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

[PaleYonder]

I'm in the camp "they are just programs" and the whole last zone was utterly ridiculous and bad storytelling. Why are we parading around entertaining an AI? Just shut it down. Why are we trying to remember the random AIs so that they can live on in our memory when they are not even people? Why are we letting AI mom condescend to Erenville, who is already in pain from the loss of his mother?

It's like they came up with a concept of separating soul from memory but failed to show how nonhuman the memory AIs are. They should have felt like soulless computer programs just adhering to their programming and running their memories in a loop, unable to form new emotional connections or react with feelings. Then Wookie's maid-mom-AI wakes up from the loop and starts talking like she's really there and the whole concept falls apart. There was also nothing about Erenville's mom's personality that suggested she did not have a soul, unlike Otis.

Yeah, I'm personally in the same camp, and I agree. A recent-ish game that did this better IMO was Cyberpunk 2077; the AIs there felt suitably uncanny or wrong to different degrees depending on how well they worked, and you'd detect it after seconds or much later or maybe not at all but keep your doubts. The classic cyberpunk dilemma done competently. And I'd be cool with a game story that throws down on the side of "AI are real people with souls", as long as it's consistent in what it expresses. This here isn't it.

[PaleYonder]

Part 2
Zoraal Ja
Honestly, I was very curious about Zoraal Ja at the beginning since he seemed the calculative and silent type. He gave the impression that he wanted Tural to expand (a tad like Garlemald, which would have been interesting if we actually had a garlean with us),

(snip)

I agree with a whole lot of your post, and this part (and in the Scions section above) stood out to me: Man, can you imagine if we'd had someone like Gaius with us, and not as a featureless puppet to approve of Wuk Lamat like the other Scions but the real deal? I know he's busy with other stuff; it'd just have to be someone of a similar archetype, to bring an experienced perspective, someone to clash with within all this feel-good same-same, a factor of chaos. We could have been back to the golden days of FF14 the political intrigue or war story, depending. Anything to make all this mean something. It could have been awesome.

[McGrump]

(snip)

I agree with a whole lot of your post, and this part (and in the Scions section above) stood out to me: Man, can you imagine if we'd had someone like Gaius with us, and not as a featureless puppet to approve of Wuk Lamat like the other Scions but the real deal? I know he's busy with other stuff; it'd just have to be someone of a similar archetype, to bring an experienced perspective, someone to clash with within all this feel-good same-same, a factor of chaos. We could have been back to the golden days of FF14 the political intrigue or war story, depending. Anything to make all this mean something. It could have been awesome.

I really loved the Ysayle and Estinien dynamic for that reason: two opposite sides working together for a common goal. Yeah, someone from Garlemald would probably make harsh comments and have close-minded views, but the whole point is to slowly breach that barrier. Also, just imagine how they would have marveled the technology in Solution 9 and the parallels between them and Zoraal Ja's desires of conquest. It would have had more weight than when it came from Alphy....

[PaleYonder]

I really loved the Ysayle and Estinien dynamic for that reason: two opposite sides working together for a common goal. Yeah, someone from Garlemald would probably make harsh comments and have close-minded views, but the whole point is to slowly breach that barrier. Also, just imagine how they would have marveled the technology in Solution 9 and the parallels between them and Zoraal Ja's desires of conquest. It would have had more weight than when it came from Alphy....

Exactly! And I loved in Heavensward how, at times, Estinien got to be right, and not just the strawman warmonger who has to be proven wrong by the plot, because it was a (though fantastic) grounded narrative dealing with people in charge of nations, with all their flaws. Both sides got to shine in different situations. Imagine that now.

[BakoolJaJa]

Scions
Their arch is done and we're supposed to be dissolved, can we just move on and get a fresh crew? Are you seriously telling me that there's no one else in the world that can be as competent as them? It's like they're so afraid to let them go that the dissolvement feels so hallow and inconsequential. At some point, I even said out loud "NO" when Y'shtola mentioned the "unofficial reunion" in her dialogue. It's like they can't commit to their creative decision.

