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

[SongOfTheWind]

This expansion was so bad that we need a Dawntrail Reborn to overwrite it. Keep the outline, turn the Wuk Lamat dial from 11 down to 3, delete every cutscene except the gondola, and start over.

And make Viper and Pictomancer unique instead of reswizzles of existing jobs.

And give me a tackle box ffs, I have a whole inventory screen full of lures and scrip bait.

One thing that truly puzzles me... No one... NO ONE at Square stood up and said "this doesn't work, we can't ship this."

At this point I am almost convinced they don’t play their own game.
Also please could you keep the gondola? I don’t want it.

[vonKlippe]

I have said this before, starting around lvl 95 MSQ, and now that I am 3 quests from done, i'll say it again, as it has become more and more evident; this feels written for children by someone untested.

I would be happy to list many examples, but the short of it is that the situations and the dialogue are constantly contradicting each other. Being told 'your happy now' when things are sad, being told "ive talked long enough!" when the voiced NPC literally said 2 short things that spanned about 9-12 seconds; even the fact that in the last 8 quests of MSQ, you're doing goofy hijinks dressed up as a mascot. The 2nd half of the story is a horror story to me (by which I mean I find what the bubble and solution 9 et al is horrific and cruel to the people). After all, we just finished Endwalker which spent its expansion and the last 10 years building up to the point where Happiness and Sadness go hand in hand, Venat sundered the damn word rather than people discarding sorrow. Yet, here we are again, so I can understand why some feel the story gets boring.

I dislike that the WoL responses are so forced here, that all these obvious queues are being ignored (I stopped counting after 6 the number of time Erenville gives a somber look and balls a fist or puts his fist to his chin in thought and discomfort over a certain something in the 2nd half). Instead, WoL is forced to respond in the positive about the state of the last zone, despite knowing FULL WELL that its wrong, and that bringing back the ones you loved at the expense of those still alive is the ENTIRE plan (the Ardor) of the Ascians that we have been fighting against for the last 10 years, and just wrapped up. Why the WoL responses seem devoid of WoL's experiences from ARR to Endwalker, meaning that he is hopelessly fun loving and positive about a situations he has first hand knowledge as being wrong, wishful thinking, only makes sense when I suppose this was written for children with memory issues.

I plan to play the MSQ a 2nd time on an alt thats ready to go, and revisit many of my notes and hopefully provide SE with some constructive feedback in places where maybe it just a bad localization thing, but on first wag, I like the story over all, just the pacing if crazy off sometimes and on point others, and the dialogue... dear god.

Children aren't stupid. They like good stories and can understand any adult theme that they've been reasonably exposed to in the world around them -- love, war, etc. It is a rookie mistake to dumb-down a story for kids. Simplify the language? Yes. Avoid excessive subtlety? Sure. Don't reference real world history that they certainly don't know? Absolutely. Make it more accessible, but don't dumb down the story itself. Kids get bored with crappy stories even more than adults do.

I do agree that it feels like Dawntrail was a good story that was severely dumbed-down in a tragically ignorant attempt to appeal to kids.

[TELOS]

I agree with some of OP's points but disagree with others:

1) Wuk Lamat didn't blindly trust Sphene. You said she didn't "act like" she didn't trust Sphene, but I don't know how else the ruler of a country is supposed to act when faced with sudden diplomacy. She took a "wait-and-see" approach since she (correctly) trusted that Sphene didn't like Zoraal Ja. And I'm not sure why Alisaie is mentioned, as nearly every other word out of Alisaie's mouth is about how much she does not trust Sphene, both in and out of cutscenes. And honestly, I wouldn't say Wuk Lamat is stunned by the reveal of Sphene's deception; she's just hurt, which I think is fair to feel after attempted international diplomacy. Essentially, if this "isn't how people act", then you should explain how she should have acted instead.

