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

[YumieYumiki]

Shadowbringer was the 4th chapter of the story. Dawntrail is the first chapter of a new one so of course it's not going to deliver any big story beat just yet.

If you want to compare dawntrail with something, compare it with arr up to operation archon. It wasn't a great story either and was an extremely cliche good versus evil story until hydaelyn and the ascians were recontextualized in shadowbringers.

You can't reach the heights of stories like shadowbringers and endwalker without doing a whole lot of setup first.

[Voidmage]

Shadowbringer was the 4th chapter of the story. Dawntrail is the first chapter of a new one so of course it's not going to deliver any big story beat just yet.

If you want to compare dawntrail with something, compare it with arr up to operation archon. It wasn't a great story either and was an extremely cliche good versus evil story until hydaelyn and the ascians were recontextualized in shadowbringers.

You can't reach the heights of stories like shadowbringers and endwalker without doing a whole lot of setup first.

Even ARR was better.
It had slavery, racism, a continent on the brink of war and other grey areas.
The bad things about it was atrocious pacing, stiff dialogues and mustache twirling villian tropes.

It doesn't matter if DT is the start of a new story. That should only result in maybe a slow start or lower stakes and not in bad writing.
No one was expecting heights but consistent quality writing without a disney princess.

oh... ok lol

You could at least try to read the rest.

[Daralii]

Shadowbringer was the 4th chapter of the story. Dawntrail is the first chapter of a new one so of course it's not going to deliver any big story beat just yet.

If you want to compare dawntrail with something, compare it with arr up to operation archon. It wasn't a great story either and was an extremely cliche good versus evil story until hydaelyn and the ascians were recontextualized in shadowbringers.

You can't reach the heights of stories like shadowbringers and endwalker without doing a whole lot of setup first.

Yoshida backpedaled and said that 8.0 is the actual first chapter and DT is just an interlude, and it still has a box price and requires a subscription. Unless there is a free option to skip from 6.55 to 8.0, it being a glorified sidequest has always been a bad excuse.

[Barachim]

Right, let's ignore 15 years of experience gained. How often do people who criticise the expansion have to repeat that we didn't expect big story beats and were ready for a low stakes advenure? The big problems of this expansion continue to be horrendous pacing, badly written characters and world building that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It feels amateurish.

All we wanted was a new adventure and to look for the Golden City. But the Golden City has already been found, deflating the excitement for the search instantly, 90-95% of the conflicts on the new continent have already been solved, and we just follow an orange cat around to win the throne, while she yaps on about peace & happiness like a broken record. Which ironically did not make me feel peaceful or happy.

[Kaurhz]

Shadowbringer was the 4th chapter of the story. Dawntrail is the first chapter of a new one so of course it's not going to deliver any big story beat just yet.

If you want to compare dawntrail with something, compare it with arr up to operation archon. It wasn't a great story either and was an extremely cliche good versus evil story until hydaelyn and the ascians were recontextualized in shadowbringers.

You can't reach the heights of stories like shadowbringers and endwalker without doing a whole lot of setup first.

There's a point in terms of reaching story climaxes and unveiling of a lot of characters that had been around for a very long time.

But IMO, none of the problems with the current story are related to it being the first chapter. Obviously, it isn't going to be as big, but first chapter of a story is not an excuse to treat pre-existing lore like an afterthought, or to have some characters put the screentime on a stranglehold, and then you have the issue of where they tried so hard to make you care about characters in 15 minutes only to rinse them out of the story. Like, Shaaloani, and the latter half of Yak T'el, were actually decent -- Good even if you want to be generous about it.

[Kennar]

Shadowbringer was the 4th chapter of the story. Dawntrail is the first chapter of a new one so of course it's not going to deliver any big story beat just yet.

