Dawntrail's MSQ story is a disaster and waste of potential. [full spoilers]

[All_Nonsense]

And when I think back.. I can member people say "HW was so good because of the 2.1-2.3 story" .. and similar for Stormblood.. and for Shadowbringers 5.0 and 5.3, so Emet Selch and Elidibus. So everyone who already knows that DT is the worst expansion: How do you know, what we get the next 2~ years? We are at the early beginning of a new story.

Lol almost NO ONE was shitting on ShB's or HW's story in 5.0 and 3.0 respectively. Not even close. Not even mildly remotely close. The reception for those stories was insanely better than the reception for 7.0 was. 7.0 has been so poorly received by both critics and players alike compared to all other expansions that we literally have empirical data to support it at this point. There's metrics. Why would the quality of 7.0's story be such a hot topic right now and contested so strongly by so many people if it's just as good as SHADOWBRINGERS was????? Are you serious?

The start of a new story is supposed to be good. It can be a bit boring, sure, but it needs substance and the establishment of core plot points. There's tons of very intelligently written, well-explained posts about exactly *why* people don't like the story. A lot of it is in this thread. You should read some

And to be fair:
Before DT release "Its so nice, that the WOL can have a beach episode, after rescue the planet/universe and most likely the void!"
After DT release "Its so bad, that the WOL had a boring beach episode and everything is just bad *Smadge*"

Literally no one is saying that wtf. I'll correct:

Before DT release: "It's so nice that we can take a break from high stakes and just have a chill expansion where we don't have to save the world"
During DT release: "Sphene and Zoraal Ja are literally about to end all life on the entire Source and then every other reflection - something not even Metion was going to do. Also there's 10,000 lines of dialogue for Wuk Lamat that don't amount to anything and everyone else doesn't get any spotlight"
After DT release: "What the hell was that?????"

Remember how much you paid for DT and how much you continue to pay every single month. Do you feel like you received your money's worth in terms of story quality? Nearly half of us don't. If I wanna read barrel scraping BNHA dialogue, I'll borrow my friend's manga.

[sylphlands]

I'm on lvl 96 and just...how was this marketed as a vacation for the wol? I feel so confused when people defend DT as a low stakes expac? I would have actually enjoyed that if done well. But once again there are apocalyptic conflicts and Tuliyollal just lost 50 civilians to a robot terrorist attack. This story oscillates between hilariously low stakes that are resolved instantly to world-ending problems and I just feel...very checked out. Alphinaud literally called Zoraal a threat to the entire star...but! Vacation expac!

The most baffling beat so far was how we all just stood and watched while Zoraal came back from the dead and committed patricide/regicide, and then Alisaie made Wuk let him walk away? His troops were in the streets shooting grandmas in the face. I can't get over it. The writers can say all they want that us not intervening was to preserve GJJ's honor, but that absolutely feels like a weak excuse just to push the plot forward. When a writer forces capable characters to be incapable, and without even incapacitating us physically which would have been more believable, that's bad writing.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

I'm on lvl 96 and just...how was this marketed as a vacation for the wol? I feel so confused when people defend DT as a low stakes expac? I would have actually enjoyed that if done well. But once again there are apocalyptic conflicts and Tuliyollal just lost 50 civilians to a robot terrorist attack. This story oscillates between hilariously low stakes that are resolved instantly to world-ending problems and I just feel...very checked out. Alphinaud literally called Zoraal a threat to the entire star...but! Vacation expac!

The most baffling beat so far was how we all just stood and watched while Zoraal came back from the dead and committed patricide/regicide, and then Alisaie made Wuk let him walk away? His troops were in the streets shooting grandmas in the face. I can't get over it. The writers can say all they want that us not intervening was to preserve GJJ's honor, but that absolutely feels like a weak excuse just to push the plot forward. When a writer forces capable characters to be incapable, and without even incapacitating us physically which would have been more believable, that's bad writing.