Two things:

1) There is no creative decision to replace scions with a different crew. The devs never planned to take the scions out. The disbanding thing was nothing... just some nonsense that makes scions no longer scions politically. Just a second after the line is said, we get told that the scions aren't going anywhere at all, they'll just be cautious about meeting up together as a visible group. This is once again made clear throughout the Endwalker patches, we continue to work with the scions like nothing happened. For all intents and purposes nothing happened. (Why was the whole "scions disband" thing written in the first place? I have no idea whatsoever...)

2) Writers clearly lost the plot when it comes to character writing. Ignoring new characters from this expansion, the old characters that came along with us are just shadows of their former selves. They lack the few traits they even possessed in the first place. Alisaie doesn't act like Alisaie. Alphinaud doesn't act like Alphinaud. Etc. Things like character development do not happen in this expansion, the writers just aren't able to write that sort of thing apparently. And that's despite the absurdly heavy handed attempts they make. I am reminded of the way Zero's character development went. We just repeat the word "friend" 50 times and feed her until she says "yay, I'm a good person now!" Are these RPG characters or damn Furbies?

So a big problem is that: sure, the writers could come up with a million other new fursonas. Or god forbid, they could dig out some old and great characters like Gaius. But unless whoever is currently writing gets taught how characterization works and what makes some characters more compelling than others... Nothing good will come of it. The last thing I want is for some of my favorite characters to get absolutely butchered. I will not survive Gaius going on and on about the power of friendship, blushing and god knows what else.

[PaleYonder]

So a big problem is that: sure, the writers could come up with a million other new fursonas. Or god forbid, they could dig out some old and great characters like Gaius. But unless whoever is currently writing gets taught how characterization works and what makes some characters more compelling than others... Nothing good will come of it. The last thing I want is for some of my favorite characters to get absolutely butchered. I will not survive Gaius going on and on about the power of friendship, blushing and god knows what else.

LOL thanks for the terrible mental image, and it's so sad how right you are.

Maybe if we feed them better curry...?

[McGrump]

Two things:

1) There is no creative decision to replace scions with a different crew. The devs never planned to take the scions out. The disbanding thing was nothing... just some nonsense that makes scions no longer scions politically. Just a second after the line is said, we get told that the scions aren't going anywhere at all, they'll just be cautious about meeting up together as a visible group. This is once again made clear throughout the Endwalker patches, we continue to work with the scions like nothing happened. For all intents and purposes nothing happened. (Why was the whole "scions disband" thing written in the first place? I have no idea whatsoever...)

2) Writers clearly lost the plot when it comes to character writing. Ignoring new characters from this expansion, the old characters that came along with us are just shadows of their former selves. They lack the few traits they even possessed in the first place. Alisaie doesn't act like Alisaie. Alphinaud doesn't act like Alphinaud. Etc. Things like character development do not happen in this expansion, the writers just aren't able to write that sort of thing apparently. And that's despite the absurdly heavy handed attempts they make. I am reminded of the way Zero's character development went. We just repeat the word "friend" 50 times and feed her until she says "yay, I'm a good person now!" Are these RPG characters or damn Furbies?

So a big problem is that: sure, the writers could come up with a million other new fursonas. Or god forbid, they could dig out some old and great characters like Gaius. But unless whoever is currently writing gets taught how characterization works and what makes some characters more compelling than others... Nothing good will come of it. The last thing I want is for some of my favorite characters to get absolutely butchered. I will not survive Gaius going on and on about the power of friendship, blushing and god knows what else.

I have "scions fatigue". i was hoping for an adventure without their intervention. It's ok for them to have their own things away from you, but every time there's a problem, they magically pop up like we can't find a solution with other people. How are the nations supposed to take care of themselves if the Scions still jump in every time there's an issue?

[Malthir]

Story
Concepts, solutions, philosophies, everything is on the surface in this expansion. We see no resistance with any of the races when we encounter a problem. They accept change without a second thought. remember how it was a challenge for the Ishgardian people to accept the dragons? Now, everything is solved in 2 minutes, which is also something that I noticed in the post endwalker MSQ. We conveniently find a portal that was guarded by Vishap's device, we conveniently have those gem thingies to go in the void world without being affected by the void, we don't get swarmed by voidsends when we get there, we conveniently find a way to fix the inbalancement of the void, we conveniently find a way to fix the First. It's the same here. Like everything can be solved so easily, right? RIGHT?! It just made stop caring for the lack of stakes.