2) The comment on "Talk-no-Jutsu" is strange to me considering Wuk Lamat killed Zoraal Ja and Sphene. And for Zoraal Ja, she explained to his own kid why she couldn't talk it out. She has a speech about how combat is necessary sometimes for peace. Her response to two leaders who do not regard political enemies as people worthy enough of life is to celebrate all people. (Debates on Living Memory, of course, notwithstanding; I agree that the conflict there is avoided at best, undeveloped at worst). She fights dehumanization with humanity, and still kills people who can't be reasoned with. Perhaps this is a personal problem, but I'm really not sure what else she should have done.

3) I fail to see how the ruler of a country taking the time to understand the people around her and affected by her decisions is a flaw in the writing. If anything, I would say this is the most worthy a political leader has been in XIV since...well, ever, honestly.

4) Ishikawa headed some very good material, but she also headed the plotline that is basically "the Ancients were biologically incapable of saving their home, and that's a part of why it's for the greater good that their world had to be eradicated." Frankly, with direction like that, I gotta say I'm glad she's not the lead writer for a continent focused on indigenous cultures of the West. I say this as a fan of her credited work.

5) The Scions were not there to meddle and I'm glad they didn't. Though, I do agree their writing was flat at times. But this has been an issue since 1.0 and I don't think it's fair to place blame on any specific members of the writing team – it is a team, and a long-standing one at that.

All in all, I mostly view this thread as "things some people didn't like" rather than anything objective about what writing should/shouldn't be. I liked Dawntrail, even with my own criticisms, and I don't think I'm any more or less literate for it.

And if this game survived after 4.1 reinventing trickle-down economics explicitly to justify exploiting one of the most vulnerable demographics of people on Hydaelyn, then I seriously doubt it's in danger now.

[TheGrimace]

I had issues with some of the writing just before the second half of Urqopacha. I also think that sometimes most characters did repeat their points a little too frequently rather than dimply letting their thoughts organically play out.

Beyond that, I am very satisfied with the writing of Dawntrail and look forward to more from the writer. I shed tears twice because parts of the narrative resonated very deeply.

[Atmaweapon510]

I was on board with a Wuk Lamat coming of age story until after the attack on Tuliyollal when she stated that she must kill her brother. The way she said it seemed weirdly cold compared to how she was before and it's unlike any other scene when a character displays deep emotions. There's usually a close-up and audio cue of them balling their fists tightly, followed by a shot of them gritting their teeth before they make their statement, but there wasn't anything like that with her statement. When these audios cues aren't present on one of the most expressive characters in the game, it felt kind of eerie, like she somehow immediately morphed into the perfect vow of resolve. In the aftermath of the second trial, when she starts crying, I was wondering how she was hiding any of that sentiment when she was consistently portrayed as a person who literally can't hide their emotions before then, the only hint being a text observation by a guard saying that her hands were shaking when she stated her goal of killing Zoraal Ja.

I came to the conclusion that the current writer seems to really dislike characters creating their own conflict so they dialed down her emotions for that span of the story, leaving us with no clear character growth and all exposition.

[totalimmortal]

What even WAS the message behind dawntrail? "Genocide is okay as long as it's in self defense" is what I took away.

top minds of final fantasy xiv itt

[Xellith]

Isn't that the message your ilk takes from every expansion?

Sorry we are discussing Dawntrail, not any fringe theories about data memories being real people.

Emet-Selch: "But yes, moral relativism and all that. Case in point - I do not consider you to be truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you."

I'd say "You have become Emet-Selch after he went wacko" but you might somehow think that's a compliment.

[Wired-Lain]

So we are jumping from not understanding the purpose and meaning of genocide to also not understanding who or what Emet is. Emet is a humanoid Ancient commenting on his perception of, for the purposes of this game, actual human beings. The reason Emet says this with sarcastic inflection is because he knows it's bs and just doesn't care. He's rationalizing rejoining, which also happens to be an aggression against the entire world. You're talking about Emet like his goal is to slaughter worlds when it's not-- it's to rejoin them back into a singular world.

The issue with Endless is not one of perception. You either accept that they're fascimilies or you don't.

