The many writing missteps of Dawntrain.

[Granyala]

What was the point of hyping it up as being so powerful then if it wasn't going to do any damage? It couldn't even kill some random giant NPCs? Why do we need a group of 8 powerful warriors to take it down if it's not strong enough to even kill a single person? This story does a lot of setup and hype at certain points only for it to turn into a complete non-payoff in the end.

Because it wasn't trying to kill any Yok Huy?!
Valigarmanda was well aware of the fact that it would not stand a chance in it's current condition, should it have to fight in earnest.
So flight to recoup ASAP was the only thing on it's mind. few Yok Huy gettin a tan was incidental to negating the ice magic.
It wasn't supposed to be an attack.

I'm going to reach a bit and say there was no real MC in that story.

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.

I concur, in fact I already stated something similar.

Genshin's main story related problem is the break-neck 6 week release cadence. The DEVs just don't have the time to make fancy combat encounters (not really possible in a Gacha game anyway) and elaborate cutscenes. So most of the storytelling is "characters talking about stuff" instead of the game "showing us stuff" or "letting us play stuff".
Too much "tell" and not enough "show" is the main criticism I've read.

Unfortunately, I feel that Dawntrail walked into the same trap, so to speak. Quite a few moments in the story would have warranted solo duties and actual gameplay instead of a brief showing in a cutscene.

[Folsom]

Excuse me?

There is no excuse for you. The point is that he, and virtually everyone else, was clearly, obviously happy with ceasing to be. I'm no fan of the Dawntrail writing or story; it's not great. But the writing made it clear that the endless were fine with dying. People wading around in a mire of headcanon because they don't think they *should have* been fine with dying should be complaining about the writing, not making up garbage interpretations of the story.

[Aulainn]

There is no excuse for you. The point is that he, and virtually everyone else, was clearly, obviously happy with ceasing to be. I'm no fan of the Dawntrail writing or story; it's not great. But the writing made it clear that the endless were fine with dying. People wading around in a mire of headcanon because they don't think they *should have* been fine with dying should be complaining about the writing, not making up garbage interpretations of the story.

Only headcanon here is that "everyone" is fine with it, this is insane, you're projecting your own garbage ideas. How do you, rather how am I supposed to interpret that the guy who waited decades for his girlfriend to join him in Living Memory is HAPPY to die minutes after finally meeting and proposing to her?

[Zabuza]

Because it wasn't trying to kill any Yok Huy?!
Valigarmanda was well aware of the fact that it would not stand a chance in it's current condition, should it have to fight in earnest.
So flight to recoup ASAP was the only thing on it's mind. few Yok Huy gettin a tan was incidental to negating the ice magic.
It wasn't supposed to be an attack.

It came across as more of a child's anime scene similar to 'we had a massive explosion but luckily, no one died!' It took me out of my immersion and made me believe the writers just wanted to unleash the beast but find a way for it not to kill anyone, even though they had previously been repeatedly hyping it up as being a deadly and dangerous creature. So they came up with this whole excuse of 'oh, he's weakened and needs to replenish.' The whole thing was very anticlimatic after all the hype. Not a plothole, sure. But it turned out to be something hyped for no reason. A complete non-payoff.

There is no excuse for you. The point is that he, and virtually everyone else, was clearly, obviously happy with ceasing to be. I'm no fan of the Dawntrail writing or story; it's not great. But the writing made it clear that the endless were fine with dying. People wading around in a mire of headcanon because they don't think they *should have* been fine with dying should be complaining about the writing, not making up garbage interpretations of the story.

This was also immersion breaking and I wouldn't blame some for being frustrated over this. It is not realistic for everyone there to be okay with dying and it screams that the writers just wanted to force us to be okay with the genocide because they are forcing us to do it.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Wasn't that only Sphene though? So deal with the force behind that - and we do by killing her. Could've done that without turning off the terminals (which in the end did nothing at all), and just let the people fade away while still making the fountains work and doing the plays and helping people to give them a happy sendoff if we so wanted.

So we should've left four towers full of souls on our way to confront an opponent who can power up by absorbing souls? Yeah, the story probably should've just said so, but it seemed pretty clear to me.

[Eyrilona]

So we should've left four towers full of souls on our way to confront an opponent who can power up by absorbing souls? Yeah, the story probably should've just said so, but it seemed pretty clear to me.

Those did not contain souls, they contained memory records. Pretty much the entire supply of souls had already been used up in the previous trial before we even get to that zone.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Those did not contain souls, they contained memory records. Pretty much the entire supply of souls had already been used up in the previous trial before we even get to that zone.

The stored souls in Solution 9 were spent. The souls in Living Memory were out of Zoraal Ja's reach. Otherwise his orders to commandeer all of the civilian souls to empower the military would've logically taken those offline too.

[Folsom]

Only headcanon here is that "everyone" is fine with it, this is insane, you're projecting your own garbage ideas. How do you, rather how am I supposed to interpret that the guy who waited decades for his girlfriend to join him in Living Memory is HAPPY to die minutes after finally meeting and proposing to her?

Because the writers gave numerous clues about the endless either being okay with or ambivalent about "dying," which is how writers put general opinion of a populace in every story. The fact remains that literally only sphene objected to her people being erased. The game even goes so far as to show that the people who had a good reason for sticking around did, which is the point of the aether current quests. If the guy who had been waiting for his wife was desperate to spend more time with her, he wouldn't have disappeared.

So, no. That's not headcanon. It's perfectly consistent with the writing. Meanwhile, you can continue to feel bad about the poor man and his wife. Maybe write a fanfic if you like.

[ThorneDynasty]

The stored souls in Solution 9 were spent. The souls in Living Memory were out of Zoraal Ja's reach. Otherwise his orders to commandeer all of the civilian souls to empower the military would've logically taken those offline too.

The whole point of the cloud was they were just memories, separated from souls, which were used as a resource by the living.

[ThorneDynasty]

Because the writers gave numerous clues about the endless either being okay with or ambivalent about "dying," which is how writers put general opinion of a populace in every story. The fact remains that literally only sphene objected to her people being erased. The game even goes so far as to show that the people who had a good reason for sticking around did, which is the point of the aether current quests. If the guy who had been waiting for his wife was desperate to spend more time with her, he wouldn't have disappeared.

So, no. That's not headcanon. It's perfectly consistent with the writing. Meanwhile, you can continue to feel bad about the poor man and his wife. Maybe write a fanfic if you like.

This I can agree with. I just wish they hadn't tried to handwave the morality with the wishy-washy attitude whether they were living beings or not.

We spent a whole previous expansion exploring the fallacy of utopia and immortality - Combine that with the fact they were unwilling vampires and we know the lifestream is a thing they can return to, it'd have been completely fine to end up with the conclusion they had to go regardless and probably preferred to, rather than end up as eaters of worlds as Sphene envisioned.