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

[Kennar]

"She’s a very complex character, and she even has a bit of a complex about herself. Unfortunately, we didn’t delve very far into the background of why she had those feelings, so it appeared as if she left a negative impression. We accept that feedback. I feel a little sorry that we weren’t able to properly depict her."

It's a rhetorical question, but why were they not able to "properly depict" Wuk? If she really was so complex, exploring that and developing the character should have been first and foremost among the writing team. That goes for all the characters introduced in DT. The character development (or lack thereof) is one of those things that adds to the feeling that this entire expansion was rushed, and probably heavily edited at the last minute. It feels like a movie that was stuck in development hell and suffered from countless rewrites and reshoots, and someone finally said, "Give me what you have, we have to get this out now."


As to the forums being "an echo chamber of extreme negativity," I'm only here because I don't like Redit and I'm not on X. I also figure that since this is the official forums, it's the best place to let my voice be heard. Apparently, others feel the same, since I have never seen so many well-thought-out, detailed criticisms of an expansion. I haven't looked, but I've probably doubled my post count in the last six months over the previous 13 years and I could be saying a lot more. I have been a loyal customer since 2.0 (I couldn't bring myself to pay for a sub during 1.0), and I am not happy with Dawntrail. I don't like being so negative. I sincerely wish I was this animated and engaged over a good game. My only hope is that SE will take the criticism to heart and make changes for the better.

[ViinaS]

As to the forums being "an echo chamber of extreme negativity," [...].

Mostly hear that on Social Media but that's cause the people that gather there are the toxic positivity crowd. They can't stand there being criticism about FFXIV, insist DT was amazing with no wrongs and any source or person that says otherwise is "spreading negativity" and should unsub to leave 'them and their game' alone.
If anything they are the ones in echochambers.

[Exmo]

Apparently, others feel the same, since I have never seen so many well-thought-out, detailed criticisms of an expansion.

I haven't seen any of that here yet. The vast majority of criticisms of DT here are knee-jerk and superficial, even among those who write at length on the topic.

[ScartPearl]

Mostly hear that on Social Media but that's cause the people that gather there are the toxic positivity crowd. They can't stand there being criticism about FFXIV, insist DT was amazing with no wrongs and any source or person that says otherwise is "spreading negativity" and should unsub to leave 'them and their game' alone.
If anything they are the ones in echochambers.

I think these people are afraid that criticism will somehow cause the game they love to fail, which doesn’t make much sense. I understand that when you care deeply about something, it’s natural to want to protect it, sometimes to the point of ignoring its flaws. But those flaws don’t disappear just because we pretend they’re not there.

The real danger isn’t criticism—it’s refusing to acknowledge what needs improvement. Without honest feedback, the game can’t grow or evolve, and that’s what will ultimately hurt the community and the game itself. Criticism, when constructive, is essential for progress.

[Jeeqbit]

I think these people are afraid that criticism will somehow cause the game they love to fail

The main way it can cause a game to fail is if it's unreasonable and shows no empathy towards the developers, because that can affect their motivation or desire to work there (this is pretty obvious, but Yoshi-P has said this as well).

Which is exactly why, when giving criticism, I advocate for also saying what they did well or acknowledging their hurdles and the fact that they are trying to cater to lots of different people whom all have contrasting points of view.

And for the same reason, it should be constructive. If they can't do anything with the information or it's not actually saying what they should do instead, then it's not a very useful criticism.

Another reason people may be positive is simply because it is a perspective ie. a glass half-full vs glass half-empty thing. It's the same glass, with the same amount of contents, but one views it positively and the other negatively.

[ScartPearl]

The main way it can cause a game to fail is if it's unreasonable and shows no empathy towards the developers, because that can affect their motivation or desire to work there (this is pretty obvious, but Yoshi-P has said this as well).

Which is exactly why, when giving criticism, I advocate for also saying what they did well or acknowledging their hurdles and the fact that they are trying to cater to lots of different people whom all have contrasting points of view.

And for the same reason, it should be constructive. If they can't do anything with the information or it's not actually saying what they should do instead, then it's not a very useful criticism.

Another reason people may be positive is simply because it is a perspective ie. a glass half-full vs glass half-empty thing. It's the same glass, with the same amount of contents, but one views it positively and the other negatively.

I totally agree that criticism should be constructive and empathetic, and acknowledging what the devs did well is an important part of that. However, I think it’s also crucial to recognize that some people may feel frustrated when their constructive criticism is dismissed as negativity or unwarranted complaints.

There’s a difference between seeing the "glass half-full" and outright ignoring the cracks in the glass. Constructive feedback isn’t about tearing down what’s there—it’s about pointing out those cracks so they can be fixed before the whole thing breaks. It’s not about being negative; it’s about wanting the game to improve and thrive.

[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?

[Hallarem]

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?

Please, let's stop with the "WoL is a nuke" narrative already. A black mage could nuke a city with a giant meteor, the world is filled with people who could be a threat to the WoL. Hell, we got floored by a drugged drink. Sure, we are powerful, but that doesn't mean that an actually skilled party of aether users couldn't take the WoL down or a very powerful monster. Any powerful aether user could "take down a village or a town on a whim". Hold someone hostage, use political leverage to get to the WoL.
BUT I do agree that making use of the angle of the WoL being a threath somehow or even the Scions combined meddling with politics in the world being a threath could be used as a story point. Like they awkwardly tried to do when the scions "Disbanded" but who are they kidding, stop with the pretending, everyone likes you and knows you. Why do you even need to hide? They kinda wrote themselves into a corner and tried to somehow do an edgy "oh... the world balance would shift if we did things in the open" pffft please.

