The Actual Problem With Dawntrail

[lolnotacat]

They seemed to have taken the soft reboot idea seriously because it's almost like Endwalker never happened. Hardly any mention of the effects of the Endsinger or dynamis or anything aside from a few off-handed comments.

Which is so damn annoying. They could've given the opportunity for us, and other characters to breathe. Alisae could've had a good moment with the paralyzed kid suffering from an aether imbalance. That's literally her thing. We spent multiple patches with her working on fixing that. Not only that, it shows that the world is living and breathing. Even if Alisae said something like "Sorry this is similar, but a Porxie can't fix it because stupid made up reason." that would've been better than how it's currently handled. And a character aside from Wuk could actually have had an interaction. It's just a shame how many missed opportunities there were with Dawntrail.

[ConantSivrha]

I think the actual problem is this: Dawntrail is too short. 2.0 had about 160 quests (even more originally) to reintroduce players to Eorzea. 7.0 has only 100, even though we're exploring a whole new landmass and a nation from another shard. That's why these players feel exhausted. Everything is crammed together and there's not enough time to fully explore what the writers want to explore. Wuk Lamat takes the blame for this larger issue because she's the most prominent character.

First thought: nogodpleaseno.gif

Second thought: I see what you mean, to an extent, but I think turning 7.0 Dawntrail into an ARR-length expansion without making it absolutely hellish to play through would require deviating from the established formula of XIV’s expansions. For me, the length of ARR felt fine, but it’s important to note that ARR is different from other expansions in more ways than just the raw number of quests its MSQ has. One of the most notable differences is the amount of battle content accessible before completing the story.

ARR, not counting patch content, has 160 main scenario quests and 38 duties (15 dungeons/trials that can be unlocked before level 50, 3 level 50 dungeons/trials that are required for the .0 MSQ, and 20 MSQ solo duties). Dawntrail has 100 main scenario quests and 13 duties (7 dungeons/trials that can be unlocked before level 100, 2 level 100 dungeons/trials that are required for the .0 MSQ, and 4 MSQ solo duties). This ratio speaks for itself.

Additionally, ARR encourages you to take the MSQ in smaller portions that make it feel less tiresome than it otherwise might, by having points in the story where it seems natural to pause and do something else (in-game or otherwise). In Dawntrail, moments like these are intentionally avoided with tactics like herding you into a cutscene after your character is told to rest and/or wait for something (eg, you’re told to wait for the ascension ceremony, so the option to enter the inn room is removed and replaced with a cutscene trigger).

I’ll also ask the obvious question: if they did make Dawntrail longer…what would they put in it? I was curious about some things that the story just blew past without exploring, too, so maybe you or I would be able to think of a few things to add to Dawntrail, but it doesn’t seem like the same was true for those who were actually writing it.

A good portion of what we got felt like padding without substance. Cutscenes with long, silent pauses for characters to walk into and out of frame or do canned emote animations. Exposition that gets repeated three times, and then a fourth time in a flashback a few minutes later for good measure. The Shaaloani segment, and how it felt disconnected from both the Rite of Succession plot and the Alexandria plot, like it was inserted just to fill time. It all gives me the sense that they didn’t have enough ideas to fill 100 quests in the first place.

[Zaniel]

this. Dawntrail's story was given to a team of writers who only handled small projects before now and obviously didn't know the first thing about writing a whole expansion's worth of story content.

I mean if we magically went back in time and CTRL+X Wuk Lamat and pasted in Emet Selch into the Dawntrail story it would still be a disaster, for all the same reasons.

[Raven2014]

I think the actual problem is this: Dawntrail is too short. 2.0 had about 160 quests (even more originally) to reintroduce players to Eorzea. 7.0 has only 100, even though we're exploring a whole new landmass and a nation from another shard. That's why these players feel exhausted.

I don't think that's a fair comparison though. 2.0 is the base games so it always gonna have more content than an expansion. And the first 20 level of ARR are 3 unique stories for the city states you start out with before they converse.

Everything is crammed together and there's not enough time to fully explore what the writers want to explore. Wuk Lamat takes the blame for this larger issue because she's the most prominent character

I disagree, the reason they didn't have time because they WASTED whatever time they had. One of the main complains about Wuk is while she has the most lines ... they are rarely about anything important. Even if you skip most of the her dialogue, you'll hardly miss out anything important because the majority are just her repeating her belief.

Comparing to other principal characters like Hien, G'ara, Aymeric, Ice Heart ... most of the time when those characters talk, they give you more and more insight to the world.

