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

[Dapperino]

Man am I glad to see I'm not delusional in thinking Dawntrail is just genuinely awful. There's just been moment after moment after moment that left me scratching my head or rolling my eyes. Like, I love the trials and the dungeons themselves (or at least, what I've seen of them) but the story is so embarrassingly bad that I've just stopped caring. It started early on with me skipping non voiced cutscenes out of annoyance with Wuk Lamat reiterating the exact same thing over and over, but at the 96 quests I just started skipping extremely often. Not even pointing out that we know how to cure the levin sickness? We just let them suffer in silence? Seriously? When I finally reached that final zone, the dismissive way every character treated shutting down the terminals and killing all of those people even after we got to chat with them and learn about them had me flabbergasted. We seriously didn't try anything else? Eradicate them because they don't fit our view on people? How does that make us the good guys? For all intents and purposes, I feel like the WoL by the end is just cruel and evil. I refused to try and justify Emet-Selch's actions because his view of us not being "people" and therefore undeserving of life was unforgivable. But then I turn around and do exactly that to another group of people. I actually logged out and walked away for a few hours when I reached that first terminal. Like, the nonchalant way graha talked about riding the gondola before we shut down the terminal as though we weren't about to massacre a bunch of people was fucking mindblowing. Any other expansion and I would've been done with the MSQ by now, but I just have no energy left, no desire to see it through. For the first time in this game, I'm so disgusted that even finishing the story feels out of reach.

[Mcg55ss]

Sounds like you didn't even bother reading the OP.

"It is not just the Warrior of Light that has turned into a prop. It's also the rest of the Scions. Most of the Scions have been relegated to 'cheerleader' status. " Literally one of the last things you posted was you complaining about having to take a back seat to other characters.....maybe you just wrote so much you don't remember.

[HighlanderClone]

"It is not just the Warrior of Light that has turned into a prop. It's also the rest of the Scions. Most of the Scions have been relegated to 'cheerleader' status. " Literally one of the last things you posted was you complaining about having to take a back seat to other characters.....maybe you just wrote so much you don't remember.

Please read. This was literally in the OP.

It would be fine if we were a side character in this arc, but we are less than a side character... we are an extra on the set.

It would be fine if we were a side character

You're welcome to re-read the OP to find what the issue actually is.

Or actually don't because I have a feeling you deliberately took out that part of the quote to do a "gotcha".

[Wildheaven182]

Why is the tribal lizard man wearing space marine armor square enix explain.
This isn't our vacation, it's Wuk Lamat's and we are her errand boy. Glad people can enjoy that, you'll make a perfect mindless drooling idiot fanboy whale.
Why is there uptown funky jazz in the wooden building tribal era dock town. Sounds like a bustling modern city music. Maybe japanese don't understand the american culture around jazz or the hispanic culture.
The first half of the story is omg food you love food right? Pretend you've never seen a taco before holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

[Kaurhz]

Your comment made me think... Ironically the second arc suffers from building up too much stakes without giving it the oxygen to breathe and develop.

This is actually one of the few instances where the game would have benefitted from being a split zone. Heritage Found should have been a split zone, or at the very least Shaaloani.. Where it would then have the chance to build up those stakes, even if in the background. They tried doing far too much with it, and not only did they try building high stakes... It just felt like they were trying to force characters for us personally to care about, and not enough time to care about them for what they had planned for them.

Also agreed on this xpac not feeling like an adventure at all. I desperately wish I lived in an alternate universe where they made the first arc be an adventure of us finding Galuf's history and the Golden City with Krile and Erenville. Put the claimant battle in the background...

This is how it should have been... Would it that Endwalker set this up correctly. Finding the Golden City and joining Krile on an adventure for it to learn more of Galuf, and the city itself. The claimant battle could have been perfect "meanwhile in..." content, which could have set up an opportunity for Zoraal Ja to win, rather than Wuk Lamat or the others. The first couple of zones could have continued as normal, as it would have been our chance to learn more about the world.. This is where they nailed it, even if only it was because Wuk didn't really know her people that well from the start.

All of this could have been set up as a post-expansion where we defeat Zoraal... Now I am know I am against 'installing a person or organization in a seat of power', but this would have been the best way to approach it, IMO, and would have set up for more character development for Bakool (He had so much potential) and Wuk herself... Since she would be fighting for peace after the fact, and not "I just want to maintain papa's peace". This at the very least IMO would have put her in a better position to feel like "she should be the main character", and would have given her the development that she really needed.

