[Thought Experiment] Is Dawntrail's 7.0 MSQ Planned to be "Terrible"?

[Dikatis]

tl;dr OP is overinterpreting and the truth is that Ishikawa giving the reins over to literally anyone else was a mistake

This is a bizarre take to have when her fingerprints are all over the expansion. WoL speaking privately with Wuk Lamat atop Vollok Shoonsa directly mirrors the conversation WoL had with the Crystal Exarch while the giant talos was being built. Gulool Ja Ja's death is an escalation of the stakes that forces Wuk Lamat and Koana to truly take charge of the nation, much like how Ahewaan dying during the Final Days forces Vrtra to stop hiding and speak directly to the people of Thavnair. The dogma of Garlean propaganda and the cult of personality around the emperor mirrors the ingrained veneration of blessed siblings in Mamook's culture and how both settlements only start to improve once they relinquish this dogma through the intervention of an outside, sympathetic party. Not to mention the big group project that directly leads into the story's climactic area with the Dawnblazer once again serving as a mirror to the construction of the talos and the Ragnarok. Nevermind how people coming together in understanding has been a thoroughline of all of Ishikawa's work in FFXIV, with it being the backbone of Dawntrail's themes.

People have got to stop using Ishikawa's name as a bludgeon when she's so clearly involved in Dawntrail despite no longer being the main writer.

[Cleretic]

People have got to stop using Ishikawa's name as a bludgeon when she's so clearly involved in Dawntrail despite no longer being the main writer.

Again, 'they made something you didn't like' applies to her too. Don't perform gymnastics to claim she didn't actually sign off on the story you don't like despite every piece of evidence making it clear she did, just to claim that she's a perfect paragon of exactly what you've decided is 'Good FFXIV Writing'. Sometimes, a writer you like makes something you didn't.

...in fact to be completely honest I kinda suspect that for a lot of people, we're not even looking at that, we're looking at 'Ishikawa wrote one or two things they liked'. I genuinely feel like a lot of people just compress her down to 'Shadowbringers and Dark Knight' and ignore that she wrote a lot of things that they have less cohesive and positive opinions about. Because trying to factor in Astrologian, Dawntrail MIN/BTN, or half of Stormblood makes less of a clean narrative that 'Ishikawa Writes X kind of story', or even 'Ishikawa always writes good stories'.

[0blivion]

I did like CT, Doma, Omega, ROG, DRK, Coerthas and basically most things Ishikawa did. Whenever she is in a supervisory role, the quality plummets to absolutely abysmal levels (Ala Mhigo Arc, EW patches, a lot of DT). She shouldn't be supervising when she is that much better at writing. And no, her signing off on it doesn't make it her responsibility - anyone who's been put in a supervisory position before knows that trying to compensate for weaker coworkers on top of your actual work will quickly destroy you.

[Cilia]

This is a bizarre take to have when her fingerprints are all over the expansion.

...

People have got to stop using Ishikawa's name as a bludgeon when she's so clearly involved in Dawntrail despite no longer being the main writer.

While I agree that her fingerprints are visible at times (Sphene's "conversation" with the PC at Mosaic comes to mind), echoing plot beats don't mean she was involved in writing them.

I can't say how heavy a hand she had in any given plotline or rattle off everything she's written in this game, but Ishikawa's work is generally better than the lion's share of Dawntrail. Just compare and contrast the Koana event in 6.1 to our interactions with Sphene in 6.2. The difference is clear as night and day.