How would you improve Dawntrail's writing?

[TakoyakiLala]

1. A more even handed focus between Wuk Lamat, Krile and Erenville's respective stories.

2. The trials being more action oriented. You know, have us fight with Koana, Zoraal Ja and Bakool Ja Ja's teams in at least one or two of the trials.

3. Replace "Smile with the expansion's Dawntrail opening varient.

4. Make the train look more impressive as an explosive anti lightning aspected battering ram. xD

5. Replace all the ARR tier and below levels of bad voice actors with our usual Heavensward and beyond quality.

6. Make Black Mage the dominate damage dealing caster DPS again. Pictomancer can have second place. Just let Black Mage be #1 again, lmao!

[MediocreIndigo]

1. A more even handed focus between Wuk Lamat, Krile and Erenville's respective stories.

2. The trials being more action oriented. You know, have us fight with Koana, Zoraal Ja and Bakool Ja Ja's teams in at least one or two of the trials.

3. Replace "Smile with the expansion's Dawntrail opening varient.

4. Make the train look more impressive as an explosive anti lightning aspected battering ram. xD

5. Replace all the ARR tier and below levels of bad voice actors with our usual Heavensward and beyond quality.

6. Make Black Mage the dominate damage dealing caster DPS again. Pictomancer can have second place. Just let Black Mage be #1 again, lmao!

I don't see how 3-6 are relevant to the writing, but I like 1 and 2.

[TakoyakiLala]

I don't see how 3-6 are relevant to the writing, but I like 1 and 2.

Whoops! I went full potato brain on that post! Thanks for pointing that out and awesome that you liked my first two ideas. While I personally didn't mind Wuk Lamat, I definitely agree with the rest of the playerbase that the story should have given less focus on her at times and given room for Erenville and Krile to progress in their own respective stories.

And the whole battling thing in trials, big missed opportunity to see Urianger, Koana and Thancred come up with some truly convoluted and insane plans to trip up their competition both during trials that focus on battle and outside of trials in order to gain a lead against their competitors. And while Koana probably would refrain from being too aggressive towards Wuk Lamat, I can imagine the latter jollyly telling Koana that its okay for him to get nasty while they compete against eachother. xD


Anyways...I'll have to come up with a new list later after reading OP's post properly this time, lol!

[Eldtagg]

I'm not sure what they were trying to convey to us with the contest storyline, and I like Dawntrail (except for the cowboy and Cyberpunk 2077 sections).

As most others have alrrady said before; none of the contenders were suited to reign by themselves, and I'm not even sure why Wuk and Koana wanted to rule in the first place.

When I first started playing the MSQ, I assumed that at least one of the contestants would be a terrible tyrant or that Koana would destroy Tural by changing it into a Garlemald-esque tech imperium, which is why we wanted to place Wuk on the throne to ensure Eorzea's peace, but this was not the case.

The contest demanded someone to be dangerous from the very beginning.

Someone we knew had the power to enslave and kill people if given the throne.

Dawntrail needed political intrigue (Game of Thrones-style), where no one could be trusted and everyone sought the throne for their own egotistical motives, and where we had to support the "lesser evil" or face the prospect of a new empire, rather than the friendship story that we received.

[Carin-Eri]

I don't see how 3-6 are relevant to the writing, but I like 1 and 2.

#3 is technically relevant since many players feel that 'Smile' was a poor choice (on the part of the writers) of music for the 'bomb-train' cutscenes.

[Calysto]

1. Trying to keep some elements here :
Change the timeline : drop us when Gugool Ja Ja united the continent.
Use him a bit like Gulool Ja Ja (less of a jerk, just proud/confident) : let us see him as the bad guy for the first half before joining force.
To keep FF9 elements replace the Yok Hui old civilization with some "queen Brahne's" Aexandria ; no sci-fi BS until eventually we find out it was orchestrated by terrans and/or ascians but they kinda died out too.
Let us save them instead of taking the genocide route
For our reason to go there in the first place : rumors of a warlord uniting the continent following the events of 6.0 would be threat enough for us to be sent.

If you must keep the current "cast", just have Gugool pick them up as childs/teens as he goes and become an Orphanage delivery quest post MSQ

2. I have little hope left for 7.x ; maybe Hildibrand becoming the new ruler and throwing the current ones in jail is the best course of action...

