After Dawntrails abject Failure of a Story, there need to be serious Consequences

[Xelanar]

so.. what is exactly bad about the story? Wuk lamat is annoying we get it, but everything else was okay for me

The HanuHanu not knowing about the powers of their own festival float, despite the festival being held regularily and the crops instantly having a huge, visible increase in growth.
Bakool Ja Ja not even being reprimanded for releasing Valigarmanda, still being able to compete for the throne like nothing happened. It's not even clear why he knows how to free the creature in the first place, or why he can openly be a criminal without nobody caring.
The cooking contest rewarding stones only to the winning team by definition, forcing confrontation between half the contestants down the line. Also expecting every contestant to take the same route despite not giving directions on where to go when.
The first dungeon being completely useless, seing how the boat catches up by the end anyways, so everyone could have just stuck together from the very start. No need to search for an alternate route on foot.
Some of the Scions catching up to the infiltration team through an alternate path in Origenics, despite the infiltration team taking what was established as the only available route.
In the midst of a very serious war, a handful of highly skilled warriors just watch passively as Zoraal Ja kills the Dawnservant.
Wuk Lamat evolves into an extremely skilled warrior with no visible setbacks or training that would lead to her becoming stronger.
Deactivating the Endless does nothing. There was no reason to do that.
The WoL silently watches Sphene visiting a child suffering from an overload of levin aether, despite knowing a potential cure for aether overload.
Sphene has no real reason to fight without trying to find an alternative solution together with Wuk Lamat first. Her reason was Zoraal Ja. After his death, she is no longer bound to his will by any means.
Zoraal Ja casually steals the portal key. How? Who knows. He also knows there is a second set of stone tablets. Why? Who knows. It's conviniently never told.


Just to name a few reasons out of my head. There's more, but these should suffice to at least show why so many people are unhappy with Dawntrail's MSQ. Not everyone minds these kind of holes in the MSQ's plausibility. These - among other things I have not even touched upon (Scions being way to silent in the MSQ for instance) - are things that annoy me personally though. Very very VERY much, to a point where I can say with confidence, that I don't like the Dawntrail MSQ. I think it's bad. Unsalvageably bad, unless they decide to do an entire overhaul - which I also believe they should do, even though I know they never will.

[ServerCollaps]

The HanuHanu not knowing about the powers of their own festival float, despite the festival being held regularily and the crops instantly having a huge, visible increase in growth.
Bakool Ja Ja not even being reprimanded for releasing Valigarmanda, still being able to compete for the throne like nothing happened. It's not even clear why he knows how to free the creature in the first place, or why he can openly be a criminal without nobody caring.
The cooking contest rewarding stones only to the winning team by definition, forcing confrontation between half the contestants down the line. Also expecting every contestant to take the same route despite not giving directions on where to go when.
The first dungeon being completely useless, seing how the boat catches up by the end anyways, so everyone could have just stuck together from the very start. No need to search for an alternate route on foot. (...)

you should not overthink anything that happens, lul
The birds are birds, they might just be stupid. The cooking contest got planned by the sleeping head, maybe he wasnt as wise as you would think or the other head messed up stuff, who knows.
You expect that everything works in a "perfect", most efficient way. Have you ever worked with people in rl? Plenty of them are dumb and do irrational stuff all the time. Its nice that they implemented that in a game

[honest_psycho]

The birds are birds, they might just be stupid.

I think this is the first time someone is actually racist against an in-game race, wow.

[Supersnow845]

you should not overthink anything that happens, lul
The birds are birds, they might just be stupid. The cooking contest got planned by the sleeping head, maybe he wasnt as wise as you would think or the other head messed up stuff, who knows.
You expect that everything works in a "perfect", most efficient way. Have you ever worked with people in rl? Plenty of them are dumb and do irrational stuff all the time. Its nice that they implemented that in a game

Creating plot convenience out of character stupidity is not good writing nor is it a representation of realistic stupidity in actual people

All the terrible hanu hanu plotline achieved was giving a convinient excuse for clueless wuk Lamat to get the right answer to a problem she was totally out of her depth fixing just so she wouldn’t fall terribly behind koana who actually knew what he was doing and came up with a proper solution to the problem using his innate talents

Something like post ARR Alphinaud is a good representation of idealistic stupidity, plot contrivances in DT are not

[Striker44]

