Why are alisaie and alphinaud in Dawntrail?

[Striker44]

Because SE is terrified of making this game without the Scions.
Scions have a lot of popularity, and they do not know how to pull the plug on those characters and let others take the spotlight. It's a 'dug up your own grave' situation, because the entire narrative since SHB keeps elevating the Scions to be the most proficient people in certain matters IN THE WHOLE WORLD.
When it comes to inter-dimensional travel, we shouldn't allow other characters to grow in that spotlight, we should call G'raha and Y'shtola immediately. It is dumb not to.

It could be any character, not just Wuk Lamat there, it would build resentment to not having the Scions around, or letting them do what they know best. Because, again, they are the most competent people in the whole world as the narrative kept dumbing everyone around and making the Scions have all the answers to literally everything. And the Devs don't know how to get away from it in a healthy manner to make their appearances rare and yet exciting.

The popularity of the Scions is definitely one key factor. I wouldn't say it's a matter of "not knowing how to pull the plug" but recognizing that "pulling the plug" would live up to the reference and kill the game. It's one of those ways that people whose only experience of the FFXIV community is these forums would benefit from widening their view, because we complain a lot about the Scions here, but they're immensely popular among the playerbase at large.

For the other part of "allowing other characters to grow," I see it as a natural matter of human comfort. We've worked alongside the Scions for years now and we all trust each other. If one of them is knowledgeable on a topic, it makes sense to call in the person we both know has the knowledge and who we already trust implicitly compared to some relatively random person we don't really know yet and haven't built that trust with. Think about it in real life - if you need some work done, and already have a long-time friend in that line of work who you know is good at their job, are you going to start randomly Googling other people you don't know to get the job done, or are you going to just call your friend?

The hilariously out of touch writers instead bench the characters that SHOULD have been in the frontline.

I wouldn't call them "hilariously out of touch"; I'd say the opposite - they're very much in touch with the reality of the Scions' popularity and the effective need to include them in the stories they write. I see the "out of touch" take as thinking you could just effectively dispose of the Scions and it wouldn't drop the bottom out of the game.

[MartinFreeman]

Like ok no problem, i get the devs want us to see familiar faces... but why?

Honestly, all the scions shouldn't have been there because Wuk Lamat made them irrelevant. She solved all the problems herself cause she's so special. In fact, Koana was also a fill in for the smarter more tech and book savvy scions. Even Alisaie became more tempered.

I think all the scions personally were tempered like primals temper others....Wuk Lamat is a primal!

[CamuiKushi]

To fill out the NPC party. That's literally the only reason I can think of. It came across to me like the writers saw them as an inconvenience. All of the scions, for that matter.

Honestly I'm glad they didn't feel obliged to bring Cid and Nero back and make them bland too.

[MartinFreeman]

To fill out the NPC party. That's literally the only reason I can think of. It came across to me like the writers saw them as an inconvenience. All of the scions, for that matter.

Honestly I'm glad they didn't feel obliged to bring Cid and Nero back and make them bland too.

Nero: "I normally do not say this...but I, too, believe in Wuk Lamat."

[AnnRam]

At least they aren't Eren, probably the worst NPC made by Square Enix after Wuk Lame.

20 hours of him doing absolutely and utterly nothing, and plus he can't even fight.

[Fawkes]

They're the safe option. Even if they're written like empty husks people will still go "squee!" when G'raha is on screen.

Also there's probably some real world element to it where Yoshi-P is friends with the Japanese voice actors and doesn't want to cut them out because it would be rude or whatever.

[OMGJesuis66]

-snip-

The process of making new and likable characters to be on the spotlight for the time being, while the Scions show up in time to time is a very hard process to hit given how the fan base is attached to them. But, it is better to try.

Regarding the 2nd paragraph, that's not my point. My point is that even the most capable individual that is not a Scion, will have their accomplishments and skill relying on the Scions, because they have the answers to everything.

In Endwalker we have Sharlayan, the pinnacle of mankind information, build a spaceship. To which, required the Scions to finish the project because somehow, they didn't knew how to do it. Still an impressive feat.

And a feat that is minimized by Y'shtola accomplishing something harder, where she figure out with incredible precise physics, to harness energy, make it travel over three dimensions/alternate realities with vastly precise beacons and know the amount transferred in the matter of seconds was enough energy to pierce through a wall made out of a creature which was the primordial darkness.

Those characters are more capable than anyone else in the world. That will be forever the case, and, well. Powercreep ruin narratives, as it always did. Go figure.

[CamuiKushi]

And a feat that is minimized by Y'shtola accomplishing something harder, where she figure out with incredible precise physics, to harness energy, make it travel over three dimensions/alternate realities with vastly precise beacons and know the amount transferred in the matter of seconds was enough energy to pierce through a wall made out of a creature which was the primordial darkness.

She did that with the assistance of Garlond Ironworks, a crew that in another history eventually figured out time/space/dimensional travel. We really should have them on speed-dial too. But again, glad the writers didn't feel obligated to make anyone from Ironworks show up because at least they're "safe" for now.

[Shinku_Tachi]

The popularity of the Scions is definitely one key factor. I wouldn't say it's a matter of "not knowing how to pull the plug" but recognizing that "pulling the plug" would live up to the reference and kill the game. It's one of those ways that people whose only experience of the FFXIV community is these forums would benefit from widening their view, because we complain a lot about the Scions here, but they're immensely popular among the playerbase at large.

For the other part of "allowing other characters to grow," I see it as a natural matter of human comfort. We've worked alongside the Scions for years now and we all trust each other. If one of them is knowledgeable on a topic, it makes sense to call in the person we both know has the knowledge and who we already trust implicitly compared to some relatively random person we don't really know yet and haven't built that trust with. Think about it in real life - if you need some work done, and already have a long-time friend in that line of work who you know is good at their job, are you going to start randomly Googling other people you don't know to get the job done, or are you going to just call your friend?



I wouldn't call them "hilariously out of touch"; I'd say the opposite - they're very much in touch with the reality of the Scions' popularity and the effective need to include them in the stories they write. I see the "out of touch" take as thinking you could just effectively dispose of the Scions and it wouldn't drop the bottom out of the game.

This is the most frustrating part about the Scions, is that we can't not have them. Due to how much the fans love them + how deep they're entrenched within the WoL's tale. They will be tied to every journey we take until the game is shut down.

I've been wanting to move on from Allagans, Ascians, Garleans, and Scions for YEARS; but, honestly, I need to quit being greedy, and take us losing the first three as my win, and be happy with it, because losing that last one is never going to happen, lol

[BakoolJaJa]

There's clearly an issue that goes beyond scions always being there. Lately they've been struggling with writing compelling characters that could possibly take up a new slot on the scion crew.

The last actually good character we had that joined up is Estinien. They tried to shoehorn Erenville in, then completely shit the bed in Dawntrail. If they wanted his character to be a proper addition to our group, they probably needed to give him character development and stuff. Screen time. You know, the usual. Apparently the amateur writers forgot that.

Krile has been tagging along for SO long, but didn't get a crumb of character development for years. Once again, something that was supposed to change with Dawntrail presumably. Did it? No. The writers forgor.

Let's imagine for a second that the devs delete the old scions for good. What are we going to be left with? More Wuk Lamat?? There's nothing else there. Until they actually manage to write some replacements, all of these discussions are kind of pointless. I'm tired of the scions too. Until Dawntrail I was really hopeful that we'd see less of them and more of new characters. Now I'm cautiously pessimistic about meeting any more new characters the team will come up with. Zero and Wuk are the same crap in a different wrapper and the exact opposite of compelling characters.