What even was that capstone questline?

[Mawlzy]

Thinking about it, everything about this final quest just feels... incredibly off.

Our villain is someone who was kicked out of her village, and was unable to work with the customs of the world beyond. After being wronged and her home destroyed by the authorities, she resorted to extremism. Hells, many of the things she said about Eorzeas nations do ring true. Quite frankly, a lot of the things Apyaahi said do resonate well, and are not out of place in this world.

How come we (both the ingame characters and we, the players) can forgive and redeem Golbez, Fordola, even Yotsuyu (up to a part) and fucking Gaius, but when it comes to Apyaahi, the only solution is jail and chains? All while being played for laughs with that weird song in the background. It just leaves a very sour taste in my mouth.

Incredibly off is completely right. If the conclusion of the quest is "she bad, lock her up," why provide a back story evoking sympathy? Compared to those characters you mention, she's a saint. Maybe this makes more sense through a JP lens?

When Apyaahi was presenting her position, I really wanted a dialog option: "that's a really good point, fancy discussing Bakunin over a beer?"

[Fawkes]

[xbahax92]

I still dont understand why I had to spy their plan, while the boss is inviting me upstairs to discuss the mission anyway. Why did I camouflage myself as her? Where does this make sense?

I cba to finish the quest, I got the emote and won't touch this questline again.

[Valence]

I don't like the how the end of the questline had Apyaahi make some legitimate points only for it to segway into a joke about her not wanting to pay for a room. The fact that it played funny music while she was talking about how she had her belongings stolen while she was living on the streets (which is something that happens to homeless people in real life) felt rather mean-spirited.

Sorry for getting political or whatever, but it kind of felt like the writer for this questline was trying to make an anarchist character while not understanding what that ideology actually means. If the intention was to make her a LARPer, then it would be funnier to me, but I don't think that was the intention here.

The whole series of quests felt mean spirited to me. The caster one with the kid thinking he's a superhero or the healer one as well. We're obviously dealing with people not well in their head for a lot of them, and this one felt yet more of the same crap. I felt ten times more empathy for their pathetic clown asses than for the Tulliyolal side that just felt like bullies.

At least they didn't disrobe the villain once beaten to finish humiliating her like they did with the superhero one... Is there a cultural wall I'm not getting past or what? All of this questline is borderline offensive to trudge through.


Edit: thinking more about it it seems to me a bad caricature of Japan's obsession about whacking anything that stands out, comprehend here: the "villains". Meanwhile I secretly wished I could side with them as a radical anarchist to mount a coup and atomize the ruling system in the worst places like Ul'dah or Limsa, that's how this whole questline radicalized me if anything.

[Mortex]

Remember when the WoL was a character that tried to understand all sites and unite them and form bonds even if people were not the best of “human” beings and had flaws but still were redeemable ? Was like last expansion……… but let’s just talk about tacos and peace ok ??? Pretty please. Like you have a serious character that gives good points about the problems in society (it’s nothing new for us because we had to deal with that stuff for a while) and they play it like a complete joke and treat the character like comic relief and then throw here into jail (she is pretty much a saint in comparison to all villains we redeemed before)

[Mortex]

The whole series of quests felt mean spirited to me. The caster one with the kid thinking he's a superhero or the healer one as well. We're obviously dealing with people not well in their head for a lot of them, and this one felt yet more of the same crap. I felt ten times more empathy for their pathetic clown asses than for the Tulliyolal side that just felt like bullies.

At least they didn't disrobe the villain once beaten to finish humiliating her like they did with the superhero one...

Is there a cultural wall I'm not getting past or what? All of this questline is borderline offensive to trudge through.

Well they promised us a vacation. So they thought we would vacate our critical thinking skills and not question this snot writing I assume. It’s just dawntrail in general has completely brain flee and non sensibly writing doesn’t matter if it’s MSQ or side quest (I really enjoy the glazing of wuk in so many side quests like the 24 man) . For me dawntrail feels like they tried Gen Z Humor for the first time and it’s just so super cringe inducing that it is mind boggling why they did that instead of staying more serious.

[RaideDuku]

A charismatic leader gets people to join their movement with vague notions of "freedom" and "tyranny of the state", empowering these people, which just turns them into the worst versions of themselves, becoming the very tyrants and pain givers they claim to want to stop. When their motives are found out, at first it seems for reasons that you can be sympathetic for, but end up being completely selfish and self-serving and kind of stupid. The leader themselves seem to make some good points, only to also be completely self-serving and selfish, and even a little bit stupid and unhinged, even comically so, if there wasn't a very real danger of innocent people getting hurt. They simply want to do whatever they please without consequences.

...

...yes. What a completely unbelievable, ridiculous plot. This could never, ever happen.

[Velthice]

...yes. What a completely unbelievable, ridiculous plot. This could never, ever happen.

Nobody is saying the idea for the plot is bad. If anything, it had incredible potential. People are complaining about the way it was told, because instead of any introspection or examining their motives, all the characters go "LOL, villains dumb!" Any potential of actually grappling with their ideals, which are flawed, but coming from a place that might be relatable, is completely dismissed in favor of cartoon sound effects and a wol, who up until this point has gone out of their way to offer an olive branch to their foes, refusing to even acknowledge that they might have a point, or are even just flat out right, but going about it in the worst way possible

[LisseyCrowe]

A couple in this thread have brought it up but it really does feel like the writer almost made up too good a point and then had to steer in a completely opposite direction to justify a conflict.

I'm not convinced that's the intent though. Considering the "humour", I think Apyaahi is more like that anime character that will give some harsh but very real outlook on a government's treatment of its people to justify why there's nothing wrong with them dine-and-dashing. Which is ... fine, I guess. It just sucks that this commentary and setup is being wasted on a joke when really, you could have an entire expansion dedicated to an antagonist with those same motivations.

Also gotta echo how wrong that WoL dialogue option on the bridge felt. No "You don't have to do this" or "This won't end how you think it will" option, instead our WoL answers like they already knows the punchline of the plot.

[AllenThyl]

Splintered tribes having artifacts or great power should have been the basic premise of this whole expansion, not played for laugh-track level jokes from a bad sitcom. They could have been similar to the tsukumogami, with an explanation that the aether on the whole content was abnormally wild and unbalanced, giving easy rise to these phenomenons (and making it hard to invade, since the wilderness is hard to bear without these artifacts). Then we could have echo flashback to Galool Ja Ja and his party discovering that the repeated use of these artifacts in intertribal war that was common at the time, is what is causing the aether to fluctuate even more, with extreme situations giving rise to the Tural Vidraal. And the source of this imbalance was a certain golden ruin found under the jungle. With no immediate way to fix the actual source of the problem, Galool Ja Ja set out to unite the continent and mediate any disputes, thus significantly reducing any chances for new Tural Vidraal to appear due to the usage of these artifacts. Instead of being a generic anime swordsman, viper lore and gameplay could have been to basically collect the imbalanced forms of aether in dual wield mode, then combining both swords to reach a critical mass, releasing the stored aether in a form of controlled bursts. This could have also framed Cahciua's whole venture. Gameplay wise, this could have provided the backdrop for overworld fates, maybe even tickets to special, 1v1 difficult encounters that would provide some exclusive currency.

But oh well, cheap laugh track jokes it is ...