Zepla's Dawntrail MSQ Analysis

[Immut]

I don't care what content creators think and I can't imagine why anyone would.

[Reimmi]

Her analysis is mostly about her rents being due

Forums when content creator is positive: <3
Forums when content creator have wrong think: >: (

[Jeeqbit]

I don't care what content creators think and I can't imagine why anyone would.

1. The developers do because they said they watch Zepla's videos.
2. They are not just content creators, they are players and human beings.
3. She had been working on the video for ages.

I don't even subscribe to her, I just see what's going on in the FFXIV category on YouTube because the recommendations are perfect in recent years and inform me of everything important in YouTube's FFXIV space, regardless of their subscriber count.

[Vespar]

I watched Zepla's video (twice actually) and I concur with most of her feedback surrounding Dawntrail. I share many of her criticisms and have also provided additional bits on the forums in my own feedback post.

Dawntrail's story is not up to the standards I have come to expect from Square Enix. I honestly feel that A Realm Reborn had better writing by far. But I can not fault the writers alone for this. Where was Yoshi-P? What was he doing? It is ultimately his responsibility to ensure that the story and all other aspects of the game are up to the quality and standard expected.
There was so much poor writing that I question also if Ishikawa and Oda were involved at all, despite being listed as Senior Story Designers. Much of the story appears half hearted, and half written that I honestly suspect it was an initial draft.
I apologize if the devs read my comments and feel discouraged. That is not my intent. I do not mean only to admonish them. I know what your team is capable of, we have seen it! I hope that they will take our criticism use it to guide them into creating a much better experience with future arcs.

[AlucaDragonheart]

Ohh that's right she plays WoW now, instead.

It's pretty concerning when one of the biggest cheerleaders for this game just couldn't take it anymore and had to jump over to the "rival" game instead.

[CVXIV]

Even "ARR music" is being a bit generous. It's basically:

Sentimental cutscene: Unspoken.
Lore/ exposition cutscene: Canticle.
Funny cutscene: Bliss.
Suspicious/ odd incident cutscene: Fracture.
Starting quest: Machinations.

I don't know if DT is much better, but I've been going through bits and pieces of EW content and it feels incredibly awkward and stale at this point, especially when it shifts jarringly from one to the other depending on the current mood.

Yeah that's pretty spot on

They ought to use new music for scenes like that because it does get old after awhile, and it's something they have been doing for years

[Oizen]

The idea of an "MSQ Package" is very worrying to me because I can see it, and its far worse than just the exact same bad guy 4 times in a row.
8 Endwalker dungeons (6 MSQ + 2 Extra) and 8 Dawntrail Dungeons (6MSQ + 2 Extra) with the exact same level spreads
3 Trials In Endwalker at 83, 89, and 90 vs 3 Trials in Dawntrail at 93, 99, and 100
Scions randomly and mysteriously hanging rejoin your party before anything happens, solely to justify the trust system
Then what Zelpa mentioned about the Final boss being a big bad we just go and enter the memories of for the last dungeon.


The devs really do just go through the motions and deliver bare minimum based on existing formulas huh

[FuturePastNow]

Alright I watched the video. I'm not a big fan of Zepla anymore but I can't disagree with many of the points she made.

I actually think the overall plot of Dawntrail was pretty good, but the quest-and-dialogue level writing was often quite poor. A lot of that was very repetitive and, frankly, written like a story for children.

[Hallarem]

The idea of an "MSQ Package" is very worrying to me because I can see it, and its far worse than just the exact same bad guy 4 times in a row.
8 Endwalker dungeons (6 MSQ + 2 Extra) and 8 Dawntrail Dungeons (6MSQ + 2 Extra) with the exact same level spreads
3 Trials In Endwalker at 83, 89, and 90 vs 3 Trials in Dawntrail at 93, 99, and 100
Scions randomly and mysteriously hanging rejoin your party before anything happens, solely to justify the trust system
Then what Zelpa mentioned about the Final boss being a big bad we just go and enter the memories of for the last dungeon.


The devs really do just go through the motions and deliver bare minimum based on existing formulas huh

My super duper HYPEEER far-reach tinfoilhat theory is that the story was AT LEAST partially written by AI.

[Jeeqbit]

8 Endwalker dungeons (6 MSQ + 2 Extra) and 8 Dawntrail Dungeons (6MSQ + 2 Extra) with the exact same level spreads

That's not new though. I rather expected exactly that as early as Stormblood, since we already could see that SE did "formulas" then. Once Stormblood used the same MSQ format, it was pretty clear it would be done that way forever. If we're honest, it constrains the story and makes it somewhat predictable, because when I reach level 63, 73, 83 or 93, I know for certain I am about to fight a trial boss. So I ask myself, which boss fitting the bill have I heard/spotted recently? I instantly know I will be taking care of that very soon, thus spoiling the near future.

Same with dungeons at each X1, X3, X5, X7 and X9 interval. I knew in Shadowbringers we were fighting lightwardens, so logically "each dungeon is a lightwarden then" which sort of spoils some of the plot outline. I knew in Dawntrail that each zone was basically being accompanied by a dungeon.

There are still a lot of nuances to the story to learn despite that, like setbacks, lore, character development and so on, but it obviously constrains the story because they have to develop the story around the idea we will fight things every 2 levels, which might make them develop a random enemy to appear to fill that gap. I think this is just the reality they have to work with though, if they want to provide us with a certain amount of dungeons, trials, etc.

My super duper HYPEEER far-reach tinfoilhat theory is that the story was AT LEAST partially written by AI.

According to an interview it's actually a story about AI and how in the future, we will try to create AI-powered versions of ourselves to live forever, consuming more electricity than we can produce (for context, tech companies are frantically trying to produce enough electricity to power AI by investing heavily in nuclear power). And the story is meant to show the inevitable result of that - needing to shut it down so we have enough electricity for the people who are currently living.