Character disconnect and disappointing Player Agency in Dawntrail's MSQ [Spoilers]

[justausername]

Now you know how a lot of us felt when we couldn't just choose to leave Zenos in space and not engage in a fight with him even after he literally said to us 'you could just walk away'...
This isn't the first time they have forced something onto us and not REALLY given us an option.
Besides, you never actually agree to calling her that. You can interpret it any way you want. Everyone else calls her that, but you don't have to. The WoL doesn't actually speak.
We had no choice but to fight Zenos.

[Voidmage]

Now you know how a lot of us felt when we couldn't just choose to leave Zenos in space and not engage in a fight with him even after he literally said to us 'you could just walk away'...
This isn't the first time they have forced something onto us and not REALLY given us an option.
Besides, you never actually agree to calling her that. You can interpret it any way you want. Everyone else calls her that, but you don't have to. The WoL doesn't actually speak.
We had no choice but to fight Zenos.

Zenos was just one single cutscene and fight not a whole expansion. You can’t even do it again without NG+.
I say that as someone who also would have loved to leave his butt at the edge of the universe and absolutely hated him.

The options before still continued as always true but at least there was more then “love Wuk Lamat”, “Like Wuk Lamat very much” and “…”
The later is also your other point.
Even silence is interpreter by the game as approval like with her nickname.
There is no interpretation. They forced your characters personality in stone loving Wuk Lamat. There aren’t even snarky options anymore because those would be to negative towards her.

Even the “mentoring”dialogue is at worst an “you got this you are clever after all” instead of the old one in HW “pick up the damn rocks” or the banter with Anogg and Konog.

Even if we look at the MSQ alone.
There was throwing our friends under the bus in 6.1 or making fun of Y’shtola.

[KageTokage]

XIV has never been good about giving the player agency but I would've like to feel less...useless.

They went a little too hard on downplaying our strength/importance to the point where our role in resolving matters is oft left wholly unremarked upon and I felt like a bystander, not a mentor.

[Icaras]

For me, I think one thing we need to factor in is that, story wise, 14 is telling a single player JRPG story.

14 was written for the WoL to like Wuk Lamat, so like Wuk Lamat they do.

Yes it's a little different in that we create the WoL, but basically the writers are still controlling our characterization and reactions (in the quests/MSQ), much the same as they do for Clive in 16 and Tidus in 10.

Sure you sometimes have dialogue trees and little choices, but in a single player RPG, plaything through the story means you WILL end up wjere the writer wanted you to be.

14 leaves the WoL vague enough that we get to create them and imagine our own background (because so far what we do pre 14 hasn't come up and is very, IMO, unlikely to ever factor in), but in the actual game? The writers dictate what we do, not us.

I mean I can cross my arms and say "No! Yikari Daebreak doesn't wanna go to Tural!" (She did want to, btw :P ) ...but if I wanna play the expac (and I do/am!), tough luck, my girl is getting on the boat.

IMHO, if you want an RPG story where you have that level of agency/choice, what you want isn't a video game (Where by the very nature of it being created well in advance of you playing it, such agency is impossible), you want live action pen and paper RPG, with a real life dungeon master.

This way, even if the DM has a pre-planned story (and most do, from what I hear) because they control the session as you play, they can react to your choices.

Mind you, I hear DMs tend to get upset if you don't go along with the planned story, so you might end up losing the agency anyway! lol

[SongOfTheWind]

For me, I think one thing we need to factor in is that, story wise, 14 is telling a single player JRPG story.

14 was written for the WoL to like Wuk Lamat, so like Wuk Lamat they do.

Yes it's a little different in that we create the WoL, but basically the writers are still controlling our characterization and reactions (in the quests/MSQ), much the same as they do for Clive in 16 and Tidus in 10.

Sure you sometimes have dialogue trees and little choices, but in a single player RPG, plaything through the story means you WILL end up wjere the writer wanted you to be.

14 leaves the WoL vague enough that we get to create them and imagine our own background (because so far what we do pre 14 hasn't come up and is very, IMO, unlikely to ever factor in), but in the actual game? The writers dictate what we do, not us.

I mean I can cross my arms and say "No! Yikari Daebreak doesn't wanna go to Tural!" (She did want to, btw :P ) ...but if I wanna play the expac (and I do/am!), tough luck, my girl is getting on the boat.

IMHO, if you want an RPG story where you have that level of agency/choice, what you want isn't a video game (Where by the very nature of it being created well in advance of you playing it, such agency is impossible), you want live action pen and paper RPG, with a real life dungeon master.

This way, even if the DM has a pre-planned story (and most do, from what I hear) because they control the session as you play, they can react to your choices.

Mind you, I hear DMs tend to get upset if you don't go along with the planned story, so you might end up losing the agency anyway! lol

Good try, but no. The story is terrible and falls apart even if you put the default midlander WoL from the promo, as it still implies there was all the story before which should still make sense. They can’t deal with pre-established characters they pulled in the story. They can’t deal with even new characters they created right there for DT and make them consistent and believable. This is no where near the ‘single player JRPG’ experience you would expect from the mainline well known rpg series like ff. And I played all of them since 1.
If we take the DM analogy from p&p tabletop rpg - that would be the one who wants you to go from A point to B with absolutely no understanding how to do it.

[Astrus]

[...]
Mind you, I hear DMs tend to get upset if you don't go along with the planned story, so you might end up losing the agency anyway! lol

Static computer games without any branches in the story and TTRPGs are an apples to oranges comparision but I thought I'd chime in on this bit regardless.

