Dawntrail’s Narrative Missteps: Why Natsuko Ishikawa’s Touch Is Sorely Missed

[Nasigno]

I don't know. I think the fans already came up with pretty good ideas.
We could go back to politics (the WoL can't do much about such things), we could go about a larger scale conflict (the WoL can't be everywhere at once).
Heck we could even have a villian who targets the WoL specifically because of their power and status. A shard of them looking to gain their power or someone imposting as them.

I don't think the Ascians where dangerous because of immortality but because their plan was so large scale in the background.
Zenos wasn't immortal and probably the one of the most dangerous being we fought against and Niddhogg showed what a being of pure rage can accomplish.
Lolorito and Teledji almost single handidly destroyed the scions and almost the status of the WoL at that time.

That is the thing, we can, and have done so. The war was spread across 2 whole shards. That is a conflict of magnitudes wider than if you even include the whole planet in a war. We are just plainly too powerful a threat, even if we cannot be everywhere you buy only time before we show up and just end it.

As for Zenos, he was just given power up after power up with each death, or push back. Whether it was a Dragon eye, Reaper powers, or just the plain fact he was brought back from the grave he was just propped up by whatever. I was happy with his introduction, but when his depth was "Fight me" he became a boring antagonist with no depth and essentially became immortal as he died and was dragged up from the grave.

Ascians were dangerous as they had the immortality to give them the time to study, plan, and repeat the process non-stop. Beyond that, their literal capability to think something into literally existence proved to a slip up to why we even exist in the first place. Literally we are a byproduct of their failures to put into perspective how potent a threat they are.

So the issue is, how do you fill the gap and make a threat capable of being a problem to someone who can kill Primals/Ascians/Anything (throw an antagonist we've bested them quickly)

[Barachim]

The low stakes are the one thing I did not have an issue with. I wish they would have been kept low instead of us having to save all the reflections again after Endwalker. The one thing the game was missing was fun. I think even the emotional gut punches that were Shadowbringers and Endwalker had more fun situational moments sprinkled throughout the MSQ than Dawntrail did. There was also an acute lack of a sense of exploration and adventure. Dawntrail was really the equivalent of a guided tour, where you don't break off from the group to do your own thing, while the tour guide info dumps you with the most monotone voice imaginable.

Maybe the Expansion should have been handled by the Hildibrand team instead. At least then there might have been the chance of some beach shenanigans with the Scions. Why does the Trust system even have unlockable beach gear for them when they never wear it during the MSQ?

[Jeeqbit]

The pacing was inconsistent

To me the pacing was alright. We simply went through each zone and spent a reasonable amount of time in each. Actually felt less tedious to me than prior expansions up until the ceremony (half-way point).

The sudden completion of it and Wuk Lamat becoming Dawnservant so suddenly, half-way through, was quite shocking. I did think she didn't really need to come along with us after that, but I can also see how she was a central character of the expansion so they wanted her there all the way through it. I think the overall idea was it would change it from merely Wuk Lamat vs Zoraal Ja to Nation Leader vs Nation Leader which is a "bigger" kind of fight, and their goal is to create a "big" larger-than-life fight like that always.

The actual pacing of the zones after that felt good. To me personally, it was more about the aesthetic not appealing to me much.

If you mean in terms of battles, the one thing I will say is that even I noticed the lack of a battle on the train. That part really sticks out as a missed opportunity for a battle more than anywhere else.

The other thing I can agree with people on is they over-explained things. When I got to Yyasulani and talked to Alisaie I was immediately thinking "I get it, time has accelerated by decades here similar to on The First", then I had to painfully watch the NPCs figure this out very slowly and not always voice cutscenes.

the stakes felt low

They were as high as always because they were going to steal our souls to power the endless, threatening everyone across the shards. It's just that to the Warrior of Light, this is not high stakes, it's just "another day at work".

character arcs lacked the emotional weight we’ve come to expect.

There were arcs that felt alright like Gulool Ja Ja or Krile, but it was bizarre with how suddenly Bakool Ja Ja did a wrestling face turn out of the blue. That happens in wrestling not usually in proper stories. That one did actually have emotional weight, it was just an overly sudden 180.

It makes me wonder if this is due to Natsuko Ishikawa’s absence from a lead writing role.

