Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[jameseoakes]

Maybe I'm a minority but I always found the whole rubber bullet things as hilarious and sad.

We went from seeing Tesleen getting gut like a fish, transformed into a horrendous monster in real time in front of a child to a zone that's supposed to be the wild west with real cowboy, corrupt cops and outlaw ... and thing settle with rubber bullet? Like ... common.

The former is enough to earn a NSFL tag, the latter felt like a bad Disney paradogy.

The whole bit just felt strange, there didn't seem to be any reason for the game to have such a timid approch to things it just made the zone feel stupid a childish for no reason

[Galvuu]

Maybe I'm a minority but I always found the whole rubber bullet things as hilarious and sad.

I also don't see how a duel with rubber bullets "decisively and finally sets their differences", which was supposed to be a unique idiosyncrasy of their culture that they were trying to move away from. Like... if we're having a fight and you shoot me with a rubber bullet, why is it final? I didn't die, does the bullet make me not-pissed? I guess you could say they used to be duels to the death, but they changed it to rubber bullets after law enforcement got established- but then, why do the npcs say "let's settle this the old way"? That's not the old way at all... is it?
I imagine they wanted to do Wild West, but then went "omg they might find this barbaric... we can't have a negative aspect to a subculture in this continent, they must all be perfect. Can you change it so we keep the duels but they're non-lethal?"
Everything in DT is so... sanitized.

[lolnotacat]

I also don't see how a duel with rubber bullets "decisively and finally sets their differences", which was supposed to be a unique idiosyncrasy of their culture that they were trying to move away from. Like... if we're having a fight and you shoot me with a rubber bullet, why is it final? I didn't die, does the bullet make me not-pissed? I guess you could say they used to be duels to the death, but they changed it to rubber bullets after law enforcement got established- but then, why do the npcs say "let's settle this the old way"? That's not the old way at all... is it?
I imagine they wanted to do Wild West, but then went "omg they might find this barbaric... we can't have a negative aspect to a subculture in this continent, they must all be perfect. Can you change it so we keep the duels but they're non-lethal?"
Everything in DT is so... sanitized.

You bring up a good point. They were trying to be "respectful" of cultures, but then they sanitize something that was a part of early American culture? Yes, duels didn't historically happen all the time like in the movies, but they did happen. Hell one of our founding fathers was killed in a duel with the vice president. And one of our presidents, Andrew Jackson was a notorious duelist.

If they didn't want to have the duel end in death, there are ways around it. Historically, many duels were about honor. Both participants would just shoot into the ground because they had no intention to harm each other. Also before the invention of rifling, a lot of duels just ended with both participants missing each other, shrugging their shoulders because honor was satisfied, and goin home.

Whatever "cultural sensitivities" CBU3 was adhering to seems to be directed towards a group of people who wouldn't care that they got American culture wrong.

[Zaniel]

You bring up a good point. They were trying to be "respectful" of cultures, but then they sanitize something that was a part of early American culture? Yes, duels didn't historically happen all the time like in the movies, but they did happen. Hell one of our founding fathers was killed in a duel with the vice president. And one of our presidents, Andrew Jackson was a notorious duelist.

If they didn't want to have the duel end in death, there are ways around it. Historically, many duels were about honor. Both participants would just shoot into the ground because they had no intention to harm each other. Also before the invention of rifling, a lot of duels just ended with both participants missing each other, shrugging their shoulders because honor was satisfied, and goin home.

Whatever "cultural sensitivities" CBU3 was adhering to seems to be directed towards a group of people who wouldn't care that they got American culture wrong.

The rubber bullet thing was the first time in game where I thought "Wait, are they having some westerners write for them now?!?" because its such a weird western culture warrior way to sanitize American wild west gun culture. Japanese writers usually have no problems with portraying a violent gun culture, indeed its the usual meme in Japanese media when presenting "americans".

[localareanetwork]

You bring up a good point. They were trying to be "respectful" of cultures, but then they sanitize something that was a part of early American culture? Yes, duels didn't historically happen all the time like in the movies, but they did happen. Hell one of our founding fathers was killed in a duel with the vice president. And one of our presidents, Andrew Jackson was a notorious duelist.

If they didn't want to have the duel end in death, there are ways around it. Historically, many duels were about honor. Both participants would just shoot into the ground because they had no intention to harm each other. Also before the invention of rifling, a lot of duels just ended with both participants missing each other, shrugging their shoulders because honor was satisfied, and goin home.

Whatever "cultural sensitivities" CBU3 was adhering to seems to be directed towards a group of people who wouldn't care that they got American culture wrong.

zone culture good unless they're guns obviously since guns bad. they should have just used NERF guns in that duel, at least it would have been funny.

[Drimn]

You bring up a good point. They were trying to be "respectful" of cultures, but then they sanitize something that was a part of early American culture? Yes, duels didn't historically happen all the time like in the movies, but they did happen. Hell one of our founding fathers was killed in a duel with the vice president. And one of our presidents, Andrew Jackson was a notorious duelist.

If they didn't want to have the duel end in death, there are ways around it. Historically, many duels were about honor. Both participants would just shoot into the ground because they had no intention to harm each other. Also before the invention of rifling, a lot of duels just ended with both participants missing each other, shrugging their shoulders because honor was satisfied, and goin home.

Whatever "cultural sensitivities" CBU3 was adhering to seems to be directed towards a group of people who wouldn't care that they got American culture wrong.

