Dawntrail is a good Story but not a Great Story. (SPOILERS)

[fioravictorine]

Eww what an awful take

This story is even worse than ARR its funny how the writers managed to do it. At least ARR has a hook from the beginning with the Garlean empire and whatnot

DT's hook is to force players to help this dumb shitty cat who is not suitable to rule become queen. Why we help her? Cos she likes Peas n Hahpinezz™ and she is a blackhole Sue that mindcontrolled us

[Raven2014]

You got it twisted. It's not the fact that people have a different opinion or not. That's fine, it's all subjective.

It's that the forums as a whole are trying to do a 180 after hating SB / Lyse for literal years and now that the DT hate train is the popular convo, with the exact complaints, people are trying to suddenly make it seem like SB was this fantastic story for MSQ, and Lyse is a fantastic well built character.

That is not only disingenuous, it's alright BS. I will continue to call that out nonstop. If you want to hate DT that's fine, but we not about to try and position SB MSQ / Lyse as great, when both were rough at best and the only things most people remember about the SB MSQ or Lyse as a character, was that both got better during the post patch cycle and the Yotsuyu/ Tsuyu storyline.

You do know that most people can re-evaluate our opinion as we gain more information right? It's not like we're born omnipotence, knowing everything from A to Z, and what the true universal best and worst are.

For example:

- let imagine a person from a well-off family and has been eating good all their life. Home-made food, ironchef restaurant and all that.

- one day, their friend gave them a cheap frozen $2 burger reheat in the microwave. They took one bite and thought "this is actually food? How can anyone eat this?!?" I personally know a few people like that irl.

- Then on a faithful vacation, they get stuck in a warzone with no way out. They spent a week trying to survive on rain water, moldy bread and emergency ration. Then they get rescued, the rescuer handed them a frozen burger fresh off the microwave. They devour it while thinking "this is the BEST thing I've ever eaten!!".

Lyse is like the frozen burger and WL is that moldy bread. When we had Lyse, we thought she was the worst, our evaluation was based on the assumption no one can ever be worse. Then Wuk Lamat happens, so Lyse is now elevated as no longer be the worst. What you call 180 disingenuous BS, is actually simply people re-evaluating their opinion upon gaining a new perspective. You know ... just a human thing to do? Usually after losing something or seeing something worse, it gives us new appreciation of what we had before.

And let's just hope moldy bread is the lowest FF14 gonna go. I swear if FF14 somehow introduce a character that even worse than WL ... then what? It'll be like stuck out in the desert and have to eat live scorpion and chewing on cactus?

[OMGJesuis66]

I'm sorry, but I don't suffer and force myself to not skip the cutscenes just to be told "you skip cutscene and don't know basic theme of narrative".

Cool. Then, what is it?

[Kozh]

Cool. Then, what is it?

? What's what?

[Lady_Silvermoon]

I actually rank DT's story below SB and ARR as the worst thing they've ever produced. Perhaps 1.0's writing ranked below DT, but I don't know because I didn't play it.

But keep in mind, taste is subjective. It's impossible to make something everyone likes, but if you open a restaurant and 90% of the people are ranging from spitting out your food to calling it 'mid', you have an issue. The 10% of people who absolutely love it are not going to be able to keep you in business.

A lot of people didn't like DT's story and that's a problem. And it's not a vocal minority like it was in EW. This is a vocal majority. People who would have happily eaten almost anything placed in front of them are coming to the forums to complain. And fortunately they are giving their reasons they didn't like it.

Some people didn't like Wuk Lamat, some people liked her but felt she overstayed her welcome, I personally am fine with her but I was wondering why I was attempting to make the comic relief leader of a country. Do I hate these people? Before we got there people insisted I had to make her the leader of the country cause her brother likes war. Well, they have no boats, even if the warmonger ends up in charge, he can't get anywhere to attack. And she has a brother who also likes peace and can be trusted to carry his own bags without dropping them. Why aren't we trying to make that guy the ruler?

