Yet another DT Rant: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

[Basteala]

I feel like I've been processing DT since the early release launch about a month ago, and it brought out...a lot of different feelings. There were some things I liked, some things that annoyed me, and some things that pissed me the hell off.

And yes, I know there are other, vocal, threads like this. A lot of people either crapping on the game as dog water through and through, or people that want to defend it and focus on the positive...only for people, en masse to speak of only bad things against what the OP was trying to do.

Still, I love this game, as a whole, I want to get things off my chest and onto paper, so here goes. Be advised there will be spoilers, but I think you already knew that if you clicked here.

I'm going to have to break this up into a few posts because of the damnable character limit. Bear with me.

Anyway...

The Good

Some of the meta lore I felt here was really interesting. Learning more about the anatomy of a soul, of memories, and expanding upon ideas introduced to us in Pandaemonium, Eden, EW MSQ, and even certain role quests, was a very satisfying thing to me. I consider myself a lore enthusiast, and I appreciated how what we learned expanded on previous concepts but didn't outright contradict them...something that EW was sometimes very guilty of. The Milala side story was also very interesting and i wish we saw more of it.

Erenville and Krile were on point in this expansion. Both were entertaining and they did a good job both moving the plot along in an enjoyable fashion, and their arcs were both very satisfying and interesting.

I liked what they did with Cahciua, both introducing her reunion with Erenville in Shaaloani (which was probably one of my favorite zones in the MSQ), the encounter with her leading the resistance in Heritage Found, the very clear notion of something not being quite right, and the culmination of her being and Endless and having to end her, in turn, in Living Memory. I thought this was all really well done.

I thought the actual truth behind the city of gold and what it was was very well done. Granted I'm a little biased because I had my suspicions that the City would be on another shard, but I liked how some of these concepts were quietly introduced to us and the payoff was very pleasing.

[Basteala]

The Bad

But I really hate how little the search for the City of Gold plays into the actual Rite of Succession. Zoraal Ja's little scribe ally was absolutely right that it really boiled down to a series of pointless errands, while the actual hunt for the city of gold kind of just passively took care of itself in some kind of karmic fashion. That may have been fine for the first two questlines, and indeed, EW, SHB, hell even STB and HW started slow...but after that we needed to drive the plot along, not like the plot push us from point A to point B in blatantly obvious fashion like it did.

Speaking of Zoraal Ja, he might be one of the biggest disappointments in this entire story. The first half of Dawntrail was so frustratingly, cartoonishly, morally black and white, especially with Bakool Ja Ja in his villain's arc. I fully suspected Zoraal Ja would go evil, but I was really hoping we would have the opportunity to get into his head more. His notion of wanting war to allegedly create distaste for war was interesting, and in the earlier quests, they even lean into that idea with his criticisms of the pelu pelu hoping he would bring war to boost trade, but his later actions and the way he treats his allies very strongly contradicts any magnanimous claims to his goals, and that's fine, but it also begs the question of whether there was any point to his claim, or if it really was just a load of bullshit. Dawntrail doesn't really answer this in a satisfactory way. I would compare him unfavorably to Nidhogg, who was another unapologetic bad guy that wanted his war and destruction, but we had some very important context that made him at least a smidge more than an obstacle. Zoraal Ja doesn't do that.

This might be a hot take but Golool Ja was such a pointless addition to the story. The writers seemed to want to use him both as a way to make Zoraal Ja look like a piece of shit for abandoning him, then try to make Zoraal Ja seem less bad with his dying words by offering him Alexandria as inheritance, but all it did was make cheapen both ideas by using them both together. I may not have cared too much about this alone, but the fact that Golool Ja essentially steals Krile's thunder in her own arc when trying to open the portal to the City of Gold, the quest her grandfather embarked on almost a century ago, and essentially opening the door to her birthright, the fact that this was all thrown away so the little kid could feel important is so frigging unforgivable. There's a lot of moments where characters butt in where it feels they don't belong, but this to me was the most offensive. Yes, even more than "SPHHEEEEENNEEEE!" (we're getting to that).

[Basteala]

The Ugly

Wuk Lamat. My God.

Okay, I'll start with a couple small positives. I like that she's very clearly painted as an underdog that almost nobody believes at the start of the Rite of Succession. I think this was a really good way to humanize her and make her relatable, as I think most people can relate to a time where it feels like the whole world is against you, and nobody thinks you can do what you've set out to do. Morever, I liked the idea that a lot of the badass bravado she threw at us in EW post turned out to be BS, and she had very little going for her besides a will and a hope. I thought that was a nice little subversion, and this would start did firmly put me in her corner for a while. I enjoyed watching Zero grow, and I was looking forward to seeing how Wuk Lamat grew, too.

