The Actual Problem With Dawntrail

[Shibi]

I wanted to see myself calmly walk over to a tree stump, sit down, and just smirk as Wuk Lemat beat the piss outta Bakool Ja Ja.

I had a photo of that, you do stand there impatiently, at least



Weird, in a way, to see oneself on the sidelines as you play inside poochie.

[Kennar]

I've only skimmed this thread, so apologies if I'm just parroting everyone else.

Dawntrail didn't need to be longer, it needed to use its time more efficiently. There was so much pointless filler dialog, characters restating what we already know, flashbacks to stuff we had only recently seen, cutscenes that lingered like a fart in a car; and don't forget the hours of dead time running to an objective all the way across the map, but having to stop halfway to speak with Wuk Lamat. If I remember correctly, at one point I logged about four hours between duties, with not even a solo duty to break up the monotony. None of this was helped by the fact that EXP gain from the MSQ is so great that I was never locked out of the story, forcing me to take a break and explore the world a little (as with HW and SB). The first act of the story was far too long for what little that happened; while on the other hand the second act was far too short to give any weight to the new revelations and the massive shift in tone.

I would like to know what the scripts are like for the other languages, if they are as bad as the English. I get the feeling that it was written by a committee that didn't have the talent to write such a complex story, nor a head writer with the courage to say "no" to bad ideas.

For the record, my first "grownup" novel was Jurassic Park when I was in sixth grade, and it wasn't too long before I was reading Tom Clancy and Arthur C. Clarke, and anything else I could get my hands on. The writers need to give their audience a little credit and not treat us like kids. Let us figure things out without boring exposition dumps; allow bad things to happen sometimes (dueling with rubber bullets--come on, man); give us some conflict and drama instead of being best friends with everybody all the time; and for the love of Halone, let our characters act when it is appropriate! Evil wins when good people stand aside, and I am so damn tired of my character standing around and letting the bad guy get away.

[Zaniel]

Evil wins when good people stand aside, and I am so damn tired of my character standing around and letting the bad guy get away.

This is so lazy especially when it's easy to disguise. I get that it's awkward that the Warrior of Light can reach out, take Zoraal Ja by the neck and squirt him like a tube of toothpaste, but my god, at least have two dozen heavy robot troopers rush into the room and form a barricade of bodies to let him flee, or even just a damn Dr Evil jetpack or teleport.

[Magikazam]

The issue is making a npc the major driving force and making it ''her story''. It wouldn't matter if they wrote her better or had better pacing to the story. They didn't write correctly for the media they're using. This is a rpg. If you want to tell a story, you need to tell the player character one. That story don't require high stakes or to be a big plot that will change the universe forever, hell it don't even need to be the most important event going on in the in-game world at the moment, but it need to have the player at it center.

Just look at Shb msq. The story is about the WoL saving the first by slaying the light wardens and becoming the shadowbringer. Yet it Introduce Emet, who, just like Wuk follow us almost everywhere. He has litteral plot armor to justify why we can't get rid of him until the end of msq. Yet people don't hate him. The reason is simple. While has a strong presence and take a lot of screen time, he not the protagonist of the story, he not the the one going around killing lightwarden. Hell, you could remove him from the MSQ and the whole scenario don't need to change that much. Just add a new lightwarden and make Vauthry the Big bad evil guys. Then just throw Amaurot dungeon in post 5.0 MSQ, make him and Elidibus yap a bit a bout the final day then make them team on us during the last fight and the story stay roughtly the same.

[chizLemons]

It's already been said before but I'm going to repeat it anyway.
The actual problem with Dawntrail is the writing quality. The story, plot and ideas are fine, but the writing is abysmal, no matter the language you're playing it in, and no matter how long or short it is.
For me it seems like someone, maybe a senior writer in a less hands-on role, made an outline of themes to dive into and a few important plot points suggestions (and maybe even wrote that one quest everyone agrees is far better written than everything else), and basically gave the connect-the-dots homework to the current writers...who didn't know what they were doing and completely failed to connect the dots. And then no one came back to check their homework before publishing it.

The characterization of everyone is off, they kept losing the threads of the themes they were trying to portray and missing opportunities to dive into it, there is no proper build up for any cool or important moments they rushed to get to - which a lot of them they tried to mimic from past expansions (and failed, because what made them cool was not the moment itself, but earning it through everything that came before it), a lot of times the characters felt like tools to get to a point, they didn't know what to do with the player character at all, and it all reads like they don't know who their audience is - there is no subtext, everything is plain and explained and repeated directly like it's meant for a far younger audience. The themes of Dawntrail aren't childish, but the way they talk about them is. It's all simplified and they tell you exactly what they want you to be feeling, while dismissing any complicated questions because they don't want to deal with it.


