Feedback: Dawntrail MSQ thoughts

[HyoMinPark]

No. That is only a problem for you, and it's largely because you aren't very good at reading this story. there's a good chunk of it that's Krile Story, and an even bigger chunk of it that's Erenville Story (I would argue perhaps too much, Erenville doesn't put forward enough of his own character to feel like his corners of the MSQ get much out of him), and we'd be remiss not to point out that there's a decent amount of Koana Story, too

How can you say this when the just the spoken line distribution looks like this:



Even if you want to argue that this is just spoken dialogue, do you seriously think that Erenville and Krile have enough unspoken lines to even compete with Wuk Lamat? Keep in mind she will also have more unspoken lines to add to this tally.

What version of Dawntrail did you play, and where can I find it? Because all I got was the one where Wuk acted like a black hole for any and all characters around her. Even up to the final trial where she shoved herself into that, too. Deus ex machina style.

There was only one character and one story that mattered in this expansion, and it wasn’t Erenville’s or Krile’s. Their stories were ultimately condensed into the last couple of level 100 quests. Erenville had a little bit of the 4th zone, too—but not for long before Wuk Lamat had to be shoehorned into there, too!

I genuinely do not understand how you can say with a straight face that any other character had significant relevance in this story.

[GrizzlyTank]

What version of Dawntrail did you play, and where can I find it? Because all I got was the one where Wuk acted like a black hole for any and all characters around her. Even up to the final trial where she shoved herself into that, too. Deus ex machina style.

It's funny isn't. Both the prominent queens in this story acted like black holes. One for narrative and one as a potential calamity.
--------
Also question regarding Cachiua.

Was she crippled or something before the dome appeared, some time before Erenville went and explore the world? Seeing how she had such massive desire to explore the world, but couldn't.

[Cleretic]

How can you say this when the just the spoken line distribution looks like this:

Did you really graph the entire MSQ to try to make a point, or did someone else do that? That's an impressive level of whining to try to give weight to 'I Don't Like Thing', but really, just not liking the expansion is fine.

I didn't like Shadowbringers all that much, but I'm not about to pretend that a pie chart somehow makes my feelings about it any more legitimate.

Also, all that graph really says is that Wuk Lamat was in a lot of scenes across the entire expansion, and had some dedicated spotlight speeches, which we already know; it's not actually surprising, revealing or damning that she had the most lines in the expansion. What I'd actually like to see is graphs for specific stretches of the MSQ; say, across Yak T'el or Heritage Found, where there's other consistent main characters to compare against, like Sphene or Bakool Ja Ja. Sphene is REALLY high up there for only being in one and a half zones compared to Wuk Lamat's six-plus-the-cities; I think that shines light on the fact that there's some other factors that you're not discussing, and that maybe if we adjust for relative screentime, we'll find far chattier people than Wuk Lamat.

Also question regarding Cachiua.

Was she crippled or something before the dome appeared, some time before Erenville went and explore the world? Seeing how she had such massive desire to explore the world, but couldn't.

I don't think so.

We see her in the flashback at the Cinderfields, she looks perfectly fine. Her feelings more seemed to come from the fact that the world is really big, and at the general era of technology their world has, it's just not physically possible to see all that much of it; remember that Tural doesn't have seafaring boats, and even dirigibles are pretty new. It also seemed like she had family and community responsibilities that prevented her from doing a lot of exploring later in life, which would explain a lot... but also isn't something you bring up while talking to your son who's clearly having very complicated feelings about things relating to you right now.

[HyoMinPark]

Did you really graph the entire MSQ to try to make a point, or did someone else do that? That's an impressive level of whining to try to give weight to 'I Don't Like Thing', but really, just not liking the expansion is fine.

No. That was someone else’s doing to illustrate the point of contention a lot of people have: that Wuk Lamat dominates everything. So you can save your ad hominem attack against me.

Also, all that graph really says is that Wuk Lamat was in a lot of scenes across the entire expansion, and had some dedicated spotlight speeches, which we already know; it's not actually surprising, revealing or damning that she had the most lines in the expansion. What I'd actually like to see is graphs for specific stretches of the MSQ; say, across Yak T'el or Heritage Found, where there's other consistent main characters to compare against, like Sphene or Bakool Ja Ja. Sphene is REALLY high up there for only being in one and a half zones compared to Wuk Lamat's six-plus-the-cities; I think that shines light on the fact that there's some other factors that you're not discussing, and that maybe if we adjust for relative screentime, we'll find far chattier people than Wuk Lamat.

Do you truly think that a character with significantly less dialogue (spoken or otherwise) would have an opportunity to actually have relevance? Much less their story going into Dawntrail adequately explored? Like I said: Erenville got half a zone and a handful of quests at the end to resolve his plot with his mother. Krile’s storyline was drip-fed along the expansion, culminating to a grand total of two quests in the final zone to wrap up. I truly do not know how you can say that Wuk Lamat doesn’t dominate every other character, and I again ask: which version of Dawntrail did you play and where can I find it.

