Dawntrail's Misleading Advertising

[DiaDeem]

[Alchemii]

I mean, Y'shtola's little walk in the Endwalker cinematic would see her collide with the tables in the Rostra so...

Yes, except, that would have actually made sense as Y'shtola is canonically Blind. Like she's been blind since the end of ARR. The reason she can "See" is because she see's Aether, but not the actual physical world.

[ZXN]

While there are a lot of...issues overall with Dawntrail, I am most disappointed with how they handled Krile. Leading up to Dawntrail's launch, they constantly assured us and hyped us up that Krile was going to play a "big part" in Dawntrail and it's story as a whole and it ultimately lead to...not a whole lot really. It's like they only included Krile because a lot of people wanted to see more Krile going forward, so they just gave her the new Pictomancer job since the WoL has Viper, threw her into the MSQ with a hastily thrown together "story" to make her seem relevant, and went "good enough" and moved on. It definitely didn't help Krile was given breadcrumbs for a majority of the MSQ by the NPC's, with small spots of actual bread here and there, and then when she FINALLY gets the full loaf to herself!...it's in the final zone where she gets about 5 minutes to actually eat it and is then told to move along.

[Reimmi]

Minor boss, not giant, and certainly not something we struggled heavily with as in the trailer.

Lightwardens are *not* minor bosses lol
they have story significance

[Carolingian]

I agree OP. I sort of get they didn't want to reveal the look of female Hrothgar yet but it's honestly crazy how Wuk Lamat was barely in any marketing compared to how big of a presence she had in the actual game.

Also constantly talking about how it was gonna be a low-stakes holiday, combined with the vibe the trailer gives, is just completely misleading. The big draw of such a more low stakes adventure, and one they actually try to evoke with the trailer, is the idea of getting to spend some more time with the characters you know and love and getting to know more about them in a more relaxed setting. That's the kind of vacation with friends I was looking forward to. But instead we're forced to be the help of some woman we don't even know.

If you want my honest opinion, the whole rite of succession was a detriment to the story. We could literally cut it out completely and have the first half focus on finding the city of gold, alongside Krile. We go to Tuliyollal, find out some points of interest in the nearby settlements, and go there ourselves. Our adventure is finding the city of gold and along the way, we get to see various locales, interact with the people, help them out, just as we have done throughout our whole adventure. I felt more like the Warrior of Light doing the side quests than I did during the story.

Yeah, the MSQ should just have been an Indiana Jones kind of story. A fun adventure to discover the mysterious city of gold, something a different "evil" party is also trying to find who you have to race/find along the way. Then when you find it you (or the other party) open the Gate/Ark and accidentally unleash the dome and start the whole Sphene storyline.

[Jeeqbit]

It describes an expansion we got.

"Alongside Alphinaud, Alisaie and Erenville" we did have all of those characters involved in our journey through Tural.

We did cross the ocean.

The contest did lead to the gates of the fabled city of gold.

The scions were divided - on which candidate they were backing. That's just a true statement.

Now, obviously, we would all have loved there to be something more to it than that. Arguments and drama to make this "division" more real, like you said. But if you truly expected that from this game after 10 years then I don't know why you were expecting it. I wasn't... I thought that there was no way in a million years SE would make the scions really fall out and fight you to the death. The closest they came to that was E11.

After all, they had us believe the Warrior of Light would become the Warrior of Darkness. Now that did not really happen, did it? We've been "fooled" like this before and we should know better.

The cutscene with Estinen happens, I think after the MSQ is over. Likewise, most of the events of the trailer take place after the MSQ (because this is all hinted at the very end), whilst the boat scene happens at the start.

[Oizen]

It is worth noting that the trailers don't necessarily reflect exactly what is going to be in the game itself. For example, in the EW trailer, we have the WoL fight off a blasphemy on the moon, but we never see them on the moon ever.

I can agree with it being the norm for things in trailers not happening in the game, but I think Dawntrail overstepped its bounds far more than any expansion before.
This bothers me less. Its just a fight with an enemy. I think the Endwalker trailer does indeed sell a lot of parts of Endwalker fairly well, the conflict with Sharlyan, the final days in thavnir, and while we dont fight a blasphemy on the moon we do infact fight big things on the moon, and it plays a lot of importance to the story.
Shadowbringers does this the best by telling events that happened before the story, so while we dont see them directly its not a stretch to think they happened, and we do infact fight the lightwardens even if ended up being slightly different.


Meanwhile the Dawntrail trailer, the only part that really happens in the game is we show up on a ship, and we fight Galool Jaja.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Lightwardens are *not* minor bosses lol
they have story significance

And the boss from the trailer was not a lightwarden. The last boss of that dungeon was.

[MartinFreeman]

All good points. While I am not in the meeting room, so I cannot tell you why they made the decision that they did, I have a feeling that the team of FF14 has unfortunately started meeting with their "consultants." Wuk fits a lot of checkboxes for the initiative that the company is finally putting to the forefront, and that also includes the many themes in the story itself to the point this expansion is literally just Disneyland in both presentation and other aspects. From the songs, to the zones, and unfortunately to the narrative. There is no high tension, no point to anything, and love and friendship always wins. That's the theme.

I bet my bottom dollar that this is exactly why they misled us. They did not want to tell their playerbase that they were under new orders from a cultural standpoint. Long live the king.

[Striker44]

This was a slide from one of the fanfests, it describes an expansion we ended up not getting.

We absolutely got that expansion.

I don't think we ever spend any meaningful time with Erenville, Alphinaud or Alisae this entire expansion.

The thing you're quoting says we journeyed with them. We did. And the entire second half of the MSQ was significantly about Erenville.

Calling this divided is a stretch. This was such a big tagline they kept touting and its not even a part of the story.

It's not referring to just the one little scene you're describing. It's talking about how there are two separate groups of Scions each supporting a different contender for the throne. AKA The entire first half of the MSQ.

Pictomancer felt like a very poor job to put Krile on, it doesn't match her personality up until now, and unlike the previous examples. Krile's role as a pictomancer has no baring on the story.

Her personality has always been rather upbeat and bubbly. It felt like a good match in my opinion. And the entire point story-wise was for her to show she could be a relevant addition to the combat team of the Scions instead of just a researcher/housekeeper. She had tried other ideas to no success, and becoming a Pictomancer is literally what brings her on the entire adventure.

Sorry, but there's nothing "misleading" here. It's more like keeping things vague while giving you the general feel, which personally is something I like about FFXIV trailers. So many movie trailers and the like today practically tell you the entire plot just by watching them. I don't want to know the specifics or key points of what's going to happen - I just want a general feel, and that's exactly what we got.

What I have a bigger issue is the fact it was sold as a new adventure for the WoL, but it didn't feel like an adventure, at least, not how I would see it.

This is a good "your results may vary." Personally, I felt learning about an entirely new culture and going to all the different places absolutely felt like an adventure. To each their own.

The conflict between the scions is another one, what conflict? Honestly, having a narrative around the final zone, where different scions have differing opinions about the ethics of shutting down the terminals.

See previous comment. The "Scions are divided" refers to different Scions supporting different contenders for the throne the entire first half of the story.

As the OP said, we were sold one thing, but given something else.

Nope. We were given exactly what we were "sold." That we create our own personal headcanons of what trailers mean or have our own different opinions on what "feels like an adventure" doesn't change that reality.