The reason why nothing can stop us because we are the main character and we are by design meant to win everything. Not because we are superman/woman. But even then, we HAVE failed before, when we were forced to flee Ul'dah because of political implications. (Where has that writing gone?).

There's many lifelines our fights had, because we had:

- Help
- A party of adventurers
- The blessing to stop us from being tempered
- A power up like Hraesvaelgars eye
- Obvious main character powers
- A rejoining of souls
- A stupid dynamis blessing (Lets please cast dynamis into the abyss already, its a horrible writers crutch because they cant be bothered to use their own magic system or learn their own lore about aether.)


(And sorry if this comes off as somehow combative, but I am really sick of the "The WoL is a superweapon that cannot be beat ever and is like Goku" argument. That aint it.)

[ReynTime]

Please, let's stop with the "WoL is a nuke" narrative already. A black mage could nuke a city with a giant meteor, the world is filled with people who could be a threat to the WoL. Hell, we got floored by a drugged drink. Sure, we are powerful, but that doesn't mean that an actually skilled party of aether users couldn't take the WoL down or a very powerful monster. Any powerful aether user could "take down a village or a town on a whim". Hold someone hostage, use political leverage to get to the WoL.
BUT I do agree that making use of the angle of the WoL being a threath somehow or even the Scions combined meddling with politics in the world being a threath could be used as a story point. Like they awkwardly tried to do when the scions "Disbanded" but who are they kidding, stop with the pretending, everyone likes you and knows you. Why do you even need to hide? They kinda wrote themselves into a corner and tried to somehow do an edgy "oh... the world balance would shift if we did things in the open" pffft please.

The reason why nothing can stop us because we are the main character and we are by design meant to win everything. Not because we are superman/woman. But even then, we HAVE failed before, when we were forced to flee Ul'dah because of political implications. (Where has that writing gone?).

There's many lifelines our fights had, because we had:

- Help
- A party of adventurers
- The blessing to stop us from being tempered
- A power up like Hraesvaelgars eye
- Obvious main character powers
- A rejoining of souls
- A stupid dynamis blessing (Lets please cast dynamis into the abyss already, its a horrible writers crutch because they cant be bothered to use their own magic system or learn their own lore about aether.)


(And sorry if this comes off as somehow combative, but I am really sick of the "The WoL is a superweapon that cannot be beat ever and is like Goku" argument. That aint it.)

"Who would win? WoL or Kirby???"

[ZXN]

-Snip

By Dawntrail's launch, our WOL just got done literally punching the embodiment of despair and hopelessness in the face and won, along with just recently stopping Zeromus, a literal Semi-immortal shard of Zodiark, directly after. Quite literally NOTHING should be even remotely threatening to our character.

The Endsinger was pretty much the only real chance they had to really "nerf" our character and make it make any sense given she was a universe ending threat compared to what we've dealt with up to that point. They could've made it to where the WOL had to expend a bunch of their armor mcguffin powers to put down the Endsinger, and then follow it up with "losing" Venat's Blessing of Light by essentially transferring it to Zero so she could get that anime power boost and beat Zeromus since she was the only one with the power to seal it away. Then we could've went into Dawntrail as essentially the closest we've been to a "regular" person since ARR, with only the Echo and Azem's Summoning power being carried over from the past 10 year story, and make it a "clean slate" of sorts where we see what we can do when we don't have the insane power of the ancients on our side.

Instead however, we entered Dawntrail as a multiverse level contender and one of the strongest entities literally alive. Yes, we've had help in the past due to people and many, many mcguffins, but it doesn't change the fact we could've solved every single issue in the entirety of Tural in like a week if we genuinely felt like it. I'd be hard to convince me anyone looked at Zoraal Ja, listened to his "I want to go to war to teach people why war is bad" and genuinely go "This guy is a MASSIVE threat, we should treat him seriously..." No, I get the feeling most responses to Zoraal Ja's "ambition" was: "This guy is a fucking moron lmao. My sneezes have more power then this whole nation does lizard boy, get real lmao", or something along those lines, because Zoraal Ja is literally that pathetic of a threat when compared to our WOL. Even Sphene could be seen as a joke given we were really pushed that this was a "Low stakes" expansion, and was then given a being with the means and power to attempt a genocide of the entire source. If someone like Sphene is considered "low stakes" to our current character, then it'll be hard to take anything that isn't a Endsinger level threat seriously.

I also dislike the "WOL is a walking nuke" narrative, but unfortunately it rings true to a certain degree, if mainly because they have wrote themselves into this corner in a way. They made the WOL do close to nothing for most of the expansion and made them a nodding, yes-man, cheerleader. I wouldn't be surprised if the devs know there is a "power level issue" of sorts, but don't know how to properly address it yet in a way that isn't just them going "This expansion will end with having a Endsinger Level Threat for WOL to fight and beat" again and again.