Please bring back Ishikawa and give her free reign!

[Cleretic]

Same here.
It was also a nice change to me having the npcs you meet excited to see Wuk Lamat instead of you. I was a bit disappointed when the Arcadian went back to "Omg you're the best fighter ever we love you" with some npcs. Although nothing will ever be egregious as the Ancients praising you as the bestest familiar ever.

This is something that occurred to me just today: while Dawntrail isn't the only expansion where we're basically a nobody to most of the people around us, Dawntrail is the first expansion where someone else's reputation and charisma is opening all the doors for us. House Fortemps basically just got us into Ishgard in Heavensward, it didn't get further than that.

I can kind of agree on the Arcadion, but in fairness that's literally a fighting arena, and we saved Solution Nine while in Solution Nine. Yeah we're riding on our own reputation there, but it's a very locally earned one. (Also it doesn't really get us far, that crowd scene after M1 clearly showed we're not a crowd favorite.)

[Moomba33]

I can kind of agree on the Arcadion, but in fairness that's literally a fighting arena, and we saved Solution Nine while in Solution Nine. Yeah we're riding on our own reputation there, but it's a very locally earned one. (Also it doesn't really get us far, that crowd scene after M1 clearly showed we're not a crowd favorite.)

Oh for sure, it's not unjustified or anything. It was more just a "looks like my vacation from being the center of attention is over" moment for me.

[EdwinLi]

This is something that occurred to me just today: while Dawntrail isn't the only expansion where we're basically a nobody to most of the people around us, Dawntrail is the first expansion where someone else's reputation and charisma is opening all the doors for us. House Fortemps basically just got us into Ishgard in Heavensward, it didn't get further than that.

I can kind of agree on the Arcadion, but in fairness that's literally a fighting arena, and we saved Solution Nine while in Solution Nine. Yeah we're riding on our own reputation there, but it's a very locally earned one. (Also it doesn't really get us far, that crowd scene after M1 clearly showed we're not a crowd favorite.)

Personally prefer when there is a balance between WoL being recognized and the other characters being recognized as well.

Too much into "Oh praise the Hero! You're the greatest and can solve everything and do everything better!" makes the story feel too much as ego pandering while too much into another character to a point we question why is our character even needed if they could have reach this point without our help.

Not to mention having a balance helps recognize that WoL did make it this far because he/she has help from others and others had help from WoL. A certain trait about WoL that has been mostly consistent through the storyline and by extension a strength that has allowed him/her to make it this far in FF14 even if player's WoL personalities differ.

[Cleretic]

What do you think is the current situation in the writing team? That Ishikawa's locked in a closet somewhere, writing How Emet-Selch Got His Groove Back for an audience of nobody? Is it that she's off on some mountain pilgrimage, and nobody told her that Dawntrail was happening?

Because she has editorial control, she is the highest-credited person on the writing staff at this point. She has free reign, there's nobody above her! If she didn't like Dawntrail, it was fully within her power to do something.

You're ignoring all evidence and creating all excuses to deify her, to claim Shadowbringers was some masterpiece auteur's vision and everything else has been a compromised mess that she wouldn't truly approve of, when in truth it's just that her name is on one thing you liked, and a number of things you didn't. Maybe, just accept that she is a writer, who wrote something that aligned with your tastes once.

Also, I do wish we'd stop just trying to submit it as objective fact that Shadowbringers was the best expansion. It's doing none of FFXIV any good, including Shadowbringers. Personally, I put it in third place (and it's not as far away from fourth as anyone wants to imagine), and I wish the community wasn't so fixated on it that such an opinion would be considered an incendiary hot take.

[Lyth]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the Dawntrail storyboard conceptually, but I think there are serious problems with its execution. The pacing was terrible. The character writing and development were stilted. Player interaction with the story was grossly neglected. I can agree that none of us are in a position to troubleshoot the problems and identify how it should be fixed. But I can tell you that I was left with a sense of deep distrust for the writing playing through the MSQ, and that the weight pretty much lifted when I played through Arcadion. That's why I'd love to know if it was the same writer, because at least then I'd know it was just a once off thing.

I can't articulate it entirely, but it just feels incredibly wrong, and I don't want it to continue like this. I don't even need an explanation. Just fix it, and fast.

[Chasingstars]

I think the main problem is that shadowbringers is just a very tough act to follow. It was very well written and engaging and what could be considered the peak of ffxiv's writing from a lore perspective.

So any new writer who is trying to write things, has to contend with that behemoth of an expansion in terms of a new expansion's quality.

[Lurina]

I dunno know why people are blaming Hiroi for Dawntrail's quality. Back at Fanfest, Ishikawa said that Tomohiro Kawasaki and Megumi Onozuka are the ones actually writing it, and they're in the credits as the "Main Scenario Writers", same as she was for Shadowbringers.

Hiroi is credited as the "Lead Story Designer". He presumably came up with the bigger-picture scenario, and then the others did the legwork. It seems as though people are being shuffled around a lot in CS3 at the moment.

[Lyth]

The development team introduced Daichi Hiroi as taking over Ishikawa's previous role in the October 8th, 2022 Letter from the Producer LIVE Part LXXIII (which was part of the Eighth 14-hour broadcast), and outlined their writing workflow and division of responsibilities. Coming up with scenario text is part of his duties. Hiroi also apparently gave an interview with Famitsu during the 14-hour broadcast in which he discussed bringing in his theatre background into the writing, and that he wants to focus on the flow of the characters' emotions in the writing as 'lead story writer going forward'. I'm sure that there are plenty of people writing scenes for the script, but it looks like he's their principal writer, regardless of how you want to localize his job title.

I personally don't care what they do with their writing team so long as they fix the quality of the writing that they put out in the MSQ, so you can take the information from the 14-hour broadcast or leave it, either way.

[Lurina]

I remember that broadcast, but that was two years ago, when the expansion was still in early production. The statement about it from Ishikawa was much more recent, and she named those two writers as the ones currently penning Dawntrail without him being mentioned at all.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something (which is possible, the specifics could have just been lost in translation and I can't find video to check myself), I'd be inclined to think he became disinvolved with the actual writing of the script at some point a while before release. Maybe that's because he simply stepped back after the initial drafting, but since a lot of Dawntrail's problems come down to the execution more than the outline, I'd at least say the situation seems muddy.

[Lyth]

It's unlikely that Hiroi stepped away from the writing if he's got top billing on the writing credits. But you're right that it's probably more accurate to describe Dawntrail's story as the product of a team of writers. Point taken, I will switch over to using Hiroi et al., going forward, in the name of accuracy.

Either way, I sure hope that Hiroi et al. can get it together in time for the next storyline.