You hit the nail on the head here imo. The biggest issue with the expac other than Wuk is the constant resolving of plot threads before they really get the chance to develop. So you as the player just end up not caring, making a poorly paced story even worse.

I personally would have preferred if they never resolved the throne contest, never defeated Sphene, had her leave with all her forces so she's a potential future threat. Give us some actual story to develop into.

[Tsumdere]

I'm in the camp "they are just programs" and the whole last zone was utterly ridiculous and bad storytelling. Why are we parading around entertaining an AI? Just shut it down. Why are we trying to remember the random AIs so that they can live on in our memory when they are not even people? Why are we letting AI mom condescend to Erenville, who is already in pain from the loss of his mother?

It's like they came up with a concept of separating soul from memory but failed to show how nonhuman the memory AIs are. They should have felt like soulless computer programs just adhering to their programming and running their memories in a loop, unable to form new emotional connections or react with feelings. Then Wookie's maid-mom-AI wakes up from the loop and starts talking like she's really there and the whole concept falls apart. There was also nothing about Erenville's mom's personality that suggested she did not have a soul, unlike Otis.

100%.

The game kept telling us they were AI and telling us not to feel guilty about wiping them out, but they cram it down our throats that by all intents and purposes they are not AI.

If it was obvious that they were programed to be "There is no war in Ba Sing Se" or in a clear time-loop where they fruitlessly repeat the happiest day of their lives with no growth or thought, then this plot point wouldn't feel as bad.

But that is NOT what we were shown. Think of how horrific and tragic it would be for our characters' loved ones to be mere echoes of their former selves instead of... literally just sentient.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

I'm in the camp "they are just programs" and the whole last zone was utterly ridiculous and bad storytelling. Why are we parading around entertaining an AI? Just shut it down. Why are we trying to remember the random AIs so that they can live on in our memory when they are not even people? Why are we letting AI mom condescend to Erenville, who is already in pain from the loss of his mother?
*snip*

The problem is we're told one thing and yet shown a completely different thing. We're told by Cahciua that they were just AI and so we shouldn't feel bad about deleting them and that there is no other solution. However, every scrap of evidence you see proves the contrary.

Evidence they aren't people:
-Cahciua says so.
-They have no souls even though they are made from soul aether.

Evidence they are people:
-Cahciua has spent all of her time inside Living Memory acting against the interests of Living Memory. She's an explorer, so she immediately devised a way to explore the outside world. If she's being controlled by an AI, the AI is making her lead a rebel faction against it and making her strong arm people into destroying it. We're supposed to believe this while also believing at the same time it's making Sphene kill people to preserve it.
-Everyone we meet inside Living Memory is self-aware. They know that they are dead. They know where they are. They know what they are. They can object to their state of existence.
-People in Living Memory can make plans and decision. Not only has Cahciua run a rebellion on the Source. The man who wants to marry his love can evaluate the risk of retrieving the ring, the likelihood of being destroyed and having to wait even longer before he can be reunited with his love and can decide not to get the ring. That's a thinking person. That's someone calculating risk and reward and making decisions accordingly. Krile's parents work out that we are about to delete them and come to say one last goodbye. They are working out intentions. Reading emotions and making decisions like any person would.
-The characters care about the happiness of the people in Living Memory. The WoL dresses up as a bunny to entertain children. If it's just as AI, dressing up as a bunny and acting in a play to make the AI happy is absolute insanity. We didn't put on any plays for the robot army in Everkeep. The characters clearly view these kids as sentient, Wuk Lamat even says we're doing this to give them "happy memories." Memories we will then delete.
-People in Living Memory can have unfinished business. That means they are capable of having wants and desires. And they have force of will to maintain their form until those desires are met.

Artificial life is still life. All evidence shows these were people in every way that matters. And we deleted them because one character who was morally against this state of existence (but wore a regulator anyway to end up here) insisted we do so.