character growth. He sacrificed something deeply personal for the greater good. These are great qualities for a true leader. Wuk Lamat had none of this growth.

I will 100% mirror the OP's confusion, and my own revulsion. That when this story is about understanding cultures, as soon as the main characters encounter a culture with whom they disagree on core values they express their revulsion and immediately suggest to try and change a system that has been in place for hundreds of years. A core function of another culture, without understanding or educating themselves on the implications of said change, or whether the people of a foreign culture even want the change. Not to mention that this isn't even their place. Imaging visiting another country and within a day telling someone they should change a core feature of their civilization because it's different from your own.

Right now I'm in the final zone and as a player and WoL I have no agency in my response, which is legit really bothering me during the cutscene I'm paused in. If you're going to give a player choices, then let them be actual choices. I don't think it's morally correct to erase the Endless. I think it's hypocritical that Wuk Lamat and Co. are angry and have repulsion that another civilization would attack another for what is essentially a war for resources/survival, but then barely have any reluctance and quickly agree to massacre the opposing side's populace. It's apparently ok to commit genocide as long as Wuk Lamat can understand their culture and then "reject someone's beliefs". There's clearly a core difference in values and concepts of what constitutes "alive", but instead of exploring this and how we resolve differences or compromise, we're essentially at war with Alexandria in the same way Sphene is at War with Tural. This is fine in a sense. It's a fight for survival, but then just call a spade a spade. Stop this disgusting moralizing justification for mass slaughter of another people.

The immaturity of the writing really shows here. It's like the writers are afraid of posing philosophical conundrums and making you uncomfortable with what you're doing. They always have to make the player feel like they're the good guy in 100% of instances.

[HighlanderClone]

That's a major understatement for a lot of things in DT.

First I disagree with your take on Zoraal Ja. In the end, my thought on him was "so we had to go through all of that craps just because this guy have a daddy issue?" My thought would have been a bit difference if he got more exposition, and we can interact with him more and understand a bit more. He would have made a far more interesting companion than Wuk.

Second I agree with your take on Bakool Ja Ja. I would go father and say it's so non-sensical it's insulting. At the very least the story should have shown some hints about his true character and inner struggle. But nope, throughout the entire story he was 100% an unapolegtically evil bully character, there was not even a tinsy bit sight that he was actually trying. And in the end we just supposed to take his mother's word and that is "he's just desperate". I was like ... hell no lady, your son has never act with a single drop of desperation or remorse.

I can agree that Zoraal Ja deserved more exposition. I wish we actually got more insight to the family dynamics of his family. That would've been something somewhat low-stakes but still intriguing and has potential for great depth. Instead after 50 hours we still barely know anything about Wuk Lamat's family and a lot of it has to be pieced together.

I do still think Zoraal Ja was a really nuanced and good villain though. His scenes in the first arc already hint at a deep-seated rage and also his alienation from everyone else. He barely responds to his follower when he praises him, and he has that intense stare when he's angry at someone. I think only a few tweaks would make him much better:

1) Some flashbacks to what happened when Zoraal Ja was young and the family dynamics.

2) At least one scene where he shows rage against his father (which would be his silent seething stare).

3) Show his discomfort with people constantly praising him in at least one scene.

It might not be everyone's cup of tea because much of his characterization actually comes from what he does not do, but this is exactly why I find him such a fascinating villain. It's deep, deep into the end of "show, don't tell".

[Ryaze]

Pretty sure DT should stand for Don't Think as that's what we're being asked to do by the writers.

Hey remember the end of the world last year where a tone rang out across the entire universe, where feeling doubt, fear, dread or anger turned you into monster. No none of you on this entire continent know about that. Don't Think about it

Why did we leave a kid crippled when it's a 5s fix for us. Don't think about it

How did that dude know it was the key. Don't think about it.

How did Lala's from the 6th shard manage to get to the 12th shard when at this point in time the 12th had already faced the second calamity and been rejoined. Don't think about it

Why does Wuk come in from nowhere, get the final blow on the last the boss and steal the final cutscene. Don't think about it

Why are we still playing this. Don't think about it.

Totally agree. Minor note is that the Lala's came from the Source from the South Seas islands, specifically Aloalo. Might have been mentioned in some of the side quests. Several references to the Speaker and a giant statue, etc. I was also confused at first and also thought they meant another reflection. But now we have another mystery of how a relatively primitive culture had an artifact that allows for dimensional fusion, and the Speaker had supposedly had it for years/potentially had it passed down.