Yeah, a lot of writing decisions seem to be made not on what the characters would do or any sane person would do, but to reach the moments the writers want to reach and to fit the game's formula. Like there is no reason under the sun that Zoraal Ja should be walking from that room. They will claim they are allowing it cause they have to figure out how he survived, but there is a thing on his head glowing like Christmas. Are they dumb? No, the only reason we stood there is because the writers wanted a death scene. The only reason we let him go is because it's not time for his trial yet. And there is tons of writing like that in DT to the point you look at characters you know from past expansions and wonder, "Who are these people?"

[Remiferia]

Dawntrail is a story about how Colonialism is A-Okay as long as you're colonising for the right reasons.

Nothing quite says 'Peace, Love & Happiness' like assimilating all of the tribes by rooting out all the stuff about them that we don't like, strapping a nuclear warhead to a train to the tune of Disney music, ramming it into the borders of a foreign nation, trashing their culture, killing their leaders, installing a puppet leader who answers directly to Wuk Lamat like it's a Soviet-era satellite nation, mulling over what elements of their culture can be used to make life on Tural better, and going home to eat tacos. Yes I know some of these things were necessary and unavoidable but holy fuck have some level of introspection. The way everything we do is always the 'absolute correct answer' is alarming.

If Gulool Ja Ja wasn't the perfect leader who does everything right all the time, and Wuk Lamat actually had to wrestle with some tricky policies that he put in place, then the whole story would collapse in on itself. The alternative we get is that she's never wrong because her dad was never wrong, and her nation is already an Idyllic society with no problems that can't be fixed by some food, a brief chat, or some seeds.

This story was 'overseen by Ishikawa' in the same way that FFXV was 'given the blessing of' Hironobu Sakaguchi: they were asked to have their names attached to the production to inspire confidence. The marketing of the game has more political nous than Wuk Lamat and the entire narrative combined.

We waited three years to experience a story about the benefits of acceptance and multiculturalism penned by people who seem to believe traditionalism is king and everything foreign needs to be met with skepticism (Koana's solutions during the Rite, Alexandrian culture, Shaaloani views on industrialisation etc.)

Story skippers took a W.

[AngelicDeath]

no its not you clown its great get good

[Striker44]

Lol almost NO ONE was shitting on ShB's or HW's story in 5.0 and 3.0 respectively. Not even close. Not even mildly remotely close. The reception for those stories was insanely better than the reception for 7.0 was. 7.0 has been so poorly received by both critics and players alike compared to all other expansions that we literally have empirical data to support it at this point. There's metrics.

This forum has always been a negative echo chamber bashing every expansion as it comes out. Yes, including HW and ShB. It's only when the next expansion comes out and gets its turn to be trashed that the previous one suddenly gets praised. It's like people have an obsessive need to be disappointed or something.

Also, I'm not sure you understand what "metrics" or "empirical data" mean, because both of those actually point in the positive direction for DT. Seriously, just open your worldview beyond select places of the internet that agree with you, and it can be eye-opening. I recommend taking a spin through some YT videos and check out the comments. There will be people talking about how they're enjoying DT's story and finding it meaningful that get hundreds and hundreds of upvotes compared to the dozens you might see around here.

Critic reviews are likewise seeming fine. Look specifically for critics that reviewed both DT now and ARR back in the day, and you'll see they're rated very similarly. And when you consider that ARR gets a bump from following the actual disaster that was 1.0 compared to DT having to start fresh after the highly-received story arc that concluded with ShB and EW, it puts it even more into perspective that DT is doing fine.

I'm on lvl 96 and just...how was this marketed as a vacation for the wol? I feel so confused when people defend DT as a low stakes expac?

Yes, in a story that unfolds over the course of about 50-60 hours (if you do MSQ and side content), there will naturally be a variety of things happening. We spent the full first half of the game basically touring the island while being a mentor to Wuk Lumat, and then for people who insist on wanting us (the WoL) to be the main character, we had the entire second half of the story where we're always the one to go "forward" because of who we are (we head into the dome instead of helping Tuliyollal's defense, go into Living Memory instead of help keep the gate open, etc.).

We waited three years to experience a story about the benefits of acceptance and multiculturalism penned by people who seem to believe traditionalism is king and everything foreign needs to be met with skepticism (Koana's solutions during the Rite, Alexandrian culture, Shaaloani views on industrialisation etc.)