They have different people write different stories but Yoshi-P is obviously heavily involved in it. For example, it was his idea to kill sin eaters to restore literal darkness (night sky) to the First. I forget exactly, but I think initially Eden was going to be the last boss (since it was the root cause of the flood) and making it more about the actual night sky probably detracted it away from Eden. It was because the original idea was less visual or impactful to the eye as seeing a night sky and the visual progression that you feel doing it.

As you said, they still oversee things.

It makes me think the game could benefit from treating its writing team with the same consistency as it does its music.

I don't think this is entirely a good idea. It should have some of the same people oversee it and make sure it's good, but they should also train new staff so that it doesn't overly rely on one person for decades.

The issue wasn't neccessarily new writers, but that the oversight did not sufficiently correct issues with it.

Masayoshi Soken, the principal composer, has worked on every expansion since A Realm Reborn

While true, even he has been training new people to make music such as the tracks in Eden's Verse. There was a blog entry about it in Shadowbringers.

[Voidmage]

So the issue is, how do you fill the gap and make a threat capable of being a problem to someone who can kill Primals/Ascians/Anything (throw an antagonist we've bested them quickly)

By writing a good story "around" it.
The WoL is extremely powerfull yes but I don't think a story should try to work against it but using it.
Yes Zenos was a plot device and his powers full of nonsense but all he did was because of us. So he could set a grand stage for a final fight.
Without us he would still chill on his throne and would have never become such a trap for Garlemald.
Same as the Sultana assassination plot.
It didn't matter how powerfull we were. Instead it was used against us to blame everything on us.
Even Fandaniel used it against us with us killing Zodiark.

The WoL's entire strength has to be accounted for. Yes that is hard to do but these are proffesional writers after all.
But right now all they do is try to ignore it or when it is mentioned like with the final DT fight it doesn't really matter and I fear they will continue this.
The WoL will be ignored and used as a camera, his strenght doesn't matter because we just stand around in cutscenes or because everyone already knows we will blow through a challenge and in the great finale *poof* it's dangerous all of a sudden and we are "needed".

Either that or they do a Middgardsomr and somehow seal part of their power but honestly that would sound cheap.

[Hallarem]

I think the most worriesome part of the writing is how we are steering away from nuance and politics to "yay the good guys always win, hope vs despair and solutions to issues coming instantly or on the very same day"

[Manamaru]

From how the Garlean Empire was dealt with off screen despite being such a threat for years. To the writing of our antagonist which literally was lacking depth. Then the final point being the whole cause of everything essentially pulled out of nowhere and never eluded to in basically a decade? Then we just solve it instantly without any consequence of any action or sacrifice merely just a monetary item that just gets remedy at the flick of a wrist.

Endwalker was the downturn. I do feel for the writing team as having to produce a new enemy to fill the role of Ascians and Zodiark is going to be hard as they have to fill the gap left by immortals that could literally think in creation at the peak of the civilization.

The compressed writing on how the Garlean situation was dealt with after being made a front and center issue since A Realm Reborn. I wonder if Yoshi P and the dev team regret but will never say it when they advertised Endwalker as the conclusion of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark "saga".

EW provided us with the potential of space travel opening up as new or various forms of MSQ possibilities while still having the world to explore. Then Dawntrail gives us a little McGuffin that allows us to freely travel between reflections. Did Square Enix and Creative Studio III have so little confidence in keeping player interest and retention that they had to prematurely show their hand by basically going "Look! Multi-verse! We still have plenty of ideas and stories to tell."

For the record, using a multi-verse as a hook in story telling will just fall flat if the characters are written with the same depth and expression as a vtuber cardboard cut-out you auction off at a con.

Not sure if this sudden shift is because a number of the original dev team has been shifted to work on another numbered title, or if they've taken on other projects as well. But if signifies failure in two main aspects:

1. That the writing and depth of characters has taken such a downward turn in the absence of some certain people indicates that this new batch of devs and writers were not prepared to undertake the task that was given them and be able to meet expectations. This also includes oversight in quality for the final product at launch.

2. That such a change was so undeniably noticeable indicates that the older team members that were shifted to work on other projects failed in guiding, coaching, and essentially training them up for the big moment. If there was a lack in confidence or performance anxiety to meet expectations, that should've been something discussed and tackled. Instead there is a distinct lack of confidence. Even at their own live letter did Yoshi P mention something about looking forward to 8.0 for things and changes.

[Nasigno]

By writing a good story "around" it.

The WoL's entire strength has to be accounted for. Yes that is hard to do but these are proffesional writers after all.