The HanuHanu not knowing about the powers of their own festival float, despite the festival being held regularily and the crops instantly having a huge, visible increase in growth.
Bakool Ja Ja not even being reprimanded for releasing Valigarmanda, still being able to compete for the throne like nothing happened. It's not even clear why he knows how to free the creature in the first place, or why he can openly be a criminal without nobody caring.
The cooking contest rewarding stones only to the winning team by definition, forcing confrontation between half the contestants down the line. Also expecting every contestant to take the same route despite not giving directions on where to go when.
The first dungeon being completely useless, seing how the boat catches up by the end anyways, so everyone could have just stuck together from the very start. No need to search for an alternate route on foot.
Some of the Scions catching up to the infiltration team through an alternate path in Origenics, despite the infiltration team taking what was established as the only available route.
In the midst of a very serious war, a handful of highly skilled warriors just watch passively as Zoraal Ja kills the Dawnservant.
Wuk Lamat evolves into an extremely skilled warrior with no visible setbacks or training that would lead to her becoming stronger.
Deactivating the Endless does nothing. There was no reason to do that.
The WoL silently watches Sphene visiting a child suffering from an overload of levin aether, despite knowing a potential cure for aether overload.
Sphene has no real reason to fight without trying to find an alternative solution together with Wuk Lamat first. Her reason was Zoraal Ja. After his death, she is no longer bound to his will by any means.
Zoraal Ja casually steals the portal key. How? Who knows. He also knows there is a second set of stone tablets. Why? Who knows. It's conviniently never told.

And yet, these have very reasonable explanations...

-Just look around at our own society. How many people simply know that certain things seem to do something, but have absolutely no real clue how or why they do. And ask Americans about American history and see how easily a group of people can have little knowledge of their own society's past.

-The Urqopacha region is rather isolated, and the giants themselves further intentionally separated themselves from the rest of the population. Valigarmanda gets released, attacks the isolated settlement, and promptly flies off to the mountain to recover and gets defeated before he can. It's likely most of Tural doesn't even know anything happened, and the creature being defeated for good (instead of just imprisoned) could cause the celebration to trump going after Bakool Ja Ja for the time being in the giant's minds.

-Given that there is never any prohibition against taking stones from other contestants at all, it feels like "forcing confrontation" is intended. Whoever becomes the Dawnservant needs to be able to defend themselves and be a competent fighter, not just know about cultures. Likewise, part of being Dawnservant involves cooperating with others (even Gulool Ja Ja had his "adventuring party" despite being siamese twins to start). The one in charge of that rite could easily have just told anyone going to him first that earning his stone required at least one other contestant (or potentially all of them) and to pursue other stones first.

-Just because the boat happens to catch up at the end doesn't mean it was guaranteed to. The alternate route on foot was done because Erenville wasn't sure how long it would take to fix the boat. It could just as easily have taken much longer than it did.

-Origenics I would have to look at again. I just don't remember that dungeon specifically.

-When Zoraal Ja kills Gulool Ja Ja, we at that point have absolutely no idea how regulators work. All we do know is that Zoraal Ja can come back from the dead (potentially as much as he wants) and just completely wrecked a guy who was a highly competent fighter that took both us and Estinien to a draw. On top of that, Zoraal Ja straight up tells us he's calling off the attack for now and giving us time to hunt him down. Attacking him would have been incredibly boneheaded. Attack a guy with unfathomable power and potentially cause him to continue using his nigh-invincible army to kill everyone in Tuliyollal, or let him go, keep everyone else alive, and have time to learn what we're facing...easy choice.

-Wuk Lumat is clearly a skilled warrior and well-built as such from the first moment we meet her. The things she lacked were confidence and real motivation.

-Keeping the Endless powered is precisely the reason the Sphene AI partnered with Zoraal Ja to kill the people of Tural, and is at that very moment trying to connect with other reflections for the purpose of gaining more aether to keep the Endless going. Deactivating the Endless conserves the aether already siphoned and undercuts the reason for going on a mass murder spree altogether.

-It's been discussed in other threads why the levin sickness we see and the tempering cure we have may well be completely unrelated. There's also much larger problems at the moment, and coming back to the potential cure after the immediate threat has been resolved is a much more reasonable approach that may very well be part of the upcoming patch MSQ's.