3. I'd say the Arcadion is probably ok in a vacuum.

[Zelda206]

The writing and quality of a story and its game tend to get better when a huge amount of people leave for something they find superior.
So ultimately, I think the best way to improve the writing and conduct of FFXIV as a product is to head out for greener pastures and give other companies [that you find deserving] time and support, and then return when the content of FFXIV improves to a satisfactory point.

[LittleArrow]

1. What would you have done differently with Dawntrail's writing and how would you have done it?

2. What are some suggestions you have for how the MSQ could go in the future?

3. What are some parts of the writing that you actually think are good and would like to see more of?

Please try to make suggestions that are actually feasible rather than things like "remove x character."

I apologize in advance, it's impossible for me to think of how to do things differently without editing out so much bloat in the story that either didn't change anything in the end and was useless or just completely baffling and made no sense. Still, these are my thoughts.

Here is what I would've done differently if I was the writer:
1.) I would've made Wuk Lamat a fun comic relief side character. I honestly think if the focus hadn't been entirely on Wuk Lamat she would've been a hilarious and fun addition to the WoL's team. All of the plotholes and random power ups would've been fine, fun even, if she wasn't taken as seriously as she was. I would've cut her dialogue in half and made Erenville the primary source of dialogue as our guide (as he was initially intended to be).

2.) I would've given far more time to the rest of the cast, especially to Krile in the second half. The first half would've been led by Erenville with fun commentary from Alisaie and Alphinaud (yes, this is basically a copy paste of Shadowbringers, but so were major parts of DT's story). The second half I would've had Krile shine and put Erenville totally out of the story.

3.) I would've scrapped so many parts in the second half that I felt were just unecessary. Sphene wouldn't have made an appearance, instead she would've been spoken of only, as if she were a primal and everyone was tempered. There would've been a lot of mystery of who she is and if she's actually the enemy or an unwilling participant in Zoraal's warpath. This would've made the reveal more impactful and completely cutout the super weird dichotomy of Wuk and her that served zero purpose in the end (we still smashed her face in). I would've completely cut Erenville's mother as that also served no purpose besides trying to provide some emotional connection to living memory when there was no need for it (we deleted everyone /shrug). Also, it bugs me SO much Erenville has the thickest Swedish / Norwegian / One of those countries' accent and his mother sounds like she's from California or North East America. Krile would've been the sole emotional attachment and forward momentum of the second half and the heartbreaking moment in living memory wouldn't have been deleting memeories, it would've been the tragedy of Krile finding and losing her parents. I probably would've cut the weird child of Zoraal Ja as well. He didn't add anything to the story besides showing Zoraal Ja had gone too far, but didn't because he wanted to leave a legacy to a son he called wasn't his son. The character is a mess and isn't needed.

4.) Lastly, I would've switched Zoraal Ja and Bakool Ja's stories. Zoraal's story made zero sense. He was under this pressure to be incredible but he had a loving and supportive dad, a loving family, and a people that adored him. He was so incredibly skilled, and the thing that snapped him was... what? He couldn't fight a shade or he wanted power or he wanted to protect his people through war? I don't know. It didn't make sense and it shouldn't have been the main drive of the main villain. That should've been some side character story. Instead, the absolute survivor's guilt, depression, fear and insecurity of being a blessed sibling with a egomaniacal dad made much more sense for that sort of villainy, which was Bakool Ja's story.

5.) Overall, I would've put a far greater emphasis on Tural as a whole. I would've had far more exploration and adventure instead of going to town A, then go to town B, now go to town C. The entire rite of succession was terrible in the first place because Galool Jaja already said he wouldn't succeed the throne if the winner wasn't ready. That cut out all tension. Instead, I think it would've been far more fun if there was either a conflict or rumor we were chasing with our new silly clumsy little sister Wuk Lamat chasing after us. The discovery of the towns would've been more natural and Wuk could've had great character growth in the end from being a shut in house cat to a courageous and well travelled... outdoor housecat / leader. There are so many directions this story could've taken, but I think adventure and fun should've been the two main themes overall.

