Wow, Dawntrail was bad

[Mondschnee]

I found no problem with the pacing in the final zone because the game never actually signaled it as a race against time, the momentum going into the zone was compatible with the momentum held throughout it. Expecting the story to suddenly change tact at the eleventh hour and no longer care about the peoples and cultures of the places we visit... it requires either a fundamental misunderstanding of the narrative or an expectation of moral absolutism that would have been unprecedented in the expansion.

It's you who doesn't understand the concept of proposition and reception at a fundamental level. It's not about what the story tells you or wants you to feel, it's about player experience. You can tell players to think a certain way all you want, if they are not convinced the reception isn't gonna be good. If you enjoyed it, good for you, but making ignorant and arrogant comments about people just not understanding the story isn't the strong argument you think it is, in fact it highlights a problem contrary to your own belief.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Guess you missed that it was intended to be a vacation, or interlude, after Endwalker. It's supposed to be be light (even though we end up saving the universe again but whatevs). You missed the point.

If it's supposed to be a vacation, why we being dragged along for the first half and then thrown a yet another apocalyptic scenario in the second half?

Now I personally don't mind the Alexandria stuff, but wuk and the whole rite of succession stuff does literally nothing for the story. They're not a vacation, they're babysitting one of the most obnoxious characters in all of Final Fantasy.

[PaulusHamsteru]

Yeah, it was bad. I started skipping cutscenes halfway through the story.

[Basteala]

It's pretty obvious why. We had just entered the area. They want us to explore said area. It is explained in the story how we are able to do it. The process of what she is doing to reprogram herself takes a lot of time and doesn't just happen at the press of a button.

Is it, though? This would be a good argument if the whole cinematic leading up to Living City and the initial conflict with the Meso Terminal didn't SCREAM urgency at the top of its lungs. The fact we suddenly have enough time to faff around is paradoxical. Even if some of the faffing around (Krile's parents, Cauchia) had some legitimately good writing, the framework is intrinsically flawed from the start. It's one of the worst offenders of the writers not understanding pacing or the importance of time or its absence.

Depends on if it was actually a computer program, but in the kind of programs we have it does take more than a few minutes to code something complex without AI (and even sometimes with it when it's not doing what you want).

It would probably have been of benefit for us just not to find or have the threat presented to us until nearer the end, and just shut them down anyway because they were consuming soul energy that didn't belong to them. But at least they explained the reason.

See that's the thing. It COULD, and SHOULD, be better. That's been the argument upheld by Dawntrail's critics the whole time. This came hot on the heels of EW and with SHB still on people's minds (because honestly, SHB and EW are kind of a two part conclusion to the Zodiark and Hydaelyn storyline).

Here's the thing. Even if you have more time than the story implies, why on earth do you risk the lives of millions on the Source and its shards by cutting it so close, just to get to know someone? Aren't the priorities a little out of whack, even for today's culture?

There is some reasoning to that. Portals have almost always been unstable in FFXIV so having experts like Y'shtola or Urianger watch it was reasonable. But it seemed excessive to have quite so many people stay behind. Estinien, Alphinaud, Alisaie, Thancred, etc.

Definitely done for the script, but it's one of the few moments that didn't make me raise my eyebrows. They were partly meant to maintain a portal that--quite frankly, few mortals had ever crossed, as well as being a last line of defense in case we failed (totally not because we were too busy faffing around too long).

We haven't seen 7.2, 7.3 or 7.4 tbh. Usually they do good things by the .3 patch.

I vehemently disagree with this. In the past, the MSQ *was* one of the good things. One of the best things about this game. It used to be a big moment for much of the fanbase whenever a patch dropped to see where the story would be going next.

I can't speak for anyone else, but all I feel about the upcoming patch is indifference.

[Exmo]

You don’t see a pacing problem with Sphene taking the key and going “now it’s time to kill you all” suddenly becoming “let’s eat ice cream and go on a gondola ride because old Spheney is bad at maths”?

Just because the writers “explain” a pacing change doesn’t mean it actually makes any sense

Yep there was no problem there because the narrative didn't actually go like that at all.

It's you who doesn't understand the concept of proposition and reception at a fundamental level. It's not about what the story tells you or wants you to feel, it's about player experience. You can tell players to think a certain way all you want, if they are not convinced the reception isn't gonna be good. If you enjoyed it, good for you, but making ignorant and arrogant comments about people just not understanding the story isn't the strong argument you think it is, in fact it highlights a problem contrary to your own belief.

Wow you're rude. Fortunately I have a policy for dealing with comments like yours.

[Mondschnee]

Wow you're rude. Fortunately I have a policy for dealing with comments like yours.

I'm rude for making a counter argument while using your own rhetoric and calling you out for looking down on players who didn't like the story as much as you did? Okay. :thumbsup:

[Carin-Eri]

I thought Dawntrail was pretty good. The arguments against it here pretty much fall flat for me. I found no problem with the pacing in the final zone because the game never actually signaled it as a race against time, the momentum going into the zone was compatible with the momentum held throughout it. Expecting the story to suddenly change tact at the eleventh hour and no longer care about the peoples and cultures of the places we visit... it requires either a fundamental misunderstanding of the narrative or an expectation of moral absolutism that would have been unprecedented in the expansion.

Agreed.

Although I will say that I, personally, think they went a little too far off-course in that final zone; I recall realising that I'd pretty much forgotten about the whole 'Messo terminal countdown' thing from some point after canal town until we reached the point before we had to say goodbye to Cahciua.

[Supersnow845]

Yep there was no problem there because the narrative didn't actually go like that at all.


Wow you're rude. Fortunately I have a policy for dealing with comments like yours.

How did the narrative go then

[Exmo]

Agreed.

Although I will say that I, personally, think they went a little too far off-course in that final zone; I recall realising that I'd pretty much forgotten about the whole 'Messo terminal countdown' thing from some point after canal town until we reached the point before we had to say goodbye to Cahciua.

That's fair. It was backgrounded quite heavily. Personally I didn't mind that - if it had been more prominent I think it could have interfered with the personal stories being told. How one deals with aging, the march of time, the loss of one's parents, are things that we all face - most of us without also trying to save the world. But I get where you're coming from with finding it was too subdued.

[Gwenkatsu]

Its bewildering how the game manages to hype you up at different moments just to let you down so hard. How come when everything is at stake and we're literally running out of time to save the world again, ...

I agree that the story was bad. But the extremely bad pacing you mention above has basically been a "feature" of FF14 from the very beginning.

Remember ARR? The Garleans kill half the Scions, capture the other half. We even see an Echo cutscene where Livia mentions regarding Minfilia "The High Priestess of the Scions... I cannot wait to hear her scream". And the WoL's immediate reaction is... to completely ignore the Scion's plight, and instead go onto another bug hunt (Garuda this time). And while they're at it, they also fix all the self-inflicted problems of the braindead papists in Coerthas. The Scions suffering and dying? We look into this another day.

Or take Titan. Being immune to tempering does not qualify you as a Titan slayer... being able to follow even the most stupid of orders does (i.e. to waste hours of precious time by dishing up a dinner from all around the world, including recovering a lost vine sort THAT NOBODY EVER ASKED FOR in the first place).

I'm not defending this garbage writing. But I think it's unfair to hold it specifically against DT, when the series has been plagued by this from the very beginning.