But there we get to the problem.

The first one is that Wuk Lamat doesn't really grow within the story, so much as the story bends over backwards to justify Wuk Lamat's every thought. Her mistakes seldom have lasting consequences, and certainly not any lessons to...you know, grow from. It's been said to death, but this bending of reality extends to the Scions, and even to the Warrior of Light to the point that we all almost feel part tempered by the big furball. It really feels like the writers were trying to sell Wuk Lamat as the next big character, maybe even the next Scion, but then forgot it wasn't just the Scions they needed to convince.

The other big problem, which I know everyone has said but I want to add to it, is just how oppressive Wuk Lamat is. I don't mean that she's loud or obnoxious--you can have a character like that work just fine--but like weeds in the field, she really cuts off other, better story arcs DT has, to the point that they're underdone. Erenville kind of gets off easy here, but Krile's story which was the part I was most interested in going into DT is entirely butchered--which is a shame because they spent some time building her up in EW Post and I think people really wanted to see more of her. Bakool Jaja's redemption story is also very rushed, and it's obvious that this is partly because he was never meant to play a big role in things. Which is a shame. Going from releasing Valigarmanda to being one of Tuliyollal's best defenders against a powerful foreign army is a good story...they just rushed the middle of it that would have made the payoff all the more satisfying.

Also, she butts in way too much when it's not really her scene. It doesn't matter if its when Ervenville is processing the loss of his mother--and not even really supporting him, just saying "oh we're done here", or when she leaps into the midst of the final fight with Sphene, where we finally have a moment of our own. It's like the game was contractually obligated to not have Wuk Lamat off camera for more than five minutes, and Shaaloani just happened to be her lunch break so she couldn't make it.

[Basteala]

The Ugly, Part 2

Hell, even the rivalry with the Scions is ludicrously undercooked, almost nonexistent. And it's a shame. We didn't need to be hated enemies, but there was enough difference between Wuk Lamat and Koana's goals for peace, tradition vs progression, each kind of moving at the expense of the other and what's truly best for Tural that really could have fleshed out the first half the story nicely, and the odd spar or conflict or direct competition with the other Scions could have been very entertaining as well. It's even, ironically, a good place to expand on Wuk Lamat's story and growth, that would have made Koana and Wuk Lamat meeting in the middle at Mamook really satisfying. We get none of that.

And I think that's my biggest gripe with Dawntrail's MSQ. There are so many good or at least interesting ideas that we get to see in the MSQ itself, but they're often pushed aside in favor of yet another scene with Wuk Lamat hogging the limelight, or yet another borderline nonsensical errand (I understand we were meant to follow in Golool Ja Ja's footsteps, but there's such a thing as an idea overstaying its welcome).

Closing Thoughts

To me it's not that the new head writer can't write a good story or good characters (although for the love of god, please stop homogenizing the Scions), but for whatever reason, the guy couldn't focus his story on the right things within his own story. A lot of the genuinely good ideas that were put to paper are largely overshadowed by the flaws in the narrative. The MSQ could have been ten times better if the focus of the story was on Krile's quest of discovery, the rite of succession was the setting, not necessarily the main driving force (especially since it was all errands anyway), you keep Wuk Lamat but her arc is more of that side arc of personal growth--with the similar payout against Bakool, I think that was fine, and then you bring all of it together with the astral fusion, with discovering Alexandria, the secrets of Krile's origins, the Living Memory, all of that. You'd have to make a fair few tweaks to accommodate the shift in focus, but it was all very doable. It's all wishful thinking at this point.

At the end of the day, Wuk Lamat suffers from the same problem of other modern "lead" characters. The writers try so hard to make an icon that they end up doing more damage to the archetype and their IP than if they just tried their best to make a good character, and let history decide if it was iconic or not. That worked for Emet Selch, it would have worked here, too.

[Jeeqbit]

Zoraal Ja's little scribe ally was absolutely right that it really boiled down to a series of pointless errands

No they weren't. The errands were there to force the candidates to go through a similar history that Gulool Ja Ja had, forming relations with all the different people of Tural and resolving some of their long-standing problems. Which is exactly what Wuk Lamat does. She will have stones showing how SHE solved the two-headed Mamool Ja problem, how SHE finally defeated Valigarmanda and resolved the issues in Kozama'uka.

Gulool Ja Ja just wanted a candidate that had as good an understanding of Tural as he did, and none of the candidates did. None of them were ready or knew their people. What he got was more than he could have hoped for - Wuk Lamat doing deeds that will have her on all these stones instead.