[Rannie]

Krile’s storyline was drip-fed along the expansion, culminating to a grand total of two quests in the final zone to wrap up. I truly do not know how you can say that Wuk Lamat doesn’t dominate every other character, and I again ask: which version of Dawntrail did you play and where can I find it.

I wouldn't even call that being dripped fed because damn near every time she tried to bring up her grandfather she was always rebuffed with "We can't talk about it." it was more like trying to turn on the faucet and nothing is coming out.

[Cleretic]

Do you truly think that a character with significantly less dialogue (spoken or otherwise) would have an opportunity to actually have relevance? Much less their story going into Dawntrail adequately explored? Like I said: Erenville got half a zone and a handful of quests at the end to resolve his plot with his mother. Krile’s storyline was drip-fed along the expansion, culminating to a grand total of two quests in the final zone to wrap up. I truly do not know how you can say that Wuk Lamat doesn’t dominate every other character, and I again ask: which version of Dawntrail did you play and where can I find it.

Erenville's a laconic character that deliberately de-emphasises himself even in conversations about himself, and Krile largely takes part in discussions about her story rather than talking about it at length, with the one in-story instance of her actually giving a speech instead given to us in the form of an Echo flashback. (A flashback that incidentally we can't even hack into these figures because for whatever reason this graph doesn't have Galuf in it; why is that?) It is entirely reasonable that their numbers are that low despite being such presences. Meanwhile Wuk Lamat has multiple straight-up speeches, and like we've said, is the protagonist of the story who has a pronounced presence in every single zone. It is also entirely reasonable that her numbers are that high.

This graph is a cherry-picked statistic that I can poke even more holes into than just that (consider how low Zoraal Ja is despite him being unarguably an outsized figure in the expansion, and anyone who played the expansion would know why that is), and is utterly meaningless outside of pure trivia. You're trying to claim it as damning evidence so that your opinion might possibly be considered as more than it is: your feelings.

Your feelings are valid. But 'valid' doesn't mean 'fact'.

[Alenore]

Now that I see the graph, it's funny how some people said Wuk Lamat had over 70% of all lines in the expansion lol.

I have yet to find where the data for this graph, but the first occurrence of it seemed to come from a Reddit post where the OP originally posted the graph without multiple characters including Koana. And then he left out more when posting the corrected version.

Main characters have anywhere between 5% (Minfillia in ARR) to 20% (Alphinaud in HW) lines in the overall MSQ script of each expansion.

Considering we're missing multiple characters in this graph (Galuf, the twins from Heritage Found, etc) and given Wuk Lamat is at 24% in this one, she's not far off from other expansions.

[honest_psycho]

Meanwhile Wuk Lamat has multiple straight-up speeches, and like we've said, is the protagonist of the story who has a pronounced presence in every single zone. It is also entirely reasonable that her numbers are that high.

Yes, this is exactly the problem EVERYONE is complaining about.

This graph is a cherry-picked statistic...

What is it? You say she has multiple speeches and then you say the statistics are wrong.
I don't even understand why youre gaslighting this hard.

Your feelings are valid. But 'valid' doesn't mean 'fact'.

Translation: "Your opinion is wrong and if you dont agree with me, you are just too stupid to understand the nuances like only an enlightened Poet like me can".

You really think we're this stupid?

[Fendred]

How can you say this when the just the spoken line distribution looks like this:



Even if you want to argue that this is just spoken dialogue, do you seriously think that Erenville and Krile have enough unspoken lines to even compete with Wuk Lamat? Keep in mind she will also have more unspoken lines to add to this tally.

What version of Dawntrail did you play, and where can I find it? Because all I got was the one where Wuk acted like a black hole for any and all characters around her. Even up to the final trial where she shoved herself into that, too. Deus ex machina style.

There was only one character and one story that mattered in this expansion, and it wasn’t Erenville’s or Krile’s. Their stories were ultimately condensed into the last couple of level 100 quests. Erenville had a little bit of the 4th zone, too—but not for long before Wuk Lamat had to be shoehorned into there, too!

I genuinely do not understand how you can say with a straight face that any other character had significant relevance in this story.

The imbalance is pretty big. It also shows they needed to write the story in such a way as to introduce Sphene far earlier. She needed at least as many lines as Wuk Lamat given how rushed her section of the story was. One could easily argue that the ending should have been different due to omission of the scions' and WoL's capabilities. The most particularly aggregious being Alisaie's ability to cure tempering and aether afflictions via Angelo. Not only can we rebalance aether, but we can edit memories as that's part of curing tempering. Or the fact that we've stored souls with their memories in personal possessions in Shadowbringers to bring the scions back to the source. The technology of Solution Nine and Living Memory are the same feat on a larger scale. Characters lost agency in such a way as to whitewash our capabilities because of this imbalance in the storytelling.

[honest_psycho]

The most particularly aggregious being Alisaie's ability to cure tempering and aether afflictions via Angelo.

Omg, I almost forgot about this.
Remember when we acompanied Sphene to that boy, who was paralized from birth because of lightning aether?
Allisae should 100% been able do do smth about that.
(I forgot, there was she in that moment?)