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

[MonsutaMan]

I just wish BLU and upcoming BST could do the MSQ. What is the point of releasing jobs in a Final Fantasy game that can't do the main story? But I digress........

[SolemnDream]

Honestly, my biggest question so far is why did all the lizard people down in the forest valley not explode into Blasphemies? Seriously, how were they even still around at this point? Did Metion's song just ignore that one half of the planet?
It'd certainly explain why, when given the option to boast about saving the entire planet once, people are just like "???" as if there was never any major global disaster going on in recent memory.

Seeing how I think Endwalker was one of the worst things in media I ever made myself experience in my life, I'd rather we all forget about blasphemies. I mean, why not? The game clearly doesn't know what "despair" is, since it's required for the transformation. A newborn lost its parents and... is almost becoming a blasphemy? A newborn doesn't know what's going on, they don't have the capacity for "despair". People see others around them transformed, and that transforms them? That's not "despair", that's "fear". You know why all this doesn't make sense though? Narrative convenience, also trying to force the audience to cry without earning it. "We need things to become blasphemies, so hand-wave it in". It's straight-up bad writing. These people at SE— one of the most ambitious and moneyed media companies in the world— they have jobs writing stories, when they instead need to go back to school and learn the basics. Things like "keep internal consistency", "realistic expressions and good response timing are vital", "don't break promises the narrative makes to your audience" (that's a big one here), "don't insult the intelligences of your audience", and "if you want to make the audience cry, for the love of god use personal experience instead of cliche".

We in the West are real. We're not performative, we are insulted when our media isn't genuine, we want things that feel genuine and challenging. And we've grown up. Japanese writing however seems intent on sticking to the tradition of cliched, disingenuous performances and empty child-level preaching.

I want to be clear that there were times in Heavensward and Shadowbringers that the writing and dialogue was smart and genuine, and I loved XIV more than ever during those times. Ardbert's dialogue seemed so real to me that I was beside myself. It was inspiring. I just want to be inspired by XIV's writing again, SE, and not insulted.

[Palladiamors]

I just wish BLU and upcoming BST could do the MSQ. What is the point of releasing jobs in a Final Fantasy game that can't do the main story? But I digress........

They should also be able to do Trusts and use duty support. Sure, limit us from using them for raids or with other people but for the love of God let us use the jobs we love in more capacity.

[Eyrilona]

They should also be able to do Trusts and use duty support. Sure, limit us from using them for raids or with other people but for the love of God let us use the jobs we love in more capacity.

What use is that for the Blue Mage though? Up to level 80, Duty Support and Trusts exist only for 4-man content. Blue Mage can already perfectly solo all 4-man content, synced, without needing to drag a party of NPCs through the dungeon that just get in the way of using Basic Instinct. The only things a Blue Mage player might need a few extra people for, are the 8-man trials, and none of those prior to EW had Trust or Duty Support available.

[Malganis_L]

I agree with most of the stuff OP wrote
...
except that Zoraal Ja was a 3 Dimensional Villain
the characterization in the Bossfight and bossdesign is pretty good, but waaaaaaaaaaay to late for me to really give a damn about what he is about.

On a conceptual level he could be very interresting

suffering from (his own) expectations,
blind to his own accomplishments,
trapped in his own negativity and seeing his fathers attempts to help him only as acts of distrust and disappointment,
desperatly figuring out his own purpose in life.
all very human and understandable struggles.

but non of that gets deeply explored in my opinion
based on purely what the Msq delivered to me, he was just a one dimensional: "I am a brooding loner" which evolves later into "I am an angry loner and i have daddy issues"
which is just boring, unsatisfying and such a waste of a character.

the most frustrating part is that there could have been an amazing and memorable tragedy to him, with great moments of characterizations.

team him up with Wuk in the Taco standoff competition, let both ther idiology clash hard against each other and expose what lies beneath the surface,
as both win the cooking challenge we now have more urgency when ever in the story as Zuraal has 6 keystones now,
instead of the complete deflation of urgency that we have in the current msq,
give him a glimps of betterment of maybe leaving his paths of negativity only for him to get unfairly disqualified by the mamoo ja chief
(also for the love of god show the fight... let him attack the summon pot which the chief takes personally)
which throws him right back into the darkness of his mind, and somewhat gives more reason with his obsession for the throne
make him stealthkill the chief instead of Kettenramm.

and in the 30 years in Alexandria:

let him cooldown a bit
he finds a wife,
he actually finds a place and purpose in his life through this relationship
his wife got pregnant
his wife dies during delivery
soulsystem deletes all the good memories and happyness in his life
congratulations, he revert back to his negative self, more empty and angry than ever before with a child he has 0 connection with

have his wife appear in the Living Memory instead of that cheap "be sad moment" with Namikka, explaining stuff that was only hinted in the previous Msq

[Ronivan]

There is one point here no one tried to figure out, and one which would explain the reason why the MSQ had this massive change. Square Enix did used to hire Game Consultant Companies, like for sample, Sweet Baby Inc. and the main function of such hiring was to provide changes in the game, in a more light way to say it, DEI. The DEI funds which companies can get require it to fill some check boxes, and that's why they hire such consultancy companies, to help them fill these check boxes by making major changes in the game. So far I was unable to find more information regarding this on FFXIV so perhaps I should have a delicate look at the ending credits of Dawntrail to find information on this.

[Allegor]

snip

Something that really annoyed me not only about Zoraal ja's (lack of) development but mostly every character is that there's "show, don't tell" but it felt more like "meh, you've seen this trope before/fill in the gaps yourself" as if to save time to keep telling the story without needing to focus on the characters.

[PercibelTheren]

There is one point here no one tried to figure out, and one which would explain the reason why the MSQ had this massive change. Square Enix did used to hire Game Consultant Companies, like for sample, Sweet Baby Inc. and the main function of such hiring was to provide changes in the game, in a more light way to say it, DEI. The DEI funds which companies can get require it to fill some check boxes, and that's why they hire such consultancy companies, to help them fill these check boxes by making major changes in the game. So far I was unable to find more information regarding this on FFXIV so perhaps I should have a delicate look at the ending credits of Dawntrail to find information on this.

Another person who has no clue what consultancy companies do. I know it's hard to accept that your favourite game company has incompetent writers, but that's really what it is.

[Hallarem]

Congratulations everyone, we are getting more Wuk Lamat in the patch (notes) and the... hereditary ruler child of solution 9 / clone of Zoraal Ja and we get a glimpse into Zoraal Ja's ... past? Instead of glimpsing into his past in in the main MSQ while he was still relevant? Oooof.

Hard times ahead. (Honestly I don't mind the kid, but I hope they don't have him declared king without pushback. I sure as heck would protest if some foreign ruler savior or not would come in and be like "Hey guys, this is your new king and I'm his new guardian, Wuk Lamat awayyyyyyy")

[Striker44]

Congratulations everyone, we are getting more Wuk Lamat in the patch (notes) and the... hereditary ruler child of solution 9 / clone of Zoraal Ja and we get a glimpse into Zoraal Ja's ... past? Instead of glimpsing into his past in in the main MSQ while he was still relevant? Oooof.

Hard times ahead. (Honestly I don't mind the kid, but I hope they don't have him declared king without pushback. I sure as heck would protest if some foreign ruler savior or not would come in and be like "Hey guys, this is your new king and I'm his new guardian, Wuk Lamat awayyyyyyy")

I feel like the people of Alexandria/Solution Nine don't really have much of a choice in the matter. Alexandria effectively invaded Tural and put a portion of its population in a dome for 30 years, then lost a war against the Tuliyollal Empire. They're effectively a vassal state of Tuliyollal now.