That was why the errands were not pointless, and that is what people like Zoraal Ja were incapable of understanding.

Golool Ja essentially steals Krile's thunder in her own arc when trying to open the portal to the City of Gold

I guess I just don't care about this. She had her arc regardless, however it got opened.

[CVXIV]

Wuk Lamat does go through some change in the story and grow as a character.
As the post patch content of Endwalker shows, she as a character puts on a false sense of bravado which she exhibits multiple times during Dawntrail's MSQ. It's only through the rite of succession that she learns to lean more on her companions and others for support and with meeting the various cultures that exist within Tural learns what sort of ruler she wishes to become - one like her father.

While she continuously speaks of the peace she wishes for her people, she also learns the importance of preserving their culture - a trait that the other contestants lack.
After our duel with Gulool Ja Ja he pretty much spells this out for us; that none of the current contestants are worthy of the throne and so he hopes that with the rite of succession he is able to cultivate a proper ruler.

It's why the rites are not a waste of time or a meaningless fetch quest.
They demonstrate each culture to our party and the contestants so we can gain an appreciation for how the multiple people of Tural live and can come together in harmony because before Gulool Ja Ja became the dawnservant, they each were at odds with one another with constant bloodshed and strife.

I'm also not sure what people expected out of Dawntrail, since it was clear we would be accompanying Wuk Lamat throughout her journey to become dawnservant which means we would have to interact with her a lot.

[Boblawblah]

The Bad

But I really hate how little the search for the City of Gold plays into the actual Rite of Succession. Zoraal Ja's little scribe ally was absolutely right that it really boiled down to a series of pointless errands, while the actual hunt for the city of gold kind of just passively took care of itself in some kind of karmic fashion.

I feel like you missed the entire point of the Rite of Succession, but hey, "SPHHEEEENEEEE" funny amirite??!!

[grinkdaboy]

the good:
combat content is fun
unique and interesting world to explore
the worldbuilding was good, learning about the histories and cultures of tural was very interesting

the bad:
lack of character customizations for femhroth
graphical update seems half-done with half of the hairstyles looking as low rez and pixelated as ever

the ugly:
lack of downtime or any real character growth/development/exploration. we don't get to sit down and talk to everybody about how they feel. zoraal ja is a complete mystery until after the 2nd-to-last trial and even then makes no sense. character development seemingly occurs off-screen. nonsensical plotbeats (radz-at-han has established a pact with tural and vtra conveniently appears out of nowhere to blow up the robot army!)

there's very little that's memorable to me compared to shb and ew (thancred being an ass towards ryne because he wants minfilia back, cinna deciding he has no place in the world anymore and and eats a bullet to release his legion from service, meeting jullus and starting off as adversaries and ending as friends, amon's motivation, urianger's scene with moenbryda's parents, everyone giving their reason for living in ultima thule)

vs maybe learning about the history of the blessed siblings and seeing bakool jaja turn from adversary to friend? otis' whole little arc

[Basteala]

I feel like you missed the entire point of the Rite of Succession, but hey, "SPHHEEEENEEEE" funny amirite??!!

I think you missed when I mentioned they had their merits in the earlier quests, then overstayed their welcome.

Here's the thing, they can make sense for what Gulool Ja Ja is trying to do, but is it really a story that needs to be front and center for over half the MSQ? Are these quests and macguffin collecting better than the story to find the City of Gold more naturally? Better than giving Krile's story the depth and respect it deserved--especially since we were allegedly following in Gulool Ja Ja's foosteps?

Maybe I did miss the point of the Rite of Succession, but you and quite a few others clearly missed the point of a good narrative.

I feel like you missed the entire point of the Rite of Succession, but hey, "SPHHEEEENEEEE" funny amirite??!!

You sound so clever. Thank you for gracing my thread with your brilliant insights. The world would not be the same without them.

[sylphlands]

One of the most glaring issues in DT for me is how the story breaks its own established rules with zero consequences. We're told right away that any violence towards an elector is immediately disqualifying...but BJJ does this multiple times? He releases Valigarmanda and threatens the lives of the Yok Huy, and the narrative treats it like some innocent prank he pulled. WL calls him out for it in front of an elector and it's still somehow not disqualifying? (Not to mention Valigarmada seemed to have zero consequences on the actual area and its people, you couldn't even tell a dangerous beast had ever been there, but I digress.) He kidnaps a competitor, holds one of the electors hostage, attacks WL with his henchmen with the intention of killing her...and...nothing! Nothing comes out of it. It's like the writing team just expected us to handwave the rules they set for their own story. It's so lazy.