Yoshi P should accept the fact that dark theme is more fitting to the game

[BabyYoda]

DT is bad not because of it has light theme and more joy and happiness.. it is because of bad writing, but let's not forget the fact that FFXIV always better with dark theme..

Heavensward and nidhogg and WoD
Stormblood and Garlians invade
ShB whole narrative
EW in some of its theme

DT type of story will not fit FFXIV period and Yoshi P should accept it

[Archeron]

Yoshi P won't care about the themes since he's going to be working on 27 other projects, and he's got a folder full of excuses ready to pull in the event anyone is ever dissatisfied with any aspect of anything he has ever directed. Youll have to forward your concerns to Hiroi who probably doesn't care either and will be defended by Yoshi P with generic excuse #26.

[Heavenchild]

Yoshi P won't care about the themes since he's going to be working on 27 other projects, and he's got a folder full of excuses ready to pull in the event anyone is ever dissatisfied with any aspect of anything he has ever directed. Youll have to forward your concerns to Hiroi who probably doesn't care either and will be defended by Yoshi P with generic excuse #26.

Please look forward to it! :x

[genuine_stranger]

Yes, but it's kind of different for DT.

I will make the assumption that most of the playerbase came into DT that it was a more lighthearted story, without another universe ending threat, a vacation or beach episode so to speak.
I think it would've been a great departure from darker themes to clean the slate for the next ark, if it would have been handled well. Where the writers could've just have fun with.

Well, instead we got the current DT story and as you can see, it's pretty mid.

[Jeeqbit]

A person killing others and stealing their souls so they can live forever isn't dark? Shutting them all down isn't dark? A father not caring for their son (nor their own father) isn't dark?

They just tried to present yet another Depressionbringers in a positive light with positive music and bright colors in some places (except Heritage Found and Solution Nine).

[CVXIV]

the baby tombs send their regards

[Latarma]

to my fellow dark knights out there, you remember the DRK quest line were you basically got tell npcs off and such, why can't my WoL do like when the queen is going on and on just be like "I'll end you!" no I don't want to know your reason your threat to my star your done. I mean can you imaginal the scions reaction to you just no giving and eff anymore.

[Colt47]

DTs problem has nothing to do with being "Dark". They wanted to make an entirely fresh start but also have to realize that if the world has literally gone through the equivalent of World War 2 (and to be fair, this went even further than WW2. It was like WW2 plus having a natural disaster occur that required over half the planet and the literal heart of the life stream to deal with), there isn't going to be a place on Ethyris that isn't going to be going through some kind of recovery. Tootsie roll land ain't coming out unscathed from soul annihilating song of the end turning someone who has even a moments hesitation in conviction into an abomination, especially after seeing "we have a graveyard of babies down there from trying to breed a super weapon".

And even if they were spared the effects of that, the economic repercussions from the other nations having to expend significant resources would cause all sorts of chaos for places like the one we are visiting. Forget rite of succession being relevant: people should feel lucky they even have a freaking capital city left. The only place that had any excuse to being spared is Solution Nine due to sundering shinanigans and not physically being a part of the source.

[CaptainLagbeard]

It's not that a dark themes are a must, but considering all the things the WoL has canonically done and fought... Anything that isn't a world destroying monstrosity kind of just feels small and irrelevant...

We literally beat up the physical embodiment of despair and nihilism, it's kind of hard to build a credible threat to the WoL after that, and in the absence of such a threat unless you actually agree with what's happening in the plot it's a very strong feeling of "Why am I even here?"

[AureliusIX]

Completely agree and putting my support for dark themes in the game after all it's what won me over to the game in the first place with ARR's bloody banquet. To me DT's themes make no sense looking at the far, far lighter tone of at least the first half of the expansion and being linked to the building the train bomb over the song Smile, how the second half is solved through unremitting optimism and ending again with Smile. With that said why is there this sudden aversion to Darker themes in the game? If the idea is Dawntrail had to be lighter to attract a new, younger audience then why is there no story skip to Dawntrail? Because those people are going to have to play through base ARR and all previous expansions where they'll experience the darker more adult themes of only to have the tonal whiplash many long term people have experienced with Dawntrail.