The Negative Impact of Poor Character Writing on the Quality of Dawntrail's MSQ

[Turtledeluxe]

1) You are missing the forest for the trees. There's no need to be pedantic about genocide.

2) In my post, I specifically included omnicide, which is the killing of an entire universe, which absolutely includes an erased timeline. G'raha Tia was willing to erase a timeline. He may not have actually done it for reasons unknown, but he accepted those consequences.

That's the best response you have for me after suggesting maybe you expand your vocabulary and not get triggered every time you read or otherwise observe in media a group of people being killed? We have how many words in the language and the only one you can pick is one coined specifically meaning "killing a race" at a time when people were being targeted on the basis of their identity in the quantity of millions? I'm surprised you can differentiate between a tree and forest because same difference, isn't it? Why bother with semantics?

Omnicide is a made up theoretical term with no real world application that you're free to use however you want.

Either word you use, doesn't matter. Because intent always a factor. And G'raha never had a goal to destroy all life anywhere.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

I'm sorry, but did you play the same expansion I did? Or were you a cutsceen skipper?

- His timeline were described as completely broken, there was no way just a "tiny group" of people, no matter how smart can accomplish the project.

- Rather, it was described it was a pan-generational projects that were only realized by a collective effort of the people of that time line.

- And the thread that tied the world together were the legend of the WoL.

- His timeline wasnt on a mission to erase itself. They are on the mission to revive the one figure that they believe can delivery them. Erasure wasn't the goal, it was just an accepted risk.

- Just like when you try a dangerous procedure that may kill the patience, the doctor is not accused of murder when the treatmeant went wrong.

The timeline isn't "completely broken." People on the Source are fighting over limited resources, yet they have enough resources to dedicate centuries to figuring out timetravel. And you claim that it wasn't even a small group that had enough free time and support to do this, so by your own argument there is a society functional enough to work on getting into the Crystal Tower and rewriting history, imagine what they could have accomplished if they had put all that effort towards moving forward rather than looking back. Do you really believe the First was in better shape than the Source in the alternate timeline?

And keep in mind, because of the short story we know that Midgard woke up and is helping them forge a path forward which means there was a path forward, but they spent 200 years looking back, even if it meant ending their own existence, but it didn't, which means now they have to move forward and fix their problems anyway. Had G'raha stayed, they could have had their own Crystarium, they knew changing history would do absolutely nothing for them and they were okay with that, but they also risked wiping out people who wouldn't have been okay with that.

Like you can't argue that it was this massive generational project AND they were so fubared it was okay for them to give up on their own universe because one piece of one planet was going through it's 7th dark age.

[Vyrerus]

This was such a cool discussion until the regulars got here.

But the regulars have been here since the first couple of pages

[JohnLakeside]

This deserves a bump. I read it on xivd and I had a few thoughts but don't really have the time to write it down right now...



I agree with most of your points but the biggest thing I don't agree with is that character writing is the biggest problem this expansion. Wuk Lamat is annoying but an equivalently serious problem is the complete absence of depth with the story's themes...

I will expand on it later. I know that a lot of people enjoyed ShB, EW because the characters were written decently in those two xpacs. But IMO the themes also got shallower and shallower and deep philosophical issues are just raised without much exploration. Ishikawa to me is a worse writer than what came before because she doesn't seem to care much for sociological storytelling. An entire avenue for depth has been removed with her writing. One of the biggest reasons why I thought Les Miserables or War and Peace are great works is because they tell the story of a society through its characters. ShB and EW don't have much of that and therefore despite the stakes actually feels less epic than SB IMHO.

Subjectively IMO her writing is also less mature. Even in ShB and EW it feels like problems are solved too easily, which robs us of the opportunity to sit with and ponder certain facets of the human condition. The worlds become far less grounded starting in ShB and entire societies start to feel like props that exist just so Ishikawa can moralize about hope.

I am not saying sociogical storytelling is superior, just that the importance of character writing depends on your own preferences. A deep story typically needs to be deep across several dimensions, like character, society, theming. I genuinely think focusing on just the character writing means that the story in FF14 will never be profound and match the heights of great literature. Although, perhaps I should not be expecting a video game to deliver writing as profound as the classics in the first place...

Also with DT we have nothing. So I suppose improvement in any direction would be positive.

I'm playing EW atm and noticed the people of FFXIV just feel empty and culture-less. Like they no longer feel as if they to exist after I exit the game. I realized that what theyre missing is something like a "sociological" heart. So I searched google for Ishikawa and "sociological" and found your comment.

I couldn't agree more with what you said. I LOVED the DRK quests and was super excited when I found out Ishikawa was heading ShB and EW. The people and settlements in ARR-SB had weight to them. They felt real. They had that certain element of soulfulness and life.

I'm still on EW, but starting in ShB, I felt the side characters we meet in the settlements along the way just lost something. They all feel the same. Like the people in Palaka's Stand in EW feel the same as the people in Wright in ShB. Sure, one is Indian inspired, but thats about it. There's just a certain groundedness that's missing. This was really glaring in Eulmore in ShB. I was not convinced at all by their moral, societal, and political transformation.