For example in HW, lady Ice Heart acts as a gateway for us to understand the Heretic, a faction we had little information at that point. Whether in DT, Wuk Lamat is a gate way only to ... her own head because the story set up in a way that makes her almost as oblivious to her own world as a complete stranger like the wol is.

[Zaniel]

Wuk Lamat is a symptom of much bigger technical writing issues.

Pacing: writing choices that repeat information unnecessarily (the walk around the city with Wuk, Koana and Gulool Ja where they talk about the events of everything we, the player, just witnessed). Important character moments and world building are glossed over and have no repercussions on the narrative (Bakool Ja Ja's redemption arc.)

Character writing: more telling than showing leading to inauthentic character development. Flaws are "present" but have no meaningful impact on the narrative. (Wuk Lamat's sea/air sickness being played for laughs. Her confidence issues being magically resolved resulting in her having the physical ability to defeat Bakool Ja Ja not long after having been bested and kidnapped.)

Passive protagonists: the narrative pilots the characters to their destinations instead of the characters making meaningful choices to drive the narrative forward (characters tend to be more reactive then proactive. The entire first half of the story is an example).

Themes: barely fleshed out in meaningful ways that leaves the audience to fill in the blanks to make sense of everything, a result of failing to create characters and meaningful scenarios/interactions to reinforce the message(s) of the story. (This loops back into passive protagonists and telling rather than showing.)

Lack of meaningful conflict: the narrative goes out of its way to have everyone agreeing with the protagonist without challenging her views. Most problems are black and white and are resolved with either deus ex machina (the crystal bird descending upon the Yok Huy conquerors and) or feel artificial due to lack of consequences (Valigarmanda doing zero damage once it is released in order to make Bakool Ja Ja's redemption easier, to name a couple.)

Failure to critically engage with the protagonist's ideals: Yes, we agree peace and happiness for all is a lovely sentiment. What do they actually mean to the character though? How will they "preserve the peace". What lengths will they go to?

Tone: failing to properly establish characters, settings, themes and conflicts results in a shift of focus and subsequent failure to identify what should be tonally accurate for a plot point (see the 'Smile' theme song playing after we defeat Sphene as an example).

Bonus round: Cutscene direction and composition

Many of the scenes are poorly composed and fail to invite the viewer into the scenes. Such examples are the positioning of NPCs that are in front of the player's character...

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.

[Laerune]

Wuk Lamat is not the problem, it's the writer. Not only she was badly written, majority of the characters were bad, even the Scions.

[Silver-Strider]

There's like 4-5 problems with Dawntrail but the length of the story is not one of them (arguably).

1) Pacing. There's a lot of unnecessary filler and just when story beats start speeding up to create tension, it comes to a grinding halt and just never gets to the point. Our first trip into Heritage Found is exactly that. We just got off of the high of ramming a train into Vanguard and invading into the Dome, let's now stop and get to know the gardening tricks of Alexandria. WHY? You want to know what would've worked wonders? If we got attacked by more soldiers to stop our advance into Heritage Found but got rescued by the Resistance. That would've kept the narrative flowing in a natural way, we could've met Cahciua and gotten the whole explanation about regulators, gotten some insight on what happened to the other people that got stuck in the Dome, about Zarool Ja's actions after becoming King there, etc. but no, we get Sphene's grand tour instead to try and endear us to her character, despite everyone, even Wuk, calling her sus as hell.

2) Lack of Character growth. Not just Wuk Lamat but several characters got shafted in terms of their story arcs. We know the usual suspects of Krile and Erenvile, but there's also Bakool Ja Ja that went from a total dick to even his own men to being redeemed because he told us of his generational trauma. I'm sorry, but you were willing to leave behind one of your own men after they were injured. Your entire existence that hundreds of your "siblings" were sacrificed for was to help your people and you do the exact opposite, time and time again. Let's release Valigarmanda, surely this creature that terrorized the lands would never deem to harm Mamook, right? Then, there's Zarool Ja. We got some vague premonitions from Krile about his dark ambitions but we're never given any direct motives as to why he is that way. We're given to believe that the burden of being the 1st promise and a miracle child became too much for him, THEN FUCKING SHOW IT!!!!!! and not in a 2 second transition scene during your Trial fight. There's the whole red herring of him being potentially manipulated by his supporter but that goes nowhere because the guy just ends up dying with nothing manifesting from his little scheming. I won't even go into the mess that is him being a father because that comes so far out of left field that I'm still reeling from the whiplash. I have so many questions that I want answered in regards to Galool Ja but I can't help but feel that it'll open up a can of worms that might make the plot of DT even more convoluted than it already is.