Not accepting it is voluntarily co opting of the writing on the part of players. No thanks. I'm going to go by what the game is about.

And I'm not worried about you think of me at all. Do you not realize you're sitting here saying the writers are fascist, Erenville is fascist, Krile is fascist, etc? Why would I care what you think when your perception of what happened in this story is so completely disturbing?

Why is people disagreeing with writers such a novel concept to you, if the purpose of fiction was to blindly accept whatever it said and put zero extra thought into it we wouldn't be talking about anything. To examine a piece of media from multiple angles is part and parcel with any narrative, especially one that poses ethical dilemmas that are frustratingly ignored and brushed over. If you don't care and are happy to accept the most surface level parts of the text without question or examination why are you even bothering to engage people on this, you can go on your merry way.

[Galvuu]

Why is people disagreeing with writers such a novel concept to you, if the purpose of fiction was to blindly accept whatever it said and put zero extra thought into it we wouldn't be talking about anything. To examine a piece of media from multiple angles is part and parcel with any narrative, especially one that poses ethical dilemmas that are frustratingly ignored and brushed over. If you don't care and are happy to accept the most surface level parts of the text without question or examination why are you even bothering to engage people on this, you can go on your merry way.

XIV has an additional issue that started early, but became very pronounced with EW, where it has conflicting messages. This isn't even a DT issue, although DT exacerbates it.
Sometimes, a lot of naturalist arguments are thrown around ("this is against the natural cycle, so it's bad" or "this is the way of nature, so it's good"), but often use technology or unnatural ways to solve natural problems. All of Sharlayan and Garlemald hinge on technology to flourish, and this is never seen as wrong, nor are "unnatural" solutions to problems. It becomes even more complicated when you consider most of the world was populated by creatures originally designed by the ancients through a meticulous process (as unnatural as it can get). Hell, in a way, dying is unnatural, as the kind of mortality most races in XIV have is the result of the Sundering, basically the actions of a magic super-weapon. Is using electrope to farm bad? If it is, is using Sharlayan techniques bad, even if they hinge on magic or some process of magically-assisted artificial selection (something we're shown they do in Labyrinthos)?

On the other hand, there is also dissonance in a lot of messages that appear in EW regarding suffering. Obviously, you need to know when to let go, and going around murdering entire worlds (be it Emet-Selch or Sphene or whomever) to revive your loved ones is morally reproachable. But then there's that whole tirade of "growing through suffering" or becoming stronger for it, and how societies without pain or scarcity eventually go into suicidal atrophy. That seems at odds with the ultimate goals of the scions or the WoL, which is to relieve people of suffering and establish lasting, world-wide peace. If, hypothetically, through great feats of magic and technology, all war, disease and strife is gone from the world, potentially perpetually, does the world become worse for it? Do we turn into the Ea or something, and lose our way? Does it become the moral thing to do then, in such an hypothetical state of Etheirys, to... create strife and war? So people remember suffering once again, and relearn how to endure and surpass it?I, personally, do not agree with this message to begin with- terrible things happen, and we need to move on, yes. But, if I could, I'd make it so no one needs to do that, so that no one needs to bury a loved one that was prematurely taken, or endure hunger and pain. But the game itself is sometimes at odds with that message.

It makes it very hard for me to consume the story without thinking of these things. There's also the ton of lore retcons on top of this, which make it even more incongruent, and harder to digest with no thought. Ofc, everyone will have their read on this. I just find it discordant.

[TELOS]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the story of this game has been a "whose genocide/omnicide is more justified" pissing contest since the beginning, but especially since Shadowbringers. The Hunting Logs having the sentient races in them is a contentious topic. The entire Ascian plotline is literally this. Even G'raha Tia is willing to erase an entire timeline and all the people who live in it because he misses his friends – the only reason why he doesn't have consequences is because... well, actually, it's never explained, so we don't know why.

I fail to see what the issue is all of a sudden when Venat's Sundering cutscene is one of the more highly regarded cutscenes in the game.