The game never addressed what my motivation would be, it just kept asking if I was sure while only giving me yes answers. It's very odd to give the protagonist a primary mission the player is unlikely to want to do. Like in ARR we were helping people and stopping primals. Yeah, I'm cool with helping people and saving lives. In HW we were attempting to stop the Dragonsong War, another worthy cause. In SB we were attempting to free two enslaves societies. Definitely anti-slavery. In ShB we're attempting to save the Source and the First. Yep, I'm definitely pro-planet. And in EW we're saving the universe. Can't do much without a universe, gotta save it, no questions asked. But in DT we spend half the story doing something I don't believe any sane person would do. This woman can't be trusted to find her way to a village that is five feet away that she can see. Why would we be attempting to make her ruler of a KFC let alone a country? And that's one issue of many in DT that I hope they never repeat again or the next expansion might have us installing Hildibrand as the sovereign ruler of Ishgard.

[Silver-Strider]

There's so many missed opportunities in DT to provide character growth for a plethora of characters.

Take during the release of Valigarmanda, several of the giants got hurt. This felt like an opportunity for the rival Giants to stir up discord, asking for the Dawnservant trials to be denounced since a candidate had freed Vali and for the Giants to rise against them. While it would've put the trial on hold for a little while longer, I think this would've been an opportunity for Wuk to actually try and settle the problems being caused, give her an opportunity to actually deal with people that question the notion of peace and put a challenge to her ideals.

Mamook is also a very poorly written portion of the story. If you told me the Mamool Ja that had stayed still hadn't let go of conquest or had a feeling of pride in living there, their motives would've made sense but they go with eugenics because they want to leave the forest. NO ONE IS HOLDING THEM THERE!!!! They were free to leave and several did leave for Tuliyollal so why this obsession to birth blessed siblings? It's very poorly written in general. Bakool Ja Ja especially I felt was rushed into his redemption without consequence for his actions ever manifesting. Compare his actions to that of Fordola from SB. She isn't forgiven for all the crap she does midway thru the 4.0 story. We beat her and she's imprisoned, waiting for the resistance to decide her fate. The people denounce her, and even when she does save them, they thank her for it but don't forgive her immediately either. That felt realistic in its depiction. Bakool Ja Ja got none of that and it just felt like another wasted opportunity.

I also have many problems with how Krile and Erenville got shafted in their arcs. Krile wanted to find out the reason her grandfather was asked to investigate the Golden City but instead we're given Krile's origin story that felt straight out of an episode of Stargate, explaining that Krile came from another shard. This culimates into a very awkward 5 minute cutscene with her parents in the final zone and that's it. We don't get any conversation with them really since it all fades to black once the ice is broken, just told to enjoy the history lesson in the volcano about their people and we move on. Erenville felt just as bad since while we got to meet his mother in Heritage Found and got some inkling to her personality and character, Erenville is clearly struggling with the notion his mother is actually dead. Even at the end, it felt like the most hamfisted way to deal with his struggle by declaring he'll live on and do everything his mother is no longer able to do. I wanted to see some more emotion in the moment that just never manifested.

And all this without even discussing the many problems with Wuk Lamat herself. I'm fine with a Shonen Protagonist but I expected that moment in typical Shonen that challenges the character's view and ideals but that never happened. I never felt like Wuk Lamat grew as a character. She became more knowledgeable about her people and that's all fine and dandy but it didn't really shape her in anyway, just filled in some blanks in her knowledge of her people. I'll give her being aware that she alone isn't able to rule Tural and asked Koana to join her as joint Dawnservants but I still never felt she was a good candidate for the position, whereas I felt Koana was the infinitely better candidate, even with his flaws of viewing technological advance above cultures but that made him feel like a real character. He had flaws and grew from them whereas Wuk Lamat isn't really portrayed as having any real flaw. "Oh, I get motion sickness" isn't a flaw, it's not a challenge to overcome for her. It's a character gag at best and not even a funny one. I wish there was more to her that made me want to root for her but there just wasn't.

Finally, there the issue of the stakes of the expansion. If it had been contained to just a normal coup by Zarool Ja without the whole world ending calamity that is Sphene, I probably would've liked it better but no, we couldn't even have that. We had to go and rehash the worst part of EW's 6.X Series and jam it into the last 3-4 levels of the expansion. I get wanting to explore the other shards as part of an interesting story beat but at this point I think we needed a breather from shard travel just for 1 expansion to cleanse the palate a little but nope, here's a psuedo-Ascian to deal with.

For all the flaws of SB, I still genuinely liked parts of it. The siege of Doma Castle is still one of my favorite moments from the 4.0 storyline but with Dawntrail, I struggle to enjoy any part of it for more than 1 or 2 scenes before it just left me numb again. I went in mostly blind to DT after being more or less put off by EW's 6.X story beats but DT was a new low for me.

