Dawntrail is what happens when you forget your own wisdom

[Raven2014]

I don't think we necessarily have to be the "main character" at all times as far as the world is concerned,

No we don't, and ironically the Final Fantasy series is not stranger to this kind of story:

- Final Fantasy Tactic: Ramza isn't the main character or heroes of the universe, but he helped move the story along. So like ... he's the MC from a gameplay perspective, but not from a narrative perspective.

- Final Fantasy X: Yuna was the central story pillar, although Tidus's story only start weaving in more at the end.

- Final Fantasy XII: probably the best example, Vaan's role as a character is not really relevant to the story, he's just there to show us the story. In any other games he would be an NPC.

You also see it in other games: Dragon Quest V, Xenoblade Chronicle X, Fire Emblem Awakening ..etc..

The main difference between those games and DT is ... they don't have bad writing.

This is why I always says DT shouldn't be excused because it's a new story, WoL taking a back seat or whatever. The problem is not what DT's story is about, or what it is trying to do. The problem is ... it just sucks at whatever it is trying to do.

[LuciferMournstar]

Then stop playing. Vote with your wallet. Sure, you could still keep playing and write forum post after forum post, but what Square ultimately looks at are their metrics. If they see that people are unhappy with the story, but still play this game, they won't really bother to change anything.

You give up easy when the going gets rough, don't you? They messed up with DT on the story by a LARGE margin, though it's really the first time they've stumbled this hard. Sure Lyse and Stormblood was a hiccup too, but not nearly as bad. Even if you hated stormblood, this is what, 2 bad Expacs over the 10 years with twice as many good ones? Just because they stumble now and then, doesn't mean you ditch them. It's only after they do it consistently do you say "I've had enough."

[WeakestZenosEnjoyer]

I don't need to be the main character that does everything and has no flaws, I just want to be a character in the story.

We would not have won in Shadowbringers without our allies, yet Ardbert didn't steal our thunder in the same way Wuk Lamat did. Alisaie and Alphinaud had dialog in Shadowbringers and actually contributed to the plot. We had inn scenes where we could connect with a chosen character instead of talking to Wuk Lamat more (shout out to Estinien jumping off a balcony.) Endwalker at least pretended we were helping in the invasion of the secondary city in a rather unintentionally funny scene while we twiddle our thumbs and nod at the invasion of the Dawntrail main city and death of a major supporting character.

[Lyth]

Yoshi-p's reference to Dragon Quest is worth picking up on here. Main entry Final Fantasy games don't make you create your own player avatar, outside of the MMOs. That intrinsically makes the writing style different than other games in the series, because you need to engage with the player avatar directly. You can have other characters play major parts, but you have to always return back to the player as the anchoring point for the story.

If you want to understand why Shadowbringers had such a huge impact on the series, a lot of this comes from Ishikawa balancing the Warrior of Light as both her creation and as your own. Azem is the interface between the two, a mantle that you can don to 'clothe yourself in the fiction'. Emet-Selch isn't just any villain, either. He's a old friend straight out of your past, gone astray, which makes your clash deeply personal. Probably one of the greatest scenes in the history of the game is when he sees a flicker in Azem in you after merging with Ardbert's soul. And then you, not anyone else, are asked what your personal choice of one-liner is before you engage in battle.

And note that Shadowbringers isn't entirely about the Warrior of Light, either. G'raha plays a fairly central part as the Exarch, and we get plenty of scenes about his heroism on the First. But he's primarily there to support you in your fight. He still shows up to help you and summon allies so that you can fight Emet, but he certainly doesn't jump through a dimensional rift and start soloing Hades while you're in the process of transforming into a Sineater. 'Hadees! 'Listen to mee!'

I think that if you're going to be a writer for a long-running serial work, you need to be respectful of the efforts that writers have put before you (especially in a serial work that's been running for 10+ years). That means maintaining a degree of continuity with the style that the work uses, even if it isn't what you're used to. Rewriting the story on your own terms is not going to go down well with the audience. Relegating the main character to 'Vaan status' while you introduce in your own protagonist is going to feel jarring, simply because that's not the writing style that was previously used. It would be one thing if Hiroi was creating a new entry in Final Fantasy from scratch. But this isn't a story that Hiroi has written from the ground up, it's one that he's inherited from better writers. There's an expectation on him that he do it justice the way that his predecessors have before him.

Another point worth noting is that this story traditionally used dialogue options as a way of engaging the player and giving a personal context to their story. Sometimes having completed a specific side-story or be playing on a specific job gives you special insights. If you're not feeling a particular scene, you can throw in a joke about Moogles to introduce in a bit of levity, or even express your disapproval. It also makes discussing or watching other people's playthroughs more interesting, because you can compare choices and it injects a certain degree of personal flavor to an individual playthrough.