Suggestions for the future:
Honestly, I would take the story into a totally different direction. I would either 1. Completely drop Wuk, Kona, and the entire cast and instead drop a mystery box in Tural and have the scions investigate. Make it a competition between each group of scions and actually have some sneaky backstabbing to see who can get to the hidden ruin with the secret relic that turns out to be important later on. It's too late for that sort of rewrite and would tread too much of what DT didn't deliver on though. Instead, 2. I would really cut back on the cast as much as possible and just start focusing on the next expansion. Honestly, I don't know how to fix DT going forward. Not because I hate FFXIV or I'm angry, it's just that this expansion was such a mess I wouldn't even know how to direct it to a better place. Literally every aspect of the story failed imo.

Parts of the story I liked:
As much as everyone hated the western section I really enjoyed it. I liked seeing how a different culture worked out their problems, even if rubber bullets were frankly pretty silly. I liked solving an issue on my own and helping the people of that town. It was inviting to wonder what was going on and how it would end, but short enough not to over stay its welcome. Not related to story, sadly, but the 8 man raid is my favorite raid in the game.

[CVXIV]

I'm no writer, but I think one of the major issues I had with Dawntrail was the lack of conflict between the Scions
I never expected them to actually get into fights and whatnot, but when the expansion is described as "seeing the Scions divided" and the only two that are in opposition to us is Thancred and Urianger, it leaves much to be desired especially when there really isn't any conflict outside of Thancred blocking our path with rocks

Though I think that circles back to another issue the story faces, and it's the fact that half of the claimaints from the get go are evil
Of course we see later on Bakool Ja Ja isn't as bad as he seemed at first but I seriously don't see any of the remaining scions joining up with either him or Zoraal Ja
Estinien could maybe team up with him, and instead of Zoraal Ja's intentions from the start being clearly to wage war everywhere it could be more about military might to protect the people (with his true intentions being hidden)

I also didn't really understand why the rite of succession to determine the leader of Tural only took place in half of the continent, while the other seemingly didn't get a say in who the next ruler would be
Granted it's not really a choice made by a vote, but the competitions were meant to see who could continue and who was worthy, so it would have made sense to include the other half in that as well and learn more about their culture

Problem is though that it would significantly increase the MSQ and I don't really see how Alexandria fits into it, unless that is relegated to being the post patch adventure

[Hingner]

i think the writing fells strange because for the first time ever, the mais NPC is not one of the Scions, and is not one that look like will become one soo feel conflicted.

I like the non tense adventure we had after endwalker being tense almost 100% of the time, and i like the theme of "undertanding brings friendship" but i still think we should had fallowed one of our friends primarely.
Krile is the one i'm thinking about, she should have had more screen time, and be more about her travel and discovery, while the contest was more secondary on the first part.

As a suggestion for the future.
if you are bringing the Scions back make then be more relevant, and not just a cameo. I don't mind they being separated like, make some more relevant on the .0 history and make others be more relevant on the post game, so everyone have 5 minutes on the spotlight, or even jump a expancion entirely, or maybe retire someone, just like they did to Lyse, so we have more space.

Thacred retiring to be with Ryne would be i nice ending for him.

And the parts where the Scions showed the progression, as short as it was, and i want to see more of it.

Thacred was a "dad" and was teaching Koana to think for himself, was subtle but interesting. I just expected more for someone that started the expancion with de PVP flag open to us.

Alphinaud is regarded as someone realy inteligent, witch he does not show verry ofthen, but is more because Y'shtola exists and she is much better at this, but the part where he figured out that the boat was a arcane focus shows this, continue.

Alisaie participation was subtle , but i liked it, showed her developpement as a character, she helped Wuk Lamat to open her feelings and accept help more, with is something that she struggled A LOT, but is better now, and when we arrive at beckroom for the first time and Wuk Lamat ask her for a tip, she says to not rush ahead alone so she would not be surrounded so easily, this comming for the reckless queen herself, shows progression, i want to see more of this from everyone.

G'rara sugesting the lighting rods and the canons for the train we he made this part much easier. The part were he has his heart to heart with the WOL as good, i wanted to see this more times, not only from him, but from the others too, just like that quest on endwalker. It does not need to be like this, but where they show that they are more a group of true friends, not just colleagues at work

Erenville was nice...we had a zone dedicaded to him and a little bit more, this is a bettler way to show a new character tha is a candidate do future Scion and much more than i expected.

The final part for the future, make the WOL go after and complete the "Emet-Selch checklist" becouse he wants to not becouse he was just passing by, is the second time we go after one of this, and again was something that threatened to destroy the source, you can have more agency.