The Negative Impact of Poor Character Writing on the Quality of Dawntrail's MSQ

[njorun]

I have to be honest. I have intentionally not engaged with the forums here for years. I didn't really feel the need to, I was really happy with the game and I had no reason to throw my two cents in on the things I was unhappy with, because they were all pretty small, silly things.

Dawntrail has changed that. Which is to say...

150% to EVERYTHING here. I went into this expansion with such high hopes, like 'oh man it'll be awesome! Wuk Lamat seems like fun, what we've seen from the zones looks great, it'll be nice to just have a real beach episode sort of feel!' I don't think I have ever been this disappointed by a story before. And I played through WoW BfA and the prepatch leading into it. (RIP Teldrassil. I still think you deserved better.) But back to the topic at hand.

This story has so many handwaves in it I'm actually shocked that even the people who wrote it weren't a little embarrassed. It's genuinely heartbreaking, I tried so hard to give the story the benefit of the doubt. Every time I had criticisms, I was like 'oh, well it's just because I'm in a bad mood that I'm picking everything apart like this. It's not as bad as it seems.' It was, in fact, not that. That is what I think they call copium.

Honestly all of the major things that I have issues with people have already talked about. Though I have another example for this sort of handwaving 'don't think too hard on it' moments that are littered through this expansion. If there is a genuine explanation for it somewhere that I missed, please tell me.

So we learn pretty early on that attacking an elector without their consent will get you disqualified. That's all well and good. Zoraal Ja gets disqualified for attacking the elector in Mamook. Fantastic. As you'd expect he would.

Bakool Ja Ja kidnaps an elector and he doesn't get disqualified. Sure, he runs off the second that fight is over before he could be, but... really? We were told that even attacking one will set off some string of people who would tell Gulool Ja Ja that you're disqualified. And nothing about kidnapping and threatening to have your lackeys kill one. I dunno, it's bugged me since it happened.

Also, I absolutely agree with everyone saying Erenville was done dirty in the final zones. While I wouldn't try and say the pain is anywhere comparable, seeing as though both my parents are still alive, I lost my childhood dog a few weeks before Dawntrail released. He had a vet appointment, and we were told he needed to be put to sleep right then and there. I didn't even get a chance for a real goodbye. That was genuinely the worst day of my life. I had a lot of complicated feelings about it and I'm not sure I'll ever really get over them fully, if I'm being a little too honest. The fact that you don't even get a single chance to speak with Erenville and offer him even a moment of 'you're not alone, and you're not in the wrong for whatever you're feeling right now' just felt horrible.

[Karkarov]

And then in Living Memory...


"My COLLEAGUE". I get introducing his full name, but couldn't you say also...FRIEND?

It could be worse. She could have waved her hand at him generically and said "... and this is "name here" an adventurer from Eorzea." Not a friend, not a comrade, not even a casual acquaintance, just some adventurer.

[CNitsah]

FFXIV has always had an obsession with the NPCs interacting with you, which is understandable. But I've always felt that the strongest points of character writing, or showing of a character, were when the NPCs were interacting with other NPCs (eg. Estinien, Ysayle and Alphinaud in HW. Varis with all the leaders in SB. Thancred and Ryne in SHB. Quite literally Emet-Selch and the Scions. Urianger and Moenbryda's parents in EW.)

Funny thing, one of thing I feared about DT was the fact that, with all the scions present, they could "suffocate" the story by having too many characters with similar point of view, on the contrary to the Ysayle/Alphinaud/Estinien trio of HW. Their different takes on the narrative is what makes the narrative interesting. Ironically, the character that suffocated the story is the new one, we're only served her point of view for the whole expansion and the scions are irrevelant.

[GreenLeafy]

How am I supposed to believe that she is a kind, sympathetic and wonderful person who wants to protect everyone and make sure everyone's happy, when she contradicts that supposed character so often?
Everyone acts as if Koana is the socially inept one, but he's the only person who goes to Gulool Ja Ja's side as he's dying on the floor. Meanwhile Wuk Lamat just stands there not doing anything when she sees her father dying, even though in other scenes she's seen screamcrying and begging for an already dead civilian to drink medicine, or repeatedly begging to help the Heritage Found hunter, or repeatedly begging to help Sphene. It feels almost deliberate, how she goes out of her way to ignore the people closest to her in favour of prioritizing literally everyone else.