The core issue with that, the issue is yes they are professional writers, but the same can be said about the team that made Acolyte. Do tell me how well that did?

They have to write a good story around the narrative they have made themselves. Which is essentially the "real threat that made everything" was never eluded to and had a very mediocre introduction that was cleaned up almost immediately with no consequence. The threats that have been in existence since the dawn of time are no more. And now at best we just instilled two naive and incompetent leaders to a tribal nation. Cause that is all we got going, nobody anywhere else is going to play a political subterfuge game with the person who literally has saved the star from doom.

I want this to continue with a great story, and even for DT they could of done so much more with the two antagonist. A much better depth to their actions, or even say flip who was the final boss for 7.0. Could of made a much more impactful need for one to do the bidding of the other. However we got what we got, they could of had it far more built up than just "TIME DISTORTION" being the excuse for why they were ready to do what they did. Could of been a plan that was in motion for far longer. But again, we got what we got.

[Mimilu]

It's all well and good saying this,

But this is an utterly unhealthy way of developing talent, and it only exposes the massive skill disparity if the absence of 1 persons touch is enough to do this much 'damage' to a story.


Besides was she still not the Senior Story Designer for Dawntrail anyway?

Senior Story Designer is a supervisory role, so she was more in charge of the big picture, plotting the story, then actually writing the story.
The current Lead Story Designer/Writer is Daichi Hiroi, who was the lead writer for things like the the 6.2-6.5 MSQ, the Void Ark raids, the Pandaemonium raids, Palace of the Dead, BRD (3.0 and up), BLM (3.0 and up), and DNC's job quests, and ShB's Caster Role quests. To me, he shines more with more action-based stories with cool protagonists then with deeper character-focused dramas.
If I had to compare the two's storytelling types, Ishikawa's writing is more like a character-focused/driven novel or seinen anime/manga while Hiroi's is more like a plot-driven YA-novel or shonen anime/manga. Both have merits but in different ways. Σ(-᷅_-᷄ ๑)

This took me way longer to write then it should. (◍´͈ꈊ`͈◍)

[BigCheez]

To me the pacing was alright. We simply went through each zone and spent a reasonable amount of time in each. Actually felt less tedious to me than prior expansions up until the ceremony (half-way point).

The problem isn't the amount of time spent in each zone, the main issues with the pacing are:

1) The constant flip-flopping between the main plot thread and unrelated worldbuilding whimsy that would be better suited to sidequests. I constantly had the feeling that the story was starting to spice up and then someone just slammed on the brakes and put the story that I was just starting to care about on hold for some random BS that I'm not particularly interested in.

2) Wuk Lamat eating up so much screen time by using so many words to say nothing at all and then Krile and Erenville's story being crammed in right at the end because there's no time left.

[Hallarem]

Snip

Coming off a stint of WoW vanilla to before Shadowlands, I can see the same ditches that the writing is jumping into. "Always bigger, always more" EVERYTHING needs to be explained.
Hey, heres the afterlife you can visit, hey here's whats BEYOND the afterlife, oh this villain we just made up was secretly behind EEEVERYTHING
Shadowlands in a nutshell, one of the most awaited villains in Azshara and N'zoth basically fast forwarded for quick patch content and countless more missteps along the years that ruined the lore and worldbuilding

In FFXIV :

Twelve, gone, explained, simplified, mysticism, mystery, gone.
Elementals and Gridania, never heard, Nophica told us that the murderous territorial elementals love us, so its okay, done.
Ilsabard, Dalmasca, Hingashi (the main island) The frozen north, Meracydia, other possible places on Hydaelyn? NAH BRO, its spaceships, space travel that was literally just invented out of nowhere by Sharlayan and the END OF THE UNIVERSE, talk about jumping the shark SE.
Garlemald gone offscreen
Endwalker was full of cool moments, but simultaneously was a hot mess of pacing. We didnt need "the end of the universe" it was just stamped on because the concept sounds cool. The primals fueling our jet thrusters was so ridiculous, and while Zenos' whole scene to the Endsinger was cool, Krile legit just gave our mortal enemy a free pass to come and try to kill us. The whole expansion felt like and WAS two expansions in one.



I'm not that bothered by multiverse, after Shadowbringers shard travel was always going to be a thing. (Aside from the fact that they are too damn stubborn to already admit that Vanadiel is a shard and not some dimensional horsepoop. Though probably not the same vanadiel as they were too lazy to even make a Mithra model for the only Mithra in the raid zone)