[Gortys]

Dawntrail is a good Story and it is better than Sormblood. It has parts that are great and parts that are bad. Wuk Lamat has a good development and if you pay attantion you see how she grows. Just read and listen to evreything in the MSQ (She is Part of the Dungeons/Trials) and you understand it.

Why is Dawntrail not a great Story?

Because the part with the succession was to short. It should have lead us to Shaaolani to meet Erenvile's Mother and get Keystones there. the 95 Dungeon should have been 97 dungeon and from there on the Start of the Alexandria part with evreything how it went down. It would have had a bigger impact on the story and for the characters.

I rate this below ARR. In ARR it was long, it was heavy in some spots, but I was always curious. My curiosity kind of died out by zone 4 in DT. I know for many this was a favorite zone, but I had to mute during this zone. I started skipping scenes in some of the last zone. Essentially, the first part made me realize this was going to play out like an alliance raid where we are just observers. I was only able to tolerate the CT AR story, ShB, and most of EW's AR story. All others I gave a chance and then quickly skipped out of boredom. Either the characters were annoying or the plot dragged - which is the same as DT.

I'm not a fan of StB, but I think it is also better than this if only slightly. The things I disliked about Stormblood was mainly Lyse and her nepo baby attitude through most of it. Then you have Hien who tries to earn the trust of his people. I feel in DT they tried to tell a similar story and ideal, but with only one character. They also made her someone who only had to learn about culture. I don't like terms like "Mary Sue", but making her "correct" and everyone else wrong is not reality. It also makes her unrelatable to anyone with self awareness. In StB I at least felt I could finally relate to Lyse since she learned she wasn't perfect even if she was still a loudmouth with an optimistic attitude. In the last expansion Venat comments that we are "imperfect beings" also, but suddenly we have a character who is perfect except for her fear of heights and sea sickness.

I think there were a lot of things that could have made a bigger impact on the story. Imagine if we find the Mamool Ja cave with the unfortunate results of their "breeding program" on our own. But to do that we would maybe have to open a jar or see what happens with the echo and that may be considered gruesome by some. I got the feeling this entire expansion was written for a much younger audience in mind (like pre-teen) since they did a lot of telling rather than showing. It felt very "safe" even with controversial issues or topics. "Rubber bullets" is another example of this.

[Volgia]

I think I agree with the fact that Alexandria came way too soon. I liked when we went to Shaaolani it would be the start of our grand new adventure though, I don't know if I would've liked the rite of succession to go further.

To the people saying DT is worse than ARR, I just can't take you seriously. Maybe you have just forgotten how boring and generic the base game is, or maybe it's some weird trollbait and hateboner for this expansion lol.

[Barachim]

I have 8 alts in total. I went through ARR plenty of times. I don't know if it was in this thread or somewhere else that made a comparison between the Titan questline and Dawntrail, but it's fitting. The only time I ever start to groan in my ARR playthroughs, it's when I have to slog through the Titan questline, which constantly sends me from point A to B, having to talk to countless NPCs and do menial tasks. That's Dawntrail for the whole succession trial.

So yes, ARR is better. I always enjoyed creating a new character, stepping foot into one of the big 3 cities and starting fresh as an adventurer. With Dawntrail I am already dreading setting foot on Tuliyollal soil with a second character.

[Ryok95]

Ehhh I don't know.

The story didn't do it for me.
Poorly written msq, the scions didn't get much development for the story, Krile and Erenvile were done in dirty, Wuk Lamat wasn't a very meaningful character, Zarool Ja and Spene weren't developed much as antagonists, idk where to point out on Bakool Ja ja, in Shaaloani part of the story idk if the accent of the npcs were necessary, the rite of succession was a bit rushed, the gate to the "Golden City" was hidden in graveyard of scarified mamool ja only to find out it was another graveyard filled with holographic people from other and/or current realms that were already dead, and constantly the fact that we didn't get much action during the story only just to be a babysitting soon to be dawn servant. And the ending song credits didn't seem to fit well...
The only thing is my attention getting was the dungeons and the raids, also some of the job skills.
Watched the entire cutscenes while doing the MSQ and I'm gonna say it's not worth the replay to me...