I'm tired of the usual apologists' argument of "It's a new story, it's low-stakes. You can't expect much." For a game so heavily lauded for it's story, I do expect more. There is no reason a new story can't start with some excitement. There is no reason "low-stakes" has to mean "boring." The narrative problems with DT have been well documented and discussed over the last six months, and to dismiss those arguments out-of-hand with "it's a new story, stop complaining," is a little disingenuous, especially when many of those problems have existed for a long time. Any way you look at it, Dawntrail was a poorly written, directed, and executed mess, and it didn't have to be this way.

"Don't worry guys, 8.0 is when it will really get good!" You know, I'm not sure I have the patience to slog through this for another two years.

[Hallarem]

If FFXIV had been happy happy rainbows and no hard subjects and nuance from the start. This would be fine, but you cant just happy laserbeam the world and toneshift suddenly and expect people to be fine with it.

It doesnt match the earlier worldbuilding and tone. If you want to make a hildibrand happy boing boing sound effect cartoon game. Make it. Stop forcing it into a game you somewhat treated seriously and that handled serious subjects.
If Yoshi P is sick of "dark themes and darkness" he should get another job

[Barachim]

If FFXIV had been happy happy rainbows and no hard subjects and nuance from the start. This would be fine, but you cant just happy laserbeam the world and toneshift suddenly and expect people to be fine with it.

It doesnt match the earlier worldbuilding and tone. If you want to make a hildibrand happy boing boing sound effect cartoon game. Make it. Stop forcing it into a game you somewhat treated seriously and that handled serious subjects.
If Yoshi P is sick of "dark themes and darkness" he should get another job

It did feel off to go from a 10 year story arc, where every bit of peace was hard fought, to an expansion where the message is "Have you just tried talking?" Yeah, the twins tried that and two Garlean girls lost their lives.

[ZXN]

I hated Endwalker. So many things just felt so...off that it's hard to explain fully without bumbling words.

Somehow Dawntrail did it all worse. Pacing was awful in many places. Many characters were awful and acted unnatural. Writing decisions at many points were baffling.

Also the "It's a new story so it won't hit as much" shtick I don't buy. Yes it's the start of a "new" story, but they pretty much didn't even try with it as a result. Dawntrail was literally mostly just "Let's copy and paste over many of the Warrior of Lights' accomplishments and big moments, but replace the WOL with our new Fursona OC" without remotely understanding why those accomplishments and moments were so big to our character to begin with and even remotely attempt to build those moments up for their fursona as they just give them to her effortlessly and go "See? Look at how great she is!!!" and force you to agree with it every step of the way.

It's hard to say what they can really do at this point besides telling them "Get your shit together." You could say bring Ishikawa back, but eventually she just won't want to do it anymore, and if they don't have people prepared to take over for her then it's really going to be a rough road story/writing wise. Nobody is going to enjoy telling everyone, or being told, "It'll get better in X.X I promise" for potentially years while every player just ultimately waits for the writers/devs to get their heads out of their asses and get their shit together. WOW players had to deal with this kind of mentality for years, and a good amount of FF14 players' mocked and made fun of them for it, so it's absolutely a road that we don't want to be heading down ourselves with FF14.

[Manamaru]

snip

We went from being the Warrior of Light to the Warrior who likes to watch in many of the cut scenes. Hell, in one of them what's his face even acknowledges that we are a walking nodding force of nature. And if our presence was meant to be as some kind of mentor for Wuk, then that was garbled in the story line of her own "personal growth".

That said, the WoL at this point is a force of devastation. That kind of note could've or still could be used as a driving plot point that turns the WoL's immense power against them. How would the common everyday person behave knowing that you're capable of dps-checking their face in effortlessly and might want to have you locked away for others' safety? That you're not just one bad day away from leveling a town or a village on a whim? Or a character that would use your eager "I'm doing what's right and helping others out" attitude for their own ends and leaving you with the consequences to either try and fix it or leave it. In some ways we've already had that; but now that so far it appears that nothing could stop us if they tried to, who with malicious intent wouldn't be trying to use that for their own gain?