Feedback: Dawntrail MSQ thoughts

[CheshCa7]

Snip

You wrote all that but said so little. Let's sum it up, all she learns is how to do some menial tasks and... gasp, how to have re confidence versus fake confidence. And how does she learn that, by magically succeeding in everything. You really call this growth while also lecturing others in paying attention to the story? Also, "by the end she's calling others for help"? At the beginning she was calling others for help also, that is the whole reason we were there, remember? Where is the evolution in that? I know you're struggling real hard to defend this story, and I sympathise, it is pretty hard to defend without scraping the bottom of the barrel of arguments, but ease up ok the advice to others when all you can produce are weak and easily to disprove arguments.

[Deslyxic]

Well, I found WL childish and annoying and made not care for the first half of the MSQ or for the ending. People compare her to Lyse but I found the closer comparison would be EW Emmanelain, a comic relief character.
I hated seeing the WoL playing second fiddle to her. The worst thing is there were better narrative paths to focus on, like Krile's or even Erenville's.
I hope to never see her again, but realistically I know the best we could get is her to be reduced to a side character like Lyse.

[Cleretic]

You wrote all that but said so little. Let's sum it up, all she learns is how to do some menial tasks and... gasp, how to have re confidence versus fake confidence. And how does she learn that, by magically succeeding in everything. You really call this growth while also lecturing others in paying attention to the story? Also, "by the end she's calling others for help"? At the beginning she was calling others for help also, that is the whole reason we were there, remember? Where is the evolution in that? I know you're struggling real hard to defend this story, and I sympathise, it is pretty hard to defend without scraping the bottom of the barrel of arguments, but ease up ok the advice to others when all you can produce are weak and easily to disprove arguments.

Okay, I really do need to say this in much shorter terms.

Her approach never changed, because her approach was never wrong; she was always asking others for their perspective. She just needed to learn to do that with confidence and primarily out of the position of listening to others, rather than primarily out of perceived inadequacy. Learning a few of her dad's tools certainly helped, too.

In fact, we know her approach was never wrong, because her approach is our approach. We've spent over ten years driven by the approach of 'talk to people until they tell us something actionable'.

In contrast, every other claimant approaches problems without talking to the people who actually have them, and all face failure because of it.

If you don't like that story, you can go ahead and not like it; it's not evidence that you've secretly found a weakness, it's just evidence that you have personal tastes that don't align with the game this time. I'm gonna keep saying this is the best expansion to me, and that's also not evidence of anything other than it aligning with what I want out of an expansion.

[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.
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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.

[Garnix]

Just coming in to share my personal thoughts.
I think it was one of my favorite expansion MSQ.
It obviously had this flaw that everyone is talking about regarding Wuk being overshadowing everybody else.
But the story structure was great in my opinion, starting off with the world building, the lore, the way it ties into the second half of the plot which connected some dots on some good old lore. For me it was reminiscent of what I liked about Shadowbringers story.
The thing with Shadowbringers is that it had a lot more 'character moments' that people usually tend to remember more fondly than the world building etc.
One thing that I do not like though is that it ended like EndWalker and not like Shadowbringers. By that I mean, the story concluded. There is no loose end to have us close by 7.3. And I did not really like what they did with 6.X with it having it's own story arc

[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'.