Edit: I'm in Radz rn and even the people there feel the same as the Crystarium people. Just kinda your boilerplate people experiencing a time of great distress. They just seem to be missing that certain something. I cant even articulate what that is, but its not there.

[Derio]

The writing for the WOL was terrible. I understand they wanted to make Wuk Lamat the main character for this expansion but her character has so many flaws and story elements that contradict themselves that it just puts more pressure on the overall story to be good and its not.

[ReynTime]

I'm playing EW atm and noticed the people of FFXIV just feel empty and culture-less. Like they no longer feel as if they to exist after I exit the game. I realized that what theyre missing is something like a "sociological" heart. So I searched google for Ishikawa and "sociological" and found your comment.

I couldn't agree more with what you said. I LOVED the DRK quests and was super excited when I found out Ishikawa was heading ShB and EW. The people and settlements in ARR-SB had weight to them. They felt real. They had that certain element of soulfulness and life.

I'm still on EW, but starting in ShB, I felt the side characters we meet in the settlements along the way just lost something. They all feel the same. Like the people in Palaka's Stand in EW feel the same as the people in Wright in ShB. Sure, one is Indian inspired, but thats about it. There's just a certain groundedness that's missing. This was really glaring in Eulmore in ShB. I was not convinced at all by their moral, societal, and political transformation.

Edit: I'm in Radz rn and even the people there feel the same as the Crystarium people. Just kinda your boilerplate people experiencing a time of great distress. They just seem to be missing that certain something. I cant even articulate what that is, but its not there.

Nameless NPCs in the settlements of ARR like Swiftperch, Aleport, Golden Bazaar, etc, are written like they have their own little backstories, and the settlements themselves have long pasts leading to what they are when you visit. Meanwhile settlements like the ones in later expansions are basically "this is place where we fish then send fish to city" and the like. To me that's one of the biggest differences.

It also makes the fact after Heavensward the number of hamlets with houses you can enter became a lot more scarce be more than just a coincidence. It highlights how little care they started putting into the design of those locations beyond a surface level.

[Gwen_Lavellan]

Good points.

I'm currently clearing sidequests expansion per expansion while rewatching correspondants story progression per zones I clear and I'm on SHB sidequests since a few days.
They feel more disconnected to the region lore and I'm finding myself skipping most dialogues parts because they are quite generics and bland.
Previous sidequests were more engaging lore and society-wise.

[Hallarem]

What this game needs is innovation. Storywise, gamewise, systemswise. They need to be brave, Final Fantasy has always been about trying new things. It just feels STUCK.

"The customers are expecting a certain type of product" pleaaaaase, this isn't Coca Cola, stop coping. It's an MMO, you need to try to push in new things per expansion to give people something to be interested about and excited about.

[MemcyBanana]

I am ranting. Need to express my emotions.

Just finished DT this week. I hated it so much I logged in the forums for the very first time just to air my discontent. I played this expansion with an open mind. I have had instances when people just wanted to ride the hate train, so I always play/watch first and then judge later. Sadly, everyone saying that DT is bad is correct.

I never EVER skip cutscenes and dialogues when I first see them. But I was so so tired of Wuk Lamat that I ended up smashing the mouse button to skip whatever it was she was saying. I'm sorry, other characters, whose lines I may have skipped by mistake in my effort to NOT see WL's lines ever again.

Am I supposed to be emotionally attached to Wuk Lamat? Maybe if we didn't talk to her so much, I would be somewhat okay with her, but the writers wanted to endear her so much to us that I just ended up hating her and.... whatever it was she was trying to be. I don't understand what exactly were they trying to portray her to be. Why did she need to be with us during the entire Sphene arc? She's the leader of the gahddamn nation. I understand Koana was there but she wasn't much help while we were in the Unlost World and beyond. Why did we need her help in the first place? She couldn't have just waited for the opportune moment if she really wanted to fight with Zoraal Ja, she had to be there the ENTIRE time? Aymeric wanted to help us too, but the dude understood what it meant to lead a nation. Wuk Lamat is just selfish, self-serving, and absolutely NOT needed in the entire thing.

What is with the writer's obsession with Wuk Lamat and food? Wuk Lamat and forms of transportation? Wuk Lamat and her main character syndrome? Everything we do is Wuk Lamat this and that. Every time I was starting to enjoy something, they would insert Wuk Lamat in it and I lose all joy.

I don't understand why we had to talk to the farmers, they were obviously farming. What was the point of the whole food hopping in Station 9???? Weren't we in a hurry??????

I am not sure why they wrote DT this way, why is WL in 90% of everything? Why is the pacing so bad? Why are there so many plot holes? Why was everyone so bland??? Pixel NPCs had more character than whatever they did to the Scions.
I am just rambling at this point. I am at the point where my frustration jumbles everything that I want to say.

I just don't understand why DT was written this way.

[Basteala]

Nameless NPCs in the settlements of ARR like Swiftperch, Aleport, Golden Bazaar, etc, are written like they have their own little backstories, and the settlements themselves It also makes the fact after Heavensward the number of hamlets with houses you can enter became a lot more scarce be more than just a coincidence. It highlights how little care they started putting into the design of those locations beyond a surface level.

I hadn't thought about that, but you're absolutely right. It's very frustrating from an RP sense, as well.