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

[chizLemons]

I've been wondering lately if there was a rewrite fairly late into development that explains a few strange things. It explains the conspicuous lack of voice acting, some of the weird plot/premise inconsistencies (...)

If this is really what happened, we had so much potential for a much better narrative, and whoever was responsible for the possible rewrites didn't understand the premise AT ALL.
I wish we got this story instead, it sounds like a great one, wish we were playing it.
And this would explain so many of the proposed plot points that were so poorly handled. Instead I feel like they've failed to explore every single theme they presented during the story, and abandoned them before even beginning.

Wuk Lamat brushing S9 off as "oh it's just another culture, I need to get to know them" and the Scions having nothing to say about it feels like a rewrite as well because of the "getting to know cultures" from the first part. And then what could be a deep dive into how S9 works and how dystopian it is and how we feel about it, is just treated as "it's fine, it's just different"...

[Gortys]

The visual novelization of FF14 has never been worse.

You can go on for hours without hitting a single combat ability other than Sprint in the MSQ. Combat instances are far and few between. We had one at Lv92, Lv95, and Lv98... and that's it. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

Most of the combat in the MSQ are also just the tired old cliche of waiting by a purple pyre and killing 2 or 3 mobs. There's next to no innovation on this boring formula that has persisted for over 10 years.

The few spices added to the MSQ like shadow missions from EW (where you shadow a person stealthily) are very sparingly used (2 total, I believe), and they did not bother adding anything else to spice up the gameplay.

The last zone, which is supposed to be the most tense, instead has us go through the entire zone without a single instance of combat (correct me if I'm wrong) up until the final dungeon (unless you do the sidequests).

I think for me this was a big one. They relied heavily this expansion on the "follow" quests whether it be going to a circle to interact or sneaking behind someone. They claim this is a new adventure, but in ARR our character did not constantly need to follow others to learn the terrain or reach a destination. I think this quest design ties into the issues others have with Wuk Lamat as well. Our characters are not being adventurous at all since they are mainly following Erenville, Wuk Lamat, etc around. I understand that there have always been limitations to the ability to explore the FFXIV world due to their design, but being told we must also follow some characters around makes the world feel small and the expansion feels much less adventurous.

[Barachim]

I was waiting for some big revelations that would explain why Zarool Ja was the way he is and that would explain his train of thought. In the end the reason countless people lost their lives, was because the little baby was dealing with depression.

I was never more disappointed in a villain in the entire series.

[Darkrai4014]

The lack of stakes is definitely the worst it has ever been in Dawntrail. To be honest I think it was already pretty bad in ShB and EW, where you just know that none of the Scions will ever die ever again. They're just gonna pull out a random NPC to kill off instead in ShB and EW. Now DT doesn't even have those...

The moralizing has also become really grating. It's 4-year-old level of moralizing. Stuff that you read to your kid in bed. Not to adults. I don't understand how people still find "power of friendship" compelling as a functioning adult human.

I really want to know why you believe the "power of friendship" thing isn't compelling to people, or at least why you don't understand it. I feel like there is a value in the joy and co-operation of others, since we as humans must work together to survive (and in a sense, is reflected in the game itself since raid content is done together in a group).

[Azyreal]

I'll just say one thing about the Endless point you're making: the Ancient's story was a story about desperation in the face of death eternal, the Endless' story is about joy in paradise eternal. It's the opposite to ShB and EW's arc and I think it's great to have these two faces of the same coins being tackled in the game, it's the logical follow-up.

[Lium]

lol hyperbolic title is hyperbolic

[SwadTheFrog]

I was waiting for some big revelations that would explain why Zarool Ja was the way he is and that would explain his train of thought. In the end the reason countless people lost their lives, was because the little baby was dealing with depression.

I was never more disappointed in a villain in the entire series.

It's funny, the moment I saw the guy, I was playing together with my friend, and I joked that he was "Little Napoleon" and "Worse Vergil". I couldn't help but nonstop joke at how this random idiot having world conquering aspirations was laughable. I was so right it wasn't even funny.

[Colt47]

Going to point out with Zoral Ja that they did not cover him very well in the solution 9 arc. Specifically, the failing of the solution 9 arc with the villain is that he supposedly had a son and we meet this son out and about, but no one knows if he really is his son, just that he has blue scales like him. There should have been a lot more development on understanding what happened to leave the boy stranded, as well as what happened to the wife, ahead of the trial. We understood how the kid survived thanks to the knight in the wilderness, so that part was fine.

At the end of the day it was just a really badly written and rushed story arc that had barely any interactivity in the main quests and I'm surprised this actually went to production and got green lit. Maybe a translation issue occurred with localization and there were some sort of subtle hints that were supposed to be dropped that were lost, but the only way to know would be to have someone who knows Japanese actually go through and listen to the entire thing. Stormblood was a better story than this one by far and that was considered to be marred by a boring main villain.

[Barachim]

It's funny, the moment I saw the guy, I was playing together with my friend, and I joked that he was "Little Napoleon" and "Worse Vergil". I couldn't help but nonstop joke at how this random idiot having world conquering aspirations was laughable. I was so right it wasn't even funny.

It's mindboggling that they kinda tried to make him "Vergil", despite him having all the things that Vergil lost at a young age. Vergil is a walking bundle of unresolved childhood traum. Losing his family, thinking his mother abandoned him, with his father nowhere around, lacking the strength to protect what is dear to him. It's no wonder he walks around as an adult constantly saying "I need more power."

People had high expectations of Zoraal Ja, but he seemingly grew up in a stable environment, with an amazing dad and two great siblings. He buckled under the weight of responsibilty and people died because of it.

[Galvuu]

He honestly felt like an absolute trope of a high school bully, down to running away crying when Wuk Lamat beats him, and then we find out daddy didn't love him...

If he played the trope straight, I'd at least understand it. My biggest problem with the Bakool Ja Ja thing is, beyond how abrupt and quick it was (really? 5 minutes of talk-no-jutsu is all it took), is the enormity of his actions prior to that moment.
It's one thing to be a bully and do bully things- demean people, beat innocents up (without killing them) and so on. For the most part, you can frame his actions in this way- his threats to the Hanu Hanu were empty and he never meant to carry out physical violence. He kidnapped Wuk Lamat, but he didn't intend to actually hurt her.
The problem is releasing Valigarmanda. He does it deliberately and is fully aware that there's a high likelihood that such an action will cause death and destruction- potentially to his own settlement (that, after the heel turn, he claims to care about and wants to steer them into the right direction). This action could be framed as congruent with the "misunderstood and mistreated bully" persona- maybe he did it so he could fight Valirgamanda due to being supremely confident on his physical superiority and wanting to prove himself, only to fall short. But no. He does it for the sake of wreaking havoc. And I cannot, mentally, frame this action in a way that's congruent with his purported "mistreated bully" story. This is a "I torture small kittens to death in my backyard for fun" levels of chaotic evil. It's stupid and gratuitously malicious. The rest can be interpreted as "dumb, mean bully stuff, but won't actually commit horrible acts". This one act stands differently from the rest, and really undermines all he says later.
How can I be expected to believe he gives a damn about the sacrificed children or the supposed immorality of his settlement when his actions would've likely both caused much more harm, but also destroyed his own home town were it not for the happy coincidence the WoL was there to stop the sky ruin? It completely inconsistent characterization- a problem that saddles most characters in DT, I might add, not just Bakool.