[HighlanderClone]

Man am I glad to see I'm not delusional in thinking Dawntrail is just genuinely awful. There's just been moment after moment after moment that left me scratching my head or rolling my eyes. Like, I love the trials and the dungeons themselves (or at least, what I've seen of them) but the story is so embarrassingly bad that I've just stopped caring. It started early on with me skipping non voiced cutscenes out of annoyance with Wuk Lamat reiterating the exact same thing over and over, but at the 96 quests I just started skipping extremely often. Not even pointing out that we know how to cure the levin sickness? We just let them suffer in silence? Seriously? When I finally reached that final zone, the dismissive way every character treated shutting down the terminals and killing all of those people even after we got to chat with them and learn about them had me flabbergasted. We seriously didn't try anything else? Eradicate them because they don't fit our view on people? How does that make us the good guys? For all intents and purposes, I feel like the WoL by the end is just cruel and evil. I refused to try and justify Emet-Selch's actions because his view of us not being "people" and therefore undeserving of life was unforgivable. But then I turn around and do exactly that to another group of people. I actually logged out and walked away for a few hours when I reached that first terminal. Like, the nonchalant way graha talked about riding the gondola before we shut down the terminal as though we weren't about to massacre a bunch of people was fucking mindblowing. Any other expansion and I would've been done with the MSQ by now, but I just have no energy left, no desire to see it through. For the first time in this game, I'm so disgusted that even finishing the story feels out of reach.

I wonder if it's a cultural difference because it doesn't seem like anyone over at JP had the same issue. JP doesn't seem happy at the story either though, but this particular issue doesn't seem to be on their minds, but IDK.

Why is the tribal lizard man wearing space marine armor square enix explain.
This isn't our vacation, it's Wuk Lamat's and we are her errand boy. Glad people can enjoy that, you'll make a perfect mindless drooling idiot fanboy whale.
Why is there uptown funky jazz in the wooden building tribal era dock town. Sounds like a bustling modern city music. Maybe japanese don't understand the american culture around jazz or the hispanic culture.
The first half of the story is omg food you love food right? Pretend you've never seen a taco before holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

TBH I'm kinda upset that SE's "we want to celebrate diversity" remark ended up being "tacos!" "mountainous region!" "colorful clothes!"... Very, very shallow way of celebrating diversity. IDK how there are people who are unironically praising this from this angle, going like "omg I love Hispanic culture being represented" when it's literally all tropes... I felt that Doma was actually a decent, albeit imperfect representation of Chinese culture, on the other hand. The story and Hien gave a vague feeling of a Wuxia novel. Thavnair was not as good, and it started to feel a bit like copying tropes. Then we got Dawntrail which is just full-on tropes. I wonder if the difference is that someone on the writing team actually read a wuxia novel (or being in Japan they had some exposure to Chinese literature), and Indian/Hispanic literature is just a bit too foreign for them. If that's the case, that's why consultants exist (and I mean actual consultants who know what they're talking about, like maybe an esteemed writer who has researched folk traditions from Peru). Or the writers should just do their homework and actually get to reading and understanding other cultures at more than a skin-deep level.

This is actually one of the few instances where the game would have benefitted from being a split zone. Heritage Found should have been a split zone, or at the very least Shaaloani.. Where it would then have the chance to build up those stakes, even if in the background. They tried doing far too much with it, and not only did they try building high stakes... It just felt like they were trying to force characters for us personally to care about, and not enough time to care about them for what they had planned for them.



This is how it should have been... Would it that Endwalker set this up correctly. Finding the Golden City and joining Krile on an adventure for it to learn more of Galuf, and the city itself. The claimant battle could have been perfect "meanwhile in..." content, which could have set up an opportunity for Zoraal Ja to win, rather than Wuk Lamat or the others. The first couple of zones could have continued as normal, as it would have been our chance to learn more about the world.. This is where they nailed it, even if only it was because Wuk didn't really know her people that well from the start.

All of this could have been set up as a post-expansion where we defeat Zoraal... Now I am know I am against 'installing a person or organization in a seat of power', but this would have been the best way to approach it, IMO, and would have set up for more character development for Bakool (He had so much potential) and Wuk herself... Since she would be fighting for peace after the fact, and not "I just want to maintain papa's peace". This at the very least IMO would have put her in a better position to feel like "she should be the main character", and would have given her the development that she really needed.