Koana has an entire following due to the outside (Sharlayan) innovations he's brought to Tural, and one of the main "moral" points the story sums up is the benefits of combining tradition with innovation...

[sylphlands]

no its not you clown its great get good

Genuinely not trying to be combative here, but...why? I haven't seen defenses of Dawntrail outside of brief "it's great actually" rebuttals, and there are some very detailed critiques in this thread and many others. This isn't a skill issue, it's a writing issue.

[Remiferia]

Koana has an entire following due to the outside (Sharlayan) innovations he's brought to Tural, and one of the main "moral" points the story sums up is the benefits of combining tradition with innovation...

And yet all of his solutions to each test in the Rite of Succession were met with a prevailing sense of 'Okay, that'll work and you can proceed, but we much prefer Wuk Lamat's solutions of not innovating at all and working with what we already have'. The Hanu Hanu chief among them. They are given an innovative solution for their reed-growing issue that could presumably work in any and all circumstances and yet they are enamoured by Wuk Lamat's genius idea of dancing in front of the flowers and hoping that'll do the trick.

His only real mention in his hometown of Shaaloani is that of skepticism towards the future of industrialisation, and there was potential for a notable subplot using Heritage Found as a possible endgame of innovation and the mutation of culture that isn't explored in favour of giving Wuk Lamat yet more screen time to ramble about smiley faces.

The 'most correct' solutions in the RoS were always the ones that didn't innovate on traditions at all. Pelu Pelu started rooting for Wuk Lamat because she showed a savviness in their trade culture; Hanu Hanu preferred her idea of repairing the float; her biological father wink-wink nudge-nudged her into making the correct traditional dish and also understanding the culture behind it. Koana effectively gave up and endorsed Wuk Lamat on the basis that she better understood the people of Tural despite the fact that he not only wasn't disqualified but also kept her in the running by saving her life.

We go to Solution Nine where they have mixed culture with innovation and spend time talking about how unnatural Regulators are and how they shouldn't be using them. The raid tier is leading directly towards providing an excuse to abandon regulators altogether because Wuk Lamat is never wrong and we can't annex them properly while such an 'icky' cultural difference exists between the two.

But yeah, a few people walking up to Koana when he walked out in the crowd is enough of a foundation to sell me on the moral of the story being at all cohesive with how they got there.

[OgruMogru]

Y'know the scene in Living Memory where we have to eat the completely flavourless popcorn and pretend to like it in order to finish the quest? How the citizens just stare blankly at you until you give them the exact response in the exact positive tone they were looking for? Being critical of DT feels like that scene playing out in real time. Life imitating art.

[All_Nonsense]

Also, I'm not sure you understand what "metrics" or "empirical data" mean, because both of those actually point in the positive direction for DT. Seriously, just open your worldview beyond select places of the internet that agree with you, and it can be eye-opening.

I'm starting to think that the only way for glazers to defend DT at this point is to either build strawmen with their misunderstood notions of critical comments, or by saying "it's good wahhhh it's a new story you don't get it you're stupid."

I said "compared to all other expansions." The "data" I am referencing is the (everywhere) lowest ratings of any expansion (by both critics and playerbase) including ARR as recorded as an average. Just because the ratings are over 60% you're saying that's a "positive" for the game. It is as much a positive as passing a class with a C or a D is. Sure, you pass, but you're not impressing anyone.

As for looking "beyond the parts of the internet that agree with you," I believe you're talking about Youtube (tons of critical videos and comments, tons. How have you not seen them?), Twitter (shitshow. Absolute shitshow, but the art is good lol), Steam reviews (LMFAOOOOOOOO), and what else now? Reddit? (again, another shitshow, arguments abound, lots and lots of critical reviews). Why don't you take the time to make a long, detailed, articulate post demonstrating why the story is so good and counteract all the threads that literally do exactly that but detailing why the story was bad? I'm yet to see a proper, detailed counterargument. You can be contrarian, I'll even change my mind if you're persuasive enough, but you gotta do more than "well you're mad because you're not the main character." That's just lazy and disingenuous