It's not like this is a terribly difficult thing, and it's clear that whoever wrote the Arcadion storyline at least understands this, because it felt like a definite return to form. But for whatever reason, the MSQ seems to see this system as a nuisance and offers only the most superficial options, when it does at all.

It's really odd seeing the difference in execution, because while the Arcadion story is relatively simple, it feels orders of magnitude more compelling than the Dawntrail MSQ. You don't have to agree with Yoshi-p's commentary that was linked in the OP, but it does explain a lot about why FFXIV was historically successful in its storytelling.

[CamuiKushi]

It's not like this is a terribly difficult thing, and it's clear that whoever wrote the Arcadion storyline at least understands this, because it felt like a definite return to form. But for whatever reason, the MSQ seems to see this system as a nuisance and offers only the most superficial options, when it does at all.

It's really odd seeing the difference in execution, because while the Arcadion story is relatively simple, it feels orders of magnitude more compelling than the Dawntrail MSQ. You don't have to agree with Yoshi-p's commentary that was linked in the OP, but it does explain a lot about why FFXIV was historically successful in its storytelling.

It's wild how much Arcadion feels like Final Fantasy XIV in a way that the MSQ just doesn't. It's the most basic and shallow of stories but I swear it's far more engaging.

[Striker44]

Question - when is that quote from?

Is it recent? Or is it from years ago, before we saved the star several times over, and one of the increasing concerns was the inevitable "constant upping of the stakes" that resulted in people wanting something where we weren't constantly hailed as the almighty savior of the universe and so on? (And guess what - we still ended up being the MC, going everywhere Wuk Lumat goes the first half of the story, and then being "the one" to do the big stuff in the second half of the story because of who we are...)

[OverThere]

It's a relatively simple and straightforward story with our wol having clear motives however, it has something that the msq doesn't and that it's characters interact with one another more frequency. If we look at Wuk for a moment we don't really get to see her interact with anyone outside of the right of succession trials, hell you could remove the twins and Krile for the first half of the expansion and nothing would change and even Erenville doesn't say much despite him and Wuk lamat being childhood friends. I get this is her story but l can't help but feel that her story got sabotage by the fact the writers don't want to put her in a stressful situation or have her values be pushed back the others. For example, would the part of the storyline where we make tacos be more interesting if we stayed with Kona or if Wuk Lamat got paired up with Zoraa ja or Bakool ja ja. Giving her an opportunity to finally try to understand those one of those two actual motives.

[Turtledeluxe]

Question - when is that quote from?

Is it recent? Or is it from years ago, before we saved the star several times over, and one of the increasing concerns was the inevitable "constant upping of the stakes" that resulted in people wanting something where we weren't constantly hailed as the almighty savior of the universe and so on? (And guess what - we still ended up being the MC, going everywhere Wuk Lumat goes the first half of the story, and then being "the one" to do the big stuff in the second half of the story because of who we are...)

The problem with this team imo is that when they hear you want low stakes, they automatically default to doing something they don't realize is extremely boring and repetitive.

Speak to Wuk Lamat yet again.

And I like Wuk Lamat btw. There's just no doubt they mishandled both her and WoL, irrespective of us being the MC or not

[Seiki_Kisaki]

And guess what - we still ended up being the MC, going everywhere Wuk Lumat goes the first half of the story, and then being "the one" to do the big stuff in the second half of the story because of who we are...

Did I miss something or does "going everywhere someone else does" not feel like the MC at all? Rather feels like a Watson to someone's Sherlock. Sure, the books are written from Watson's perspective, but you are kidding yourself if you think Watson's the main character.

As for being "the one" to do the big stuff... did we play the same game? Whatever version you played, I wanna play that, cuz the last trial in my version was horrible. I was playing with friends and we just stopped doing DPS when the thing happened. Guess what? "We" cleared it.

The problem with this team imo is that when they hear you want low stakes, they automatically default to doing something they don't realize is extremely boring and repetitive.

Speak to Wuk Lamat yet again.

And I like Wuk Lamat btw. There's just no doubt they mishandled both her and WoL, irrespective of us being the MC or not

This. I honestly think that Wuk Lamat's fans should be angry at the treatment she got. Her story is incredibly rushed, allowing no time at all for any nuance. It feels like the writer was told that they can make 1 character for 1 expansion, nothing more, and so they desperately crammed in so much of her stuffs. Had she been allowed time to grow in multiple expansions like our Scions did, I'm 99% sure people would've liked her.

[FuwafuwaMii]

Thank you for this, OP. It's nice to have a rebuttal to all the people defending DT because we just don't like "not being the main character".

Having proof that basically shows that the literal bloody point of the game is for the WoL to be the main character is great.

You know, changing your opinions is a sign of growth. Digging out some old post from 10 years or more ago is only good for nostalgia