Dawntrail's MSQ story is a disaster and waste of potential. [full spoilers]

[All_Nonsense]

He would have been so much more compelling if they had written him with a fervent desire to prove himself worthy of being the true ruler of Tural and having that devolve into near fanatical desperation as he falls farther and farther behind in the rite of succession, culminating in him turning to Sphene's advanced technology to seize the throne that he feels is rightfully his in exchange for allowing Sphene to harvest his people for their souls and life aether.

In 1 sentence you literally fixed half of the problems with the antagonists in this expac. How did the story we got pass through QA and executive review and no one thought of that?

[Turtledeluxe]

Zoraal Ja is so poorly written. He goes from "Anyone who aids me will have all the land they desire" to "Omg I was so burdened by everyone counting on me".

[Vensaval]

Zoraal Ja is so poorly written. He goes from "Anyone who aids me will have all the land they desire" to "Omg I was so burdened by everyone counting on me".

To this day I'm still lost on his motivations for anything he did.

[Zantetsuken5]

"I want end all wars, by going to war!"

"Actually I just have daddy issues"

[Kennar]

To this day I'm still lost on his motivations for anything he did.

Gulool Ja Ja: "Son, I never beat you as a child."

Zoraal Ja: "Yeah, and I wanna know why!"

[Papayatar]

To this day I'm still lost on his motivations for anything he did.

Vaguely motions to his trial, something something the burden of the expectations of being a miracle child of a miracle (2head miracle or w/e), a la daddy issues.

Now when was he ever burdened with it we’ll never know cuz as far as I could tell he excelled at p.much everything anyway? Except besting his dad in combat without cheat codes?

And we didn’t see any interactions that ppl specifically treated him as the only best option or be shocked he wasn’t auto chosen as next in line? So he was suffering from success and that made him…mad about people being happy for the last 80ish years cuz “world peace” happened specifically in Tural??

Unfortunately it’s not like we had 20+ hours to unpack any of that until near the end. /s

[Xieldras]

Vaguely motions to his trial, something something the burden of the expectations of being a miracle child of a miracle (2head miracle or w/e), a la daddy issues.

Now when was he ever burdened with it we’ll never know cuz as far as I could tell he excelled at p.much everything anyway? Except besting his dad in combat without cheat codes?

And we didn’t see any interactions that ppl specifically treated him as the only best option or be shocked he wasn’t auto chosen as next in line? So he was suffering from success and that made him…mad about people being happy for the last 80ish years cuz “world peace” happened specifically in Tural??

Unfortunately it’s not like we had 20+ hours to unpack any of that until near the end. /s

What do you mean? we absolutely needed those 20+ hours for Lamattiy's character development! /s

[ZXN]

Zoraal Ja is so poorly written. He goes from "Anyone who aids me will have all the land they desire" to "Omg I was so burdened by everyone counting on me".

To this day I'm still lost on his motivations for anything he did.

Vaguely motions to his trial, something something the burden of the expectations of being a miracle child of a miracle (2head miracle or w/e), a la daddy issues.

Now when was he ever burdened with it we’ll never know cuz as far as I could tell he excelled at p.much everything anyway? Except besting his dad in combat without cheat codes?

And we didn’t see any interactions that ppl specifically treated him as the only best option or be shocked he wasn’t auto chosen as next in line? So he was suffering from success and that made him…mad about people being happy for the last 80ish years cuz “world peace” happened specifically in Tural??

Unfortunately it’s not like we had 20+ hours to unpack any of that until near the end. /s

I mentioned this in an earlier post, but Zoraal Ja had what he needed to be a pretty solid villain. The issue is the writers decided to put EVERYTHING even remotely interesting about him during the trial only, and used his entire MSQ time to make him the equivalent of a incoherent, drooling toddler who stumbles around everywhere before making him word vomit things about himself before and after we kill him.

What we could've had: A man who had expectations forced on him by his father's nation since the day he was born and grew up desperate to prove himself worthy to all his titles the people called him and live up to those forced expectations, gradually that desperation turning into obsession. Finally it comes time to truly prove himself, he fails, and Wuk/Koana do what he couldn't. He "snaps", now not seeing them as family, but instead in a twisted light, seeing them as his father telling him all these years "You were never going to be good enough." Now "broken", his desperation to prove himself gets twisted, resulting in the solution that the only way to prove himself now is to completely raze Tulyollal and Tural as a whole to the ground, annihilating everyone and everything his father spent decades building up, and begin a campaign of "Peace Through Power."

What we got instead: Basic Cartoon Villain Edgelord Mc Edgerson with Daddy Issues because "Dad wouldn't let me own dah pwaygwound", whose only purpose was to be built up as Wuk Lmao's bootleg Zenos clone for her smash through in her speedrun playthrough of "FF14's greatest hits collection" before Bootleg Female Emet takes over as big bad.

But hey, you have to cut corners with certain things somewhere when the story needs to squeeze in just a couple more hours of a Cat telling us about "Peace and happiness" for the hundredth time.

[Voidmage]

Regarding the MSQ:

I think the release of Genshin 5.0 will be interesting and at least from a story perspective a good counterpart to compare.
Both have the theme of a "new world" with "native america" as an inspiration.
Both involve a "traveler" and it seems that both involve a "tournament of some kind" with people shooting for the winning.
They also both saw some kind of graphical upgrade.

It's really funny how both come out at more or less the same time, the similiarities and I am quite interested how DT's story can be measured to that of Natlan.
At least the MSQ will be compared to it and it would probably a huge blow for FF14 if it loses completely in that one aspect it is normaly praised for.

I wonder if the devs also look carefully at Genshin right now. Both franchises have a good chunk of overlapping players and I wonder if some content creators will also start to compare them.

Just an interesting thought of mine.

[Remiferia]

I'm thinking back on the moment at the beginning of a recent Live Letter where Yoshi-P speaks in hypotheticals about how CBU3 isn't in charge of any FF9 Remake, and that 'whoever would be in charge of that project would take great care as it's a very important game to many people'.

Then I think about how he said that knowing full well he let Hiroi riff on FF9 for Dawntrail's MSQ, and I can't help but wonder if he kind of knows that FF9 deserved a better representation in his pride and joy MMO than what it got.

He's right. FF9 is a delicate game that requires utmost care. Nice self-awareness to distance your team from an unannounced game right before giving us a botched FF9 story in the second half.