If the writers were better, even the gameplay during the MSQ would be, as well. Better writers would be able to be more creative than "Speak with Wuk Lamat" and "Speak with 0/3 locals", think of different gameplay quests to include, know when to give up on a cool moment cutscene for a fun solo duty instead...

[Vyrerus]

Wuk Lamat isn't the problem

Nope. Wuk Lamat is 100% the problem.

Nothing in Dawntrail established that she has leadership skills. I repeat, Nothing in Dawntrail established that Wuk Lamat had or developed leadership skills.

The rite of succession's goal was to teach the prospective promises about their own land and peoples that make up Tulliyollal. Just understanding one's culture and being proud of it is not a leadership skill. Just wanting peace and happiness is not a leadership skill.

Leadership is about making tough calls and solving difficult problems by whatever means are available to you. Koana was the one who did and demonstrated these things throughout the first half of Dawntrail. He and we are placated by Wuk Lamat opting to, "Make Koana the Head of Reason." i.e. Foist all of the actual leadership responsibility onto him. This fact is highlighted by the fact that Wuk Lamat's second arc is a quest for revenge, where Koana actually stays behind to lead the people of Tullioyollal while Wuk Lamat sets out with the WoL and Co. to avenge Gulool Ja Ja.

While she's away not leading her people, Koana signs a treaty with Radz-at-Han and gains Tulliyollal new allies.

What we get "leadership" wise with Wuk Lamat is a bunch of Wuk Lamat dialogue lines with Sphene about how she "understands what it's like to lead and care for her people." Even though she's "lead" them for all of an afternoon.

Dawntrail is a bad expansion with a bad main character, and the patches will have to do some Olympic level writing gymnastics to improve it.

[arstoka]

Another serious crime I would add: World-building disconnect: A complete loss of memory of previous events and critical world concepts in the game if not outright contradictions. I mean, the Scions ... THE SCIONS ... take part in what amounts to a primal-summoning ritual in the Hanuhanu area without blinking.

I agree though it does fall back into the failures of building a believable setting, character writing and lack of meaningful conflict. The issues exist because these three parts are not considered as base storytelling requirements. If you do not write the characters in a meaningful way, ignoring their traits and expertise and flaws you will inevitably fail to acknowledge meaningful conflict and resolution because the setting you have built is in direct conflict with characterization.

I take adhering to lore and world-building disconnect somewhat on an aside because, often times, the way we understand the world is through the characters (and by extension their writer(s) ) and their understanding of the world can change and be expanded upon. You can have something be logically consistent while being tonally inconsistent/subversive (in a negative way).

I would also argue that the process by which the Hanuhanu is not akin to primal summoning as it was stated that it was the use of their magics that stimulated stagnant aether which is actually commented upon shortly after both Koana and Wuk Lamat have competed their trials. The Scions shouldn't make a jump to that kind of conclusion given the context of the situation and would be, if you consider it, in poor taste to compare their crop growing rituals with summoning a deity that has been known (in the context of Eorzea) to be the result and answer to years of oppression and conflict.

If you wanted a better example, I'd look at expectation verses execution regarding the opening of the Golden City gate. The writers had set up Krile with the magical USB stick that has the ability to open the gate. The expectation was that she should use the key to open the gate. This is subverted by denying Krile entry and is resolved by having a npc we met only a couple of hours ago being able to unlock the gate. Does it make sense? Yes, on a technical level because of the permissions set up for royal authority access only. Is it impactful? No, it is tonally discordant as the writes spent the entire game telling us that this was important to Krile only to undermine the emotional core by denying her the ability to resolve one of her CORE motivations/plot points.

[DynnDiablos]

LONGER? Oh, please god no. I love the story and MSQ in FFXIV but by the final zone of Dawntrail I was actually skipping cutscenes which is something I NEVER do. I was so ready for it to be over.

[Nebelheim]

Hiroi has written sidequest and side stories for years on ff14 and this is what he gives us for a main story. Has he not learned how to write a good main scenario in 10 years of being on the writing team for this game and working under koji fox and ishikawa. At one point I was expecting wuk lamat to pull a tidus from ff10 and constantly proclaim "this is my story".

[StormChase]

LONGER? Oh, please god no. I love the story and MSQ in FFXIV but by the final zone of Dawntrail I was actually skipping cutscenes which is something I NEVER do. I was so ready for it to be over.

Look at it this way. If the writers had more time they'd be able to focus more on other characters as well, better establish themes and motives without sacrificing subtlety. They'd be able to give characters like Krile some time while keeping Wuk Lamat in the scenes she needs to be a main player in. I'm not talking about huge spans of story where nothing happens. I'm talking about chances to better reinforce what's already there.