What's more likely is the consultants they hired to help them with "cultural sensitivities" view that aspect of American culture and history as a problem that needs to be fixed, and their writing is their way of trying to "clean it up." Honestly, if they were going to go Old West and think guns are icky, they could have at least done a poker match or something to that effect rather than the lame airsoft LARPing session they wrote instead. Or better yet, not done a really weak rendition of an Old West zone. I'd say they could go for a more pre-Columbian route, but with how disrespectful they were in Tural, they'd probably handle a pre-Columbian US about as well as Peter Pan or 1940s Looney Tunes did.

Did they say the bullets are rubber in Japanese as well, or is it just an English localization?

When Erenville's MOTHER DIED and he had JUST WATCHED HIS MOTHER DIE, Wuk Lamat starts yapping and then we just move on? Just like that?

Not just that, but Wuk Lamat, God-Queen of Empathy and Friendship, who had just lost her father very shortly before, takes her supposed best friend watching his mother die with a "damn that sucks moving on." All of the Scions are convinced she's a wonderful person, by the way, even the one that shares the Echo and occasionally gets a peek behind the fourth wall along with you. Nothing about her character makes sense unless she was written by someone that thinks self-serving posturing and patronizing are the keys to being a good and decent person rather than actually going out of your way for others that are in need and knowing how to put yourself in someone else's shoes.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

I also don't see how a duel with rubber bullets "decisively and finally sets their differences", which was supposed to be a unique idiosyncrasy of their culture that they were trying to move away from. Like... if we're having a fight and you shoot me with a rubber bullet, why is it final? I didn't die, does the bullet make me not-pissed? I guess you could say they used to be duels to the death, but they changed it to rubber bullets after law enforcement got established- but then, why do the npcs say "let's settle this the old way"? That's not the old way at all... is it?
I imagine they wanted to do Wild West, but then went "omg they might find this barbaric... we can't have a negative aspect to a subculture in this continent, they must all be perfect. Can you change it so we keep the duels but they're non-lethal?"
Everything in DT is so... sanitized.

And this was after Koana shot Bakool Ja Ja in the face several times with actual bullets... So I really don't get the point of making them rubber bullets especially since he just shot the gun out of his hand.

[TheDustyOne]

Maybe I'm a minority but I always found the whole rubber bullet things as hilarious and sad.

We went from seeing Tesleen getting gut like a fish, transformed into a horrendous monster in real time in front of a child to a zone that's supposed to be the wild west with real cowboy, corrupt cops and outlaw ... and thing settle with rubber bullet? Like ... common.

The former is enough to earn a NSFL tag, the latter felt like a bad Disney paradogy.

Another thing I noticed, although relatively minor, was with the FATEs against the bandits. Previous expansions had no qualms just having us slaughter human enemies when their HP is gone, they play the death animation and fade away, but here instead they run away after all their HP is gone. It's relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but it does come across as oddly inconsistent; this is the same game with Tesleen being skewered, Teledji being sliced in half (albeit off-screen), war, genocide, conquest, but a few bandits slaughtering merchants? Nah they gotta live, never mind that they have no qualms in killing us, but we can only subdue them.

The rubber bullets thing just furthers the whole problem of being tonally inconsistent with the rest of the game. I'm sure for some we'd prefer it if characters could incapacitate wherever possible instead of kill, but Hydaelyn / Eitherys has always been shown to be rather brutal and that such ideals, while admirable, aren't always possible.

Also not gonna lie, I thought the whole "the victor of the duel is proven right" thing was stupid. When Ishgard did it, there was at least the idea that divine providence would be shown through the victor, but here it's just... might makes right with no other justification. Not to mention when Ishgard did that, it wasn't portrayed in a positive light and showed why we wanted to pretty much fight against the powers that be in Ishgard. But in not-Texas, we're okay with it?

She makes axes sell. It's crazy.

Good lord not even the Levequests are safe.

[Raven2014]

Another thing I noticed, although relatively minor, was with the FATEs against the bandits. Previous expansions had no qualms just having us slaughter human enemies when their HP is gone, they play the death animation and fade away, but here instead they run away after all their HP is gone. It's relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but it does come across as oddly inconsistent; this is the same game with Tesleen being skewered, Teledji being sliced in half (albeit off-screen), war, genocide, conquest, but a few bandits slaughtering merchants? Nah they gotta live, never mind that they have no qualms in killing us, but we can only subdue them.
.

And also immediately right after is the token "why do people become bandit? Maybe if their lives were better they won't become bandit?" mention.

And when you get to Mehwahhetsoan, there is another token "industrial development is bad for environment and wild life" mention.


Like ... it's weird. Don't get me wrong, FF14 being preachy is nothing news. Sometime even Alphinauh annoyed me of how preachy he is way before DT, and the whole peace and friendship isn't really a Wuk Lamat exclusive. But the thing is in the past, the virtual signalling when it happens, it felt substantial, with intend and purpose, and with effort to make it part of the story. Like the whole Ultima Thule zone felt like a sermon to me, but it was written into a full story. With DT though ... like you said they're just minor detail, token mention that makes me go "huh? Why do that or say that here?". It's like ticking checkboxes, or they're there so they can take an out of context snapshot and put it in a report later to make some ... underwriter happy.


One one hand, they're just minor that doesn't really affect anything important right now. Collectively though, together with the transition to a new writing team and a new era for the game ... it does make me a bit concern if this is the new direction they gonna take the narrative from now on?

[ViaDesperare]

One one hand, they're just minor that doesn't really affect anything important right now. Collectively though, together with the transition to a new writing team and a new era for the game ... it does make me a bit concern if this is the new direction they gonna take the narrative from now on?

You think if nothing is done that the direction will only get worse? Considering the voice side of things and preaching of diversity, and then ending up being racist with tacos being the whole culture... I feel like if we don't get the message across, then the writing team is going to push hard in a direction we won't like.

Feels like any feedback is useless... Well unless we make a huge noise about it.