This. Oh my god this so so so so much.
I feel absolutely genuinely terrible about any character in the story who is shown as "close" to her because she treats them like absolute fodder. You pointed out the issues with Erenville so I gotta point out the issues I had with Koana. The entire part since the kidnapping until her succession was absolutely driving me incredibly insane and just pushed me to find her genuinely fully insufferable as it went on. Koana panics that his sister is in trouble and loses his temper to find her which barely gets acknowledged. Afterwards when Valigarmanda is unleashed we have to sit there and watch her say to us and the twins how she's so happy to know that she has someone that has her back after she asks us to help her with the fight. Meanwhile Koana is right there listening to this. After telling us he dedicated his life for her to not feel alone because he knows the pain of it. But anything he does for her just doesn't matter I guess.
Later he fully gives away his claim to the throne and all of his aspirations just to help her and after the fight him saying how he knows that she's the better ruler because she's so nice to everyone and her response is,wow thanks big bro!
She neglects his feelings so much so the dude literally comes to your quarters to tell you that he's upset that she genuinely doesn't acknowledge anything he does but sings you praises constantly because you're just the shiny new toy in her found family.
And THEN she has the gall at the ceremony to say hey lets rule together - not because I appreciate you but because I know I'm the brawn and you can be the brains.

I genuinely felt bad walking away to Fantasy Texas and seeing him stuck there with her in the throne room because she just could not care less about the person he really is. I wish he could've just joined us for the 2nd half of the story and she can sit there and deal with the reality of ruling herself without us babying her throughout the entire thing whilst Koana gets more character progression with facing how tech advancement can also go poorly as several people pointed out in this thread.

[Archaeothyris]

(snip)

Completely agreed, I feel so bad for him!

In general, I have an issue with how people treat Koana in this story because the whole time we're being banged on the head with "we should accept people for who they are", "we have to try to understand their side of the story", "we shouldn't be out here telling other cultures what to do". Meanwhile literally everyone and their grandmother is yapping at Koana about how he has to change his personality in order to be likeable and for people to be able to connect with him. Like bro, he doesn't have a disease that you need to cure, the man's an introvert!!!

Now I would understand this angle if Koana was shown to be cold, uncaring and genuinely difficult to connect with, but it is so clear to anyone with eyes that he expresses love in his own way even though he is more reserved about it. There clearly are people throughout the story who love him for who he is and were able to connect with him, too. Yet another demonizing introverts in media moment, yippee.

Like, what happened to accepting and loving people as they are? Same with Erenville. As an introvert myself, it genuinely pissed me off. And as if Wuk Lamat saying that bs wasn't enough, Thancred and Urianger have a talk with Koana about that as well?? You'd think THOSE TWO of all people would understand the subtlety of reserved people and how they express their love to those they care about. And then when he expresses his emotions more strongly as was the advice from people around him, it's made into a joke and everyone laughs at him? WHAT?!!??!!?

[zookalicious]

I can't express enough how disappointing the writing in this expansion was compared to previous expansions. Agree with EVERYTHING op wrote.

[Voidmage]

I want to post this video here.
I think it is a good summary of Dawntrail both positiv and negativ and I agree with many points in it.
I also liked the point about the references at the end.

It's not as deep as the post of OP but I wanted to share it anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpJWH1ClYqs

[chizLemons]

I want to post this video here.
I think it is a good summary of Dawntrail both positiv and negativ and I agree with many points in it.
I also liked the point about the references at the end.

It's not as deep as the post of OP but I wanted to share it anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpJWH1ClYqs

I can't agree with this video when the person says she likes Bakool Ja Ja's character development and argues that the Scions shouldn't be in the story anymore.
Bakool Ja Ja's "development" was his personality completely changing from one scene to the other suddenly without any buildup, and never being punished or seeing consequences of his actions.

And the Scions being part of the story isn't the problem - the problem is that the current writer just can't write them in there in a meaningful way. It makes me sad that some people will keep arguing against the scions using Dawntrail as "evidence", while I still firmly believe the characters have a lot to offer in the hands of a competent writer.

[PaleYonder]

I also hated the way the song "Footfalls" was used in that scene - the main themes of expansions, the ones with vocals that are used in the cinematic trailers, are special and should only be used in really big, important moments! Not just any moment where a character from that expansion shows up and does something! Imagine if there was just a scene with a character from Shadowbringers showing up and doing something cool, and it suddenly hit us with "ONE BRINGS SHADOW ONE BRINGS LIGHT", it would feel like kind of ridiculous overkill and unearned. That's what the Vrtra scene was like, it felt like just a cheap attempt to play on people's love for Endwalker by being like, "look guys, a character from Endwalker is here! And the Endwalker theme is playing!! You guys like Endwalker, right?? Please feel something!!"

Exactly, I was the same way, it was as irritating as could be. That song belongs to Endwalker, and here it's unfitting and completely unearned.
I'm not going to like it better because I liked Endwalker, I'm going to like it even less and be even more irritated precisely because I liked Endwalker. We're thinking feeling people who can discern these things, not dopamine bots, press a music button, get attachment.

[Roshidon1]

That was a great post! I didn't read all of it, but summed up the general aspect of it. I stopped playing FFXIV shortly after buying Dawntrail because I just got...bored.

I hope they spice it up or something, I found myself skipping so many cutscenes that I was surprised; FFXIV is supposed to be an game known for it's story.