That is a hallmark of a bad (or very inexperienced) DM and one that usually sees a lot of turnover at their table.
The majority of people who regularly DM are aware that their campaign is likely to derail the moment they give the party any agency at all and have, depending on their experience DMing, a number of tools to give the players the illusion of choice while still having them go in the general plot progression they want them to.
The party decides to go the "wrong" way? They still come across that encounter you planned, it's just the location that changed if you supplied a specific one.
The party ignores your plot hooks? You incorporate a one-shot adventure as filler to keep them engaged and keep throwing hooks. They'll bite eventually.
The party seriously derails your campaign by messing with something or someone central to your planned plot? Well now, this is where the truly outstanding DMs separate from the average.
The truly outstanding DM rolls with it, silently curses the brilliant idiots he's stuck with, sets them on a one-shot to buy time and comes up with a rough outline of a changed campaign to let them run wild in.
The average DM is left with no choice other than railroading the party back on track and generally players at my tables have been very accepting when the DM tells the party "Sorry folks, if I let you do that the campaign is going to break down without a chance of salvaging it". There's a reason very few people want to DM and put in the prep-work.
The truly bad DM fights the party at every "wrong" turn, gets vindictive when disgruntled players deliberately start going off the rails and ultimately provokes a TPK to "win".

[RabendaShin]

Now you know how a lot of us felt when we couldn't just choose to leave Zenos in space and not engage in a fight with him even after he literally said to us 'you could just walk away'...
This isn't the first time they have forced something onto us and not REALLY given us an option.
Besides, you never actually agree to calling her that. You can interpret it any way you want. Everyone else calls her that, but you don't have to. The WoL doesn't actually speak.
We had no choice but to fight Zenos.

In my opinion a singular occurrence does not compare to the forced lines pictured here, whether our character chose to say it or not. Yes there were 'alternative' options, but they did not present the usual snark we got in previous expansions:


Constantly affirming the amazing Wuk Lamat, because our character was just moral support throughout the story. Even when you unlock one of the extremes, the wandering minstrel highlights Wuk Lamat and we are just present to help her. All we can do is smile and agree, or nod and keep our mouths shut. Not that I necessarily demand the credit, but at least let me act like the snarky mean girl I believe my character to be.

[Aurumis]

In my opinion a singular occurrence does not compare to the forced lines pictured here, whether our character chose to say it or not. Yes there were 'alternative' options, but they did not present the usual snark we got in previous expansions:


Constantly affirming the amazing Wuk Lamat, because our character was just moral support throughout the story. Even when you unlock one of the extremes, the wandering minstrel highlights Wuk Lamat and we are just present to help her. All we can do is smile and agree, or nod and keep our mouths shut. Not that I necessarily demand the credit, but at least let me act like the snarky mean girl I believe my character to be.

omg this sumarizes so well and even so I know there is more to why people hate this expansion and specially this character. It's infuriating that I had to say these things when I know I wouldn't. And not only that, it doesn't makes sense. We were never like this with the scions. EVER. Like, sometimes we say they can with everything or that we have faith in them or by their side (but dude they are our companions). And it's not all the expansion, it's just certain moments, not all the time pampering their ass.

[Vhana]

XIV has never been good about giving the player agency but I would've like to feel less...useless.

DT seems to forget that the WoL is an actual character in the story and has to have a motivation that is reflected in that story. All the expansions have attempted this, with varying levels of success.

In ARR the WoL quickly becomes the one that has to fight Primals and all that entails while the plot of the Ascians/Garlemald attacking plays out.

In HW the WoL is restoring their blessing and dealing with the fallout of the banquet while the Ishgardian arcs play out.

In SB the WoL is aiding a close friend after having lost a close friend + Zeno’s happens while the Ala Mhigo and Doma arcs happen.

In ShB the WoL is trying to save our friends and then ourselves and then get home which all intersects with the First’s story of sin eaters and flood of light fallout.

EW is wrapping up everything, but the WoL still has Zenos bugging them and their ties to the Ancients while wrapping up Glarlemald, Zodiac/Ascians and stopping the final days.

In DT the WoL is there to see where Wuk Lamat’s path leads while the succession and Alexandrian arcs play out.

There is nothing for the character of the WoL to do in DT besides watch Wuk Lamat. They express no desire to do anything else. The Golden City/Krile could have been motivation but those were immediately resolved as “when/if Wuk Lamat is in charge, we’ll just tell you everything you need to know”. A mentorship arc could have been a motivation but Wuk Lamat didn’t come to the WoL seeking a mentor and we didn’t gently assert ourselves into that role.

The loss of motivation and payoff related to that motivation isn’t unique to the WoL (ie, The twins are there to look for inspiration regarding Garlemald and during the story we see them ….? in relation to that goal). However, the player will feel it more because the player character is the only character we can actively experience the world through.

[MatthiusAbysswalker]

The whole "We're supposed to be a mentor, not the MC this time" thing I keep hearing is a lazy weak excuse for the shoddy expansion we got.
The whole thing was sold as an adventure but we didn't go adventuring, we babysat a naive, boring, one dimensional cat.
Estinien was doing the adventurer part, we just stood there an nodded, whilst the other scions just repeated the same shit we just saw.
Poor writing, poor pacing, poor characters, poor story.
This is hands down the worst expansion they have ever done.
People praising are having some serious copium.