3) Lack of Gameplay. We have hours upon hours of cutscenes that almost rival that of EW in this expansion alone but when it comes to the gameplay itself, there is nothing. We walk and talk with NPCs everywhere but god forbid I get to actually PLAY. I could've done half the entire story as a Crafter/Gatherer for all that it mattered because I sure as hell didn't do anything that warranted needing to be a combatant. FFS, half the trials are something that crafters/gatherers would've been able to complete. Crops are failing? I'm a BTN, I'm sure I know something about it, or maybe pull a Koana and make a potion with ALC that will cure the problem. Making Tacos with the Hrothgar? I'm sure my CUL would make it perfectly. The Moblins want a craftsman? I have a laundry list of candidates that I have helped from all the questlines I've done in regards to crafters. I did not need to be a combatant to finish half of these quests and it made the story drag on for much longer than it really needed it. Even ARR had combat in between the story beats.

4) The Scions. What's there to be said about them? They showed up and did nothing. The whole divide between the Scions amounted to a singular moment in the 1st dungeon and was totally abandoned afterwards. When the whole interdimensional travel plot started, they shafted Erenville's concerns about his homeland to announce the Scions of the Seventh Dawn's reunion and accomplished nothing with that. Legitimately, you could've replaced all the Scions with entirely new people and it would've worked just as well. They were shoehorned in for the Trust system so hard that they miraculously showed up at the start of the 2nd trial. That's one of the most BS Deux Ex Machina moments in the entire story, 2nd only to Wuk Lamat's appearance in the last trial.

5) Black Hole Sue. The all encompassing, all suffocating presence of Wuk Lamat sucked out any potential this story could've had. Between characters bending over backwards to worship the ground she walks on to how perfectly everything works out for her just makes her annoying as a character. She can do no wrong, her actions are 100% correct and to hell with every other character in the story, it's all about her. For someone with as much screentime as she got, you'd expect there to be some flaws or challenges for her to overcome to make her endearing but there just never was. She goes from easily being pushed back by Bakool Ja Ja to singlehandedly stopping Sphene from beating us without much rhyme or reason to it and I have never felt like such a third wheel as much as I did in the cutscene past the final trial, with Wuk telling Sphene that she'll take care of her people, while my character just watches awkwardly in the background. Shaaloani is simultaneously both the best and worst zone because, while the story was weak, at least we got away from Wuk Lamat during it.

[Asari5]

if they made dt longer they could have given any character more screentime.
krile could do something
bakool ja ja could have his own moment. his cutscens show either how evil and racist he is... which he suddenly isnt. or they are more for wuk lamat than him.
other characters too, they are just there.... there is enough potential for more content... but they kinda forgot it

and btw... there are like 70 yellow quests less than in EW

[Mondschnee]

Wuk Lamat is not the sole problem, but part of it since she is a result of bad writing just as much as the execution of the story is a result of bad writing.
Wuk Lamat had some promising concepts, but because they needed us to like and support her, they were too afraid to give her actual flaws and moments to grow and learn. That's why we and the Scions became mindless cheerleaders rather than actual mentors with life experience. Didn't help that she was forced on us all the time and we had little to no room to breathe.


Just like our support of her has been forced, there were way too many convenient and contrived storylines. Correct me if I'm wrong, but even Stormblood didn't have that problem in my memory.

The plot also sounded promising, but the execution was bad. They wanted too much and therefore achieved too little in the nuance. So in my opinion, rather than making the story longer, they should have cut down on the less interesting parts and lean into the more interesting, intriguing parts. There were so many meaningless cutscenes. I don't know how many times we spent minutes simply deciding who is in the team this time. All that time could have been spent exploring the rivalry between the Scions a little more, characters like Krile and Erenville, or heck, even anything that would have given Wuk Lamat a little more depth.


I get why people say the target audience seemed to be a younger one this time, but I sincerely think that was not their intention ^^'

[Kaurhz]

She's not the only problem, but she's a good part of the problem, since she was shoehorned into parts of the story where frankly it didn't really seem suitable in the abundance that it was, and frankly when she is your main character and her character development is effectively the switch of a light, then this also becomes an issue.

But yes, I would agree the story was too short - At least the latter part of the story was, since it didn't really give you enough time nor reason to care about the characters introduced, despite trying to push a tear moment.