JP Official Forums are also criticizing the Dawntrail MSQ.

[Ozmandis]

Bro we spent 2 hours learning that Pelupelu likes to barter and the only thing they do in the MSQ is barter barter barter.

Imagine if Assassin's Creed had a game set in France and everyone is just like "baguette baguette baguette". That's how shallow (and frankly insulting) the writing is.

If anything it's a NET NEGATIVE that we're learning about their culture because the writers didn't bother to think of any sophisticated culture at all. It's all tropes. My time was wasted learning about tropes more apt for a picture book you read to your little 4 year old toddler tucked in bed at night.

I can't agree more. I'm tired of hearing this from people defending the MSQ. They had tens of hour to do some world building and ended up doing less than some amateur cartoons do in their 20m pilote episode. I don't care we have side quests that give more informations, I want the actual important content to be in the f**** mandatory MSQ so I don't feel robbed out of my time while doing it. It's asinine how low your standards have to be for you to be fine with the "world building".

[jameseoakes]

I can't agree more. I'm tired of hearing this from people defending the MSQ. They had tens of hour to do some world building and ended up doing less than some amateur cartoons do in their 20m pilote episode. I don't care we have side quests that give more informations, I want the actual important content to be in the f**** mandatory MSQ so I don't feel robbed out of my time while doing it. It's asinine how low your standards have to be for you to be fine with the "world building".

The story was so long yet and had so little depth and completly forgot to actually set up the villains arc it's so badly written

[BakoolJaJa]

I can't agree more. I'm tired of hearing this from people defending the MSQ. They had tens of hour to do some world building and ended up doing less than some amateur cartoons do in their 20m pilote episode. I don't care we have side quests that give more informations, I want the actual important content to be in the f**** mandatory MSQ so I don't feel robbed out of my time while doing it. It's asinine how low your standards have to be for you to be fine with the "world building".

I don't even know what that commenter is smoking to think that side quests "further elaborate." There is nothing to elaborate on and consequently the side quests do not give any additional information at all. I did all side quests for the first two maps including the questlines that eventually connect two location inhabitants together. There is nothing there. It's all just water. Pelupelu continue trading. None of them stop trading. There's no side quest about not trading. When the giant's quest eventually crosses over all we learn is that Pelupelu are willing to hire them as bodyguards. Because they aren't ultra racist... Though one of the first quests kind of made me give it a side-eye. Said something along the lines of "I always dreamed of hiring a Yok Huy, but they look scary so I didn't." Which uh. Certainly not something I would say irl - "I always dreamed of hiring a person of X skin color, but they kinda look scary so I didn't." Maybe the race of an employee shouldn't be something to dwell on THAT much, but what do I know.

Not that I care personally, because this is a silly a video game and all that. But this sort of thing along with the shallow and stereotyped depiction of the peoples sure comes across as tone deaf, especially in combination with nonsense like renaming beast tribes to "allied society quests." Essentially virtue signaling while doing the exact opposite.

[Gortys]

Though one of the first quests kind of made me give it a side-eye. Said something along the lines of "I always dreamed of hiring a Yok Huy, but they look scary so I didn't." Which uh. Certainly not something I would say irl - "I always dreamed of hiring a person of X skin color, but they kinda look scary so I didn't." Maybe the race of an employee shouldn't be something to dwell on THAT much, but what do I know.

One thing I noticed in the story is her people may be "at peace", but they don't seem to know or like one another. You would think a good leader would remedy this since peace is difficult to achieve if one cultural group is suspicious, fearful, etc of their neighbor. For all of my dislike of StB, at least they showed this which I now have to respect. All of the previous expansions try to show that peace between nations is more than just talk and saying "you should like one another."
I understand some may find those topics too heavy, but this is way too light.

[Voidmage]

Though one of the first quests kind of made me give it a side-eye. Said something along the lines of "I always dreamed of hiring a Yok Huy, but they look scary so I didn't." Which uh. Certainly not something I would say irl - "I always dreamed of hiring a person of X skin color, but they kinda look scary so I didn't." Maybe the race of an employee shouldn't be something to dwell on THAT much, but what do I know.

I don't think that's a good comparision. The ff14 world has different races unlike the real world.
Being intimitated by a being two to three times your size with a different anatomy is not really wrong. Prejudice yeah but understandable.