100% agreed. Less truly is more sometimes.

[Dapperino]

I wonder if it's a cultural difference because it doesn't seem like anyone over at JP had the same issue. JP doesn't seem happy at the story either though, but this particular issue doesn't seem to be on their minds, but IDK.

It could be a cultural thing, and maybe I'm just being dramatic. But I can't shake the feeling of being an awful person in the final zone. Years of voicing my disdain for the infantilization of Emet as though he wasn't a terrible person only to have my WoL turn around and gleefully indulge in all the nice things Living Memory had right before we shut it all down and kill everyone is just kind of, I don't know, fucked up?

Maybe I'm wrong in my view, maybe I'm missing something, but like, we didn't even try. No brainstorming how to give these people the chance to continue living their happy lives? No asking Cahciua "Does everyone else want to die, too?" Nothing? I thought the whole point of Endwalker is that despite the pain and suffering in the world, joy and happiness exist too, and that's worth living for. Why does the happiness of the Endless not count? They don't fall under the umbrella of what we consider people? Is that it?

Again, I might be missing some crucial detail regarding this zone, but I just can't stand this final stretch of story. I'm watching the cutscenes because I want to at least hope they alleviate my concerns somehow, but if it doesn't, I think Dawntrail is curtains for me and this game. Clearly it isn't written in a way I can find satisfying anymore.

[HighlanderClone]

It could be a cultural thing, and maybe I'm just being dramatic. But I can't shake the feeling of being an awful person in the final zone. Years of voicing my disdain for the infantilization of Emet as though he wasn't a terrible person only to have my WoL turn around and gleefully indulge in all the nice things Living Memory had right before we shut it all down and kill everyone is just kind of, I don't know, fucked up?

Maybe I'm wrong in my view, maybe I'm missing something, but like, we didn't even try. No brainstorming how to give these people the chance to continue living their happy lives? No asking Cahciua "Does everyone else want to die, too?" Nothing? I thought the whole point of Endwalker is that despite the pain and suffering in the world, joy and happiness exist too, and that's worth living for. Why does the happiness of the Endless not count? They don't fall under the umbrella of what we consider people? Is that it?

Again, I might be missing some crucial detail regarding this zone, but I just can't stand this final stretch of story. I'm watching the cutscenes because I want to at least hope they alleviate my concerns somehow, but if it doesn't, I think Dawntrail is curtains for me and this game. Clearly it isn't written in a way I can find satisfying anymore.

Nah, you aren't the only one. You can find more discussion here:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...%28spoilers%29

[Folsom]

TBH I'm kinda upset that SE's "we want to celebrate diversity" remark ended up being "tacos!" "mountainous region!" "colorful clothes!"... Very, very shallow way of celebrating diversity. IDK how there are people who are unironically praising this from this angle, going like "omg I love Hispanic culture being represented" when it's literally all tropes...

It's a little kid version of diversity and "being seen" diversity stand-in. "Pelupelu are traders! They trade!" "Hanuhanu eat reeds, and when the reeds don't grow, they are sad." "Xbr'aal and Mamool Ja fought, but a Big Man came and had them make a meal together. The food was good, so their hostilities were resolved." "Some people in Central and South America eat tacos. Look at them eating tacos!"

You might find this kind of story in a third grade classroom where kids are learning rudimentary, very broad things about other cultures that ignore any sort of complexity until they're older. Which is fine if you're 8 years old but less fine when you're an adult. I suppose it's not too much worse than the adult version, however, where someone spends a week in a foreign country and then comes back to tell everyone they know how worldly they are, how much they now understand that culture (when they've not even scratched the surface and never left the tourist areas) which they could have done, so there is that.

[Lyndina]

Remember this really nice trailer that promised us adventures, awesome fights in the jungle and so much more? Compare to the "gameplay" where our beloved character we spend 10 years on has been relegated to standing around and doing absolutly nothing, while Wuk Lamat does everything and in all her "living" years on Tural has never left the city to see other regions? Never explored Tural, but traveled around the globe to Sharlayan to get our help? Story was a letdown and ruined the legacy of this once great game. Even Stormblood was better then this visual novel. Fire this writer and get rid of Wuk Lamat or this game will bleed heavy player numbers.