-The Sphene we meet is an AI programmed to prioritize keeping the Endless alive above all else. She was never really "bound" to Zoraal Ja, but rather chose to partner with him since his plan of killing people would get her the aether she needs for her own goal. Wuk Lumat's approach doesn't get her the aether she needs anywhere near as fast as just taking it from other reflections. "Finding alternative solutions" is irrelevant when you're an AI programmed to achieve a specific goal as highest priority.

-Zoraal Ja is Gulool Ja Ja's biological son, has been in charge of the military for awhile, and his lackey (Sareel Ja) is a very knowledgeable and cunning insider. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't believe he knows about the key and other tablets.

[honest_psycho]

And yet, these have very reasonable explanations...

-The Urqopacha region is rather isolated, and the giants themselves further intentionally separated themselves from the rest of the population. Valigarmanda gets released, attacks the isolated settlement, and promptly flies off to the mountain to recover and gets defeated before he can. It's likely most of Tural doesn't even know anything happened, and the creature being defeated for good (instead of just imprisoned) could cause the celebration to trump going after Bakool Ja Ja for the time being in the giant's minds.

Sorry but no. The highpriest should absolutely have sent a letter to the King, telling them "Hey, this one contestant actually unleashed this mighty beast that we tried to keep sealed for 80 years and could have wrecked the continent."
Bakool Jaja should have been disqualified, if not outright executed for domestic terrorism.
The only reason this didnt happen is because the writers needed him to have his redemption arc so our dearest Wuk Lamat can befriend him and pretend to be a such caring dawnservant. Blech.

-When Zoraal Ja kills Gulool Ja Ja, we at that point have absolutely no idea how regulators work. All we do know is that Zoraal Ja can come back from the dead (potentially as much as he wants) and just completely wrecked a guy who was a highly competent fighter that took both us and Estinien to a draw. On top of that, Zoraal Ja straight up tells us he's calling off the attack for now and giving us time to hunt him down. Attacking him would have been incredibly boneheaded. Attack a guy with unfathomable power and potentially cause him to continue using his nigh-invincible army to kill everyone in Tuliyollal, or let him go, keep everyone else alive, and have time to learn what we're facing...easy choice.

I do not believe for a second that this is the reason why NOBODY tried to even intervene.
EVEN IF, should have been a moment where the WoL tried to, only to be hold back by Koana or someone else, saying out loud the reason you've given. But we didn't even get a "clenching fists moment" or a "damn we can't do anything"-comment from one of the other Scions.

Also, this scene could have been comepletely avoided if we had "arrived late" and saw this whole scene via the Echo, no awkward "just standing there"-type of garbage writing.

-Wuk Lumat is clearly a skilled warrior and well-built as such from the first moment we meet her. The things she lacked were confidence and real motivation.

Another person already explained why this is total bs, but you didn't adress this for some reason. HMMMMMMMMMMM

Endsinger has the ability to manipulate Dynamis far better than a regular person can by being an Entelechy who runs on Dynamis. Their very essence is heavily affected by the surrounding Dynamis. Meteion naturally has the ability to communicate through Dynamis, soar through Dynamis waves, etc.
And I'll have to repeat again, we fought Endsinger in an area that is aetherically lacking and dynamis is omnipresent over centuries and centuries of build-up. The Final Days isn't something that came out of thin air. It was the collective dynamis of many untold civilizations that Meteion visited before centuries of build-up. That's why it's immensely important to realize Thancred's role in Endwalker in the Final Zone, because whoever's feelings is strongest only matter in an unique zone where emotions dictate reality.

The same cannot be said of the races living in The Source. They have the ability to use Dynamis, but nowhere in any amount like the ones who are specialized in this, nor are they living in an area where emotions are the only factor. Being in an aetherically rich environment and being unable to manipulate aether is why Garleans were shunned and drove them to live in the frigid tundras in the first place. This is a world where aether has far more sway over dynamis where the former drowns out the latter in most instances. That's also why we ourselves need allies to be able to affect the surrounding Dynamis as heavily, because each person has a limited ability to pull the surrounding dynamis. That's why even solo quests that have LB (ex: Alphinaud's solo instance with NPCs fighting alongside him) has only one such use of Limit Break, and it's generally saved at a pivotal moment, not spammed wantonlessly. It's an phenomenon filled by a build-up of emotions, but that has limits as long as we're in The Source because this is an aetherically rich environment where dynamis takes time to gather back up. That's why the shroud of aether works for years to prevent the Final Days.