A better comparision would be hiring an intelligent elephant that had conquered the continent in the past.

[BakoolJaJa]

I don't think that's a good comparision. The ff14 world has different races unlike the real world.
Being intimitated by a being two to three times your size with a different anatomy is not really wrong. Prejudice yeah but understandable.

A better comparision would be hiring an intelligent elephant that had conquered the continent in the past.

I'm not bothered by any of it, but my focus wasn't even on the scared part. I found the idea of dreaming of hiring a person of a certain race more weird than the being intimidated part. Your elephant example probably is good, but that's sort of the thing, it almost sounds like they were talking about an animal and not a person. And that might be completely appropriate to the world of ffxiv... Eorzeans did use to call everything foreign "beastmen" and kill them in droves just for existing, so... But we're supposed to believe that Tural is so different and the cultures are so deep. Which I'm not seeing. They COULD explore these issues. I'd be perfectly happy with that. They just don't.

[DreadCrow]

... nonsense like renaming beast tribes to "allied society quests." Essentially virtue signaling while doing the exact opposite...

You realize that Beast Tribe, in universe, was a term created by the Syndicate of Ul'dah explicitly to dehumanize the Amalj'aa, right? Like, the first Encyclopedia Eorzea had a blurb where some Sharlayan scholar questions if it should even be using the term. We've also not really had a "tribal" beast tribe since Stormblood really. With Dawntrail, all the potential "beast tribes" are integrated fairly well into society.

[BakoolJaJa]

You realize that Beast Tribe, in universe, was a term created by the Syndicate of Ul'dah explicitly to dehumanize the Amalj'aa, right? Like, the first Encyclopedia Eorzea had a blurb where some Sharlayan scholar questions if it should even be using the term. We've also not really had a "tribal" beast tribe since Stormblood really. With Dawntrail, all the potential "beast tribes" are integrated fairly well into society.

Why would you crop out the rest of my comment where the entire substance was? My complaint wasn't about the name change in a vacuum, in fact I couldn't care less what they call or do not call the beast tribes. My complaint was about the shallow treatment of said societies in combination with the name change.

Besides, we've stopped considering people of the beast tribes to be beasts all the way back in what... Shadowbringers at most, maybe even earlier? The naming has been nonsensical for many years now. What is funny to me is that the expansion when they finally get renamed, is also the expansion where we get societies more shallow than anything from ARR. That's it. But I think my initial comment made that quite clear, seeing as it was about the shallow writing of Tural's culture and the beast tribe thing was a short footnote.

[Daralii]

Why would you crop out the rest of my comment where the entire substance was? My complaint wasn't about the name change in a vacuum, in fact I couldn't care less what they call or do not call the beast tribes. My complaint was about the shallow treatment of said societies in combination with the name change.

Besides, we've stopped considering people of the beast tribes to be beasts all the way back in what... Shadowbringers at most, maybe even earlier? The naming has been nonsensical for many years now. What is funny to me is that the expansion when they finally get renamed, is also the expansion where we get societies more shallow than anything from ARR. That's it. But I think my initial comment made that quite clear, seeing as it was about the shallow writing of Tural's culture and the beast tribe thing was a short footnote.

The name never really fit since the dailies were usually for small subfactions of beast tribes, but most of those groups also can't really be called societies either.

[DreadCrow]

Why would you crop out the rest of my comment where the entire substance was? My complaint wasn't about the name change in a vacuum, in fact I couldn't care less what they call or do not call the beast tribes. My complaint was about the shallow treatment of said societies in combination with the name change.

Besides, we've stopped considering people of the beast tribes to be beasts all the way back in what... Shadowbringers at most, maybe even earlier? The naming has been nonsensical for many years now. What is funny to me is that the expansion when they finally get renamed, is also the expansion where we get societies more shallow than anything from ARR. That's it. But I think my initial comment made that quite clear, seeing as it was about the shallow writing of Tural's culture and the beast tribe thing was a short footnote.

I mean, that's the how the tribal races have always been really. Barely anything about them, until we learn more about their culture later when there's the tribal quests. Shadowbringers was really the only one that expanded on them before in my opinion.