The many writing missteps of Dawntrain.

[Granyala]

Sure, you can dismiss Furina as MC despite how absurd it sounds and say its Neuvilette, but even he is well loved by everyone (and me) so uh, yeah

You need to realize that Furina did not do much during the story. She didn't even have that much screentime until the very end.

Also, she wasn't well loved at the start of the Fontaine arc at all. I'd say reactions were pretty divided (me being in the camp that hated her fake as fork Diva personality). I only got to like her in the very last act when we got to see her actual shy personality.

To be perfectly honest: I don't think the Fontaine arc allows one single character to be the "main protagonist".
Focalors, Neuvilette, Furina, Navia .. heck even the Duke are all really important in their own way.

Anyhow: keep in mind that the target audience for Genshin is also quite different from XIV. So naturally story based preferences will vary as well. IMHO both Genshin and XIV incorporate too little action/gameplay into their main stories. Both games pretty much cease to be a videogame and are more like movies during story mode.

E.g.: the invasion of Tuliyollal: why no solo duty? The train ride: why no solo duty? We need more ACTION not just "walk from cutscene to cutscene".

[Aulainn]

You need to realize that Furina did not do much during the story. She didn't even have that much screentime until the very end.

Also, she wasn't well loved at the start of the Fontaine arc at all. I'd say reactions were pretty divided (me being in the camp that hated her fake as fork Diva personality). I only got to like her in the very last act when we got to see her actual shy personality.

To be perfectly honest: I don't think the Fontaine arc allows one single character to be the "main protagonist".
Focalors, Neuvilette, Furina, Navia .. heck even the Duke are all really important in their own way.

To be fair everything about it revolved around her, whole plot was literally orchestrated by the focalor to be about Furina. Everything we do culminates into Furina being freed from her suffering and becoming her own person. Everything we do is to get to the bottom of the prophecy, which is about Furina.

[fioravictorine]

You need to realize that Furina did not do much during the story. She didn't even have that much screentime until the very end.

Also, she wasn't well loved at the start of the Fontaine arc at all. I'd say reactions were pretty divided (me being in the camp that hated her fake as fork Diva personality). I only got to like her in the very last act when we got to see her actual shy personality.

To be perfectly honest: I don't think the Fontaine arc allows one single character to be the "main protagonist".
Focalors, Neuvilette, Furina, Navia .. heck even the Duke are all really important in their own way.

Anyhow: keep in mind that the target audience for Genshin is also quite different from XIV. So naturally story based preferences will vary as well. IMHO both Genshin and XIV incorporate too little action/gameplay into their main stories. Both games pretty much cease to be a videogame and are more like movies during story mode.

E.g.: the invasion of Tuliyollal: why no solo duty? The train ride: why no solo duty? We need more ACTION not just "walk from cutscene to cutscene".

You hating on Furina at first and did a 180 by the end of the story is a testament to good writing, which Dawntrail did not have

My point is, in both Fontaine and Dawntrail we aren't the MC and we let other characters took the center stage yet the story worked - while Dawntrail fell flat

Anyway, the MSQ-only crowd might find this experience related vs a raiding/MMO RP crowd sure, I am merely speaking from an MSQ-only perspective

[Granyala]

To be fair everything about it revolved around her, whole plot was literally orchestrated by the focalor to be about Furina. Everything we do culminates into Furina being freed from her suffering and becoming her own person. Everything we do is to get to the bottom of the prophecy, which is about Furina.

The prophecy isn't about Furina at all, it's about the Fontainian people. Oo

Furina is very much a means to an end employed by Focalors, to give her time to charge up the Oratrice mecanique d'analyse cardinale™ in order to nuke the hydro throne and give Neuvilette back his power, because that is the only way to save the Oceanoid mimic population of Fontaine from dissolution in the Primordial sea when the bloody whale breaks out. (which is punishment from Celestia for the unauthorized creation of the mimic population by Focalors predecessor)

I get it, you are Furina fans (I like my lil' Gremlin too, enough to C2 her) but this whole quest is not just about Furina. Yeah Furina gets freed of her burden at the end but so does basically the entirety of the Fontaine when Neuvi forgives their original sin and turns them human.

If anything, this arc is about Neuvilettes development as much as it is about Furinas, because had it happened 450 years ago, Neuvi would just have said "f** the people, they deserve this!".
There is a reason why Focalors left him in charge of the state.

You hating on Furina at first and did a 180 by the end of the story is a testament to good writing, which Dawntrail did not have

My point is, in both Fontaine and Dawntrail we aren't the MC and we let other characters took the center stage yet the story worked - while Dawntrail fell flat

Bakool Ja Ja. Hated at first, then became best man. :'D

I think the main problem for a story like this is the darn MMO format. In Mass Effect you can really dive into the moral dilemma of "Do you consider the Geth alive" and give the player A CHOICE with consequences. That makes the story awesome. You can even design multiple alternative outcomes.

In an MMO, the path is fixed (else people couldn't play together). It doesn't matter what I think of the endless because the whole shabang is decided for me by the DEVs anyway. That's why the whole moral dilemma just falls flat on it's face and lacks impact.

Plus, the pacing was just forkin' horrible:
Me: Ooh big baddie charges up doomsday device! gotta do something!
Cahciua: Yeeah about that... it'll run y-cruncher for quite a while ... have some tasteless icecream instead and go do some utter trivialities.

I got legit ARR "cheese wars" flashbacks there and there is nothing I hate more than the story communicating URGENCY and the Writers throwing meaningless padding at me to delay the resolution. UGH.

[Voidmage]

Genshin Fontaine stuff

I'm going to reach a bit and say there was no real MC in that story. It's a mix of Furina, Neuvilette, Lyney and Navia. All of them are crucial to the plot and the whole thing is more comparable to HW then DT.

What is right about that comparision though is two things.

The first is the protagonist.
The Traveler is not the MC but is integral to the plot. That's what DT needed. The WoL not just being a simple bystander but actually interacting with the whole story. People aknowleding us for more then our strength and the characters actually having a naturla conversation with us and not the stiff nod pingpong we got.
The writers can really learn from Genshin in that regard.
The traveler get's sidelined pretty often in Genshin sometimes even too far but it's always just for a short time not for a whole "expansion".

The second is the world itself.
In fontaine the story marches onward on it's own. The prophecy IS happening Arlecchino is doing things and other characters react to it.
In DT it's more like a stage play.
You have the trials and the learning of the cultures is set in stone from the beginning. The whole plot and the trials wait till we are there, literaly with the trials undermining the whole Valigarmanda stuff.
You learn about the people because the trials and the plot demands it. It is just unnatural.
Compared to the old beast tribe quests where we went to that because we wanted to not because we were told to talk to three npc's.

Meanwhile in Genshin Varshey (was that how it was spelled?) does his own thing. The traveler does their own thing without being railroaded to much.
The WoL in DT is just wandering behind Wuk Lamat the entire time.
Even the wild west zone was railroading with the bracelet. No own reason to do something, no own personality. As much as I like him. Erenville was just there to give us a target. I know that was more or less alwys like that but they can change that. We can be alone for some time, doing our own thing. The sidequests are far better in that regard.
The problem was not just us being sidelined, it was us being soulless and desinterested in all the stuff.

Edit:
The funny thing is. Genshin often get's flak (sometimes rightfully) that it has a great story but terrible storytelling and here we are. Discussing how ff14 can learn from it.