Dawntrail’s Narrative Missteps: Why Natsuko Ishikawa’s Touch Is Sorely Missed

[ReynTime]

I for one want none of those nasty things like slavery, racism and corruption in the government in future expansions.

If Dawntrail taught us anything is that taking place in idealistic societies where everyone is very accepting and no real villains exist while preaching about peace and happiness every time we take one step away from the start is way, waaaay betterer.

A Realm Reborn is the most boringest story ever because it features bad things I hate in the real world.

[ovIm]

oh... ok lol

Mind you, these things were portrayed as being bad, and awful for existing. In the same vein, these things created conflict, and villains where standing up against them was the right thing to do because they were in the wrong. Go play the ARR Arcanist Storyline, and you'll know what Voidmage meant with that. Topics like that are nonexistent in later bits of the story. It sometimes feels sanitized. "Rubber Bullets", lol.

Please don't try to spin it as forum users actually endorsing these things, that's not classy.

[Oizen]

I for one want none of those nasty things like slavery, racism and corruption in the government in future expansions.

If Dawntrail taught us anything is that taking place in idealistic societies where everyone is very accepting and no real villains exist while preaching about peace and happiness every time we take one step away from the start is way, waaaay betterer.

A Realm Reborn is the most boringest story ever because it features bad things I hate in the real world.

I agree, we should just talk about Papa's Peace n Happiness to everyone and they'll stop doing bad things and everyone can be happy and smile.
The dragonsong war should have been solved with mixing Elezen and dragon food too

[Kennar]

Shadowbringer was the 4th chapter of the story. Dawntrail is the first chapter of a new one so of course it's not going to deliver any big story beat just yet.

I'm tired of the usual apologists' argument of "It's a new story, it's low-stakes. You can't expect much." For a game so heavily lauded for it's story, I do expect more. There is no reason a new story can't start with some excitement. There is no reason "low-stakes" has to mean "boring." The narrative problems with DT have been well documented and discussed over the last six months, and to dismiss those arguments out-of-hand with "it's a new story, stop complaining," is a little disingenuous, especially when many of those problems have existed for a long time. Any way you look at it, Dawntrail was a poorly written, directed, and executed mess, and it didn't have to be this way.

"Don't worry guys, 8.0 is when it will really get good!" You know, I'm not sure I have the patience to slog through this for another two years.

[Hallarem]

If FFXIV had been happy happy rainbows and no hard subjects and nuance from the start. This would be fine, but you cant just happy laserbeam the world and toneshift suddenly and expect people to be fine with it.

It doesnt match the earlier worldbuilding and tone. If you want to make a hildibrand happy boing boing sound effect cartoon game. Make it. Stop forcing it into a game you somewhat treated seriously and that handled serious subjects.
If Yoshi P is sick of "dark themes and darkness" he should get another job

[Voidmage]

Mind you, these things were portrayed as being bad, and awful for existing. In the same vein, these things created conflict, and villains where standing up against them was the right thing to do because they were in the wrong. Go play the ARR Arcanist Storyline, and you'll know what Voidmage meant with that. Topics like that are nonexistent in later bits of the story. It sometimes feels sanitized. "Rubber Bullets", lol.

Please don't try to spin it as forum users actually endorsing these things, that's not classy.

Thank you.

[ZXN]

I hated Endwalker. So many things just felt so...off that it's hard to explain fully without bumbling words.

Somehow Dawntrail did it all worse. Pacing was awful in many places. Many characters were awful and acted unnatural. Writing decisions at many points were baffling.

Also the "It's a new story so it won't hit as much" shtick I don't buy. Yes it's the start of a "new" story, but they pretty much didn't even try with it as a result. Dawntrail was literally mostly just "Let's copy and paste over many of the Warrior of Lights' accomplishments and big moments, but replace the WOL with our new Fursona OC" without remotely understanding why those accomplishments and moments were so big to our character to begin with and even remotely attempt to build those moments up for their fursona as they just give them to her effortlessly and go "See? Look at how great she is!!!" and force you to agree with it every step of the way.

It's hard to say what they can really do at this point besides telling them "Get your shit together." You could say bring Ishikawa back, but eventually she just won't want to do it anymore, and if they don't have people prepared to take over for her then it's really going to be a rough road story/writing wise. Nobody is going to enjoy telling everyone, or being told, "It'll get better in X.X I promise" for potentially years while every player just ultimately waits for the writers/devs to get their heads out of their asses and get their shit together. WOW players had to deal with this kind of mentality for years, and a good amount of FF14 players' mocked and made fun of them for it, so it's absolutely a road that we don't want to be heading down ourselves with FF14.

[Barachim]

If FFXIV had been happy happy rainbows and no hard subjects and nuance from the start. This would be fine, but you cant just happy laserbeam the world and toneshift suddenly and expect people to be fine with it.

It doesnt match the earlier worldbuilding and tone. If you want to make a hildibrand happy boing boing sound effect cartoon game. Make it. Stop forcing it into a game you somewhat treated seriously and that handled serious subjects.
If Yoshi P is sick of "dark themes and darkness" he should get another job

It did feel off to go from a 10 year story arc, where every bit of peace was hard fought, to an expansion where the message is "Have you just tried talking?" Yeah, the twins tried that and two Garlean girls lost their lives.

[Hallarem]

I hated Endwalker. So many things just felt so...off that it's hard to explain fully without bumbling words.

Somehow Dawntrail did it all worse. Pacing was awful in many places. Many characters were awful and acted unnatural. Writing decisions at many points were baffling.

Also the "It's a new story so it won't hit as much" shtick I don't buy. Yes it's the start of a "new" story, but they pretty much didn't even try with it as a result. Dawntrail was literally mostly just "Let's copy and paste over many of the Warrior of Lights' accomplishments and big moments, but replace the WOL with our new Fursona OC" without remotely understanding why those accomplishments and moments were so big to our character to begin with and even remotely attempt to build those moments up for their fursona as they just give them to her effortlessly and go "See? Look at how great she is!!!" and force you to agree with it every step of the way.

It's hard to say what they can really do at this point besides telling them "Get your shit together." You could say bring Ishikawa back, but eventually she just won't want to do it anymore, and if they don't have people prepared to take over for her then it's really going to be a rough road story/writing wise. Nobody is going to enjoy telling everyone, or being told, "It'll get better in X.X I promise" for potentially years while every player just ultimately waits for the writers/devs to get their heads out of their asses and get their shit together. WOW players had to deal with this kind of mentality for years, and a good amount of FF14 players' mocked and made fun of them for it, so it's absolutely a road that we don't want to be heading down ourselves with FF14.

YOSHI-P about WoW devs: "Do they even play their own game"

My question to that is. "Do YOU play your own game?"

Karma always gets its due. 8.0 here we go

[Derio]

At first I thought it was a localization issue. But JP agree that the story has big plot issues.

DT had the biggest potential because alot of the lore was able to be created and not confined to pre-existing lore. I dont know how closely the writer of DT worked with the lore team but there was a clear oversight in proof reading the MSQ along with the overall lore of the characters.

I agree with SE choice of going with a new writer to shake things up. But you cannot go in with half effort and not have mulitple people looking over the script. Surely someone asked the question that this doesnt make sense lets change it in the drafting process. DT story feels like a rushed storyline where the writer doesnt fully understand what they are trying to tell the audience.