Dawntrail and Stormblood have the same issues [Spoilers probably!]

[Ranaku]

After finishing Dawntrails MSQ i just noticed something, up to the last moment the story of Dawntrail wasn't really about us. It was about Wuk Lamat from the start to the finish, which in my opinion is the main reason why many people don't like the story.

Stormblood had a similar approach, we followed Lyse around as she (very rapidly...too rapidly!) grew into the leader of an entire nation. (Without any knowledge or experience!) Stormblood was also not well received, i always felt the pacing was off and the story was too much about Lyse. At least in Stormblood though we had some personal stakes in the matter.

Now back to Dawntrail, in Dawntrail we have little to no stakes, other than our "we need to save them all" complex, in Turals affairs. Which gives us little to no reason to actually care about it on a personal level like many did with Ishgard.

Dawntrails Story reminds me of the way World of Warcraft usually writes the story, the player character is just an extra. Which makes the player not care about the story at all. We are treated like a bystander or well a mercenary. (Just that we aren't getting paid by Wuk Wuk at all lol)

The best received expansions were those that had the player character as the focus. So that, as far as i can tell, is the biggest problem with Dawntrail. It's still a interesting story, just nothing players came to expect after all those years. I liked XIV cause it put the player in the spotlight, because the player character was a person of importance.

Sadly we are now just Wuk Lamats universal problem solver in her story. I do hope the focus will shift a bit more towards the WoL again in the patches to come.

[Sylvain]

Yes, but the theme couldn't simply be well adapted to our character.

Who did we loose? Which member of our family did we loose? Direct family, none known, undirect, a few but they were more like comrad. The main issue is that the player itself may not feel the intended connection. Some people loved Papalymo, some didn't (just to name 1).

Family and loss are very personal things. Therefor I believe the choice of centering the story around someone else makes sens. I understand that someone simply cannot let go. I understand the struggle of a loss. But I never had those struggle, therefor I (personally) had a stronger response to the other npc struggles than if it would have been directly centered around myself.



EW theme was hope/despair, something litterally everyone can feel. It was also quite on point with the general political discussion heavily centered around global warming (#end of the world).

I don't think they have the same issue, to me SB theme was just too far what we experience and can properly connect to. I didn't have an issue with the story being centered around Lyse, I had an issue that it was 90% of a political issue that I had no connexion with. The theme was Doma's liberation under a cruel regime, something no one below "many years old" still has an experience of. No one can *truly* connect with that because we've never experienced it. (or at least most people shouldn't have in those days and age)

But we could all connect with the feeling of hopelessness(EW), or loss of someone dear.

There's also the antagonist which were fairly different.
Zenos was a shallow antagonist, Tsukuyomi was on the contrario much more interesting but unfortunately more of the "side antagonist for the 4.X serie".
Sphvene on the other hand is sweet and in a sens innocent. She's in a situation where nothing she can end up with everyone happy. Either her people or other people die. It's an aweful choice, she knows, but she just can't choose otherwise. You can't possibly compare her and the moral dilemna she faces with Zeno's (in SB) who's the most boring thing you can ever see... "I'm so powerful life is tasteless". I'm not saying this wouldn't be an actual issue. It truly would be, but who can connect with that? Who can say "My life was such a succession of effortless successes that I just grew bored of living".

So sure, the similarity is that it is centered around NPC, but I believe this is where the comparison halts (could be enough for many I don't deny that).
SB had many more issues which all in all made for a poor experience. There's also the lack of opening... the whole new ark was following Tsukuyomi which was a great story don't get me wrong... but it really felt like "nothing else was going on".
On the contrario here... we got the key... and who knows what we will do with that (Open a door between 1st and 13th to balance things out?)

I prefered ShB and EW, but I also quite enjoyed DT and the side quest were just top notch. props on WukLamat and Sphvene voice acting (in french).